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[Nikitas]

Bananiot,

I have read some of his books, I followed his TV show "peripeties ideon", read his car and computer related columns and followed closely a few of his TV interviews.

The man is inconsistent with the ideas he projects. Do you get something that simple? I am not attacking him, but I note a not inconsiderable inconsistency between his lifestyle and his ideas. Loving and using big cars is inconsistend with pacificism and ecology.

Having made a fortune from advertising, the essence of the consumer society ,disqualifies him as an uninvited spokesman for the far left.

A man true to his ideas lives by his ideas. Remember Socrates? Diogenis? Plato? Spinoza? I am not willing to have a former advertising man pose as a philosopher.

Professor Maronitis called this kind of ideology a "sterile encyclopedism" and he was right.

[Bananiot]

Allow me to doubt whether you have read any of his works. If you had you wouldn't be calling him a member of the far left. This is absurd and nowhere in his writings or life style, as you like to call it, there is even a hint that this person is far left.

Whether or not he is a philosopher it is not up to you or me to tell. Still, you should be taking a critical look at what he says rather than at what he is. This is the noble thing to do.

[Nikitas]

When did I call him a member of the far left??????????

I said he is an UNINVITED spokesman for the far left. Please read what is written!!!!!!!

I have read I Dystyxia tou na ise Ellinas when it was first published in the 70s. To Vivlio ton Gaton, and MANY of his columns in 4 Troxoi, RAM, and in the various papers he worked at. Sorry but I cannot stomach his poetry and try to avoid reading it! Believe me, Bananiot, I know the guy.

He likes to think he is an intellectual heavyweight, he is not. Put him next to professor Yannaras and you can gain a sense of perspective. Once an advertiser, always an advertiser. The profession of advertising by definition involves lies and manipulation.

He calls himself a philosopher and had an argument on live TV with professor Zouraris about his status. That is my source for calling him a philosopher.

A man who expounds principles, wanting others to live by them, while he himself does not, is what to you Bananiot? Isn't this approach the root of all that is wrong in Greece today and the cause of the upheaval as you said in your posts? One of the people you accuse of amassing "mythical wealth" is this dude, don't you get it?

You seem pretty cool with prostitutes promoting the benefits of virtue, as long as they do so eloquently. I am not.

[Bananiot]

An uninvited spokesman for the far left is certainly what you called him and this does not make any difference since association with the far left and membership are practically the same. Nikos Dimou is far too rational to be associated with the far left or, as you put it, to talk for the left!

While you have no affection for Nikos Dimou, I have no affection at all for your proteges, Zourariss and Yannaras. You call them heavywights but they have nothing to offer to philosophy because their main aim is the promotion of the Greek Orthodoxy. Yiannaras had the audacity to call Leonidas Kyrkos the "personification of the anti greek consciesness". The invented traditions of these two serve certain purposes and these racist bigots you so much admire Nikitas, have as their cause of life to support Greek Orthodoxy and Byzantinism politically, rather than philosophically. They daily hurl abuse at the West and pay tribute to the East. Both have obvious complexes and their village-like mentality could only cherish in a coutry like Greece where the church is still calling the shots.

[patriotisplus]

I support the riot in Greece, the people are paying heavy price for the terrible system in Greece, especially the youth. This is an epic opportunity for the Greeks to start climbing up, they have been in the elevator for so long and all this time they keep going down down down..
Not to mention that we tend to copy the habits of Greeks (nice bloody mentors we have) so if they decide to improve then we also might finally advance from being a third world country.

[Get Real!]

I support the riot in Greece, the people are paying heavy price for the terrible system in Greece, especially the youth.

Then you should change your misleading alias to "punk" or "hooligan" because the current Greek government was voted in democratically and should only be removed democratically at the next election and not by force.

This is an epic opportunity for the Greeks to start climbing up, they have been in the elevator for so long and all this time they keep going down down down..

If torching cars and trashing shops is considered "climbing up" what do you see as "climbing down"?

Not to mention that we tend to copy the habits of Greeks (nice bloody mentors we have) so if they decide to improve then we also might finally advance from being a third world country.

Who is "we"... the punks? The hooligans?

[Nikitas]

Bananiot man,

you are way out of touch with the situation! You must be otherwise you would not claim that in Greece the church calls the shots. When was the last time you spent some meaningful time here? Recently I had to go to church for a memorial service. In a municipality of 55000 people there were less than 100 people in church.

Yannaras is not anti west. Nor is he into politics, he talks about the need for objective quality standards in public life, especially education. He has stigmatised the enslavement of the political parties to the unions, which is a fact of Greek life, and has crticised sverely the "family system" in politics. Where in his writings and broadcasts have you seen promotion of Greek orthodoxy?

Zouraris is a different case altogether. I enjoy his needling the pseudo intellectuals, which he does from a position of strength because he is a French university professor, therefore Continental thinker with proven abilities and not a wannabe.


What is undeniable is that both these men live by what they preach. And neither is part of the system. If more Greeks lived like Yannaras and Zouraris, and fewer lived like Dimou, there would be no riots.

[Nikitas]

Two abridged CVs so the rest of the people know who Bananiot and myself are talking about.


Christos Yannaras (born Athens 1935) is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences , Athens. He studied Theology at the University of Athens and Philosophy at the Universities of Bonn (Germany) and Paris (France). He is a Ph.D of the Faculty of Theology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). Also, Ph.D at the Faculte des Lettres et Sciences Humaines of the University of Sorbonne (Paris). He has been nominated Doctor of Philosophy, honoris causa, at the University of Belgrade ; Visiting Professor at the Universities of Paris (the Catholic Faculty), Geneve, Lausanne and Crete; Professor of Philosophy at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens, from 1982 to 2002; and elected member of the Hellenic Authors' Society .
The main volume of Professor Yannaras' work represents a long course on study and research of the differences between the Greek and Western European philosophy and tradition. Differences that are not exhausted statically at the level of theory only, but define the mode (or the praxis ) of life, that is all we mean by the word culture.

Nikos Dimou- He graduated from Athens College where he studied French philosophy. From 1954 to 1960, he studied philosophy at the University of Munich in Germany . He had already started writing, publishing his first book in 1953.
In 1962, he started working in advertising as a copywriter. In 1965, he founded his own company. Other than trading commercials, the company created goodwill ads and public initiatives (e.g. Den xechno for Cyprus ). In 1983, he withdrew from all business ventures in order to work full time as a writer. In 1979, Dimou started writing columns for magazines and has written sixty books.

[Bananiot]

Yannaras is a racist, antisimitist, anti west and his stance against Henry Kisinger is very good example of these atributes. He hates the guts of Kisinger because not only he is American but his roots are German-Jewish. He is also a bit of a fascist. Only recently, in an article in "Kathimerini" he called for two Greek political parties (KKE and SYRIZA) to be outlawed!

[patriotisplus]

I really don't know what to think of people who actually support the way this place and Greece is being run. You must be in a high social position.