The dialogue between a young man in his early twenties, a player and a presenter on a popular game show, is transferred here in its entirety. There has been a previous question about Old Patras Germanos.
Presenter: Paleon Patras Germanos.
Player: What’s that?
Presenter: What were we doing in 1821?
Player: What had we done? Occupation.
Host: What’s it called? What are we celebrating;
Player: War. We celebrate NO.
For the most part, they seem to come down, somehow, to what happened in 1821. And the fun continues.
Host: So since he was involved in this what was it? A…
Player (with unwavering certainty and a hint of triumph): German.
Presenter: How do we characterize all those who fought back then? We say it was…
Player: Hero. Yeah but he’s German so…
Hostess: No dear, that was his name. The man was not German.
Then, it seems that he should, with the help of the presenter, find the key words to describe the Old Patras Germanos to the players of his team. They have settled on four (war, 1821, revolution, hero) and are looking for one more. “Should I put Possession?” the young man says longingly. “No, no” replies the presenter and repeats the words. But the young man does not seem willing to negotiate his knowledge and insists. “Occupation”. The presenter does not want to offend him, she simply insists on her “no”. And then the young man asks for more clarification. “How was he? Good looking; Tall; Thin;”. “Hey, what can I tell you? I hadn’t even met him up close,” the woman concluded.
This kid probably last week would have been at the Constitution to protest with his classmates or fellow students against the establishment of private universities. He will consider it a degradation of free education. That is to say that now it is fine and the non-states will come to give it a head start. That’s what he was told, that’s what he believes. And the young man is the last one to blame for both “up to now” and “from here on out”. Who ever told him about the process of knowledge? Which teacher took him (metaphorically) by the hand to teach him not dates that he will forget the next day but to “guide” him through the fields and seasons of events? To open the “back door” to all that he used to parrot?
I think we have passed to the next stage from the low level of students’ knowledge, which is also certified by PISA. In the certainty of the children that they know, that they have a good education. Otherwise this young person would not go to a trivia game. And neither would the rest think that the threat lies in the establishment of non-state universities.
The event is known. Two female activists threw soup at the (thankfully protected by bulletproof glass) Mona Lisa in the Louvre. And then, with raised fists of revolution, they shouted in front of Da Vinci’s painting “What is more important? Art or the right to sustainable and healthy food”?
This is not a dilemma. It seems like comparing apples to oranges. Not even. What? If, somehow, all works of Art are destroyed, will the world be satisfied? Women are not activists either. Activism as destruction is a completely arbitrary translation of the term and concept. Such actions have one and only goal. Western civilization and its achievements. This bothers those who would like a Europe without museums, without monuments. The enigmatic gaze of the Mona Lisa, the wondrous symmetry of the Parthenon. All that cannot be submitted to any ideology.
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