The Kouledia of Monemvasia have been a multifaceted hub of popular culture with nationwide significance. Until the early 1960s, the men of Kouledia engaged in daily athletic competitions. They would go to the games and return from them singing folk poetry, Erotokritos, and later rebetika. These contests, which the Kouledians claim have continued since ancient Greece, never ceased even during the painful conditions of the Occupation and the Civil War.

There is the unique phenomenon that all residents know and sing the masterpiece of Kornaros. Women systematically employed the philosophical concept of "autexousion," which indicates an early feminist consciousness. The concept of "autexousion" also appears in Erotokritos and is still used today by the older women of Crete.

In Kouledia, a form of Direct Democracy functioned until the early 1960s, where women and men would meet and decide on all matters by a show of hands, regardless of the regime of the central political system. At the same time, although Kouledia held conservative political views, by the decision of their assembly in 1950-51, during the harsh post-civil war state, they clashed with and defeated the armed gendarmerie of Monemvasia.

The author explores the phenomenon of Direct Democracy in Laconia, tracing its functioning pre-revolutionarily. Monemvasia, a cultural matrix of international significance during the Byzantine and Venetian periods, took a leading role among the Laconians in the revolutionary movements of the Cretans against the Venetians and Ottomans. The philosophers of Laconia collaborated with Cretan philosophers. Aspects of the relationship between Crete and Laconia are investigated. Finally, the popular culture is examined from a philosophical perspective.