Odysseus Wandered for 10, I Wondered for 50 Years

Abstract

The title of this paper is highly individualistic: It uses “I” and it is very competitive! Yet I was raised in Greece when it was a collectivist culture, as is clear from Triandis (1972). I started as an allocentric and ended up as idiocentric person. In January 1948, at age 21, I came to Canada, to study at McGill University, because the Technical University (Polytechnion) where I was studying in Athens was not in good shape just after the war (e.g., poor labs). I found the contrast between Athens and Montreal as great in temperature (leaving in 50 degree weather and finding -10 F) as well as in social relationships. Montreal had an individualist culture, with people having many, but relatively superficial relationships, and that contrasted with Athens collectivism where one had few but deep relationships. In Montreal my friends talked to their parents once a month, while if I could have afforded it I would have talked to my parents every day. In Montreal social relations were fluid and quick-changing, in Athens they were stable and more or less unchanged. Traces of allocentrism remain, so that when I go back to Athens, each year, I spend time with my old friends, even 50 years after leaving. The contrast between Canada and Greece started me thinking about cultural comparisons.