Philosopher confronts politico in public debate

The philosopher swept the stage, posing as herald, prophet, and secular holy man, even rock star, speaking of the triumph of old Greece through coffee shops, the parthenon sculptures and the cute lawyer that will get money, while “our language dies every day while we do nothing about it,” for the country's deconstructive decadence and the chocking present we are experiencing. And as Ramfos told Theodorakis, “in the end, instead of me psychoanalyziing you, you're psychoanalyzing me.”

It all started off the cuff with Theodorakis jokingly with a few one liners from the journalist turned politician, who asked the audience “who came for Ramfos, and who for me?”

The concept was for Ramfos to psychoanalyze Theodorakis, as agreed between the two men during a dinner they had some time ago. Things did not turn out that way, as Theodorakis donned his journalist cap and whittled away at the philosopher, who in turn acerbically answered the questions. In any case, one thing was clear: The event wasn't staged.

Ramfos almost immediately tore into his subject saying “the government must stay the length of its term in power,” causing a humorous aside from theodorakis who tongue in cheek said “We hadn't agreed on something of the sort.” Theodorakis was quick to add to Ramfos' comment that the memorandums had saved paychecks and pensions, that they had also “saved the old system.”

Among points made the philosopher the following were the most interesting:

• Our basic problem is not the crisis, but rather, decline. The crisis, however, offers us the opportunity to table the issue of attitudes, since attitude is what leads to our choices and drives behavior. The crisis has not in the least changed our attitudes. While problems are onerous, attitudes remain cemented. Look at, for example, how bi-partisanship is resurging.

• We are interested in the permanency of the crisis, since a nascent, ambitious political movement must have a broader horizon... A true movement for renewal must take this into account, it must speak to hearts of a people that wants to be rid of this story, but because it does not know its soul it cannot be rid of it, and blames problems on Jews, masons, etc.

• Of the shops that opened during the crisis 40% were coffee shops. Some guy goes and drinks his frappe. And then what? Is the reaction to the crisis, during which everyone should be buckling down to constantly frequent coffee shops? Old Greece is triumphant. Because the coffee shop is the domain of old Greece, not to say that it does not have moments of tenderness and emotional levity. But if during the crisis coffee shops open, it means the future is shutting down.

• We are methodically shutting down the future. Geological time is different from the time to create, the time to give birth as a culture, as an individual, as a society, as a group. The whole game of the death of a society is played exactly on our ability to create times. The exclusion of the future brings memorandums. When geological time prevails, time ceases to have a moral attribute... Our time is bound by past-related future.

• We struggle at all costs for the Parthenon sculptures. And while we know that every art work is a basic linguistic construct, we have allowed our language to die. The place of the sculptures is of course on the Parthenon, in their natural space. And we struggle for this at all costs, while our language dies daily. We never thought to combine these things. How can negligence co-exist with supreme admiration for these superlative artworks?... We are simply going to give money to a cute lawyer to do her job, if she will... It's not acceptable that children speak similar to a GPS locator. Disinterest is spiritual death, since it signifies incapacity to creatively deal with the world and yourself.