Is Greece better than Turkey?

From Quora:

Pericles Farmakis, M.Sc. Computational Fluid Dynamics & Mechanical Engineering, Cranfield University (2018)

Updated Nov 28, 2017

Better at what? I am a proud Greek much like the next Greek guy, and I detest this sort of unnecessary, out-of-specific-context questions because they obscure the cultural, historical and geopolitical value of the countries in question. Both countries are excellent in their own way. Undoubtedly both countries contributed a great deal of stuff to the world (the answer box is way too small for even the most laconic list) and, for better or worse, their common history drives them appart only when it comes to foreign policy, which also dictates the flavour of their bilateral relations. Politics aside, our shared history and geography are two factors that make the people on both countries feeling at least mutually interested in each-other and my bet is in a positive way. For instance, Turkish soap operas are almost prime time in Greece, and, to the best of my knowledge, this applies mutatis mutandis to the Greek soap operas aired in Turkish televison. “Survivor,” a Greek reality show, used infrastructure from its Turkish counterpart, with the Turkish director happily supporting the Greek crew offering his experience.

I’ll prove you my point with the following example, high-lighting some bad aspects of each country. Hopefully, it can help you clarify why these questions are in their essence meaningless;

• Today, the Greek politicians have destroyed the Greek economy and don’t give a dime about the hardships and suffering of the Greek citizens. They butcher education, depriving it from funds and substance, and since they want to be the modernisers of the Greek society, they constantly try to alter Greece supposedly for the better, but in the end they cause a lot of harm to their country, in both foreign and internal affairs.
• Concurrently, the Turkish government vests itself with the imperial heritage of Turkey and as a result prefers to be a single player in power politics, allowing no teamwork for Turkey. Even if she is a NATO member, her government reserves for itself a degree of arbitrary autonomy when hostilities erupt outside the Turkish borders, or when it wants to troll Greece just to galvanise the Turkish people to focus away from other internal problems.

Can you make a point regarding which country is better? No? Then please protect yourself and avoid hasty generalisations. Do not compare countries except if you are willing to narrow-down your comparison list. As an example, “Is the Greek economy better than the Turkish one?” The answer to this is “Maybe not” (there are a lot of economic variables here and I am no economist). Otherwise a generic question fails to hit the nail on the head. Its like when you try to compare civilisations on the basis of their moral structure or on the grounds of how advanced they are. You simply can’t.

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