"Being and seeming" is very charming as a literary motif but extremely incompatible with the progress of a country.
The duality of the contradiction "being" and "appearing", which has preoccupied man since ancient times, also appears in our time. "Is" represents the real and the true. But this policy, usually, hides it. "Appearance" represents the virtual, the real, the fake. This amuses the citizens, who seem to have become accustomed or even fascinated by the delusion.
Euripides in his tragedy "Helen" tries to show how we are deceived by the image and do not seek better to find the essence of things, preferring to live quietly in the delusion. The protagonist of his work, Eleni, is considered unfaithful by the world, because she left her husband to live with Paris. In reality, however, Helen is not responsible for this, as the gods "banished" her to Egypt away from her husband and from Paris. Characteristic, moreover, is the scene where Menelaus, the king of Sparta, appears naked, confirming the contradiction of "being" and "appearing".
In modern Greek literature, our Nobel laureate poet Giorgos Seferis uses excerpts from the tragedy of Euripides as a motto in his own "Helen" and transfers the myth to his time. Through his lyrics, the difference between the idol-shadow and the true form of man emerges uniquely: "soothsayers who come to say/ how so much pain so much life/ went to the abyss/ for a shirt empty for a Helen".
"Being and seeming" is very charming as a literary motif but extremely incompatible with the progress of a country.
In such a difficult and dead-end period for the lives of citizens in our country, the issue cannot and should not be the "power" of the parties, and indeed the "arrogant power", but their serious and responsible engagement in the solution of the society's problems. This is also the reason that on 2024 European elections the people showed their displeasure at the politicians' indifference with abstinence and brought the "is" to the surface.
The politicians take advantage of the citizens, who are actually suffering from the phenomena of the times, pandemic, climate change, and unable to rationally deal with the "appearance", to perceive, that is, the "is", and to react. After all, some media and the Internet are willingly or unwittingly complicit in the prevalence of "appearance" and the concealment of what is. The fabricated image of reality lulls the masses to sleep!
The "appearance" of the elections is a victory for the government, but the "reality" is abstention. How is abstinence interpreted? It is the silent sign of dissatisfaction with the government, but also the lack of a dynamic and convincing opposition. The winner, phew, is abstinence, as well as the parallel rise of far-right parties, and this reveals the problematic political scene of Greece.
Domestic as well as European politics have adopted the "appearance", and are constantly and dangerously moving away from the human-centered politics they promise. Moreover, the result of this policy in Europe, after the elections, is the immediate rearrangements in the political scene, due to the predominance of far-right forces.
Greece cannot live with illusions and we ALL, citizens and politicians, must face this phenomenon together.
The atmosphere of the elections reminds me of the well-known Carmina Burana: "Hac in hora/sine mora" (here and now/without delay), because what is at stake is the decent living of the citizens... here and now!
Mrs. Stella Priovolou is an emeritus professor, president of the Body of Emeritus Professors of EKPA, dean of the Municipal People's University of Agia Paraskevi.
Source: The Step
