For months, I’ve been meaning to write about Greece, but chickening out each week at the last minute. Events are so fast-moving that they risk making a columnist look an idiot by the time his article appears.

But then it hit me: No one writing about Greece is much bothered about what is actually taking place there. Rather, Greece has become a totem, a parable, an excuse for everyone to ride their favorite hobby-horses. Whatever happens, pundits seize on it as further proof of whatever they happened to believe anyway.