Personal Views on Greek Mentalities

In an earlier article, a reader asked why I no longer thought that the Euro was the right currency for Greece and I responded as follows: "If the Euro is a currency which doesn't fit Greece's economic capabilities (and the culture of Greeks!), which I have felt for some time now, then there are only two options: (a) get Greece's economic capabilities so that they fit the currency or (b) change the currency to fit Greece. It would be better for Greece, long-term, to get its economic capabilities to where they fit the Euro but I have given up hope that Greece can do that".

I was then asked whether I could substantiate my feelings with factual arguments. Another reader said that his ONE eye-opener had been reading Nikos Dimou's booklet about "The Misfortune of Being Greek". He wanted to know whether I had such a ONE eye-openener, too.

In reply, I used the well-known strategy which one uses when one does not have a specific answer to a specific question: I wrote a long story in reply, hoping that readers would read their own answers into it. Below is my reply.

Not specific hard facts, rather soft facts influence this judgment of mine (which, I agree, may be totally wrong). It is a judgment which has grown over time (‘riped’ so to speak). Every once in a while, I find myself backtracking in this judgment but such periods usually don’t last very long at this point of the game.

I, too, think that a lot of answers can be found in Dimou’s booklet because I think it is really a question of mentality, national character, etc. I don’t want to put a value judgment on mentality and/or national character; I just want to recognize and accept that such things do exist and they develop over centuries. Alexis Zorbas led a life which, from a value structure standpoint, was about the opposite of the value structure which I had been raised with. From that standpoint, I should fully criticize the man’s conduct. And yet, I – like probably many people – envy him more than my mind can pull itself together to rationally criticize him. Why should he be criticized? Because if everyone behaved the way he did, society would fall apart. The point is, however: life would be so much more boring if there weren't people like Zorbas; if there were no Greeks, for that matter.

Let me quote Dahrendorf (from 1995): “For Italy, periodic devaluations are much more useful than a fixed exchange rate and for France, higher government expenditures are more meaningful than a rigid adherence to stability criteria (which are, above all, an advantage for Germany)”. That’s what I try to say about Greek mentalities and value structures. There are apples and oranges in life; thank God there are! Apples may fit the Euro; oranges may not.

Strangely enough, most of the Greeks I meet in day-to-day life are as ‘normal’ as everyone else in Central Europe or elsewhere. We have rational discussions and where we disagree, we agree to disagree. When I am with such people (including some very smart university grads), I come away with the (temporary) hope that Greece will eventually make it in a ‘normal’ world. Those are experiences with individual Greeks. My experiences with Greeks as a collective quickly bring me down to reality (by ‘collective’ I mean mostly what one hears, reads and observes through the media).

So, contrary to you, I don’t have ONE single event. Instead, it is a gut feeling that, after 4 years of rather dramatic crisis, one ought to feel a tendency, a wish for real change. Frankly, I don’t see Greece all that different today than 4 years ago (except a lot poorer) and I don’t sense much of an energetic wish for radical change running through society. 

 
However, there is ONE experience I had many years ago which I am now reminded of very often. The American bank where I spent my first career had 3 large units in Greece and I was supposed to take over country management in 1986 (shortly before that happened, my bank sold the Greek operations to NatWest and that was the end of my wife’s dream of returning to Greece, but that is a different and very complicated story…). We were based in Argentina then and I once had the visit of a colleague/friend, an American who had been country manager in Greece in the 1970s. He felt he had to coach me a bit as regarded my future job in Greece and said some like this: “You know our job application form has sections on ‘personal strengths’ and ‘areas for improvement’. You will find that Greek job applicants leave the ‘areas for improvement’ blank. When I first noticed this, I thought they were inhibited to put anything in writing and would prefer to discuss this in the personal interview. The strange thing was that, even in the personal interview, they would not volunteer any ‘personal areas for improvement’. Not because they seemed inhibited or embarrassed or anything like that. No, they were quite natural about it. They simply could not address the issue that they might have ‘personal areas for improvement’. I should add that we never had anything but the best experiences with local staff!"

A good friend of mine, a Brit who is now retired, spent the last 10 years of his career as a bank consultant based in Greece (his wife is Greek). His projects would always take him to far away places. I once asked him why he wouldn’t seek consulting mandates from Greek banks. His answer? “That would be masochistic! You cannot consult Greeks because they already have all the answers. They will not accept your advice. They will, instead, pretend that, whatever you tell them, they knew it already, anyway”.

In my early years of schooling in Austria, we learned about ancient Greeks' themes like ‘know thyself’, ‘accept yourself’, ‘know that you know nothing’, etc. etc. Somehow, it seems that these themes got lost through the centuries.

One of the key aspects of the Greek mentality, to me, is this ‘susceptibility to flattery’. It is referred to in the Encyclopedia article but also in a briefing which a former US ambassadador once cabled to Washington (published by Wikileaks). He said: “The Greeks are susceptible to flattery and quick to be offended by a perceived slight”. This susceptibility to flattery, one might also think of it as a bit of gullibility, is, to me, a landmark characteristic. Greek voters seem to fall for politicians who are good at playing on these susceptibilities. Someone like Alexis Tsipras strikes me as an expert at this game.

I have visited, as a guest, all 5 or 6 Rotary Clubs in Thessaloniki. Between them, I could easily form at least one complete Greek government of responsible and professional leaders who know what they are doing. Add to that the thousands and thousands of Greeks who have the same capabilities. Consider that against the certainly millions of decent Greeks who would like to be governed by decent leaders. The resources are there! They just don’t seem to come together.

The widely spread ‘Greek irrationality’ is part of the great charme of Greeks and it can be a lot of fun to watch; in relaxed times, I hasten to add. In stressed times, that irrationality can take one’s nerves apart (and I say this after close to 40 years of marriage with a Greek…). Colleagues at my first employer who had spent time in Greece would crack the joke that “Greeks gave the logic to the world. The only problem is that the world never gave it back to them”. Good for a lot of laughter. When it plays out in serious reality, it can drive someone nuts.

In conclusion: since I didn’t have a short answer to your question, I had to write this long piece but I, nevertheless, hope that you can understand what I am trying to get across.