Ode on a Grecian Crisis — EIDOLON — Medium

22/7/2015 OdeonaGrecianCrisisEIDOLONMedium

https://medium.com/eidolon/odeonagreciancrisisde3c92595a97 1/14

Ode on a Grecian CrisisWhat can classicists really say about the Greekeconomy?

Tivadar Kosztka Csontvary, Ruins of the Jupiter Temple in Athens (1904)

Since the crisis in Greece began, symbols of classical antiquity have framedthe dialogue about it. The overplayed concept of the crisis as a long-running Greek tragedy was even the topic of a recent Bad MetaphorWatch column at foreignpolicy.com. While I understand the appeal ofthese references to the classical Greek past, they are often deployed in away that is misinformed, paternalistic, and condescendingeven byprofessional classicists, who ought to know better.

Im not saying that antiquity has no place at all in the conversation: myheart has certainly leapt at seeing grati and banners in Athens calling fordebt cancellation under the Solonic slogan of seisachtheia. But given thecurrent circumstances, it is surely classicists who must better informthemselves and the public about the history of their eld, the legacy ofRomantic Philhellenism, and the consequences that the construct of theHellenic Ideal had for the branding of modern Greece (on these issues seee.g. the accounts of Calotychos and Leontis). For centuries, outsiderslooking into Greece have lamented the observable decline of the culture



and people with respect to glorious antiquity. The cheeky cartoons andturns of phrase that today package the disaster in cheery shades ofignorance are thus really heirs to a long traditiona tradition at thefoundations of both the academic discipline of Classics and the Greeknation state.

But you dont have something insightful to say about the Greek crisis justbecause you can conjugate the ancient verb .

In a recent segment of the BBC 4 Sunday morning program, presenterPaddy OConnell interviewed classicists about the light that Ancient Greektexts might potentially shine on the current Greek crisis. At the end of thediscussion, OConnell asked his guests: do you, having studied theseclassics, feel the pain of the modern Greeks in a dierent way to otherobservers?

Ever since the program aired, Ive found myself wondering how I wouldhave responded to this question, but also whether it was the right one toask. One of the guests pointed out that classicists are more likely to havespent more time in Greece, but this is also true of the many otherhistorians, anthropologists, et al. who study the region. And it seems to methat the level of empathy any one person feels with the pain of the modernGreeks depends mostly on the character and experiences of that oneperson. The opportunity that OConnell missed was to ask his guestsdirectly about the professional stake that classicists might have in theGreek crisisin other words, whether and why classicists (should)especially care.

I spend a lot of time with my eye on the situation in Greece, thinking inparticular about how Anglophone media choose to represent it. On thewhole Im surprised by the lack of classicists making more (reasoned andcompelling) attempts to answer the question that I think OConnell wouldhave done better to pose. Yes, ancient Greek authors wrote insightfullyabout historical moments of crises and debt, but it would be absurd toargue that classicists are a priori in a better position to understand thecurrent situation because theyre familiar with the Melian Dialogue orSolons reforms. In recent months it has also occurred to me that I should



be better able to articulate what, if anything, a classicists perspective mightadd to the public conversation here, given that I regularly use materialabout the crisis in my own courses on antiquity.

Back in November of 2011, as controversy and protest ared in Greecearound a new package of austerity measures (sound familiar?), SaturdayNight Live aired a sketch that imagined the gods meeting on MountOlympus to discuss the Greek economic crisis.

With requisite beard, garland and regal sta, Zeus (Jason Sudeikis) calls thesummit to order:

I, Zeus, King of the Gods, have summoned you all to Mount Olympus because,somehow, the Greek economy has collapsed!

The assembled gods react to the news with shock and uproar. Zeuscontinues:

I know! No, I know! I was as surprised as you are! I mean, after all, the Greeksare widely known as a hard-working, industrious peopleyou know, a peoplewilling to labor week in and week out, three days a week, one hour a day until theage of 45. But today, we Gods must come to their aid. So, quicklet us hear fromthe Greek God of Finance! [the gods look around] Wait there is a Greek God ofFinance, right? There has to be! Surely, someone has been looking after theeconomy all these years!



Zeus opening sets the premise and tone for the rest of the sketch. There isno Greek god of nance, and the crisis, Zeus learns, is to blame on theparty god Dionysus. At the end of the bit salvation arrives in the guise ofKlaus, the German god of prudence and austerity (Fred Armisen). Heoers a bailout to the gods on the condition that they make economiccutbacks, which Zeus snortingly refuses:

No way! Sorry, Klaus. Now, either you give us the money, or we take ALL ofEurope down with us. I mean, we started democracy, we can end it.

The sketch closes on an animation of a spinning newspaper with theheadline: Greece Gets Bailout: Vows to Spend it Unwisely.

The situation in Greece has evolved, and worsened, a great deal since theautumn of 2011; the last month alone has seen daily and almost hourlyradical developments. Yet I still use this sketch in the rst lecture of myGreek mythology course. Theres no getting around that its pretty funny,and for students it works to make Greek myth seem entertaining and even alittle bit relevant. More importantly, its smart about identifying andsatirizing a number of pervasive and perplexing hallmarks of classicalmythology. Why are there multiple gods of war? Why do the gods have somany aairsoften with their own relatives, disguised more often than notas animals? Showing the skit has proven an eective device for drawingstudents in and orienting them to some of Greek myths characteristicthemes and narrative structures.

But the last time I started a new round of the course I encountered somesurprising reactions. Students observed that the sketch calls attention tothe scal recklessness and feeble decision-making inherent to Greekculture; others were amused by how the poor work ethic of todaysGreeks was retrojected onto the gods, while still others criticized the skitsethnic stereotyping. A handful had been unaware that anything was amissin Greece, and for them the sketch was their introduction to a more thanve year-old major news story.

This February, with Alexis Tsipras SYRIZA party newly in power, even TheNew York Times succumbed to the allure of bad metaphors when it ran this



Op/Ed cartoon, after Germany refused to grant Greece a loan extension:

Back in May 2012, an Economist cover had taken still easier bait when itcast Greece as Europes Achilles heel.

Loose references to Greek proposals as Trojan Horses abound as well,though this metaphor rarely stands up to the slightest attempt atunpacking.

Iconic Greek monuments are also regularly pressed into similar service.This unattering image of Angela Merkel doing duty as a caryatid proppingup the Erechtheion (and, by extension, Greece and its economy) has beenmaking exuberant rounds on Twitter these days:



But the most notorious example of this visual discourse appeared soonafter the rst package of austerity measures was accepted by vote of theGreek parliament in 2010. A few weeks later (On February 22, 2010) theGerman magazine Focus ran a cover that imagined this unlikely restorationfor the worlds most celebrated armless lady (the title reads Fraudsters inthe Euro-family).

The cover story was even worse than the cover: as George Zarkadakis put itin a Washington Post Op/Ed piece, In the article, modern Greeks weredescribed as indolent sloths, cheats and liars, masters of corruption,unworthy descendants of their glorious Hellenic past. Predictably, uproar



ensued in Greece. Focus magazine was sued for defamation and a Greekconsumer group (INKA) called for a boycott of German products. The samegroup told Reuters, The falsication of a statue of Greek history, beautyand civilization, from a time when there (in Germany) they were eatingbananas on trees is impermissible and unforgivable. This reaction is ofcourse more unforgivable even than the provocation, but it oers a sense ofjust how charged these images of antiquity and their deployment can be.

It is probable that many peoplelike many of my mythology studentsgettheir rst notice of developments in Greece via media representationswrapped in loose parodic references to myths and monuments of theclassical past. Zarkadakis characterization of the Focus article could alsoapply to the light-hearted SNL sketch, and it is a valid reading of much ofthe material in circulation. In many cases, the media are simply going forsaleable humor. Sometimes they even do a good job. But one could easilytake a darker view of the phenomenon as a whole and argue that theres analarming subtext to the cartoons and cheap playful headlines: look (andlaugh) at how the mighty have fallen. In other words, I see an unspokenpremise at the root of these representations: the Greeks who today arereaping the fruits of their failure to adopt a modern, Protestant ethic arelaughingly (or dangerously) unworthy heirs to their ancient ancestors who,as SNLs Zeus boasts, started democracy.

This last idea is, of course, nothing new. From the late 18th century, foreigntravelers and writers painted Greeces contemporary inhabitants as Turkishvandals and Greeks who barely qualied as Greek, in no small partbecause their blood had been contaminated by waves of Slavic migrations.The contemporary population was seen as underserving of the venerablelegacy of Hellasa legacy better understood by Western Europeans andone that would, like the ancient material objects already kept in England,France and Germany, be more carefully and ably defended by WesternEuropean hands. In The Philhellenes C.M. Woodhouse distilled one robuststrain of the view: The Greeks, if Greeks they could be called, wereunworthy of their ancestors, whose true descendants were to be found inthe colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.

For the modern Greek states responses to these dusty (not to mentionracist and colonialist) charges, one need look no farther than thecontroversy over the Parthenon/Elgin marbles. This centuries-old issueresurfaced again in headlines just over two months ago when the Greek



Ministry of Culture decided not to pursue legal action against the BritishMuseum for the marbles restitution. For many years, one of the BritishMuseums principal arguments against restitution had been the lack ofproper facilities in Greece for the works preservation and display. Greecesaggressive and costly answer to this criticism was the grandly controversialnew Acropolis Museum that opened to the public in June 2009, not longbefore crisis hit. The building is a dramatic showcase for the collection ithouses, but it also makes an aggressive display of negative space. Its mostimpressive exhibit is ironically the very absence of the rest of the marbles.(A tendentious legend further claims that at night the Acropolis Museumsve Erechtheion caryatids can be heard weeping for their missing sister,also imprisoned in dreary London at the British Museum.)

The controversy over the Parthenon marbles needs no rehearsing; it isuseful precisely for its familiarity. The debate marks the most obviousarena in which Greece and other European countries have used images andsymbols of antiquity as ammunition (not an inapt metaphor) in ghtingbattles over deeper dierences. As Yannis Hamilakis observes in The Nationand its Ruins, The dispute over the marbles stands for the broadernegotiations of the Hellenic nation in the present-day world arena, itoperates as a metaphor for its attempt to escape marginalization, to remindthe west of its debt to Hellenic heritage [], to confront key players in theworld using their own weapons.

Recent events in Greece have provided a pretense for many suchreminders to the Western world about its debt to the Hellenes. In advanceof last Januarys government elections, Alexis Tsiprashead of the leftistparty SYRIZA and Greek prime minister (for the moment)wrote anopen letter in English aimed at a global audience. In the letter Tsipras tooused a bad metaphor: he claimed that the fear- and guilt-driven tactics ofthe establishment (read: Antonis Samaras and the Nea Demokratia party,Tsipras and SYRIZAs opposition) had led the Greek people to anunprecedented tragedy. The letter continued: And to those responsiblefor all this, if they know anything about ancient Greek tragedy, they haveevery reason to fear because after hubris comes nemesis and catharsis!

Tsipras chose to strike the same note again at the end of his letter, where heargued that his own party and its whatever it takes strategya strategydened by a willingness to think beyond established laws and structuresshould prevail precisely Because Greece is the country of Sophocles, who



with Antigone has taught us that there are moments where the supremelaw is justice. The letter marked an attempt to recalibrate the crisis astragedy trope by closing with a nod to Antigones celebrated and stubbornfearlessness. The logical conclusion? If you see yourself, dear foreignreader, in the cultural tradition of Sophocles and Aristotleif you havebenetted at all from the gifts of the Greeksthen you owe the Greekpeople of today your solidarity, in the form of support for Tsipras andSYRIZA.

As always, though, interpretations of the past are contestable. This pastFebruary, in a segment on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Oliverlampooned Yanis Varoufakis, the then-nance minister of Greece (acountry of and in ruins) for displaying a dangerously shaky grasp of Greekmythology.

In the segment Oliver noted that, at a press conference about a recent loanextension, Varoufakis had tried to reassure people in the Greekest possibleway. Oliver then rolled footage of Varoufakis explaining to journalists thatSometimes, like Ulysses, you need to tie yourself on the mast in order toget where youre going and to avoid the Sirens. We intend to do this.



Like Tsipras own classically inected statement, Varoufakis appeal toUlysses (a Greek hero in his Latinate guise) angles to remind the world ofwhat it owes to the Greeks. But in this case Oliver makes a smug counter-move. When the clip ends, he roars with mock-exasperation thatVaroufakis remarks arent reassuring, for two reasons: First, everybody inUlysses crew dies in that story, and Ithaca falls to absolute shit in hisabsence. (The second reason rests on a less learned observation:Varoufakis gave his press conference sporting a popped collar.) As satiricalas the show may be, here Olivers sarcasmparticularly when paired withthe fashion critiqueamounts to version umpteen of the old Greeks dontdeserve Greece argument. The Greek might attempt to invoke the classicalpast, but its the Englishman who really knows best. Olivers showbizpersona in this instance was perhaps more historically loaded andentrenched than he realized.

Behind all the blithe mythical references (Trojan horses, ights of Icarus,Achilles heels, etc.) lies a long and complex story, winding from the fraughtprocess of modern Greek nation-building to the current crisis and throughviolently contested claims to proprietorship over some notion of a Greekclassical past. Especially given the history of this discourse of ModernGreek unworthiness, academics should be particularly mindful about how(and whether they ought) to throw in their two cents.

On July 3, BBC News ran an article called Putting the Greek back intoStoicism. The article, by a U.S. philosophy professor, argues that thesuering people of Greece would do well to read up on the tenets ofancient Stoicism and to adopt some of these as coping strategies. In anincredibly nave analysis, this author goes so far as to argue that Thecurrent Greek crisis can be attributed to a lack of self-control: the Greekgovernment borrowed more money than it could comfortably pay back.The piece then ends on this word of advice: As they suer privations in thecoming months and years, Greeks should keep Musonius [sc. Rufus, a Stoicphilosopher banished by Nero] in mind. They may have it bad, but it beatsbanishment to Gyarosbeats it by a long shot.

Last week Newsweek ran an article highlighting the 35% increase in theGreek suicide rate since the country adopted the rst austerity program. A



humanitarian crisis in Greece (see here, for example) should not be foranyoneespecially not those whose livelihood is tied to the ancient world!an opportunity to get cute and condescending about the lessons we canlearn from antiquity. On the BBC 4 radio program that I mentioned earlier,a prominent classicist remarked that, while the Greeks are indeed in adicult bind, even the fantasy-stirring mind of the comic poetAristophanes could hardly have imagined a hero who borrowed vastamounts of money and refused to repay it, and then came back to the samelenders asking for more. (It really is impressive the degree to which manyclassicists who insist that antiquity oers insight into the crisis seem tolack even a basic understanding of the crisis itself.)

But if classicists are really particularly stirred by Greek suering, theywould best spend their time explaining and critiquing how politicians andmedia draw on highly charged tropes in representing the crisisnotgleefully pointing out the origin of the word.

Johanna Hanink is Robert Gale Noyes Assistant Professor of Humanitiesat Brown University and author of Lycurgan Athens and the Making ofClassical Tragedy. Her go-to source for news on Greece is ThePressProject,to which she also occasionally contributes (for the International edition).

Law v. Historythe story of the Supreme Courts misguided, forty-yearfixation on ancient gay history

medium.com

Published by the Paideia Institute. You can read more about the journal, subscribe, andfollow it on Facebook and Twitter.

Documents

Ode on a Grecian Crisis — EIDOLON — Medium