Accompanying an article by Georgia Papastamou on the subject of the omissions, provocations and outright factual errors found in Greek high-school textbooks. My free-form translation of a relevant part of the article:
On the chapter [of the book on Religious Studies, fifth year of high-school] on "Causes and consequences of atheism" there is the following quote "Nihilistic atheism by the nihilist philosopher Frederich Nietzsche, whom, inspired by Feuerbach and the philosopher of pessimism Schopenhauer [...] his last decade of life suffered from constant bouts of mental delusion [...] where in the scope of his philosophy of the Übermensch he loathes all the virtues of man because he thought of them as symbols of weakness [...] the point of his theory, that is, the Übermensch concept, would be monstrous if it ever were to be applied to our society. It is well known that it stood as the theoretical blueprint of Hitler's national-socialism."
That is, you see, the intro (and outro, as it were) to the works of one of the greatest minds to walk on earthly soil. As decreed important to be taught to impressionable minds by a body of state sanctioned professional educators.
More work follows.
On the subject of ways and methods to survive in a Greece that is downwards trajectory through the stages of bankruptcy, several street performers and vendors are profiled. Here is Alex, a Romanian expatriate who works as a mime in downtown Athens.
This, and the rest of the profile pieces are photo-trace work, to which I am not used to and don't generally condone but the issue was one of realism. Were I to abstract the figures or the environment, they might look more like archetypes of street performers and vendors, not specific individuals. And the focus is on the exact specific individuals. The color version of the above image was not used, so here's an A/B exclusive, if you will.
More within the pages of Plus magazine, and a good luck to us all.
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7 comments:
Wow. I can imagine a lazy journalist writing a similar summary about about Nietzsche and his philosophy here but to read that from the school books..
Years (or should I say centuries?)of idiocy gathered in school textbooks...On other news,it was a pleasant surprise yesterday when I caught by chance the magazine while I was downtown for a drink. I have to mention I recognised your illustration before seeing your signature! Excellent job!!! And of course, good luck...
Thank you, Vassiliki. Hopefully from the next issue my credit will revert to 'Helm' instead of my real name, heh.
Congratulations Helm. Though I find the whole nickname trickset rather blant and wrong, but well its one's choice to be made.
I owe a lot to this name. As much, or more perhaps, than I owe to my given name.
haha, last summer i was looking at the book of religious studies and read this quote. i couldn't forget the "innocent" way they were "analyzing" nietzsche's philosophy. Glad to hear someone talked about it. More glad to learn you made the illustration.
Oh, religious studies... How can i forget the teacher i had that believed in adam and eve, even if, as she said, they maybe were a little monkey-like(!!!!). Or how can i forget another teacher (almost sure she was virgin even if she was 30 or something) who said that all this sexuality our society is full of, will collapse one day. I guess her subconsious begged for this collapse.
Enough with my poison.
Good luck with the magazine, man. Hope you tell us more good news soon :)
It seems every school came with the 30 year old virgin religious studies teacher, I had one as well. She once threw a fit over philosophical foundations of atheism in class, and then proceeded to say how it was all 'the jews' fault' and how a semetic banker conspiracy was what was wrong with the world. Wait, wait, I am thinking of two seperate 30 year old virgin religious studies teachers (I switched highschools). The first one was more benign, seemed to fear every aspect of the world. The second was the anti-semite and she didn't take any shit. Thankfully I got dismissed from that class for the full year because I was openly not Christian.
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