Greek university students study in miserable buildings. Most of them are bad by design. It is not only that they are of no architectural interest, but that they resemble a combination of poorly digested modernism with strong doses of neo-brutalism and socialist architecture. These buildings were not beautiful even on the day they were opened, but the consequences are even worse. On the one hand, the rejection of them by those who should take care of them, on the other hand, the indifference of those who use them makes them uglier every day.

Stupidity is added to the ugliness. Their walls are a patchwork of cheesy graffiti, obscure slogans, tattered posters, tattered banners, dirt and bad taste. What else, if not stupidity, is this frenzied rivalry between those who dirty the building in different ways, when their efforts make no sense, but contribute to a huge stain?

This is such a terrible sight that to a foreign visitor these buildings appear abandoned and destroyed. But the saddest thing is different: to see how young people come in and out of this misfortune, taking it for granted, eternal and unchanging. Squalor, which also has a class dimension, because it will be the only contact with the university of young people who have left the public school (usually the same ugliness of the building); while for the most privileged it will be a little shocking break between a well-kept private school and a foreign (any foreign) university institution where they will continue their studies. Not even that. Every year there are more and more families who will send their children abroad to educational institutions that resemble universities, rather than gigantic, disgusting slums.

I don’t know of a single example of students reacting strongly to this dystopian landscape. They accept it, assimilate it, get used to it, even go so far as to adapt to it, identify themselves with it, defend it politically. But here it has been fully embraced by faculty and staff who have worked in these places for decades. An analogue of the Stockholm syndrome is the tacit acceptance by everyone (and society as a whole) of the ugliness of Greek universities. I call it the Athenian Syndrome because you will see the worst cases in the buildings of NTUA, EKPA, Pantheon and even the School of Fine Arts.

I visited universities on 4 different continents (Europe, America, Asia, Africa). Nowhere in the world, even in the poorest countries on the planet, I have not seen anything like it or even close. You will tell me that you have heard it so many times that you are tired of it. Exactly. We know it, we see it, we accept it, we do nothing to change it, even when we hate it. This is the Athens Syndrome.

* Mr. Aristides Hatzis is Professor of Philosophy of Law and Theory of Institutions in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His Department has just purchased a beautiful new office building on campus that opened on Monday. It is absolutely known what will happen to this building in the coming days.