Jan Helfeld interviews

[tereg]

Jan Helfeld is an independent journalist who interviews politicians and journalists in both tv and print media to reveal their fundamental operating principles using a Socratic inquiry method.

He has a series of videos up on YouTube of interviews he's done with these politicians and journalists, and what I gather from these interviews socionically speaking is how varying types will react or respond to a based foundation of applying logic and reasoning in the principles he believes in.

While you might or might not agree with Helfeld's political ideology, what I want you to focus on is not the merits of the arguments that he's making, but rather how his interviewing style and approach (and in some cases his philosophy) interacts with people with different methodologies of reasoning or how people come to different conclusions based on their operating principles and how they react when confronted by his particular interviewing style or how they choose to respond to how their are interpreting his line of questions -- and how that can be interpreted under the umbrella of Socionics.

There are a few examples I want to show you that I find to be interesting socionic examples of this kind of interplay not just in ideologies, but in how they respond to or react to a specific kind of reasoning and questioning. And I'd like your thoughts as well.

Because of the nature of the subject, I'm sensitive to what kinds of discussion this could potentially turn into. Please try to not let this spiral into a political discussion about whether or not the merits of what Helfeld is advocating is correct or not, but rather how a person of his type and style (in this particular case one that I think is heavily influenced) interacts with varying types of other well-known people.

I want this to be more than just "What type is Jan Helfeld?" or "What type are these politicians?", I mean those discussions will of course help in determining what kind of intertype relation we are seeing, but I'm hoping that the discussion centers around the intertype relations that are played out in these interviews.

[RSV3]

I've seen Jan Helfeld interviews in the past and would agree with you that he argumentative style relies heavily on Ti. As to intertype relationships, it depends on who is being interviewed. In some of the interviews, the interviewee sees where Helfeld is going and attempts to clearly define and limit the scope of terms, slow down and clarify Helfeld's logical progression, thus effectively fighting Ti with Ti (with varying success rates). In other interviews, the interviewee is caught completely offguard with Helfeld's setup and reverts to using some completely different tactic including emotional outbursts and ad hominem attacks. Other interviewees prefer to rely on common sense or big-picture reasoning to justify or dismiss the more minute logical inconsistencies that Helfeld exposes (or attempts to expose). I don't have enough info from these clips to conclude what specific intertype relationships are playing out other than to say that the interviewees react with varying IM elements.

On a side note, I've often used this socratic style of arguing myself due to the number of strategic (and arguably unfair) advantages it provides to the user. It is also utilized by virtually every law school professor in the country to force law students to identify flaws in their reasoning.

[tereg]

So, the reason why I picked these videos is because I think shows in a very clear way how different quadra values react when confronted with a particular style of reasoning.

So, the first video I found extremely interesting simply because of the juxtaposition in video and interview form of the interplay of the philosophy of basic absolute truths and principles and a more postmodern view of relativism, an acceptance and tolerance of seemingly contradictory things in perceived reality.

In my opinion, the first video (with Oliphant) demonstrates how logic is handled by what I perceive as Delta quadra values.

Oh, and bump for discojoe because he will undoubtedly find the subject matter interesting.

[mu4]

One clear thing about this person is that he is rational.

However the basis of his argumentation style is ethical, which by it's Should/Should Not orientation. This however does not lead to onotological contradiction, only to conflict.

The problem is Jan rarely bothers with the differentiates between ontological(being) statements versus moral statements.

Moral statements are by their nature dialectical. Good(tm) vs Evil(tm). Communism vs Capitalism. Individualism vs Collectivism. Moral standpoints exists in conflict(not contradiction) between and within individuals and groups within nature.

All rational elements are rational, and follow the mechanics of reason. The introverted rational elements as these are based in static relations between objects. But we need to differentiate between them based on ontology verse ethics.

To apply the principle of non-contradiction to ethics is actually in denial of the fundamental basis of non-contradiction which is in the ontological(being). Aristotle himself did not place ethics in the area of certain knowledge but practical knowledge.

As a whole Jan starts from a ethical perspective not a ontological perspective and by apply the principle of non-contradiction to a ethical endeavor, he has actually done what he has accused his interviewees of doing which is lifted his mind away from reality into magical reality.

The basis of his argument is ethical and rational but I think not ontological.