Vasilis Karapostolis: The young fugitives – At the roots of the Greek decline

The image of a society that while threatened, lets its few forces scatter, as if they are not its own and their loss costs nothing, is strange indeed. It‘s as if the brain can not give the necessary commands to the muscles and nerves. Everything shows that Greek society has been caught up in this weakness.

Cast adrift, Greece watches its sectors ostentatiously striking. It sees a large portion of the younger generation closing their eyes to reality and running towards where noises are heard, loud music, in a turmoil in which it struggles to sink, so that it does not think of anything unpleasant, of the things that torment their elders.

For a long time, and of course not only in Greece, entertainment has become the opium that the young use to feel like they are doing something without doing anything. Indeed, fun and play by nature offer a shift of energy: from work, toil, worries and responsibilities, one moves to a sphere where one can play while relaxing in the pointless.

They plays or stop playing, dance or stop dancing, sing or stops singing. The ease of not obeying orders, of choosing one thing at one time or another attracts them the most. It is comforting. Who would dispute that? But it is one thing to become totally absorbed during the breaks of daily life. The problem is right here. In that an entire generation seems to want to be locked in a world made of laser beams, overflowing beer glasses, metallic music sounds, cell phone screens that glow with slogans and stay there for as long as possible.

Revenge against the country

What should concern society most is not that young people are attracted to the forms of this well-organized “magic”. This has happened in the past and is somewhat natural. But the need to “escape” from the clutches of reality and surrender to a kind of paralysis has never been as strong as it is today. This, however, they defend quite consciously and with a language that does not tolerate objections.

They do not want to hear anything about their obligations. They claim that they have every right to judge whatever “must” is put in front of them. Agreed. But almost always their judgment is the same: they say it is not their job to solve issues that should have been solved by their parents, or the state. They consider that they have every right to blame the previous generations for their mistakes, their lack of foresight, or even the ideas that they did not abandon in time when they saw that they were worn out.

The truth is that many of the youths’ complaints are well-founded. However, they do not provide sufficient justification to turn the complaints into revenge against the country. Because when the country needs vigilance and you rub your indolence in its face, you are taking revenge on it. Whoever is possessed by the passion of revenge is not content with thoughts, they already want to do harm through specific actions.

So have the complainants reached that point? It does not seem possible. Not so much because of some inhibitions, but because they are now too well pampered to undergo suffering. To want revenge, you must be able to feel the pain of an insult, a deprivation. And our young people grew up in an environment that they could not bear to feel pain, deep inside. Only annoyances, irritations.

Family responsibilities

Their whims are affected, not their soul. The family has taken care of this with its cajoling, with its tolerance towards anything wrong in the children’s behavior, a tolerance that was masked by the fact that it lacked the will to guide. Adopting this attitude cultivated the impression in children that any mistakes and defects are corrected on their own.

There is no reason to push a little cheeky, troubled youth (which may have the ambition to become a vandal in his adolescence), in order to change ways and mind. Whatever goes wrong, “life” will come and bring it back to normal. This “life” that clarifies everything…

To avoid the hassle of parenting, the family bowed to a natural force that hoped to play the role of guardian. But nature is sometimes relentless. One can take lessons from it only if one wants to take them if one has one’s eyes open. But why should unaccompanied children accept learning? Learning presupposes a certain observance of the rules of knowledge, and here even infants have become accustomed to confusing the observance of a rule with submission to incomprehensible power.

The result is that parents send to school armies of disobedient creatures, which as they sit at the desks get itchy reactions. They call it with a word fashionable among pedagogical circles: “hyperactivity”. It is nothing but the uncontrollable tendency of children to be transported elsewhere from where they are destined to stay. They instinctively deny what is necessary and seek other options.

The school is absent

And where is the paradise of options, if not in play and fun? The children’s mind is constantly focused there and the teachers find out every morning that very few eyes are really focused on them. And what does this do for a school? Instead of giving its battle with the means at its disposal, it deserts and tries, frantically, to transform itself as quickly as possible.

It appears with a fun and clever face, ready to mix knowledge with a joke, to fill the pages of books with many and colorful icons, like garlands around boring explanations and formulas. Only in this way does it hopes to entice the child, which, more than a small student, is now a small fan of the insatiable Delight.

Of course, there are exceptions, both among teachers and parents. But they are fighting from increasingly difficult positions. It is not uncommon to be faced with an industry that sells carelessness and “fun times“, at a time when if the intellect does not work methodically and seriously madness will become a real regime.

Our country has no other hope than to bring back, to its bosom, as manyof these half-dazed precocious fugitives. Since Greece clearly lacks a strategic mind, it must at least openly state its anxiety. Maybe hearing it confess its needs some of the younger, more sensitive persons will be moved.

Comforting signs

A society, a homeland can be saved in this way as well. By showing its wounds, it would motivate some young and impetuous souls who until then were trying to take action with many elements of adventure inside them. No young person can remain indifferent to the charm of adventure. So why not be seduced by the idea that, through difficulties and surprises, he will give blood to his ailing homeland?

It is a comforting sign that, in the midst of an epidemic, in the rural areas, in particular, some circles and groups of young people are being formed who would like to intervene in such a way. I have in mind Grevena – there are similar movements in other places. Let’s hope that they will bring some general upheavals among the youth.

Since leaders are incapable of inspiring the new generation, the inspirations for the most anxious and conscious may come from their own initiatives. Which, of course, will have been reinforced by past examples, by acts of generosity and solidarity in other times, acts that still speak to their hearts. With a voice that has no sternness, but has only a tone of encouragement. Narcolepsy, an intoxication, even one of self-destruction, can be ended with just two words: “come on, you are better than what you are being pushed to do”.