Why Do Greeks Complain So Much?

The intermission Show. Some old-school Greek entertainment.

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Welcome to the halftime show.

ELTA and USPS are in the locker room.

The score:

ELTA 1 — USPS 0

And while the players regroup, we need some live entertainment.

Fortunately, we have Greeks.

Greeks require very little encouragement to provide live entertainment.

All you need is:

A few chairs.

Coffee.

Two or more opinions.

And something—anything—to complain about.

Which brings me back to that roomful of Greeks at the Kalamata post office.

Remember them?

While I waited for my number to be called, the room had gradually turned into an unofficial parliamentary committee discussing the wait, the staffing, the government, and probably several other national emergencies I couldn’t hear from my chair.

At the time, I thought it was simply funny.

Later, I started wondering:

Why do Greeks complain so damn much?

Is it something new?

Did the financial crisis do it to us?

Was it the euro?

Maybe we were happier with the drachma.

Although anyone old enough to remember the drachma will immediately begin another argument.

“Everything was cheaper then.”

“Yes, but we earned 42,000 drachmas a month.”

“You don’t understand economics.”

“And you do?”

Coffee?

Sit down.

We may be here awhile.

Maybe it’s politics.

Maybe bureaucracy.

Taxes.

The municipality.

The electric company.

The government employee who sends you from Window 3 to Window 7, where you discover that Window 7 is closed on Tuesdays.

There is certainly no shortage of material.

And the financial crisis gave us enough to last several generations.

But there’s a problem with blaming 2008.

We were complaining long before 2008.

I know.

I was there.

We complained before the euro.

We complained after the euro.

And for years afterward, we continued converting euros back into drachmas solely to prove how outrageous prices had become.

“Three euros for a coffee?”

Pause for mental calculation.

“That’s more than a thousand drachmas!”

OUTRAGE.

The drachma may have disappeared from circulation, but it remained spiritually available whenever required for an argument.

So I went farther back.

Much farther.

There is an ancient Greek word:

ἀγών (agōn)
Contest

We usually think of it as competition.

But in ancient Greek culture, the contest could also be verbal.

Two sides.

Opposing positions.

Argument.

Challenge.

Debate.

Public argument had a real place in Greek civic life—in the Assembly, the courts, literature, and philosophy.

Now, I am not suggesting that the gentleman complaining about his electricity bill in Kalamata is carrying on an uninterrupted intellectual tradition inherited directly from Socrates.

He may simply be pissed off about his electricity bill.

But still…

The resemblance is irresistible.

The Agora became the:

πλατεία (plateia)
Town square

The symposium got an espresso machine.

And the agōn never really left.

Imagine Socrates without Facebook.

No X.

No comment section.

If he wanted to tell someone he was completely wrong, he had to find him in person.

Plato couldn’t stay home and post:

YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT SOCRATES SAID TODAY!!!

He had to go out.

Meet people.

Talk.

Argue.

Listen.

Disagree.

Perhaps Western philosophy began when one Greek said:

“This is ridiculous.”

And another answered:

“Ridiculous? You haven’t heard anything yet.”

Of course, modern Greece has added plenty of fresh material.

Bureaucracy.

Politics.

The euro.

Football.

The weather.

The neighbors.

And food.

Especially food.

The tomatoes used to taste better.

Nobody makes proper bread anymore.

That restaurant was better before the son took over.

The souvlaki is smaller.

The tzatziki needs garlic.

The other tzatziki has too much garlic.

And never casually announce who makes the best bougatsa unless you have cleared your afternoon.

But maybe what foreigners hear as complaining isn’t always negativity.

Maybe it’s participation.

Picture five Greeks having coffee at a:

καφενείο (kafeneio)
Traditional coffeehouse

Someone asks:

Τι κάνεις; (ti kaneis?)
How are you?

You answer:

Όλα καλά (ola kala)
Everything is fine

Wonderful.

Sip coffee.

Now what?

You’ve killed the conversation.

But lean forward and say:

Άστα να πάνε (asta na pane)
Forget about it

Or better:

Όλα είναι σκατά (ola einai skata)
Everything is shit

Now we have something.

Chairs move closer.

Someone at the next table turns around.

A man who hasn’t said a word for twenty minutes suddenly remembers that his cousin had exactly the same problem in 1994.

“What happened?”

“Who did that?”

“What did you tell him?”

“No, no, no. Listen to me.”

And just like that, your problem belongs to the table.

Problem with the municipality?

Someone knows someone.

Roof leaking?

Someone’s brother is a contractor.

Package disappeared?

Someone’s cousin once mailed something to Germany.

Mother-in-law?

Okay.

Some problems even Greeks cannot solve.

But we’ll still have opinions.

This may explain why a table of Greeks can sound as though civil war is about to break out, yet twenty minutes later everyone is ordering another round of coffees.

Nobody is leaving.

Why would they?

They’re having a perfectly nice time.

There is, however, one important rule foreigners should understand.

A Greek can spend three hours explaining everything wrong with Greece.

The government is useless.

Nothing works.

The roads are terrible.

The bureaucracy is impossible.

The country is finished.

Then a foreigner nods.

“Yes. Greece really is a mess.”

Silence.

Heads turn.

Easy there, Socrates!

We can complain about Greece.

You’re still on probation.

And maybe that’s the real point.