State Crisis and Civil Consciousness in Greece

This is a sociological study of the self in modern Greece. Based upon a pilot study of social and political attitudes in Greece today, the study probes the sources of the moral self and of the internalized cosmological and ontological principles in Greece today, the types of social action they encourage, and the perception of the self, of civil society, and the type of the state they shape. The preliminary findings suggest that the Greek civil society is shaped by a distinct ‘civil religion’ that constitutes the cultural background of Greek secular life. This civil religion is strongly influenced by the Orthodox theology and religious practices that have decisively affected the various crystallizations of the four networks of social power (political, ideological, economic, and military) that constitute the Greek society in its various institutional formations.