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.'.:::::::`. Petros Katiforis (Πέτρος Κατηφόρης)
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; | C ..\ Feel free to contact me! <pkatif@mail.com>
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\ | / \ This post was published on the 20th of February, 2024
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Being born and still growing up in Greece, I've come to realize that society is built with mechanisms that preserve status and hierarchy, despite everything that is propagandized on the media. It seems like most people out there have a predefined destiny that is solely manufactured based on their family's economic state and power. I've been recently experimenting by taking a closer look at the biographies of my country's politicians and I've concluded that their positions of power were decided long before they were born. Most, if not all, politicians in a Greek party of considerable support were educated in Western universities and they haven't toiled once during their life. Most were vested power and influence right after their private university graduation, proving once and for all that we've still got a long way towards meritocracy.
Middle class citizens can pay their way to a successful examination and enter a public university. Despite that, they rarely recognize their privilege and instead complain about the upper class having an advantage over them, as was recently demonstrated by the riots following the government's decision to allow the existence of private universities here in Greece. As for me, I was born in a prosperous suburb of Athens and that definitely contributed to my interest in computers which would have otherwise not been expressed if my family was struggling to make ends meet: such is the case for most people living in the downtown neighborhoods of the capital, or any other part of the country really.
I do understand that my country is traditionally drenched in corruption. People bribe doctors to get special treatment on our public hospitals (a special word has been invented for that phenomenon, that's how common it is!) and about half of middle class young adults bribe driver training schools to get a license in spite of them being a blatant danger to other people's lives and integrity! I'm afraid however that the same status-preserving reality is apparent in one degree or another in every part of the world, regardless of each country's history and structure. The descendants of some modern day US Presidents will themselves serve as Presidents. Elon Musk remained in the upper class that was inherited by his father while his black compatriots will remain wage-slaves.
All this might be too obvious, I know. Some people are greatly delusional however, thinking that they themselves have a chance of becoming billionaires. They might as well be able if they're lucky enough, but I'm certain that such a deed would require them to sacrifice their entire lives and go through much more pain and struggle, leaving only their kids as the true beneficiaries. Last year I read a book about an aspiring politician of Cyprus, who despite his humble origins decided it worthy to make an effort and start a political campaign. He was hampered and deterred by people of power. I'm going to finish with an enumeration of the origins of some the world's most powerful people:
I did not cherry pick these, I just searched whatever came first in my mind. Does that seem like a democracy to you? As if living in non-direct democracies wasn't enough, positions of power are inherited as if politicians were medieval monarchs!