The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, in one of the notes in his work Philosophical Grammar observes: "Tell me how you seek something and I can tell you what it is that you seek" [I]. So our initial question will be how Greece can pursue something through cultural diplomacy, and not what it is that it pursues, and this in order to achieve a more clear understanding of the object of its pursuit. In this understanding, emphasis will be placed on the presence of cultural diplomacy, a diplomacy which seems particularly necessary at the present moment and not exclusively because of its cultural difference, as will be seen next. The term 'cultural diplomacy' itself is much more complex than initially appreciated. We tend to refer more generally to diplomacy as a negotiated treaty between states, with the ultimate goal of mutual political and national benefit[ii]. The management of international relations also leads to the cultivation of these same relations, where purpose and means are identified within a current practice. Cultural diplomacy is typologically included as one of the forms of the so-called soft diplomacy (soft diplomacy, in international terminology)[iii]. Soft diplomacy is about handling the cultural product but also shaping the preferences of an international audience. In a remarkable aversion to the above, Hilary Clinton argues that part of diplomacy in general is to open up different definitions of the vested interest[iv].
A continuation of the above question is the following: can cultural diplomacy be smoothly integrated into the contours of the country's international diplomacy? And if so, can it constitute a core political philosophy that transcends the context of foreign diplomacy? Or does the role of cultural diplomacy shrink to the not particularly complex role of pushing a cultural product? If the first is possible and if indeed cultural diplomacy can constitute a modern as well as a genuine political philosophy, then we should next examine whether this creates the perspective of a political pragmatism or, on the contrary, of assigning to the consideration of an unrealistic space. We should therefore first of all not overlook its political and philosophical features, as well as the environment within which these can be hypothesized as active.
Cultural diplomacy in Greece has the following direct and natural external environments: Europe and the world. So what is our presence in Europe? And who in the world? In the case of Greece, we are in front of an extremely unpleasant historical moment, where the country is vilified, bankrupt, in the international Fora. While expecting benefits, following the European vision, Greece found itself in the most unfavorable position, among other, mainly southern, countries of the Eurozone. This constitutes the environment of an economic, and not only, dystopia, where even the country's communication is of negligible strength, a fact that is easily seen in the diplomatic developments of the last decades as well as in the most recent ones. Current internal pragmatism is therefore a question[v]. In a country weakened and eroding, with the double bleeding of a shrinking population on the one hand due to the low number of births and on the other hand due to the ongoing brain drain, as well as the other, the invisible brain drain, that is, of the relentless waste of human capital that remains within the territory, our national and political capacity to find solutions has long been an elusive reality. Instead of a pragmatic effort to solve the problems, we remain locked in an incomprehensible and intransigent internal strife, in a rigidity in decision-making, in addition to a war of virtual dipoles: right and left, progressive and conservative, national and globalized. As long as we serve this domestic warfare, as long as we exhaust ourselves by becoming addicted to an inner national acceptance that this will continue as if it were the most beneficial for the country, international pragmatism, the RealPolitik of neighboring and non-states, leads us not only to maintain an isolation, which it is found mainly in the lack of practical effectiveness of our foreign diplomacy, but mainly in the maintenance of an illusion, the illusion that 'we here, in the meantime, seek the truth'. The American pragmatist William James certainly presents a very interesting view on this issue. In his theory, truth does not assume some static and unchanging form. The truth of a proposition depends on its utility, on how it serves a certain need for verification. A truth without practical consequences is a useless truth. For example, if I ask someone the question "what time is it?" and the answer is "I am Mr. Papadopoulos", his answer, although true, does not provide me with any useful and practical result. The perception of non-abstract truths produces a variety of truths which are tested in the temporary, practical environment in which they will be called upon to be operative.[vi]. At a specific moment in time, therefore, social, national and political demands should not be about abstract depictions or ideologies or virtual conflicts but references to absolutely specific temporal demands. Similarly to Habermas, who discusses at great length the question of Europe and nation-states[vii], the formulation is related to a functional truth, a truth of consensus, within the social body, which aims to achieve specific individual ends.
In the Aristotelian work, it becomes active that in the state a necessary and fundamental element is to constitute a 'society of equals'[viii], where as 'similarity' Stageiritis records the situation of the common desire of the citizens for the preservation of the state. The rupture with our history, the loss of our identity, the denial of the necessity for the development of our national, political and cultural narrative, the fascism of entrenchment in disruptive and hermetic totalities, our isolation in ill-conceived selfhood (as an illiberal individualism ), provincialism and clinging to things we consider traditional without exhausting the infinite possibilities of the word "tradition", these crushed any possibility of progress. In Greece, an ideology of distancing itself from political practice, as well as from cultural practice, gradually prevailed, which is also an obvious part of politics. The abandonment of the democratic collectivity, better said, the collectivity of the municipality, is the cause that led to the total perception of vandalism, to the total perception of corruption, rudeness, indolence, to the total perception of worthlessness and inefficiency.
As long as we remain in this illusion of seeking a chimerical truth, which unquestionably involves a messianic presupposition as well as an intent to impose, our ancient statues, much-vaunted Greek hospitality, dreamy shores, beautiful beaches, to use only a naive few as inadequate as the terms from our tourist brochures are, they do not mediate the strategic transitions that are necessary for the preservation and progress of Greek society and the Greek State. In other words, and while Greece is constantly going bankrupt, without the evolution of its international communication to the best, the lack of social and national purpose constantly impresses both political philosophers and analysts as well as the entire international scene. Greece has been standing practically motionless and silent for several years now, if we assume that it does not retreat disorderly. So what is the solution? Why is it that while in our social and political space we constantly exchange opinions and while we stubbornly clash between scumbag ideologies, we do not manage to move from theory to practice? The German philosopher Immanuel Kant, very aptly, points out that the transition from theory to practice is not done in one leap. There is an intermediate stage. He calls this stage "critical power"[ix]. The critical power, according to Kant, is that which enables us to see which elements of the theory are applicable to this or that time and practical situation. If the theory does not hold true for these circumstances, then what is absent is not the possibility of action, but primarily the critical ability to form a rightly reasoned view of the applicability of our theories so as to enable the transition to the immediate and effective act. For Husserl, respectively, social and political "life" means life capable of purpose, life that creates spiritual formations: in the broadest sense, life that creates culture within the unity of a historicity[X]. The historical environment-world of the ancient Greeks, for example, is not the objective world in our present sense, but their own "representation of the world", i.e. their own subjective way of attributing force to the world and the mundane realities that applied to them[xi]. In such terms, culture acquires not only some historical status but also asserts an obviously political claim.
What many people probably don't realize today, the intractable puzzle for many current Greeks within the suffocating walls, is that the polarization of opinions, the cross-categorizations between supposedly progressive and supposedly conservative areas, are simply pretexts for the disappearance of our own 'representation of the world' ' (according to the Husserlian reference), for stopping the country and indeed on its knees. In the philosophical mind it is largely understood that the progressive and the conservative alternate roles. What was progressive a few years ago may now be the new conservative element that must retreat to be replaced by something new (which in the past may itself have been considered conservative). So the question is not what constitutes a progressive or a conservative choice in general. The question is what constitutes a progressive or a conservative choice now, here in this country. Anyway, "this" Europe does not adapt its strategy in response to visible regional needs, and tends to ignore essential rational realizations[xii]. It appears rather as terra nullius, and as unable to fulfill political potential as reality.
So pragmatism is proposed here not only in opposition to a local divided idealism, not only as an alternative against our bad addictions, our constant disorganization. Pragmatism is proposed as functionality before the point of non-functional finality, as a value in a state that deposits in its regional myth what it should trust in sound reason. The loss of national cohesion at the ideological level means impending annihilation. The iconoclastic dimension that takes almost every public debate, but mainly in terms of the concept of the state, as if what should unite us is not the commonly integrated political, social and cultural activity, locks us in an inefficiency, which emanates ultimately to national and cultural non-existence. If we want to promote our culture, if we want to talk to foreigners about it, if we want to make European and other peoples love what we have, what we produce, what we trade, we should do more than traffic or to showcase our cultural product. We should acquire an identity that is not just a transactional identity, that is, not an identity that is consumed in the ownership and buying and selling of our product. Hellenism today urgently needs an identity. Not a newfound identity. But a cohesive identity of Greekness. A unique identity, an elemental unicum, an identity of a narrative that the modern world needs, because it will avoid the simple consumption of products and services. It is a historic opportunity in this imperfect Europe to be Greek, but not in a surrogate way, not through the mediation of ideas that uncritically migrate into our public dialogue. It is time to remember that in the vast conceptions of the ancient Greek intellect, the beautiful and the good are an inseparable tautology[xiii].
The bravery of responding to decline presupposes dignity, as well as a sense of shared responsibility. Instead, we remain adversarial, in a struggle with modernity as well as with our collective self, and struggle to find and then reconcile the values and functions of society with those of the state. The answer in Greece is not to break with power. The answer in Greece is the harmonization of the social common will with the actions of society as well as of the State. It's the common redaction. The transformation of Greekness and culture. Which uses the building materials that are abundantly found in this country. It is the affirmation of the fact that you cannot practice diplomacy with the goods and power of another, nor borrow values. You have to own yours but also have the ability to maintain them.
Ultimately, for the above reasons, culture cannot be perceived as a non-political stake. This is why cultural diplomacy is a political philosophy par excellence. The question is whether the current pragmatism in a defeated, at this point in time, country is sufficient to manage both the cultural and the political good. If pragmatism is not sufficient, then it is reasonable to experience this dystopia. Culture is, of course, being oneself. Except that someone should also understand him. Within Europe, within the World, we owe it to ourselves, to our historicity, to become understood again, using a different identity and cultural narrative. I record, for reinforcement, the phrase of the Roman poet Ovid from his work Don't be sad: “Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli” [Here I am a barbarian, because no one understands me anymore][xiv].
Panagiotis Iliopoulos
University of Ioannina
[I] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar, edited by Rush Rees, translated by Anthony Kenny, Blackwell, Oxford 1974, 24, p. 370.
[ii] Prev. Barston Ronald Peter, Modern diplomacy, Routledge, New York 2014, passim.
[iii] Nye Joseph, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, Public Affairs, New York 2004, p. 23.
[iv] New York Magazine interview, “Hillary in Midair”, Sep 22, 2013.
[v] Prev. James William, Pragmatism and other writings, Penguin, New York 2000, p. 146. Cf. ibid, p. 88: “Pragmatism asks this question: grant an idea or belief to be true. What concrete difference will its being true make in one's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What is the truth's value in experiential terms?”
[vi] See James William, pragmatism, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, Popular Lectures on Philosophy, Longmans, Green, and Company, New York 1907, passim. Also, James William, The Meaning of Truth, A Sequel to 'Pragmatism', Longmans, Green, and Company, New York 1909.
[vii] Habermas Jürgen, "The Crisis of the European Union in the Light of a Constitutionalization of International Law", in the European Journal of International Law, Volume 23, Issue 2, 1 May 2012, pp. 335–348.
[viii] Aristotle, Politics, VII 1328a 36-37: "the de polis is a society of equals, it is the life of the possible excellent".
[ix] Immanuel Kant, Essays, introduction- translation- comments EP Papanoutsou, Dodoni, Athens 1971, p. 111.
[X] Edmund Husserl, The crisis of European humanity and philosophy, mtf. Pavlos Kontos, Ekremes, Athens 2011, p. 3.
[xi] Edmund Husserl, The crisis of European humanity and philosophy, mtf. Pavlos Kontos, Ekremes, Athens 2011, p. 6.
[xii] Prev. Hegel's views on political management in: Hegel Georg, Philosophy and Politics. Leading Political Texts, introduction-translation-comments Dimitris Tjortzopoulos, Iridanos, Athens 2014, p. 38.
[xiii] Prev. Plato, Laws 841c, Philibos 66a–b, State 401c, Symposium 201c, 205e.
[xiv] Ovid, Tristia. Ex Ponto, translated by AL Wheeler, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1924, V 10.37.
Source: magazine MEANING, volume 6, EOE publications, Thessaloniki, 6/2019, pp. 64-70.
