Athens these days is surreal, sad, and scary, the capital of the world’s first democracy intent on national suicide, economic genocide, or both. The very fabric of society, as Greeks have known it for most of the post-war years, is fraying fast.

Greeks, cloaked for generations by a system that rewarded deceit and punished meritocracy while breeding self-contempt and helplessness, have woken to brutal reality: the very stuff of life in this sunny, Mediterranean country is synthetic, unnatural, and highly flammable.