Let me first wish every mother in the world a warm and wonderful Happy Mother’s Day. Without mothers there would be no children of the world to mess up everything their mothers worked so hard to achieve.
A perfect example of this is the current situation in Greece and Europe, the birthplace of western civilization. Looking back upon history we find the mothers of ancient Greece gave their children the concept of equality among rights and responsibilities, a set of principles known as democracy.
Further, these same mothers bestowed upon their children the thirst for knowledge, the desire to place thought into coherent patterns, and to propose theories regarding the meaning of life, a set of ideas known as philosophy.
Not wanting their children to rely upon only their mental assets these same mothers encouraged them to participate in activities to develop physical strength, endurance and flexibility, and to compete with each other in games near Mount Olympus.
In discussing these accomplishments of ancient Greek mothers while eating our Mother’s Day brunch at a non-Greek owned restaurant my brother reminded me they also gave us wrestling in the nude. Actually all the athletes of the first Olympic games were naked. Rather than some fear of a Janet Jackson type wardrobe malfunction the early sponsors of the games realized clothing limited the performance of the athlete.
Unfortunately, the children of Modern Greek mothers failed to apply this same understanding of performance to the twenty first century economic practice of borrowing enough money from a bank to build a business and reimbursing the bank in an expeditious manner.
To make matters worse Greece joined fifteen other countries with the same currency to form an organization known as the European Union. Their mothers warned them to make this idea of a common currency work they would need to set up some stringent rules regarding loans, pay back schedules, and strong investments. Following their mothers’ advice they wrote out a plan for limiting borrowing to a small percentage of the total economy.
Since each of the countries had their own finance minister there was no way to regulate the policy and overindulgent children of astute mothers of Greece found ways to borrow incessantly until the country found itself on the doorstep of financial collapse. In an effort to save their currency countries in the EU with fiscal resources were forced to step in and help this birthplace of democracy.
Still, a psychological and linguistic nightmare arose this week from the turmoil of this financial and economic crisis. While not a classically trained linguist as a student of the English language I still remember my teachers telling us ain’t ain’t a word. When pressed for a reason not to use such a common term they told us it was slang or figurative language. Amazingly, the British, parents of our language who are unable to choose a head of government, but that’s a story for another time, and their EU partners fear the spread of a Greek contagion. As a figure of speech a contagion is the spread of a harmful idea or practice, but as a psychological phenomenon it is not the spread of the practice but rather the result, financial collapse, that worries EU members.
Across the pond in the U.S. some worry we may have borrowed too much and could be infected by the contagion. Chances are we ain’t got nothin’ to worry about if we listen to our mothers and pay back our loans we can wash our hands of this contagion.
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