In a post by Kostis Hatzidakis<\/b>, on the occasion of the presentation of the new book<\/b> by Professor Thanos Veremis, he refers to the need to return to the Aristotelian values of moderation and prudence. <\/p>\n
The vice president of the government<\/b> advocates five basic principles of public morality<\/b>, stressing that the quality of democracy is inextricably linked to avoiding divisions and aiming at the common good.<\/p>\nThe whole article by Kostis Hadjidakis on LinkedIn<\/h3>\n
With Professor Thanos Veremis’ new book on Aristotle to introduce, I automatically made some projections to today, based on the thought of this great Greek philosopher. Mainly in our political life and our political mores.<\/p>\n
Aristotle was a supporter of mediocrity, that is, the avoidance of excesses and extremes. I don’t know if you think our political life stays away from excesses, my sense is that it is increasingly tending towards extremes and hostility. That the opposition parties in particular are bidding against each other in aggressive rhetoric and name-calling. And that the anonymity of social media increasingly reinforces these negative phenomena.<\/p>\n
Having been in politics for several years, I think I have not only the right, but also the obligation to speak my mind clearly. Especially in a country that has been repeatedly plagued by divisions and civil wars. I therefore stand on 5 basic principles that I consider necessary if Greece is to be able to open up new paths not only economically, but even more so politically and socially. Principles linked to public ethos:<\/p>\n
– First principle: politics needs moderation.<\/strong><\/p>\n Not timidity or lukewarmness. Moderation. The ability to think, judge and position oneself maturely, without falling into either the hubris of fanaticism or inaction. For moderation is not the easy middle ground, but perhaps the most difficult balance.<\/p>\n – Second principle: politics needs wisdom.<\/strong><\/p>\n Wisdom is not intelligence, but the capacity for practical judgment. Understanding what to do and for what purpose. In an age when everything moves fast, especially with the help of technology, but often lacks direction, wisdom is perhaps the most necessary public virtue.<\/p>\n – Third principle: politics needs character.<\/strong><\/p>\n Not just institutions and regulations, but people who have learned to listen, to weigh, to weigh, to limit themselves, to avoid easy excesses. Aristotle reminds us that ethos is also connected to ethos, that is, practice. Therefore, the quality of democracy is inextricably linked to the quality of everyday political practice.<\/p>\n – Fourth principle: political life requires mutual respect.<\/strong><\/p>\n Democracy is not just about the victory of the majority. It needs limits and counterbalances, it needs balance and respect for rights. It is not – and no one should present it as – a victory of one camp over the other, but a way of collective coexistence. And that is how we should treat it and actively protect it.<\/p>\n – Fifth principle: politics must be directed to the common good.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is perhaps Aristotle’s most profound lesson to us all. Just as the Polis exists not merely to live, but to live well, so politics can be reduced neither to technical management nor to a permanent conflict of impressions.<\/p>\n It needs to become again a space of common purpose, where we will discuss, even disagree, not about how to win, but about how to live together and how to respond to the great challenges of our times.<\/p>\n Rivalry in politics often makes us forget that we are above all Greeks. To forget that different ideas are one thing and hatred against political opponents is another. As Pavlos Bakoyannis used to say: “in democracy we can disagree, because we can coexist.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The need to return to the Aristotelian values of moderation and prudence is referred to in a post by Kostis Hatzidakis, on the occasion of the presentation of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}