Rubio’s speech in Athens is a sign of the cultural poverty of Greece

The effusive statements by various “international relations experts,” former military officers, and right-wing politicians (Georgiadis: “stunning,” “the greatest I’ve ever heard,” Mitsotakis: “impressive”) and commentators regarding Rubio’s speech at the Pnyx show just how far the country’s political and cultural life has fallen. His speech would warrant a rhetorical analysis if it weren’t so riddled with platitudes, clichés, and inaccuracies—so much so that it would barely earn a 4 if it had been submitted as an essay on the Panhellenic exams. The Spartans, Salamis, Socrates (and a few others) led the way to the West, to Western civilization, and ultimately to the United States as the “city on the hill.” Historical continuity, inexorable progress, and the drive forward had one purpose: the creation of the U.S. and Trump’s second term, which restored the country from decline to its rightful place—the all-powerful empire, which possesses the “largest” army, the “most powerful” weapons, and the will to wipe an “entire civilization” off the face of the earth. Rubio said nothing about equality, equal rights, or equal citizenship because they have no place in the values and virtues he advocates—individualism, competition, and individual risk. As for democracy, it is giving way to nationalism, attacks on the most vulnerable refugees and immigrants, and the pursuit of personal success.

And while extolling Western values, Rubio declares that “the postwar world order is being used against us… a foreign policy that serves core national interests cannot be replaced by the ‘liberal world order.’” But the Americans spearheaded the creation of this order, which from the outset was designed to serve their interests, and which they are now blatantly trampling on. In its place, Trump declares that the only limit to his global power is “my own morality.
My own mind… I don’t need international law.” This “law,” this “morality,” is a complete abandonment of the principles of the Enlightenment—the great achievement of the “West.” A West that was built on many religions and faiths, many races and cultures, scientists and philosophers from across the known world.

Where are the historians and intellectuals of Greek stature? Where are those versed in the mysteries of Hellenism, the devotees of the Enlightenment and universality? The Kantian centrists and the pro-European social democrats? The greatest hubris was not the exploitation of the Parthenon for Rubio’s political agenda (many Greeks have done the same, after all) nor the markets of the 21st century, but the barbarity of ignorance and childish ambition that debases civilization. Both our own and American culture—which is represented by neither Rubio nor Trump. They are the ones who have not made the transition from barbarism to civilization, nor from modernity to Hegel’s “end of history.”