Ideological and political camps capture the mosaic of human nature. Aristophanes in The Hens says: “The wise receive great knowledge from their enemies. And the cities have learned well only from their enemies, and not from their friends, to build high walls and keep ships away. And a little further “always painful in all respects, the human race was born.”

Since ancient times, people have been looking for an ideal state, creating “camps”. Ancient Athens is the first, most classic example, with oligarchs and democrats. The same is happening in the last two centuries. After the French Revolution, which radically changed the course of modern history, political life in the West was also built around contrasting narratives: nationalism – internationalism, progress – reaction, authoritarianism – democracy, the market – the state. However, in recent years the dividing lines have been blurred. Some say that the aggressive self-determinations of party formations (liberals, social liberals, centrists, center-right, center-left, extremists) cannot erect political walls, cannot unite political camps.

“The energy of decisions is lost in what we call ‘management’ — the division of responsibilities between different institutions — and elections are usually reduced to mindless calculations that only the spirit of election marketing can still give epic breath. “Such confusion confuses and frustrates voters, pushing them towards “protest” voting, authoritarian rhetoric, or the heavy silence of abstention,” reads the preface to French journalists Rémy Nouillon and Philippe Vion-Diri’s book New Ideas (published in Greek). ). Polis publishing house in 2021, translated by Valiya Kaymaki).

In Greece, the economic crisis that began in 2010 allowed SYRIZA to take advantage of citizen frustration and turn it into a protest vote, giving the 2012-15 period signs of civil war. His leadership and cadre focused on obsolete issues when it was necessary to move forward in understanding the political problems posed by the new world. Polarization and toxicity can fuel the camps, but they cannot generate political thought and answers to contemporary questions. Changes in the economy and at work, technological developments, artificial intelligence, the redefinition of individual and social rights at the international level constitute a “society in evolutionary transition,” as the two Frenchmen described.

Returning to ancient Athens, Aristophanes is desperately looking for an ideal state. In The Hens, Peistetiros and Evelpides are looking for her in the sky; in The Frogs, the god Dionysus and his slave Xanthus are looking for a poet to glorify the ideal society in the Underworld. Poetic discourse gives impetus to the wings of the imagination, creating a utopian state. Can the current Greek political scene and intellectuals understand the developments that generate new ideas in response to being trapped in dystopian polarizations?