An inside view on Greek academic life during the crisis.

One of my favorite monthly philosophical Zines, The Reasoner, has an interview with the distinguished Greek General Philosopher of Science, Stathis Psillos. It ranges widely, but Stathis' comments about the impact of the crisis on Greek academic life are very sobering, even moving: "Greece is in a terrible mess and no end of the crisis is in sight. The story is complex and interesting, but my own view—or the bottom line of it—is that in Greece we live through a massive attack on the welfare state as this was built and developed after the collapse of the military junta in 1974. The standards of living of the majority of the population—which, admittedly, rose over the last two decades but mostly due to really hard work—are being squeezed; unemployment is rising beyond control (especially among the youth) and at the same time (despite, or because of, the crazy austerity programmes) the economy has gone into a deep depression. There will be philosophical lessons to be drawn from what has now been happening in Greece, I am sure. The universities suffer no less. The budget has been slashed to the extent that there is a serious chance that there won’t be enough money to see the year through; there are about 800 young academics (and some talented philosophers among them) that have been elected to junior university posts but are not being appointed by the state; there is a lot of to-ing and froing concerning the promotion and the tenure cases of many university teachers; there will be huge reductions to the temporary sta that the universities employ to do teaching; the government is about to impose a massive reform of the structure of higher education, which might lead to mergers of universities and the closing down of departments as well as to the appointment of unelected governors to run the universities; most of the research funds (including EU funded projects) are frozen. There is a real danger that the Greek universities will be devalued and that a whole academic generation—and one with better education and research profile as a rule—will be lost for good. This is the setting (not to mention the cutbacks of about 15% of our annual salary with more to come) within which we are invited to do our academic job, to ‘intensify’ our research output and to create centres of excellence. Apart from any political action anyone sees fit, I believe that the Greek academics (and philosophers in particular) who have contributed to the advancement and the rising international standing of the Greek universities have an intellectual obligation to fight against this assault, by example and intellectual mobilization."