How consciousness of our history and our civilisation are we the modern greeks?

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Dellarovere

To begin with we must not separate history from civilization, as history is (or must be) the - objective - registration of the what the meaning of the term "civilization" is consisted of, which includes politics, wars, science, art, literature etc, either with reference to a certain time period or through time as a process.
Coming to Greece, we must keep in mind the role of the dominant Cristian - Orthodox - Church, which actually imposed and still imposes the way that historical facts have to be presented. Thus, the furious fight of Cristian religion and its followers against anything Greek has been converted to an immoral lie, that of Greek Spirit having been united with Christianity, which gave rise to the schizophrenic fiction "Greek Orthodox Civilization".
Serving this fiction, is being toughed in a perverse way. The good role of Cristian religion being always underlined, the history books always focus on plain historical events, like battles and political changes, while they never make sufficient refference to culture, scientific achievements, philosophy, that is all the the cultural features of a cetain era.
Modern Greeks can hardly name more than two ancient Greek sculptors, more than three philosophers, or even one historian. As a result, all Greek know Ploutarchos only as a modern folk singer.
On the other hand, always due to the role of the Orthodox Church, and its cintinuous thirst for power, Greece did not follow the cultural achievements and developments of the rest of Europe, starting with Renaissance. When Italy, France, Germany, even England were readopting ancient Greek architecture and art, and highly estimating ancient Greek Mythology, History, Literature, Science, Philosophy, Greece was living its oriental repetition of the past, that is the continuation of the Bysantine Empire under Ottoman cover.
The creation of the new Greek State dates back less than two centuries ago. In the meantime Greece had lost all the progress based on Greek principals which took place in Europe. Shool and University books stress out only the glorious battles against the Persians, or the conquers of Alexander and still do not endeepen in the true meaning and importance of the greek civilisation.
On the other hand, we are the country of the smallest percentage of readers, a fact that restrains even further the chance for modern greeks to be tought the real greek herredity.
While only a handful of modern greeks can recite a couple of verses of Homer, almost all use the slogan "when the ancient ancestors of ours creted Parthenon, the others lived on trees"..
Regardless the fact that modern greeks cannot preserve nowdays even the trees...

Curious Boy

we (as persian people) have same problem . When societies turn from traditional to modern , change everything . I love to know about my ancient culture too.

Paco

We Spanish people are so. We provide this education to our schools, I am teacher and I know. All things must improve, yes.

cpinatsi

Most Greeks are conscious and proud of their ancient and modern civilisation, but not enough to learn it. I mean, they only know it is great and use this knowledge to sit on it(epanapaysi) and brag instead of becoming cultured people too. They don't bother to know much about the monuments, to read the litterature, etc. Saying this, there are many Greeks who are very cultured people and who are very conscious of their heritage. It is not only a matter of school, but also of the family. I went to the same school with many other people, half of us were interested in culture and the other half was not. So I can't blame the school , the school gave me all the potential to learn and appreciate Greek civilisation, but you have to reach out and take what is offered.

I run, you run, etc., I don't see how this question relates to your answer. Why are you being so aggressive on a matter of civilisation? What you are talking about is politics, and that is not what Leonarda asked.

Antonio

those who don't learn from their past are doomed to repeat it..

The Broken Gentleman

Good morning my Lady Leonarda. :-)

May I say this: Those who don't look back at their heritage, has no future to look up to.

zigzag

In reality, the education is good enough for the greeks of diaspora..I moved in Greece as greek of Australia, and i can see that the greek students are well informed about their history..The truth is the preserverance of our heritage...we must be able to preserve it..The family also has an important role to this...
For the thumdowners...it is better to return to your sections if you dont have an answer to give by lack of knowledge, and stop hunting the greek users...

violin 4 life

well i know that in Cyprus the majority of the people know the Greek history quite well...no complaints over here!! to the "i run u run we run" person...dnt listen to her...she/he/it is so full of her/him/itself that she probably thinks that the only Holocaust was that of the jews..if so..she really needs to get a good education, with non-biased teachers!

reifguy

in a general answer ,,to know greece ,,u have to understand its history,past and present,,to be aware of so much of the way of life in greece and how its reflects on life and people,i dont know much by statistics,but when i encountered many greeks ,,they were very aware of the ancient civilization and the history of greece centuries back,,one told me that tonight there will be a start constellate at 10 pm and gave me even a link to a website he created of history going from ancient times to modern days,,its personal opinion but many know the history well ,u cant say all ,its difficult to acknowledge on national level ,,becoz the scholl syallbus does it include it,,and how far back in history,,,

ele

There's always room for improvment...we are not at all concious of our history an civilisation+having worked in schools I can tell you that children need the motivation which they can't get from their family...the only thing kids are hearing is how bad everything is and how disapointed everyone is with our country...but when is anyone going to start changing things if they don't understand their potential and their backround???

Selena

I was actually surprised to see how well Greek people from all walks of life knew about their history and mythologie. Whenever I had a question, they knew the answer. That made me think that your education system in that respect must be pretty good! No need for improvement!

chrisvoulg1

Yes we are conscious of our history and civilization and we won't let others (furomians ect) to steal them from us!

Totally Blunt

You are so conscious that you have to talk about Turkish "genocides" at every single question, never thinking about what happened to the Muslims and Jews in your own country and you keep a cupboard full of skulls in one your islands, labelling them "Turkish job", never thinking about the disrespect you are showing to the deceased.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AkW6v2MNxVJo0EtI1MsZdGJf7RR.?qid=20070901050516AAIm0ZJ

The skulls being in Nea Moni Monastery in SakÄ±z AdasÄ±, I don't know the Greek name.

Is that conscious enough consciousness to suit you?

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