A Socionics Example
This video is of a song by the singer India.Arie, who I type IEE. This song is, in my opinion, a good example of some of the things that are most likeable and most irritating about Delta NFs.
First, note the "dark" tone of the song. It has a warmth and darkness that I initially wanted to associate with beta---but here is proof that Delta NFs aren't sunny and shiny all the time. They can get dark too, and their emotions, their insides, are just as capable of producing "dark and twisty"---to quote Grey's Anatomy, i.e., the worst show on TV---as your average beta.
But then, notice that this "dark and twisty" is not expressed using ANY Fe. This is an angry song. It expresses strong frustration at some unnamed individuals who have seriously hurt the singer, and presumably done some pretty shitty things to her. But when we listen to the song, we get a great since of the singer's personality and character, but almost none of the rage that she must have experienced. Contrast this strongly to a beta, like Eminem, who really wears his heart on his sleeve, especially where anger is concerned. (He is certainly splenitive and rash). Or even Jill Scott, who is, imo, Ni/Se, although I am not sure whether she is an Ni ego or an Se ego, or even if she's gamma or beta. But you can see a much more confrontational streak in her, a willingness to expose some degree of anger and aggressivity. The obvious example is the hit "Hate on me," but examples abound: "Gettin' in the Way" is the other obvious one, but others have quite a bit of aggressivity, if not anger per se.
Rather than giving us rage, India gives us, yes, ethical condemnation, but also a sort of positive statement. This is one of the most admirable characteristics of Delta NFs. It is similar to the diplomacy of the Beta NF, but, to be honest, it seems to come from a much more legitimate and deep-rooted place (perhaps owing to the difference between introverted and extroverted feeling). She has legitimately transmuted her unhappiness into a strong will to continue. She is saying, "yes, you've hurt me, but I'm going to focus on the positive, without forgetting that I've been hurt." Her outlook is clearly positive, but just as clearly not happy-go-lucky. It's positive, but it's positive in a way that recognizes that she's been wronged.
However, this song also exposes many of the things that irritate individuals, especially betas, about delta NFs. Notice that she never directly names any of her assailants. And sure, this is reasonable; you don't want to air dirty laundry by name. That's just tacky. But imagine the position of the ones who "did her wrong," listening to the song. They are being condemned in this dismissive manner. It is delta aristocracy: the "enemies" have been excluded from the circle because of their impolitic behavior, even to the point of making them nonentities. And the Delta NF, unlike the Beta NF, seems to impose a rather unquestioning interpretation upon the events: "You won't get the best of me, even though you got my money; I'm gon' pick up the pieces." Even though the Delta NF may know internally that this doesn't solve the situation, they pragmatically accept that interpretation as the one that will allow them, again, to reestablish the kind of relations with others that they prefer to have. The Beta NF will struggle longer with developing an interpretation, and as such the interpretation will tend to be less axiomatic, or at least it will have a higher degree of ambiguity (i.e., Ni and Negative Capability).
It seems, to my Beta NF ears, that she is too unquestioningly casting herself as the hero of this particular morality fable. It is a subtle distinction between this and a Ti categorization of individuals as right or wrong, and one that I am having trouble making. Perhaps the difference is that the Beta NF would focus more on "You were wrong in this situation, and I was right. I hope your are punished somehow," rather than "You were trying to stop me, but I'm going to keep going." The right and wrong are more explicit in the beta version, and more implicit in the delta version.
But the biggest thing I want to emphasize in my "reading" of this song is that the Delta NF is not a happy-go-lucky, pie-in-the-sky idealist. India is grounded. She is dark, in some ways. But she emphasizes a positive outlook that comes from a deep-rooted desire to seek the action that will pragmatically allow her to return as quickly as possible to the state of harmonious relations with her environment, especially in her interpersonal relationships, that deltas so strongly desire.
Contrast this strongly with Beta NFs. Delta NFs may frown and swagger and express anger. They can do this quite well. But it is ultimately a facade, or a temporary state. The state they prefer is one of harmonious relationships. So a healthy Delta NF will tend to return much more quickly to a frame of mind in which they focus on the positive, clear the negative aspects of the situation from their immediate consciousness (not that they forget about them altogether, however). This is because you can only have positive social relationships (positive Fi bonds) when you're in a state of mind where you are open and available, especially if your Fi bonds are also dependent on Si comfort/homeostasis. If you want to be close to people based on how comfortable and "safe" you make each other feel, you're not going to put yourself in an emotional state in which you're dwelling and brooding on the wrongs done you. Again, it is not that Delta NFs cannot dwell and brood. They do, quite often. But they are more likely to quickly accomplish internal repression, wherein they simply "look away" from the negative aspects of the situation, so as to alter their emotional state. To put it another way, feeling good feels good to Delta NFs; feeling bad feels bad.
Now, Beta NFs are totally opposite. Beta NFs will often act out externally the state that the Delta NF achieves internally. They accomplish a sort of "external repression" (and yes, I know, you Freudians are shaking your heads at me, because that is essentially a contradiction in terms, but hey, it's my metaphor!). This external repression allows the Beta NF to put on a mask of perfect indifference, of having surmounted the challenge at hand and emerged stronger. But privately, rather than seeking to clear away the negative emotional state to return to Fi + Si homeostasis of internal disposition, the Beta NF aspires towards an Ni/Ti/Fe understanding of internal states. These extreme feelings are, for the Beta NF, not something to be overcome so that positive and harmonious relations with the environment can be restored, but an opportunity to explore the nature of the self and the painful feelings. It is a moment for self-discovery. The disadvantage of this is that it is terribly self-focused. The Delta NF wants to repair relations with the outside world, even if that requires excluding certain others from this outside world, and certain feelings from the inside world (actually, the Delta NF will hold on to these feelings, and they will often return to him or her, but the Delta NF does not actively seek the feelings as a means of self-discovery. At best, the Delta NF will accept feeling these dreadful feelings of betrayal or whatever as a necessary evil, a grieving process that comes over them inevitably, which is to be dealt with internally and spread to others a little as possible). The Beta NF wants to explore the self, using negative emotions as a launching pad. An advantage of this approach is that the Beta NF tends, in my biased opinion, to sustain a more complex conceptual balance: rather than exclude things in order to "move on," the Beta NF refuses to move on until everything can be fit into a revised conceptual system. The Beta NF does not move on until something in the internal intuition (the conceptual framework or heruistic by which symbols are interpreted) rather than the internal feeling (the emotional core which judges outside events by their correspondence or non-correspondence with this ineffable core) has changed. To be more precise, the internal intuition changes; the internal feeling returns to a state parallel to the initial state (one can conceptualize it as a state equal to the prior state in two out of three dimensions, and different in a third). To provide the parallel, then, feeling bad feels good to Beta NFs, and feeling good feels good---it's all about absolute value (extremity of emotional state, Fe), rather than directionality of feeling (positive or negative feelings towards, Fi).
Often, the Beta NF will see the celerity with which the Delta NF recovers and say, "Oh, you must be unhealthy! You repressed all that shit that happened to you! You didn't wallow in your emotions long enough to figure out what exactly happened! It must not have really hurt you at all, if you recovered like that." And often, the Delta NF will see the Beta NF's wallowing and say, "Oh, you must be unhealthy! You're damaging your close relationships by staying stuck in this fog of focusing on your own emotions! You refuse to look at the bigger picture of how your attitudes are affecting your life! Instead, you just focus on you and how you feel. That's a selfish attitude." And yes, both perspectives are logical. But the fact is that the Delta NF can be quite healthy focusing on the positive and recovering, and the Beta NF can be quite healthy focusing on the negative and pursuing some kind of discovery of the self.
The Delta NF says, "I now understand that sometimes friends will betray you. I have made my peace with that fact, even though it still makes me sad at times. But I have a purpose, and I'm going to move on with my life towards that goal, rather than obsessing over this bad feeling." The Beta NF says, "I now interpret friendship differently. I have changed my internal matrix of symbols regarding what certain actions relating to friendship and betrayal mean. I see differently now, so I can move on." Very similar result; very different internal process.
Alright! Thoughts? Questions? Opinions? Gripes?
EDIT: Another suitable comparison is that the Beta NF seeks to produce internal change (having two internal dynamic IMs in her ego) as a result of wrong, whereas the Delta NF seeks to return to internal (homeo)stasis (having two internal static IMs in her ego) by surmounting wrong.
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Originally Posted by silverchris9
4w5 sp/sx
, with understated 
