Originally Posted by
Jung
10. Recapitulation of Extraverted Irrational Types
I call the two preceding types irrational for reasons already referred to; namely, because their commissions and omissions are based not upon reasoned judgment but upon the absolute intensity of perception. Their perception is concerned with simple happenings, where no selection has been exercised by the judgment. In this respect both the latter types have a considerable superiority over the two judging types. The objective occurrence is both law-determined and accidental. In so far as it is law-determined, it is accessible to reason; in so far as it is accidental, it is not. One might reverse it and say that we apply the term law-determined to the occurrence appearing so to our reason, and where its regularity escapes us we call it accidental. The postulate of a universal lawfulness remains a postulate of reason only; in no sense is it a postulate of our functions of perception. Since these are in no way grounded upon the principle of reason and its postulates, they are, of their very nature, irrational. Hence my term 'irrational' corresponds with the nature of the perception-types. But merely because they subordinate judgment to perception, it would be quite incorrect to regard these types as unreasonable. They are merely in a high degree empirical; they are grounded exclusively upon experience, so exclusively, in fact, that as a rule, their judgment cannot keep pace with their experience. But the functions of judgment are none the less present, although they eke out a largely unconscious existence. But, since the unconscious, in spite of its separation from the conscious subject, is always reappearing on the scene, the actual life of the irrational types exhibits striking judgments and acts of choice, which take the form of apparent sophistries, cold-hearted criticisms, and an apparently purposeful [p. 469] selection of persons and situations. These traits have a rather infantile, or even primitive, stamp; at times they are astonishingly naive, but at times also inconsiderate, crude, or outrageous. To the rationally orientated mind, the real character of such people might well appear rationalistic and purposeful in the bad sense. But this judgment would be valid only for their unconscious, and, therefore, quite incorrect for their conscious psychology, which is entirely orientated by perception, and because of its irrational nature is quite unintelligible to the rational judgment. Finally, it may even appear to a rationally orientated mind that such an assemblage of accidentals, hardly deserves the name 'psychology.' The irrational type balances this contemptuous judgment with an equally poor impression of the rational; for he sees him as something only half alive, whose only aim in life consists in fastening the fetters of reason upon everything living, and wringing his own neck with criticisms. Naturally, these are gross extremes; but they occur.
From the standpoint of the rational type, the irrational might easily be represented as a rational of inferior quality; namely, when he is apprehended in the light of what happens to him. For what happens to him is not the accidental-in that he is master-but, in its stead, he is overtaken by rational judgment and rational aims. This fact is hardly comprehensible to the rational mind, but its unthinkableness merely equals the astonishment of the irrational, when he discovers someone who can set the ideas of reason above the living and actual event. Such a thing seems scarcely credible to him. It is, as a rule, quite hopeless to look to him for any recognition of principles in this direction, since a rational understanding is just as unknown and, in fact, tiresome to him as the idea of making a contract, without mutual discussion and obligations, appears unthinkable to the rational type. [p. 470]
This point brings me to the problem of the psychic relation between the representatives of the different types. Following the terminology of the French school of hypnotists, the psychic relation among the more modern psychiatrists is termed I 'rapport'. Rapport chiefly consists in a feeling of actual accord, in spite of recognised differences. In fact, the recognition of existing differences, in so far as they are common to both, is already a rapport, a feeling of accord. If we make this feeling conscious to a rather high degree in an actual case, we discover that it has not merely the quality of a feeling that cannot be analysed further, but it also has the nature of an insight or cognitional content, representing the point of agreement in a conceptual form. This rational presentation is exclusively valid for the rational types; it by no means applies to the irrational, whose rapport is based not at all upon judgment but upon the parallelism of actual living events. His feeling of accord is the common perception of a sensation or intuition. The rational would say that rapport with the irrational depends purely upon chance. If, by some accident, the objective situations are exactly in tune, something like a human relationship takes place, but nobody can tell what will be either its validity or its duration. To the rational type it is often a very bitter thought that the relationship will last only just so long as external circumstances accidentally produce a mutual interest. This does not occur to him as being especially human, whereas it is precisely in this situation that the irrational sees a humanity of quite singular beauty. Accordingly each regards the other as a man destitute of relationships, upon whom no reliance can be placed, and with whom one can never get on decent terms. Such a result, however, is reached only when one consciously tries to make some estimate of the nature of one's relationships with one's fellow-men. Although a psychological conscientiousness of [p. 471] this kind is by no means usual, yet it frequently happens that, notwithstanding an absolute difference of standpoint, a kind of rapport does take place, and in the following way. The one assumes with unspoken projection that the other is, in all essential points, of the same opinion as himself, while the other divines or senses an objective community of interest, of which, however, the former has no conscious inkling and whose existence he would at once dispute, just as it would never occur to the latter that his relationship must rest upon a common point-of-view. A rapport of this kind is by far the most frequent; it rests upon projection, which is the source of many subsequent misunderstandings.
Psychic relationship, in the extraverted attitude, is always regulated by objective factors and outer determinants. What a man is within has never any decisive significance. For our present-day culture the extraverted attitude is the governing principle in the problem of human relationship; naturally, the introverted principle occurs, but it is still the exception, and has to appeal to the tolerance of the age.
vertical subtypes
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Personally, I find it easier and quicker to go by dichotomies like @
