why backwardness hurts

Starting from a comparison of mr. Marius Oprea between the Western and the Balkanic spirit, I was drawn into a review of the film "Zorba the Greek" which gave course to a disqueting mood. To begin with, i give you my translation of his words: " This is the heritage of the area: little bloody and restless stories which barely disturb the eternal whistle of the peasant leading his cart through dust, making a tired squeaking sound which paradoxically echoes like in a gothic cathedral. Living in the Balkans is boring, dusty, languid, and at the same time, misterious, tragic and sometimes gradiose. There is an order of all things, and in this order, the Balkans have their place: a particular music, tougher, faster and ordless. Who was born here and has bathed in this air can love and understand it: one cannot build cathedrals out of mud, but you can find the same beauty in a little church in a grove. Zorba the Greek could not have been born anywhere else, but in the Balkans, and only here his fast blood kindled, and only here his dance makes sense."

As poetic as this vision may seem, i failed to see anything of the sort in the film, but dangerous backwardness of beings living only in the present and for themselves. Tradition and the village society's common law are taken as universal truths against which nobody fights even when they lead a senseless mob to murder. love is only desire, to be consummed and does not go beyond flesh; obviously there is no consideration for private life and there is a constant need to point the finger and ostracize what contradicts the precepts of the community; seldom attempts of reasoning and technic ingenuity result in utter failure which is not reprobated but cheered; displaying what? a praise of stupidity? One must nevertheless praise the idea of failure, when arrived at in a complete and spendid manner.
There is no tragedy, an honest widow's killing, the financial ruin of *the Boss*, the pillaging of a French woman's property by the village people after her death, everything is taken lightly, one dances to forget, does not interpose with the will of the many stupid ones, and accepts destiny in its societal form.
In this light, the dances give out a ridiculous glow, they are the manifestation of primeval instincts to which i see no spiritual dimension. There is no beauty in a little church of a village if the community is entitled to commit murder by its own laws on its grounds. And why should bloody stories be contemplated and not prevented?

"everything is fine. we will live a thousand years." reads Alexis Zorba in lambchops. A dangerous thought for descendants.

I AM AWARE THAT I JUST CAST A XXI CENTURY ONLOOK ON A UNIVERSE INCONSISTENT WITH THESE VALUES. AS IT HAPPENS, THERE IS A ALSO HUGE BREAK-UP BETWEEN THE WESTERN AND THE EASTERN WORLD S.