ATHENS — On a recent summer night, Pyrros Falekas took a break from his restaurant job to stop by Parko Navarinou, near the heart of the lively middle-class Athens neighborhood of Exarcheia, a breeding ground for generations of student activists, anarchists and other rebel souls.

On this night, however, there were no firebombs or impassioned speeches. Like Exarcheia itself, it seems, the country’s rebel spirit has seen better days, struggling to find its voice against its latest foe: harsh government austerity measures intended to keep Greece from going bankrupt.

“Greeks are unhappy because they’re so attached to the state, and now the state is falling apart,” said Mr. Falekas, 31, an Exarcheia resident and activist. “It’s hard to see the enemy, and it’s hard to energize people, even the most determined among us.”

Indeed, the park was the picture of tranquility, with people playing backgammon, showing modernist paintings and — of course — dissecting the collectivist anarchist philosophy of Mikhail Bakunin. Children played on swings, and a paunchy D.J. streamed songs by Nikos Xylouris, who sang with student activists at the National Technical University of Athens, the scene of a bloody confrontation with the government nearly 37 years ago.