Greece Diary
I was in Greece from June 23 through July 5, and, while I had no meetings with government officials that might give me insider information on how events there are likely to unfold, nevertheless the experience was both enlightening and disturbing, and is worth relating.
Travel to Greece came at the invitation of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which had organized a conference on philanthropy and sustainability (here’s the text of my talk). The Foundation constitutes the largest philanthropic organization in the country and from what I can tell it is doing remarkable work in helping the people of Greece deal with their ongoing economic crisis. Stavros Niarchos has spent $100 million so far on jobs-creating projects in technology innovation and cultural preservation, and has promised another $200 million for the years to come.
Since Stavros Niarchos generously offered to pay for a plane ticket for my wife Janet too, we decided to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary by seeing some sights—which in Greece inevitably includes ruins—and spending some much-needed tourist dollars.
Over its long history, Greece has certainly seen spectacular ups and downs, with its better moments providing the cultural underpinnings of western civilization. Sitting and strolling among the fallen pillars of the Acropolis and the Agora—where Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle hung out with their respective flocks of disciples, drinking the ancient equivalent of espresso while discussing truth, beauty, and good governance—couldn’t help but put me in a philosophical mood. These ancient people built in stone and inscribed their ideas on tablets. Yet how fragile their achievements proved to be in the face of economic decline and the onslaughts of invaders. In comparison, our vastly greater modern material achievements (thanks to the power of fossil fuels) have been expressed in buildings with an average 50-year life expectancy, and with writings preserved on media that reliably self-destruct in practically no time at all. What will we leave behind?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
