>> Ioanna:
Good evening everyone and thank you for the warm welcome.  

That started actually in less than thirty seconds in my case, 

Ever since I stepped my foot here on the campus.
  
So, I have to say though he is an arm-twister, and like we said with Dean Lanham, we still are feeling our arms.  

Because we started like, oh I have this, let me say my side of the story in the making a few months ago, because he is repeating ever since the 30 second line, that is good, but it is not the full story.  

So there he was, he presented me the first symposium last years of Egypt, and he said, 'Oh that was wonderful, and a big success and I thought what's next, is Ancient Greece?' 

And he said, you know, the line, Futuristic Look Through Ancient Lenses, and I said,' Oh! that's interesting, a nice fresh perspective and he's a technology professor, and I have a soft spot for people who acquire technology and all that from humanities because I love minds and I love well structured minds.'

Like ancient Greece, as I will say in a while.  

And we started discussing this a little bit, well how can we support them, of course we will support that, everything we can do, you have a very good idea, and after a certain point it became, are you coming to say something and I said yeah if my schedule permits, la, la, la, because it is a three hours drive, and it's not that easy, and then one thing led to the other, and I found myself having two speeches, forty minutes each which which is like to kill a diplomat.  

I mean if you want to really to kill me you ask me to do that, in an audience of professors and experts.  

So, it was our art, the exact opposite, it is how to speak briefly, not to tire the audience, say everything we want in one or two phrases, and end with it,  

Our rule is in our line of work, the more you talk, the more things you don't want to say.  

So, there we are and then we have, I was thinking, how can one do that in two parts, without overlapping, being a non-expert, talking to experts.  

That's a hard dilemma, for sure.  

Plus he gave me the kind of framework of the subject, which I will read it to you and you tell me.  

“A 21st Century Look at Ancient Greece: Quest for Truth, Meaning, Knowledge, and Wisdom, And It's Effects on Subsequent Human Civilization” 

That's as vast as the creation of the world.  

We start with Genesis.  

There were cows.  

So, let's try and see how we'll do that in two parts, so that nobody gets bored, plus, some of you feel tempted to come tomorrow as well.  

That's all [unclear dialogue] diplomats, now.  

To start with, let's start with the picture, this is a wonderful, actually it is a wonderful program you created here, and we have we, as consulate, we have nothing to do with that, it's all the University's doing. 

And I want deeply to thank you for this invitation and for holding this symposium here on Ancient Greece, because it gives us a rare opportunity to discuss the essence of the Greek and of our civilization and not be, you know, like, trapped in the current snapshots that sometimes can be misleading, or almost all the times.  

So, this is a picture, fascinating for every tourist I guess from what I hear, and fascinating for us Greeks as well.  

So the difference like I was saying to some people earlier is that my view of this is different than yours in one respect.  

That it is like my mother tuaght.  

I don't have the first impression of this picture.  

It is with me, ever since I was born.  

I was born in Athens.  

So it is like Greek to me, or English to you.  

I mean you come to remember when you started hearing this language and understanding this language, that is a big difference amongst us. 

And the other thing, that is so, to start with, I am biased, so whatever I say on ancient Greece and the way it affected civilization, and the way we can look at it, standing here on 2012, of course, it is biased.  

And the other thing is that I could finish my presentation by stating what some people mentioned to me here earlier.  

It's the basis of all civilization ever since.  

And no argument and then the floor is open to Q and A's.

I am sure we will find ways to support this argument, and it will be a little bit like a hero, the father, in that very popular like ten to fifteen years ago, the movie that was actually shot here in Chicago, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where probably some of you have seen it, younger people maybe not, but you can find it on YouTube, so the father of the Greek American immigrant was stating every other moment that all words derived from Greek.  

And he was trying to prove his case, sometimes successfully; sometimes he was funny.  

And I thought maybe that's all I need to do, and then I said, if I go with that statement, I am immediately betraying the substance of the Ancient Greek civilization, lets say of Ancient Greece, let's not use the word civilization for a little while.  

Because what's the core element of civilization?  

It didn't appear like that one day.  

Of course, it was a step further on steps that have been made before.  

Other civilizations, but other also expressions, and intellectual products in Greece.  

And so the core element of this, and the moment of flourishing was actually Athens, in the classical period, because whenever we talk ancient Greece, of course there's a whole, but what we mostly mean, and all the examples that we present, most of them come from Athens, and the classical period.  

Why is that?  

Because at that point in time, which is a short point in time for history, you had great minds all concentrated in one town, working together, and working on what?  

Thinking about the thought. 

Thinking about how we reach awareness and understanding and that's the miracle of that civilization.  

And actually up until two days ago, I believed that that's a unique thing, it never happened again.  

And then, like it was mentioned, I was two days ago, in St. Louis, at the St. Louis "SLEW" University, like the people there call it, to visit in archaeology with a very prominent archeologist we have there, a great guy, and I had the chance to follow the lecture of a professor from Cambridge UK, talking about ancient Greek, Plato, Aristotle, and the neurons, if you are familiar with neurons, it was really technical, but fascinating, and he mentioned this, professor mentioned this, he said, the same thing happened in history, once again, what happened in classical Athens, and that was Vienna, at the turning of the, at the end of the 19th century.  

Vienna [unclear dialogue] a small town had big minds, all there working to the same direction.  

It was a second time that happened, still we don't really have this so much in our mind, because in Athens it was the first time, first times always count, and it was unique at that point of human history and development of human thought, and this is something for us to consider and try and approach, I won't say analyze, analyze is too much, and so we can start from the general acceptance that the Greek civilization has based, has formed the basis of what we call of course, "western civilization". 

This civilization we are in and that actually includes the arts, science, but also the organizing of our political system as well.  

And the thing is, that it was based like I said in discovering the way we think, the way we capture and we understand the world. 

One good thing to say, going to the subject we have, we are in front of the first word, the quest for truth.  

And we can find a very prominent example that everybody will know, [unclear dialogue], the hero of the tragedy; he is the personification of the absolute quest for truth, at a very high personal cost.  

His quest for truth drove him to his personal misery, and blindness as a punishment for his quest for truth. 

Regardless, he was never sorry he pursued this way. 

If we look at [unclear dialogue] we might say that this is the spirit of ancient Greece, the quest for truth, but the thing is then, what is truth? 

Because we need to define.  

We always talk about we use words that every, we think they are very well known, but we never stop a little bit, step aside, and see what we really mean.  

So definitions are important.  

My thought is though so, in order to approach this vast, the creation of the world subject I was given, to by my friend Wafeek, so to say, lets have it in three parts.  

You won't hear all three parts tonight.  

Don't you worry.  

First thing is the definition.  

You will see what we are talking about.  

The second thing is to see what the subsequent effect on the subsequent human civilization, what we really mean by that, and the third part is how we look back to this, from the stand point we are, the 21st century and the current situation we are in.  

And I will concentrate more on the first part tonight to see how we define things.  

We started by saying already, what do we mean by ancient greece, we mean the peak of the civilization that was actually happened in the classical period of Athens.  

What is truth?  

We said it is the quest for truth.  

Truth is actually the property, according to the dictionary, of being in accord with fact, or reality.  

Meaning, it is the logical connotation of the word or a phrase, knowledge is the fact or condition of being aware of something and wisdom is an accumulated philosophic, or scientific learning.  

So somehow these four words, by their definition, they are interconnected and complimentary.  

We are looking let's say ancient Greece, and they [unclear dialogue] for something, that is in accord with fact, that is truth, has a logical connotation, we want to have awareness of it, that is understand it, and through this accumulated awareness, reach wisdom.  

So, we could say that our itinerary leads to the Greek quest for wisdom. 

And in a way this is true.  

This quest for wisdom has been the core element of the Greek civilization, and the classic works that made them actually rather unique, at least in Europe, because we have to go back at the moment they appeared on the face of the earth, they focused on the individual, and the individuals' quest.  

You can see that on every expression, be that literature, that's where you have theatre, you have tragedy and comedy, they brought on the forefront individuals and characters, and the ancient Greeks started not only thinking about the way of thinking and how you acquire, your awareness, the mechanics of that process but they went even beyond what we might call the a kind of an artificial divide now, the mind, and emotion.  

Because they covered both looking into the individuals, they were even trying to see the emotional side of the individuals because this is also understanding, knowledge, and wisdom.  

They didn't see the divide that we needed to do afterwards, in order to deepen into our knowledge, and actually, they reached the point of maturity that it is repeated also afterwards by intellectuals that the only thing you know the start of knowledge is the acceptance that you know nothing.  

That is at least what Plato tells us.  

That Socrates belief was that we don't have a primary source there and it's the famous Greek word, that is probably the only Greek word you will hear from me tonight, [unclear dialogue} which means the only thing I know, is that I know nothing.  

And that's the point for an individual to start the quest for the truth and knowledge.  

That means know the conditions, know ideas before that. 

That is why I propose let's start by defining what we are talking about, so that we are sure that we talk about the same things.  

And this is the only was of reaching understanding. 

Like I said though, what is important also, was that they went beyond science. 

Up until that point, mostly and the experts should forgive me if I am mistaken here, there was of course, and a quest and struggle of several civilizations, Greek included, to understand and explain the world.  

That could be through the myths; that could be through the scientific events, but the first, and there were also descriptions of emotions. 

Commerce works are full of descriptions of emotions and these are the reactions.  

But in classical Athens where it is the point where people ask themselves, they try to go deep into human souls and see why things happens, and in this quest, they made a very interesting passage.  

They connected truth and beauty, and that is obvious in all works in literature and architecture, and painting, and sculpture. 

Because in there they made the connection that we see again and, I mean, that's also one of my inspirations of a lecture I referred to two days ago, and I totally forgotten that there is a [00:18:20.00] [unclear dialogue] a famous poet, [unclear dialogue] even the title is rightful so, and there he says, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty. 

That is all you know on earth, and all you need to know." 

Ancient Greece made this connection on this passage, and this is probably what makes it so admired by everyone.  

Harmony and Beauty were always present along with the quest for truth and the scientific problems.  

And that's what I already mentioned shows that Greece, ancient Greece was present ever since ancient civilization.  

Just by itself, it is not unique, it, there is nothing is born out of nothing.  

We stand on what has been done before us.  

Normally progress comes with really small steps we are not aware of and we are reaching further point and further point in time.  

So of course ancient Greece was founded on what had already been done. 

And on the influence it had from several meetings with other civilizations it had all around the Mediterranean, but they made these wonderful maps to start with, and it was so big and important that was kept in the impression of people and it was a point of reference of several civilization.  

In the way, ancient Greece, the production, the literal production is something you find in front of your on every stage, in famous works, on every part of arts, in the science, even in today's science. 

I go back to this lecture, I quote this professor a lot, for tonight, because he made the parallel, you know, he went on the debate of Plato and Aristotle, so whether we have the ideas when we are born, or we are [unclear dialogue] we start from scratch [unclear dialogue] awareness and actually he presented a very good case with the theory of neurons and how we react to between our brain getting our information and us getting aware of it, and he found a place for both of them, so his main argument was they are both right, even by today's science findings, but they were both of them referring at different stage of acquiring knowledge.  

It is a little bit like if you are in Greece, and I guess maybe Egypt, but I am talking about Greece today, and every step you make, you find something from the ancient past. 

 You find a ruin.  

We have a saying in Greece, if you dig, you will find a relic from the past at any point.  

It is like this one, you know, but you can see this picture from very crowded streets in Athens with sometimes ugly buildings, and you can step on it while you are in [unclear dialogue] and suddenly you raise your head, and you see that.  

That's the thing also with Greek civilization. 

It finds itself on every step we make, because it influenced a lot, so my theory would be that there is a very concrete influence of ancient Greece as we described it though, I mean the core elements of Greece, on all civilization and I can give you a short review, lets say what's happening tonight that is important for the US.  

It's the first presidential debate, and yet you are all here.  

I really appreciate that.  

So, what's the root of this debate?  

It's the dialectic thoughts and the dialogue that was established in Greece. 

It was presenting arguments on the case and the person who would make the better case would win, actually regardless of the substance of the case.  

Because what is important is the way you present your case, and this is pure logic.  

So, I think that this is the preview for the subsequent civilization, and I owe you [unclear dialogue] before I open up the floor to Q & A's to the way we can see ancient Greece from 21st century standing from here.  

I would say that what we just said about the truth and how we acquire knowledge, which means the quality of a persons' mind, and the quality of a person's mind is actually equals the person who was the most important mind and maybe this is something to consider today from the 21st century, where sometimes we have different priorities or we think we have.  

So I think that will be all for tonight.  

Otherwise nobody will be here tomorrow.  

The floor is yours.
[applause]

[00:24:09.10]

It's the first time people want to share [unclear dialogue]

>> Attendee:
So as a mathematician I appreciate the paradoxes that were introduced by great mathematicians and philosophers, like Zenos paradox, for example which later could be resolved because people were able to sum infinite series.

I could say it a little deeper than that, so in your profession, as diplomat, you are dealing with unresolved issues all the time.  

So, how do you view the, in terms of history, the idea of resolution of Greek Paradoxes as they have come, and then how that, as part of your culture, how does that influence you as a diplomat, in terms of seemingly paradoxical situations you have to deal with perhaps on a regular basis.  

>> Ioanna:
Well, that was a tougher question than what I expected. 

I [unclear dialogue] ancient Greece so I could say I am not an expert, I have an answer for you, but you can ask the experts in the room.  

Well, that's true.  

Well, we have to say that the ancient world, ancient Greece had the culture in solving paradoxes through dialogue.  

At least, that's what we know about that.  

And we kind of believe it because it is on every work that has come up on all these days.  

So, what was the key of that?  

It was the that you had the society where logic was prevailing, and they were sharing this common value.  

Plus you had the society where there was a very clear distinction between right and wrong, law and respect for the law, and a certain consensus of how the state perceived the state back then has to be ruled and a code of honor, let's say, that everybody would follow.  

We just got done with a discussion of Socrates of what we know, preferred to die in order to respect the court ruling though he believed it was deeply wrong, and unjust.  

And I received this, there was a story, they had a voting system, and when he, there was a vote for him to be ostracized, to be kicked out of Athens, to be exiled, he stepped on the guy who didn't know how, which vote to cast, and he asked for his help, and the vote this person wanted to cast was a vote against [unclear dialogue] and he could cheat and we I mean many names comes to our minds that would cheat in such a situation, and but he preferred to do the right thing, and he got ostracized.  

So it is a code of honor and decency that was kind of common understanding and acceptance.  

You make this environment to be able to solve paradoxes with pure logical process, so to us diplomats or you faculty, meet in our job, no, it would be a lie to say we are faced all the time with that.  

But what is true to say is that if we want to be good in our work, we need to try and create such an environment, so what is our job?  

Our job is to [unclear dialogue] things. 

And I don't think it is easy to describe in a way.  

That is why people on the street say, what are you actually doing for a living?  

You can't say, "I am building something" "I am creating something."  But a big part of our job is communicating with others. 

And that is what negotiations are all about, communicating with other people, when you negotiate. 

So, if you want to be successful in the core of our job, you need to be able to see through the issues at stake on the purely logical way, and try and deconstruct them, so that you know how to move and how to address the other party. 

The good thing in this job is, if you do that with counter-diplomats, they have the same technique so in a way we can kind of recreate this environment where you can talk logic, the thing is of course, that now this leaves the room, and goes out into real life to be implemented, now that a big story.  

>>
So I just have an, I don't think it, it's kind of dangerous, observations are always dangerous, right, because they are your own, and so you put yourself in a position when you do that.

I have some family who is Greek and I also have visited and have friends who are Greek, so I am going to try not to make over generalizations. 

Having said that, it has been my experience, and my observation that from the beginning, whatever you want to call that, even early Greek bronze age, there's this notion of individual excellence, without pressure for other people to necessarily bite into, or be pressured into conformity with their way of thought, which is in some ways how this, how you think about thinking develops, because it is your own thought process, right?  

And so for me, I see pre-, if you want to call it, classical Greek society and then through the classical period, more organic in its development over time.  

And so I wonder then having been to Greece and having spent a little time there, my question then for you is as a diplomat, when the European Union sort of came into being, what would you say was one of the greater challenges for you as a diplomat and for those people who you represent, in your thinking about some of the other countries in the European Union and their rigidity to rules, and conformity to specific ways to thought, and how you, what you had to do, or how you managed to bridge that and become a part of the EU successfully. 

 It is really a roundabout question.

>> Ioanna:
You scared me with introductions. 

But it is good when you start introducing something like, "I don't know if this is dangerous" and then whatever you get after that is far better than you anticipate. 

So to start with I think we will make observations since we talk about ancient Greece and you rightfully mentioned about the Bronze Age, and you know, prior to classical era, yeah, you are right, it was [unclear dialogue] individual. 

But, the way it was focused on the individual, and the way the individual was progressively liberated, is pretty obvious if you check the sculptures, if you see the sculpture of the [unclear dialogue] where they won't even move, their hands, yes, they were very rigid without, yes one leg was proceeding, and the hands were right on the side and everything, and then you see how this is liberated, and how you have movement and freedom in the classical era, that tells you how ancient Greece evolved in this period and how it speak the era where freedom grace and beauty were both present in one compilation. 

I am closing the [unclear dialogue] I am not avoiding the subject. 

So, going to the EU question, for me and for diplomats of my generation, I joined the service in late '92.

That was a given.

Greece is a full-fledged member of the European Union ever since ‘81. 

So, we had already the culture of working together and what I can tell you is, and this is true. 

I know it sounds like the good talk of diplomats amongst them, but it is true that we have either several layers of the cooperation among the European Union countries, even with the, and especially with the foreign services.  

It comes natural to ask to have a double layer film of Portugal to always represent your own country and your own national interests is a given, but at the same time, you are also a European representative, since there is a lot of common values and common achievements that we befriend together and so in this respect I can tell you it was not difficult at all.  

What you need to do of course, to face, and this is with the joint diplomatic service because ever since Lisbon traded, this is mumbo jumbo now with the diplomats of 2010, European Union has 33 [unclear dialogue] up and running and [unclear dialogue] foreign service, that means that you have unions representation in Europeans Union, there is one in Washington DC where you have diplomats from several different states, all of them working in the union representing the union.  

Of course, if you work with people from different countries, there is always a difference of culture, mindset, and the work system that you have to overcome, but this isn't what you are doing here with international students or visiting professors or professors coming from another country.  

I give you this, one of the best things about this job is the fact that you expose yourself to different countries, to different mentalities and ways of life, not as a tourist, not as a visitor, but as a person who comes and lives for three or four years in this country, and that means that you develop broader concepts to work with people that are different.  

Actually different is not new to us. 

It's welcome.  

I know its really good answer, but its true. 


>> 
I surely appreciate all of your information about ancient Greece, which is of interest to everyone here; however, there's also great interest in current Greece.  

A Country that seems to be leading the European Union in the wrong direction, because of high unemployment of 27%, that's the most recent number I know, the decline of the GDP of 13% projected, well, two bail-outs from the IMF and the European Central Bank, and other bailout depending on you folks, I can go on with some further [unclear dialogue] surely the subject of this ancient Greece, but would you want to touch on current Greece.  

>> Ioanna:
Yeah, Sure.  

So, to bridge it with the subject, and help it a little bit, I would say, like I said, Ancient Greece, is actually present, since we are talking about a country where it is the same geography, it speaks the same language, and plays amongst, it's the same country, continuity has something to do with the way you handle the present. 

That's also a preview of tomorrow.  

But I'll tell you this. 

The economic crisis the last three years, is the way that Europe and mainly the south of Europe is portrayed in the media.  

I, everybody understands the reason although sometimes there were some, there was some press coverage that didn't do justice to what was really happening, but we all understand how those things works. 

I would say this though. 

The countries of the south and of course Greece, as well, since this is the question you have, I am not portrayed as out of the economic crisis, in fact, you could see this as if you take one moment of somebody's movie, let's say we would have here videotape.  

If we stop it on a snapshot, you can see amazing expressions on face or whatever you want.  

This is what happens if you say oh, what is happening in these two or three years.  

I don't to diminish the effect of the crisis.  

The crisis is severe, and it is European.  

It's a European issue.  

Why I am saying that, we were just discussing about European Union, European Union is a whole. 

That means that you decide on the seventeen if you talk about the European [unclear dialogue] if you talk about the union, that means that every problem that is faced by one two, three, now, four or five countries, it has to be saved [unclear dialogue] maybe that's a way that is not totally understood on the other side of the planet, we always know there is a thing, how do you do a thing in Brussels, plus maybe it's not the way what we call the markets would want it to be. 

But what I can tell you is this, of course it has taken it's toll on our countries in the south actually I don't know whose higher unemployment I think Spain is still, but there is no competition there. 

This is not the field we want to compete, but what I am saying is this: it's, the reason we started the program for the last three years, you mentioned bailout I will say yeah, that's a way to present it, but its actually loans with interest rates because sometimes when people hear bailout, they think it is grants, it is no grant.  

It is money, borrowed money, loans with interest rates higher than the rate that the countries that borrow money lend us back, so there is a profit there.  

But that is business.  

I am not saying that in a negative way, I am saying that is how business works, ok?  

And what I am saying is that there is, the first thing to do in economic crisis when there is debt, is you do the quick fix first.  

What is the quick fix?  

It is to cut down the deficit. 

And this is tha shows immediate results and I can tell you that actually when I think about Greece, Greece has achieved the biggest cuts on budget deficit ever that ever happened in a country in this past three years. 

And actually in August already, there was a primary surplus but of course this is never enough. 

You can never go on with caps all the way.  

So, the other thing is that, the other thing that helps are the structural reforms, what we call the structural reforms so that you regenerate the economy.  

And this structural reforms have this thing, they don't show results immediately, like budget cuts, it takes time. 

Well the good news is that we are three years after the beginning of the crisis, that means that the first of the reforms start showing results, and so, the big debt now is that you can at the same time, regenerate the economy so that the people can also see the difference and you can take the other trend now, the trend of going out of the crisis.  

What we can though repeat and connect with the subject of this symposium is that Greece has faced, like every country; we are not alone in that, several crisis in history.  

Three years in history is a very short time, for people, it is a big time, I know that.  

I know that. 

But what I am saying is this, Europe, Greece and Europe has been faced with really, really bad crisis as we all know in this room.  

So, I'm convinced that this will be a crisis to be overcome pretty soon.  

>> Attendee:
We hope so.
[Applause]

>> Dean Lanham:
Anyone else? 

Question, comments, concerns.  

I think you answered so well.  

Thank you so much, and you have just encouraged us to join you in the morning at ten o'clock in the 4440 upstairs in the third floor here in the library.  

And we will bring this story forward as it is.  

Thank you so much. 

>> Ioanna:
Thank you. 

[applause]

>> Dean Lanham:
Well, this concludes our evening, you are welcome to stay and talk, ask more questions, there are still refreshments, baklava and other things in the lobby, please feel free to stop by there and make new friends.  

We will see you at other occasions in the series and thank you so much.