Greeks are tossing Molotov cocktails again, after a brief Christmas break. The fatal shooting of a teenager by police early in December was the catalyst for protest marches and violence in several Greek cities. Mobs burned cars (Reuters photo), pummeled police with stones, looted and vandalized stores, and left debris and graffiti in their wake. It’s sobering to realize that the Greeks–who gave western civilization democracy, ethics, justice, drama, and music (the very word derived from “muse”)–are exhibiting such uncivilized behavior. Have they forgotten their history?

Oh, I know their more recent history is full of unpleasantness. Led by a succession of inept monarchs, corrupt politicians, and a military junta, Greeks have endured centuries of war, occupation, and poverty. But they really turned things around with those 2004 Summer Olympic Games, huh?  Twelve billion dollars worth of stadia, some within a stone’s throw of the original olympic stadium! I remember those TV images of smiling young Greeks, proud to welcome the world to Athens and to proclaim the glory that was Greece had been restored.

But two weeks of fun and games notwithstanding, it appears that rather than the glory that was Greece, the historic period being relived in these times is the decline of their civilization:  “The Greeks . . . had fallen into a most pitiable condition,” writes Phillip Van Ness Myers. “Public and private virtue had almost disappeared. The land was filled with bandits . . . . The historian Polybius seems at a loss to find words to express his indignation at the foolish and wicked conduct of his fellow-countrymen, and evidently is in utter despair of them ever coming to behave in a reasonable manner.”  His despair was well-founded, because once civilizations begin to slide, they don’t recover.

Like organisms, civilizations grow, mature, reach the peak of their powers, and then decline, oxidize, as their telomeres or their Molotov cocktails burn. Classical Greek civilization is dead and buried. Today’s Greeks are a part of modern Western Civilization, as are we Americans. When Greeks riot over the death of a young man, it is not the end of our civilization. But when protests and disturbances spread to other European countries, as they have, that is noteworthy, another indication that this organism is in decline. It appears that people are joining in the civil disobedience not only because one man has died, but because many are out of work, and because food and other necessities cost more, and because people are despairing about their futures.

Many people feel the same on this continent. When “public and private virtue” gives way to “foolish and wicked conduct,” can it be long before the land is “filled with bandits”? The misconduct of financiers, enabled by politicians and a population that secumbed to debt slavery, has brought our economy to the brink of disaster. People facing disaster cannot be counted on to “behave in a reasonable manner.”

That’s today’s lesson from the Greeks. And the Romans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Mayans, Chinese, and all the other civilizations before ours. Once they started to slide, they didn’t recover. Before they knew it, there was nothing much left but ruins and souvenir stands. So what I want to know is, how long before the first busload of tourists from the next civilization arrives to wander through the ruins and buy cheap souvenirs of this one?