The ILE Bias

[1981slater]

[1981slater]

[Skeptic]

The ILE bias results in SFs being regarded in the opposite way. The same would go for anyone not so intellectually inclined/gifted as the ILE, like STs, NFs and so forth. They're really all unintelligent worms in comparison.

It's another shortcoming of the theory, and no coincidence given that Augusta was ILE :3

[The Ineffable]

It's another shortcoming of the theory, and no coincidence given that Augusta was ILE :3

That's not the fault of the theory, it's in people's minds. Perhaps that's why everyone wants to be an Alpha, most know what an ILE is from the books, and when they find a super-intelligent mega-scientist they type him ILE. Checkmate.

If you know an ILE, or an Alpha, and you apply the description, it fits. But the description also fits your idealized image of these types. However this image does not fit the real person. Guess what's the problem. Well, there are more, first and foremost it's rationalization. People want just to read the guide and begin typing, they don't realize that one has actually to discover these types in real people, the theory is just a hint, it just provides the clues, fact that it's necessary to acknowledge as long as, according to the same theory, information is always interpreted in different manners by different people. It is not easy to understand the foolishness of some who believe they can type by merely applying a procedure, without any other addition/reasoning, who believe the Q&A tests can tell one's type, that there actually exists such thing as evidence which "speaks for itself" or traits that can be strictly defined, or that types use certain vocabularies, etc. Bullshit. If such things can tell anything for sure, they tell who's either a beginner or an idiot.

Extremely rarely someone points to actual examples to picture what they have in mind or what they saw, even more rarely people have the patience to check the big picture, how all the elements fit together, be it real people whom they type, or the explanations of someone else, merely sticking to notions or rigid details. Take for instance the idea of "narrow-minded". Oh please spare me, I don't believe that an LSI would have the same understanding in this term as an ILE, or an SLI, that would contradict the theory which defines these types in the first place. But hey, wait! We don't need to give examples, we're intellectuals, if we do that we're not professional enough, we must be able to communicate only in abstract notions and academic terms!

Concluding, typing requires experience, types can only be discovered, not learned. When you found them, they're real people, they can't be "biased".

and we can argue about the "logic" part.

Hmm, with who are you going to argue about that?

[Jonathan]

I think the alpha-centrism of Socionics comes from the fact that the IM elements were described by the Alphas who founded Socionics in ways that make the Alpha elements seem human and real. Perhaps the people who came up with Socionics sought to describe non-Alpha elements in terms of people they didn't understand (and thus assumed to be the models for the other quadras).

Here's a caricature of the IM elements. I realize it's just a caricature, but it illustrates the essence of Alpha-centrism:

Ti - Everything having to do with logic and real thinking
Te - That businessy stuff that those business people do
Ne - Everything having to do with creativity, ideas, and intuition
Ni - A strange ability to know what time it is without wearing a watch
Si - Sensing the beauty of everything, being gentle and beautiful
Se - Hitting and abusing other people
Fe - Expressing emotions, feeling
Fi - Some strange ability having to do with relationships, gossip, and moralizing, and not having anything to do with feeling

[1981slater]

[Slacker]

I think the alpha-centrism of Socionics comes from the fact that the IM elements were described by the Alphas who founded Socionics in ways that make the Alpha elements seem human and real. Perhaps the people who came up with Socionics sought to describe non-Alpha elements in terms of people they didn't understand (and thus assumed to be the models for the other quadras).

Here's a caricature of the IM elements. I realize it's just a caricature, but it illustrates the essence of Alpha-centrism:

Ti - Everything having to do with logic and real thinking
Te - That businessy stuff that those business people do
Ne - Everything having to do with creativity, ideas, and intuition
Ni - A strange ability to know what time it is without wearing a watch
Si - Sensing the beauty of everything, being gentle and beautiful
Se - Hitting and abusing other people
Fe - Expressing emotions, feeling
Fi - Some strange ability having to do with relationships, gossip, and moralizing, and not having anything to do with feeling

ROFL this needs a sticky or something. I'm putting it in in the hall of fame.

[Suz]

I just want to comment the obvious that what is "awesome" and "master of existence" is all a matter of perspective.

[The Ineffable]

I think the alpha-centrism of Socionics comes from the fact that the IM elements were described by the Alphas who founded Socionics in ways that make the Alpha elements seem human and real.
...
Se - Hitting and abusing other people

Yeah, that's exactly what the founders defined Se as.

[detail]

Awesome traits in a person are never only the result of his sociotype. That's what makes socionics boring after a while. That's also why more well rounded individuals come off as healthier than those who obsess about their quadra functions. This is very telling about the variations in the importance of intertype relations as described by socionics in real interactions vs everything not related to socionics in someone's personality.

[Creepy-Snaps]

I just want to comment the obvious that what is "awesome" and "master of existence" is all a matter of perspective.

^ that.

Yeah, that's exactly what the founders defined Se as.

Yeah...

I think the alpha-centrism of Socionics comes from the fact that the IM elements were described by the Alphas who founded Socionics in ways that make the Alpha elements seem human and real. Perhaps the people who came up with Socionics sought to describe non-Alpha elements in terms of people they didn't understand (and thus assumed to be the models for the other quadras).

Here's a caricature of the IM elements. I realize it's just a caricature, but it illustrates the essence of Alpha-centrism:

Ti - Everything having to do with logic and real thinking
Te - That businessy stuff that those business people do
Ne - Everything having to do with creativity, ideas, and intuition
Ni - A strange ability to know what time it is without wearing a watch
Si - Sensing the beauty of everything, being gentle and beautiful
Se - Hitting and abusing other people
Fe - Expressing emotions, feeling
Fi - Some strange ability having to do with relationships, gossip, and moralizing, and not having anything to do with feeling

I can't help but feel people are jumping on this supposed 'bias' because someone else perceived a bias... like... how easily could you have written a list, if this thread was about ISFj bias?

Ti - Wasting time making sure everything is correct before proceeding into action.
Te - The initiative, efficiency, and organization needed to get results.
Ni - The insight and perspective to see how things change over time, and what actually matters in life.
Ne - Seeing how random things relate in an impractical, unuseful way.
Si - Being overly sensitive to the things around you, wanting to relax in comfortable environments all the time and being lazy.
Se - Having the drive and willpower to achieve the external objective, overcoming hardships. Observing what's tangible and real.
Fi - A deep understanding of the real distance between people, and how strong relationships actually are.
Fe - All the artificial stuff, the masks people put on, to hide how they truly feel on the inside.



It's all perspective.

Like seriously, I'm not aware of this 'Alpha bias' or 'ILE bias' that the OP mentions. ILE descriptions outline their faults... huge unawareness of sensing, losing small objects, being intrusive on others' conversations, having a poor psychological distance with people, happy one day and mean the next, etc. etc.

[detail]

lol Ni polr


EDIT: I was refering to you rarely perceiving the referential background and taking things very litterally which causes you to come off as out of context and/or captain obvious-ish sometimes.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

LMAO.

That was funny, but to be serious- If it's your polr I think you can't help but view that particular function as cartoony and crude and simple as that.

Cartoonish, crude, and simple things hold this certain power over you that basically breaks everybody's balls.

To you, they only have one dimension, and that particular single dimension is always coming straight toward you, like a STRAIGHT male penis invading your female-like innocence, compassion, integrity and humanism.

Other people don't think they are abusing you, they don't care, they see you as simply not being able to overcome adversity.

You might be able to intellectually rationalize a function and understand its uses, but it will *emotionally* get under your skin in a raw, romantic human way. You can pretend that it isn't the case but to other people it's quite obvious what is pushing your buttons and lighting you up and tearing you down.

And because love is about loving somebody even when they're weak and down, and not kicking them when they're down or bullying them for their obvious weak polr functions....that's why duality works. (and EP/IP & EJ/IJ energy is so complementary) Duals are blind to each other's polrs, they view it in a 'eh whatever' sense. Most people around the world are hateful to other human beings (except for a select few) because they chomped down their humanity in unforgiveable ways. To them, what you did was like casually eating an innocent human baby and then sociopathically burping afterwards with Homer Simpson-esque eyes.

Then you uncaringly wipe the debris of human baby out from your mouth and smile at them fake-like. And then you wonder why most everybody hates you.

Chomp, chomp, chomp. Nobody cares. Chomp, chomp, chomp. Stop being emo (saying this hatefully and just as emo yourself) Chomp, chomp, chomp. You shouldn't care about that you should care about this. Chomp, chomp, chomp. You're actually worried about that? It's weak to care about stuff like that. BITE CHOMP. HAHAH I ACTUALLY GOT UNDER YOUR SKIN AND PROUD OF MYSELF THAT I MADE YOU CRY. THAT MAKES ME THE STRONG ONE AND YOU THE WEAK ONE. I AM SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU HAHAHAHAHA. *and do a narcissistic stuck up male dance after*

You don't want somebody to condescendingly help you with your polr, or point it out to you assholeishly like (like hey bubba why not turn that insight around on yourself?) ....you want them to simply ignore it, romantically.

[woofwoofl]

Ti - Wasting time making sure everything is correct before proceeding into action.
Te - The initiative, efficiency, and organization needed to get results.
Ni - The insight and perspective to see how things change over time, and what actually matters in life.
Ne - Seeing how random things relate in an impractical, unuseful way.
Si - Being overly sensitive to the things around you, wanting to relax in comfortable environments all the time and being lazy.
Se - Having the drive and willpower to achieve the external objective, overcoming hardships. Observing what's tangible and real.
Fi - A deep understanding of the real distance between people, and how strong relationships actually are.
Fe - All the artificial stuff, the masks people put on, to hide how they truly feel on the inside.

yep, that seems about right to me!


Anyways, if there's any Alpha bias, I doubt it's intentional - Socionics is heavily Alpha NT, so it would make sense for descriptions of types outside of that to be a bit more bare (probably increasingly so the further things are removed from Alpha NT - it's tricky to try to see the world through someone else's perspective when it's that different) and less favorable in connotations (not a biggie to me - the info is there and it works for me)...

I think being SEE rules Obstinate, Democratic, Strategic, Emotivist, Farsighted, Serious, Decisive (and so much more) - all without any stinking jamming up the works!

[Jonathan]

I can't help but feel people are jumping on this supposed 'bias' because someone else perceived a bias... like... how easily could you have written a list, if this thread was about ISFj bias?

Ti - Wasting time making sure everything is correct before proceeding into action.
Te - The initiative, efficiency, and organization needed to get results.
Ni - The insight and perspective to see how things change over time, and what actually matters in life.
Ne - Seeing how random things relate in an impractical, unuseful way.
Si - Being overly sensitive to the things around you, wanting to relax in comfortable environments all the time and being lazy.
Se - Having the drive and willpower to achieve the external objective, overcoming hardships. Observing what's tangible and real.
Fi - A deep understanding of the real distance between people, and how strong relationships actually are.
Fe - All the artificial stuff, the masks people put on, to hide how they truly feel on the inside.



It's all perspective.

Like seriously, I'm not aware of this 'Alpha bias' or 'ILE bias' that the OP mentions. ILE descriptions outline their faults... huge unawareness of sensing, losing small objects, being intrusive on others' conversations, having a poor psychological distance with people, happy one day and mean the next, etc. etc.

Your list here is a pretty good one for balance. But the point is that not that many Socionics writings take that point of view. As Labcoat pointed out, the problem of alpha-centrism has been known and talked about for years. The people on this forum didn't make it up. I realize that one can easily come up with a list of IM elements or types "slanted" towards any particular type or quadra. But my point was simply that the early definitions in Socionics tended to make the Alpha IM elements more understandable and human. And I think that perspective did influence future generations of Socionists as well.

As to ILE descriptions, my biggest problem with them isn't so much that they describe ILE as the perfect type, but rather that they describe ILEs in terms of the "eccentric genius" archetype, which I believe to be a bit of a distorted view. I think there are actually a lot of ILEs who are a bit more "normal" and less genius-level than the descriptions indicate, and there are also a lot of people who are creative and intelligent (and also eccentric) but who aren't ILE or even Alpha.

[Gilly]

Yeah...



I can't help but feel people are jumping on this supposed 'bias' because someone else perceived a bias... like... how easily could you have written a list, if this thread was about ISFj bias?

Ti - Wasting time making sure everything is correct before proceeding into action.
Te - The initiative, efficiency, and organization needed to get results.
Ni - The insight and perspective to see how things change over time, and what actually matters in life.
Ne - Seeing how random things relate in an impractical, unuseful way.
Si - Being overly sensitive to the things around you, wanting to relax in comfortable environments all the time and being lazy.
Se - Having the drive and willpower to achieve the external objective, overcoming hardships. Observing what's tangible and real.
Fi - A deep understanding of the real distance between people, and how strong relationships actually are.
Fe - All the artificial stuff, the masks people put on, to hide how they truly feel on the inside.



It's all perspective.

Like seriously, I'm not aware of this 'Alpha bias' or 'ILE bias' that the OP mentions. ILE descriptions outline their faults... huge unawareness of sensing, losing small objects, being intrusive on others' conversations, having a poor psychological distance with people, happy one day and mean the next, etc. etc.

You're right, these biases could be skewed either way. I think the real consideration, the reason this issue of bias is being addressed, is because the people bringing up or corroboration the initial concern feel that there is a generally wider instance . That, or some may simply be interested in petty attempts to sway the collective bias in their favor by way of street corner preaching.

Personally I don't feel that either set of biases holds peculiar sway over mass perception. The issue is rather juvenile; people have their biases, but most, I hope, are capable.of some level of objectivity surrounding their own, which is confirmed generally by my observations.

[consentingadult]

... how easily could you have written a list, if this thread was about ISFj bias?

...

Ne - Seeing how random things relate in an impractical, unuseful way.

...

Very typical for ESIs indeed, and perhaps the most important reason why these security seekers have nothing new to contribute to the world.

[glam]

That's not the fault of the theory, it's in people's minds.

^ that.

[krieger]

As Labcoat pointed out, the problem of alpha-centrism has been known and talked about for years.

i was talking about the ENTp type specifically. i think your views on alpha-centrism are outdated and inapplicable to this forum in it's current state. alphas these days get a lot of flak for supposedly being the quadra that never produces anything useful aside from entertainment that only appeals to themselves. the reality is more along the lines of the latter being applicable to all quadras and the former being simply unrelated to type.

[Jonathan]

i was talking about the ENTp type specifically. i think your views on alpha-centrism are outdated and inapplicable to this forum in it's current state. alphas these days get a lot of flak for supposedly being the quadra that never produces anything useful aside from entertainment that only appeals to themselves. the reality is more along the lines of the latter being applicable to all quadras and the former being simply unrelated to type.

Well perhaps I misinterpreted the intent of your comment, but I was talking about Socionics writings in general, not about the state of the forum. You're right that I don't follow the forum that much, but I wasn't at all accusing the forum of alpha-centrism.

Of course the topic of the thread is the Reinin dichotomy descriptions, which were not created on this forum. And I agree with the original post that they do show a bias. For example, being an "asker" definitely seems better to me than being "declarative." Then again, I've never seen any theoretical reason given for why the "asking" types would fit the asker description, or why the "declarative" types would fit the declarative description. The dichotomies as mathematical groupings of the types are fine, but where is the evidence that the Reinin descriptions are even valid?