Girlwithoutawatch

New York Times: Why Our Monuments Matter

Nikos Konstandaras
ATHENS —
“It was only natural that the Acropolis inspired some introspection in Freud. His whole frame of reference, like the tale of Oedipus, was ancient Greece and its myths, archetypes and tragedies. As he himself liked to observe, Freud excavated like an archaeologist through layers of consciousness, pursuing the secrets of the mind; he changed the way we see ourselves. Face to face with the marble evidence of the ancient world, he looked back into himself….”

“….The great dislocation of our time indicates just how frail our monuments, our books, our thoughts and principles can be. Still, they exist — and they are our guide and our shield. But if our symbols are lost, we will be no better than ignorant armies riding pickup trucks through the endless dust, where canals, dried and gone, once made the desert bloom.”

[Nikos Konstandaras is the managing editor and a columnist at the newspaper Kathimerini.]