Our era is characterised by fragmentation. Fragmentation in the perception of events, fragmentation in their interpretation and fragmentation in the decisions. This fragmention is caused, even information overload, which to a certain point is misinformation. Under these conditions, politicians, as well as the average citizen, give up on in-depth penetration of information and on examining the purposes that led to its production. They also give up on the usefulness or harm that it causes and to whom, and its con nection to theenhancement or impairment of broader social aspirations. We can say that in most cases the fragmentation is “swallowed whole”. In other cases, however, fragmentation in situation management is produced by narrow political considerations of the data due to limited possibilities or utilitarian pursuits.

Mathematics, the science of cold logic, has established one of its most important terms, the Integrals. Through this term the all-round view of the elements under consideration is determined. It was on the basis of the Integrals that the concept of an integral approach to each situation arose and was transferred to other sciences, as well as to everyday social life. As in mathematics, where, through the Integral Approach, solid and safe results are obtained for the numerical expressions under consideration, so in the generalised application of the integral approaches to other fields, secure conclusions are reached in which only minor deviations can be accepted.

Insight is one of the key qualities that those who wish to serve in the field of politics must have. This is defined as the ability of people to foresee the developments of events at least in the medium term. Only in this way can they transform the immediate approach to the situation into an integral approach to the social causes that give rise to it. Without this comprehensive approach, events run faster than political actions and precipitate them.

The information sector is a typical case of the generalised application of practices that systematically lead to “elliptic” results, with the aim of influencing the recipients of information that is broadcast by newspapers, radio, television and the internet. Because these effects are directly linked to politics, that is, to the way in which power is exercised, it is safe to conclude that, this is how effects are created, to the greatest extent possible, on the global economy, on business activities and even on cultural activities. Ultimately, the elliptical effects in general information, through these sectors, come back to the citizens in the form of compulsory and externally directed

final choices.

The results obtained, through the processes described above, damage the foundations of democratic states, whose sound foundations rest on the universal suffrage of fully informed citizens-voters. The electors-voters, mainly through their intuition, perceive the manipulative enterprise through the elipsis in the projection of events and are pushed into unwanted choices. They are, however, attracted by proposed simplistic proposals with characteristics of immediate utility and are ultimately driven to socially ineffective choices. This is the starting and ending point of the prevalence of populist political proposals, that are based on the non-integrated practices that are applied in many parliamentary democracies.

A characteristic deviation from the integrated approach is how the issues concerning the geographical area and the population potential of Mani as a whole are treated. Although everyone accepts the single character of the region, which is summarised in the two words “United Mani”, when the time comes to draw up development and cultural programs, fragmentary proposals arise, often with no connecting features to create the notion of an integrated approach. This way of dealing with development and cultural issues in the unified Mani area is not a phenomenon of the modern period, but is a long-standing situation. It was thought, in vain, that the concentration of many dozens of self-governing communities in just two municipalities (δήμοι) would lead to a self-evident possibility of agreement on a common unified basis. It seems that the same reasons that led to the1 in this article, the term Oλοκληρώματα rerefs to a situation that is “whole, complete non-obcure”, while the term

Eλλειπτικός to a “fragmented, incomplete, obscure” situation brief dissolution, 20 years ago, of the region’s only unified development expression, the MANI DEVELOPMENT COMPANY (ANAΠΤΥΞΙΑΚΗ ΕΤΑΙΡΕΙΑ ΜΑΝΗΣ), which was founded in 1995 as a multi-stakeholder organization of all Mani & self-governing organizations and operated effectively in the first two years since its establishment, still exist in the same or modified form. The influences of the central political system, for guided choices of projects and persons by funding development programs with decentralised local management, on the basis of voter service, combined with closed local management on the basis of personal choices, continued unabated in the following years, resulting in the reduction of the strong development dynamics of our region.

The new generations have an obligation to contribute to the preservation and expansion of the development dynamics created by the unique natural and cultural space of Mani, reaching their personal goals through the prism of an integrated vision.

THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The language of Mathematics with its rigid and inflexible rules can show Sociology the way the members of any society or micro-society are required to act in order to achieve remarkable results. In the case of fractions, for example, in order to be able to add up sums of unlike fractions, it is first necessary to convert them into like fractions. Only in this case can a result, i.e., a quantitative increase, be obtained. In other words, a necessary condition for creating positive results is the existence of a common denominator. Since all sciences have common backgrounds, this rule can be transferred in a similar way to Sociology. In order for the individual groups that make up the society or a region of a state, and for the state expressions of the overall human society to be successful, the existence of a common denominator is a necessary condition.

   Following the developments, decade after decade after the end of the World War II, we find that, after the first period, the loss of human lives and material destruction had created coherent and cooperative tendencies, but later these tendencies were reversed. The process of synthesis in the aspirations of social groups through consultation was receding and the aspirations of the most powerful were imposed, openly through their economic surface, and secretely through their penetration of the power mechanisms. In countries that were rich in investment capital and in highly educated human resources, a high standard of living had been created that covered the basic needs of the great majority of citizens, and therefore the process of synthesising the needs of the individual social groups found, sooner or later, ways of mild acceptance.

   In our country, which has a relatively high standard of living compared to many other countries, the process of synthesising the views and economic claims of individual social groups has not yet managed to find safe ground, although many channels are available in a democratic constitution based on electoral procedures. This is the main reason why our country has been deprived of investment capital. This shortage of capital, combined with the petty political interests of those in power, does not allow an educational policy to be established and implemented. This kind of policy could create a high-quality scientific workforce, which could be then subsequently integrated into the production process, and contribute to the creation of material capital.

   Little has changed in the way political parties operate since the establishment of the modern Greek state. Consensus, even in matters of the highest national importance, is rare and the minimal governmental partnerships simply transfer the external struggle within the government itself. Every attempt to create a private sector, which operates with rules of healthy and socially beneficial competition has failed. In the final analysis, the goals of political parties in most cases, aim at nothing more than to “consume” the state sector and to siphon off the benefits resulting from its management. It is no coincidence that our country has a huge expanded public sector (employees, direct economic activities and complex economic trade transactions with private enterprises) with a very limited degree of efficiency. Irrefutable proof is provided by the disastrous financial data during the country’s substantial bankruptcy at the beginning of the previous decade: the Greek public debt was the same size as private deposits!

   Local governments operate, in general, in a way that mimics the way the central state operates. The introduction of proportional representation in the previous elections highlighted the lack of willingness between local government groups to agree even on self-evident issues. It is rare that a common basis for cooperation between the local government groups participating in municipal/regional councils has been established. The announcements that have been published in the media clearly illustrate this lack of willingness to cooperate. So far the main objectives of both parties, i.e., the majority of the elected officials in local government organisations, as well as those in the central administration of the state, are to continue to reap the benefits of administration and to create situations for electoral victory in the next electoral processes. Coherent programs to address generalised needs of local communities, with evidence-based studies, time planning and financial tools, are rarely seen in public view. Such programs could certainly emerge if everyone, or at least the vast majority of local government officials, were willing to work together to draw them up, without greed or hidden personal ambitions.

   In this human landscape we need a common denominator. It is not only us, the editorial board of our newspaper, that are making this statement. The need for a common denominator is imposed by the difficult situations on the international scene, and their effects are cumulative in our indebted country. May we see a change of mentality imposed by the difficult times we are living in.

THE EDITORIAL BOARD