QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Question: What is the role, the duty of man, today???

Answer: In the words of Epictetus, to stop being a man of the mob and become a friend of Wisdom...

Question: And how is this achieved???

Answer: By freeing his mind, as Socrates notes... To learn to Listen, then to Ask and finally to Discuss, as taught by Pythagoras, and by Aristotle later, who added the Heart... We realize how close these positions of the ancient Greeks, and other Wise Men around the world are to modern neurobiology and the findings of recent research on the human brain, regarding the emotional mind and its great importance in the evolution of man and Society...

Question: And what is the role, the duty of the people of culture???

Answer: We also found out in Greece who the so-called “sacred monsters” are, and I think that the true People of Civilization, all over the world, do not belong to the “mob” category and would never accept the term “sacred monster”, because at the end, the “sacred” leaves and the “monster” remains... Their role is, in addition to recording the existing situation and analyzing the data, to propose ways to solve the problems that have been detected... So, what I consider necessary is every work of true Art to include this reflection, share it and discuss it with the public, who are more ready than ever to listen...

Question: Why does education and social policy need a radical revision, and even immediately???

Answer: AIn order to finally domesticate our Emotional Home, which was razed by the three industrial revolutions, to become Humans and to stop the dominance of the logic of the reptile, of violence, of wars and of the destruction of the Planet!!!

Question: Is Emotional Education that important???

Answer: A truly Progressive Social Policy cannot exist without Emotional Education, Truth, Love and Healing, otherwise the result will be the domination of the mob and its psychology, Orwellian scenarios and Haxley’s “perfect” Dictatorship... It must be understood that without cleaning up our Emotional Home there are no Moral Principles and Values and the reptilian logic will continue to dominate... We take our pick...

Question: The till recently valid political division (right-centerleft-green-red-blue), does it actually have any substance these days???

Answer: I think not... The political confrontation in the coming years will be extreme in the sense of an unprecedented dictatorship on the one hand and a participatory Civil Society on the other... The outcome is still unknown... But bearing in mind that in times of crisis like the one we live in, the number of people with a Critical Mind and Free Will increases geometrically, we will wait and see...

Question: Under these conditions is the simple proportional the most appropriate electoral system???

Answer: It is, and not only it should not be abolished but it should be strengthened, in the sense of the equal participation of all the smaller parties in the government which will be formed by the first in votes party, depending of course on the percentage of each. In this way, a substantial, and not “ideological”, pluralism is adopted, which is the only way for the truly progressive forces to mature politically and to avoid the worst...

Question: Since when has man’s need for Peace and Prosperity been manifested historically???

Answer: As far as I know, historically at least, since the time of Pharaoh Akhenaton (1372-1336 BC) and Queen Nefertiti (1370-1330 BC) of ancient Egypt who stopped wars, established Peace and they built the city of Love El Amarna, the ruins of which are preserved up to now... In this direction, the play Peace by Aristophanes (444-386 BC) played for the first time in 421 BC played an important role, the Oath of Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), the philosophical and poetic work of Rumi (1207-1273 AD) of Greek origin from Bactria in central Asia, the Constitution of Rigas Feraios (1757-1798 AD), the work of the Indian thinker and activist Mahatma Gandhi (1883-1944 AD) who with his fellow travelers Peacefully expelled the greatest military machine of that time from their vast country, the removal of the Nazi flag of Germans by Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas in 1941 from the Acropolis, and other remarkable deeds, of earlier or later people, from the east and the west...

Question: Do you therefore consider the use of any form of violence and war to be unjustified???

Answer: If we want to call ourselves and be thinking people Yes! And violence must be excluded at all levels... Something that is feasible, as also Psychology teaches us, as long as we acquire an assertive behavior... It depends on us…It’s a matter of choice...It is something that, in the words of Epictetus, we have power on it... Finally let’s be what we think we are, thinking people with a Heart... Dr. Gerald Huether Professor of Neurobiology of Psychiatry Clinic of the University of Göttingen underlines: “Were you of the opinion that your mind anyway works on its own, as it should be? Then unfortunately you are fooled.”!!!

Question: I wonder what Gandhi would do if nowadays Russia invaded his country??? Would passive resistance be a solution???

Answer: I personally think that Yes... Our story teaches us a lot also with Nelson Mandela, regarding Reconciliation… And no one should be forced to participate in a war he does not want to... This is not social policy... This is social coercion, i.e. fascism!!! No one, even just one different person, should not be at the mercy of every warmonger governor, to be arbitrarily labeled as a traitor and to be imprisoned…

Question: So where do we end up??? What should we free our minds from???

Answer: The mind of no man will be liberated if he/she does not effectively manage at first his/her traumatic experiences, the abuse that has suffered as a fetus, baby, child and adolescent in the family environment and relatives and later at school as a student... In any other case, his traumatic past will accompany him to death, making his adult life as well the life of those around him, a torture not to say hell…

Question: And why is this journey painful??? And where does pain come from???

Answer: In simple words from selfishness, self-centered blindness and memory as it is called in Psychology, the sole responsibility of which they bear, I repeat for the umpteenth time, the parents-relatives and later the teachers and professors, and in no case children, teenagers and students... If we don’t acknowledge this and accept it, and we still continue to consider the children problematic, having transmitted them those we inherited from our own parents, they will do the same to their own children... But sometime this chain of evil must be stopped, in order to be able to build a society of Humans and not reptiles…

Question: Is it enough these days to illustrate, again and again hell, as seen in Orwell’s and Huxley’s writings???

Answer: No, by no means, but -instead- guided by sciences, especially those concerning Man, we need to stop this nonsense once and forever, recognizing the need to free our minds from the troubles of the past…

Question: The legitimate question recently raised, on the occasion of the abuse of a child is, did the hen hatch the egg or did the egg hatch the hen???

Answer: If I understand the symbolism, the social system is bogged down beyond any doubt... But to drain the swamp, as active citizens we should first manage our traumatic past and clean up our Emotional Home in order to free our minds... It is necessary to acquire “self-knowledge”, which means to cultivate a meaningful relationship with our Self (Selfawareness), a meaningful relationship with our fellowman (Friendship) and then a meaningful relationship with the Society (Participation)... These are what we ignored in the past and thus we failed miserably... The resident does not become citizen nor does the citizen become companion just like that... Or just because we have eyes and ears that means we can see and hear… Or even just the presence of the brain makes us thinking people... Surely, we are not what we declare to be, we “live” in a delusion and we call it reality... Under these conditions of mob psychology, only harm and destruction we cause, regardless of the intentions, the offices and authority we may have...This is what I think Jose Saramago also means, when he underlines: “Society must change, but the political forces we have today are not enough to make this change. The democratic system in its entirety will have to be redesigned.”… Any political faction which wants to be called progressive should, already, have promoted Emotional Training in Education, because without it there cannot be a substantial change in the individual and furthermore in Society... Better late than never…

When 30 years ago I made my thoughts known, in the essay “For a Unionist Movement and Politics in Greece”, I limited myself to the social issues of prejudice, nationalism, religious chauvinism and human rights... The key question, where all these sad phenomena come from, was raised later when I realized the self-evident, the absurdity of wanting to build a better world with the same minds that built and maintain the current one... I wondered about the “Sins of parents chastise children”... I wondered about “the apple that falls under the apple tree”... And I wondered how absurdly children and teenagers are accused, when, finding no other way out, are forced to overcome fear by defining their limits with anger... I am referring to the verbal, emotional, physical and sometimes sexual abuse that they receive in their family and later in their school environment... So, let’s stop assigning responsibilities where there are none, and let us parents, relatives, teachers and professors finally take our responsibilities, being the first to clean up our Emotional Home!!!

By accepting our situation and assuming the responsibilities towards our own Self, the journey of Self-Knowledge begins, or in other words, the tiding up of our battered Emotional Home, and the miserable little man is gradually transformed into a thinking Person with a Heart... We cease to “live” with illusions and delusions, freeing our minds from all kinds of garbage and ghosts... We learn to listen to the other man carefully, we learn to ask with good intention and we learn to discuss constructively without the slightest inclination to persuade and impose our opinions... We learn, learn, learn, and to “Know thyself” is added “and you will know the World”.

Life acquires, step by step, Meaning, noble Purpose, essential Knowledge and persistent Spirit... We build relationships of Friendship, and our participation in the commons, free from fear and anger, is healing and effective for us and those around us…

Studying a recent script and knowing the racism that its author has suffered, as have I, for different reasons, and bearing in mind the creative management he chose to follow in order to avoid the use of violence and its disastrous consequences, as I did, I think it is my obligation to point out the lack of a decisive character, I mean the Sage, who, beyond the irrationality of markets, indicates specific measures that must be taken immediately, regarding the emotional refinement of man, a necessary condition for a truly progressive social policy…

At the very least it would be unacceptable for anyone to claim that “all men are wise” Karl Popper. It is equally outrageous that the same author always claims that “the pessimists are right” even though we owe everything to the “optimists”, who basically destroyed an entire planet and flattened man emotionally…

Someday we will have to “call a spade a spade”... To use words and concepts correctly, which is absolutely necessary for our mental health.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” according to Matthew the higher self, which is the destination of every human being and not the traumatic ego... They managed to put us (in the socket), in a state of constant hurry and Anxiety which during the day peaks and takes on panic dimensions... Something that makes us unable to acquire a meaningful relationship with our Self, our Neighbor and Society!!!

Where has the tradition of critical dialogue that this Place has known since Antiquity, with Thales, Plato and the NeoPlatonists gone??? We must realize that we live in a violent society where critical dialogue is completely absent... What kind of Democracy is this???

I wonder why when parents, relatives, teachers and professors abuse, in various ways, their children and students, we call it compliance and not abuse... And what about the inalienable rights of children and students??? The child who is abused in his own home and later reacts at school, trying to define his limits, must be loved by the true Teacher with all his Being, because he is the parent he never had!!!

“How should we love God? / Loving people. / How should we love people? / Striving to bring them on the right path. / Which is the right way? / The Uphill.” Nikos Kazantzakis What does the uphill symbolize? Golgotha? The Crucifixion? For what sins of people was Christ sacrificed? Is it for “Sins of parents chastise children” to which relatives, teachers and professors are added??? What other thing these “sins” are than the abuse that children and teenagers suffer at home and at school???

“From bad things good things come” (Great saying of the ancient Greek Literature). We often do not understand some thoughts and actions of our fellow human beings... Let’s not rush to judge them, because in some cases we perceive, much later, their great importance for our lives...

And a question: Which man ever gained Freedom by Violence??? The essential Freedom of a thinking man is an internal matter... It is the management and the liberation of his mind from unmanageable traumas from his childhood and adolescent experiences... Fear excludes Love as Love excludes fear, even fear of illness and death Epictetus!!!

“Two things are infinite: the universe and the human stupidity.

And I’m not sure about the universe.” Albert Einstein… We destroyed an entire Planet, our Home, our Life and we had the audacity to name it progress and development... The examples of our infinite stupidity are endless ... We were polluting and contaminating the air and then we made air purifiers in order to breathe in our closed houses... The same with the lakes, the rivers, the sea…

Is it the system that makes the people or the people that make the system??? It is a fact that the vast majority of the world belongs to the mindless crowd and few to the Friends of Wisdom... It is also a fact that the mob consists of people who have been verbally, emotionally, physically sometimes and sexually abused... Finally, it is a fact the maximum absurdity of all those who destroyed an entire planet and leveled emotionally the person, and not only, to promise the fools that they are able to make it better, confusing the Truth with the lie... And the Truth is that for the Earth to recover from pollution and contamination which so recklessly and generously offered the humans, mainly in the last 250 years, many thousands of years of a sound environmental and social policy, will be needed, something completely absent even today!!! No thinking person with a critical mind would never allow any differences to be settled with violence and war and not with peaceful dialogue!!! In our time, the message of the Milesians “there is a fire at home” - fire that could also be beneficial - is not valid... However, the message of Thalis is valid and still valid, “the house is on fire” and not only is it on fire, it has turned into ashes... We turn into reptiles of the worst kind and we don’t even realize it...Which rooster will wake us up???

No system can make the man... This applies at least to this day not only in the case of capitalism but also with the parenthesis of socialism that was applied by the former Soviet Union... Unless politicians psychologically mature, with tied up their emotional home take over in the next years, and set the foundations for an essentially Progressive Environmentalism and Social Policy, beyond the promises, the “will”, the roads and bridges and more recently the allowances and vouchers… So let us liberate our minds and let us finally become what we were meant to be from the beginning, thinking people with a heart, and not destructive machines of greed, violence and war...

Without this quantum leap in mankind there is no way to live in a society of Love, Dialogue, Peace and Prosperity...

“Repetition, mother of every learning.” An ancient Greek saying that is confirmed by the recent researches of the limbic (emotional) mind which needs “mountains of repetitions” as the university psychiatrists-psychotherapists Th. Lewis, F.i Amini & R. Lannon... We are speaking about better neural networks, which are “sharper than doctors at diagnosis, better than meteorologists at predicting the weather and better than mutual fund managers at picking winner shares.”

Love is not a hollow word that is uttered without content... It is the most important, potentially, neural circuit of the Emotional Mind of man, which, like all neural circuits of the brain, needs its own cultivation. And it is necessary for people who have decided to essentially connect with each other to have the same ethical code of communication...

So, it’s time to briefly say some things by their name, if we want to get out of the swamp and live like Humans:

1. The Social System, whether we like it or not, changes every 500 years and Humanity is once again at this turning point, of changing the social system...

2. In the last 250 years, with the three industrial revolutions, the environment was irreparably destroyed and man was emotionally flattened...

3. We are on the brink of the 4th industrial revolution, the realization of which will mean the complete robotization of humans, bringing about the perfect dictatorship, and the end of everything...

4. The impasse we are already experiencing in recent years has been created by modern, emotionally flattened people of the mob and not of God...

5. Hell has clearly now opened its gates, without us having recognized the real causes of Evil, which are first psychologicalemotional and then social-political...

6. It is time to realize that as long as we continue to avoid the Truth about the abuse that we -children and teenagers- suffered in the family and school environment, by parents-relatives, teachers and professors, we are not going to have an essential Social Policy!!!

7. It is important that progressive politicians of all colors practice critical and meaningful Dialogue centered on Ecumenicalism, for the good of all Humanity...

8. Human brain research may have been delayed, but today we know that neglected emotion is what determines not only the quality of our Instincts but also our Thinking...

9. Guided by the science of Neurobiology and the necessary housekeeping of our Emotional Household, Emotional Education and Therapy must immediately take its proper place in Education...

10. The school psychologist, who will mainly defend the rights of the Student, must be present, in sufficient numbers, in all the schools of the Territory, public and private, at the same time establishing Family Schools in all the Municipalities and Communities of the Country... And let’s try to understand that carrying a fetus does not make you a mother. The same applies to the man, who does not automatically become a father...