No, no. It bothers me when someone takes a basic human trait and over-analyzes it into somehow being type-related. I find the idea that intelligence is type-related to be ludicrous as well.Originally Posted by Mimosa Pudica
I can't speak for why it bothered Allie, but I'm guessing it's along the same lines, since she agrees that it is not type-related.
So far BG has made the most sense in this thread.
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
John Muir
What do you make of this interesting quote about how Lyndon B. Johnson (SEE most likely, or maybe SLE) summed up people. Did he "read" people or understand them through an empatic point of view?
Eights - the enneagram ...info from the underground
"A good quotation from Lyndon Johnson's biography illustrates enneatype Eight's means of sizing up an individual:
"While Lyndon Johnson was not, as his two assistants knew, a reader of books, he was, they knew, a reader of men--a great reader of men. He had a genius for studying a man and learning his strengths and weaknesses and hopes and fears, his deepest strengths and weaknesses: what it was that the man wanted--not what he said he wanted but what he really wanted--and what it was that the man feared, really feared.
"He tried to teach his young assistants to read men--“Watch their hands, watch their eyes” he told them. “Read eyes. No matter what a man is saying to you, it’s not as important as what you can read in his eyes”--and to read between the lines: more interested in men’s weaknesses than in their strengths because it was weakness that could be exploited, he tried to teach his assistants how to learn a man’s weakness. "The most important thing a man has to tell you is what he isn’t telling you,” he said. "The most important thing a man has to say is what he’s trying not to say.” For that reason, he told them, it was important to keep the man talking; the longer he talked, the more likely he was to let slip a hint of that vulnerability he was so anxious to conceal. “That’s why he wouldn’t let a conversation end." Busby explains. “If he saw the other fellow was trying not to say something, he wouldn’t let it (the conversation) end until he got it out of him.” And Lyndon Johnson himself read with a genius that couldn’t be taught, with a gift that was so instinctive that a close observer of his reading habits, Robert G. (Bobby) Baker, calls it a “sense”; "He seemed to sense each man’s individual price and the commodity he preferred as coin.” He read with a novelist’s sensitivity, with an insight that was unerring, with an ability, shocking in the depth of its penetration and perception, to look into a man’s heart and know his innermost worries and desires. (From Robert Caro's Lyndon Johnson.)"
Last edited by Wittmont; 04-10-2009 at 09:02 PM.
INFp
If your sea chart does not match reality, go with reality (Old mariner saying)
This reminds me of something. I know someone with two children. One of them is very serious and I do think he's empathetic, but that's just from noticing how he interacts with his mother. His face is usually largely blank, but sometimes he'll say things like "don't worry, Mommy" to his mother quietly, while tugging on her hand. He picks up on her anxiety that she hardly expresses at all. He seems to analyze all of her behavior, but he doesn't seem like an ethical type to me at all. He's interested in things more than people; he seems like a very logical, methodical child to me (if he's ethical, I would think it's). But I can tell he empathizes with his mother far better than I do, because he knows her so well... he's been studying her for a long time and he has learned to read all of the nuances in her behavior. He doesn't respond to emotions displayed around him, and seems to largely ignore (or not even notice) most of them. Every now and then he may seem to consider a few of them in silent thought, but mostly he doesn't seem interested... like if someone laughs at him and seems to expect him to react, he seems to have a perplexed "who cares" attitude about it and soon returns to whatever object he was playing with.
The other child is very expressive, constant emotions are playing out all over his face. If you smile at him, he smiles too, in fact he smiles in a way that matches how I was feeling exactly (and it seems he felt this feeling when he smiled). I'm thinking that's exactly the sort of thing you mean, Mimosa? In other words he seems to rather precisely mirror the emotions of those around him. He follows everyone's feelings, they all play out on his face. He is like an emotional mirror. He reacts to everyone's emotions, and he seems to be very happy when others are being emotionally expressive. His face will light up and he'll giggle as people become increasingly expressive. He conveys his own emotions so clearly that people react a lot to his feelings as well. I think he's very empathetic, obviously, and I also wouldn't be surprised if he'sleading or creative.
But... If I questioned which child I thought was more 'empathetic', I would think it's the first one actually. Emotions seem more like play to the second child, while the first child so strongly empathizes with his mother, and pays so much attention to her when he's not pre-occupied with things he's curious about, that I can see that he is maintaining a very deep understanding of her. He is a year older than the other child, but I noticed this behavior a year ago as well (not to say these things can't change later).
Imo the first child doesn't identify with his mother at all though (per Wittmont's post)... her feelings don't seem to change his feelings (his feelings seem independent of anyone else's as far as I can tell)... he seems to think more than he seems to feel in general. The second child though... I could easily see him getting caught up in identification with the feelings of others. The world of everyone's feelings seems to be his world, so much so that maybe it would be more difficult to separate himself from it. I could imagine him losing his identity in it and being easily affected by it automatically. I could imagine him allowing it to control how he feels inside because he is so sensitive to it.
I guess this is just more about what do we mean by "empathy", as Mimosa has been saying. The reason I think the first child is more empathetic is because he seems to actually feel deep down what his mother is "going through"... it seems to register deep inside him... where as with the second child it's more this sort of surface level transient thing... but because of the generally playful nature of the second child I can't tell what he feels deeply inside (yet), and I think that will become more apparent as he gets older. (eta: I don't see either of them very often, and I don't *know* either of them deeply, so these are very simple observations.)
I said all this to try to illustrate some of my thinking. I had typed a few arguments but I deleted them because I just didn't think it was working.
FTR, I have very little empathy. One of my best friends who is Beta extrovert has very little empathy. Many of the guys I know in OTC have very little empathy (they are probably primarily Beta and Alpha, although I know a few who are probably Gamma SFs and they react badly to some of the unempathic things I say/do).
On the other hand, my mother and her fiancée have a lot of empathy. I think they are both Delta.
Simplistic, typical SLE deduction: Fi = empathy, Fe = no empathy.
empathy is type-related.
Mr. Saturn seemed empathetic to me. :tongue:
I learned something this week.
(1) Assumptions are the mother of all fuck ups.
(2) Assume makes an ass out of u and me.
While neither principles are particularly relevant in this case, what is relevant is that you assumed I was referring to Mr. Saturn. I was not. I was referring to one of my house mates.
No. You assumed that I assumed you were referring to Mr. Saturn! I didn't assume that at all. I mentioned him because he isI learned something this week.
(1) Assumptions are the mother of all fuck ups.
(2) Assume makes an ass out of u and me.
While neither principles are particularly relevant in this case, what is relevant is that you assumed I was referring to Mr. Saturn. I was not. I was referring to one of my house mates.
I assume that you meant that way from the start as well.No. You assumed that I assumed you were referring to Mr. Saturn! I didn't assume that at all. I mentioned him because he is
(D)IEE~FI-(C)SLE~Ni E-5w4(Sp/Sx)/7w8(So/Sp)/9w1(sp/sx)
Oh dear.
You're sweet. I was just in a weird mood earlier. I think I'm overly sensitive to the idea of things being type-related. Maybe it bothers me to think that almost everything could be attributed to type if someone tried? I'm not sure and it's not important.
It does make sense that ethical types would pick up on peoples' moods better than logical types.
I don't believe that IQ tests = intelligence, but I see your point nonetheless.
Yeah, I don't mind when people discuss whatever either, but sometimes I think people make things too personal and then it's just ... weird. But that's my problem, not anyone else's.
And I very much agree with the part that I bolded.
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
John Muir
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