Piratis wrote:It also begs the question 'what went wrong?' as not much of note seems to have come out of Greece since the time of Christ (give or take a couple of centuries).
The Byzantine Empire was essentially Greek and for many centuries it has been the most advanced and civilized place in the world.
Then Greece fell under Ottoman rule. That is "what went wrong". The Ottomans pushed Greece deep into the dark ages while most Greek intellectuals escaped to other Christian territories and helped them to continue evolving the European civilization.
The Ottoman rule ended in the 1800s, when western Europe was already far ahead. Since then Greeks had to continually fight with the 5+ times more numerous Turks just to maintain their freedom.
You talked about how great the UK is, but everything that you talked about is history also. Nothing much comes out of Britain today. Now we live the "American Era". In a couple of decades it will be the turn of the Chinese.
Many nations contributed to the civilization we have today and the contribution of the Greeks is one of the biggest ones and that is really undisputed by anybody who knows the facts.I didn't notice a 'What's So Great About Greece' Faculty but I think the place qualifies as decent. Cambridge probably has one but I turned down my offer of a place there.
If you really cared about "'What's So Great About Greece" you should have gone to Cambridge then. Did you expect to learn in a forum thread what is the subject of whole university departments?
Well I didn't really care, & I wanted to study economics. I'm curious enough to bothered to read up a bit on ancient civilisations but have no desire to spend years studying them. So I've learned some interesting details on this thread but haven't seen anything that makes me think I missed anything vital.
It's disingenuous to equate a list of things that includes things that people alive today saw invented with a list that is 2000 years+ old.
There's an angle to the original question I posted that has been largely ignored, i.e. why Greeks harp on about past achievements so much. I've been fortunate enough to have lived & worked in many countries, meeting lots of people from different cultures. I have Chinese, Indian, Arab, American & Greek friends. Those from the latter two countries are by a large margin most inclined to be pub bores about how brilliant their country is/was.
I get it from the Americans, because as you say this is their time & they are the current global superpower. As such they have something to bang on about.
The Chinese, Indian & Arab guys are far more modest about the achievements of their ancestors than the Greeks though, but arguably have as much to boast about. And as you say, soon it will be the turn of the Chinese to take over as world superpower so they can look forward as well as back.
To kimono07, I've never been on this forum in the past under another name so a case of mistaken identity. Why would anybody change monikers anyway? This strikes me as a pretty bare knuckle forum so you'd really have to go some to get the mods to kick you off I imagine. Be as hard on me as you like though. I might be relatively new on here but I've got plenty of forum experience elsewhere & am a thick skinned grown up. Feel free to dish it out every bit as hard as you are happy to get back in return.
