Enneagram type 9: all things Nine

[silke]

i'm feeling bored of the instinct threads, starting a new series on enneagram types.





Nine Qualities of the 'Enlightened' Being: Type Nine Chapter

The enlightened quality associated with the Nine (who is also known as 'the Mediator') is a capacity for reconciliation of opposites, synthesis, integration . It is symbolized by male and female deities in yab-yum position (what Jung calls the 'Mysterium Coniunctionis'), and by the Yin/Yang Diagram (which depicts the yin half of the diagram arising out of a yang core, and the yang half of the circle coming from a yin essence at its center). There is an interpenetrating nature to opposites which is recognized by the Nine in her wisdom.

The capacity for reconciliation originates in the appreciation, at the core of one's humanity, of what Thich Nhat Hanh calls 'interbeing', our essential interconnectedness with other human beings and with the rest of the universe.

It is difficult to find English or French words which convey the same meaning as tiep hien . There is a term from the Avatamsaka Sutra, 'interbeing', which conveys the spirit, so we have translated tiep hien as interbeing. In the sutra it is a compound term which means 'mutual' and 'to be'. Interbeing is a new word in English, and I hope it will be accepted. We have talked about the many in the one, and the one containing the many. In one sheet of paper, we see everything else, the cloud, the forest, the logger. I am, therefore you are. You are, therefore I am. That is the meaning of the word 'interbeing'. We inter-are. (Page 87, Being Peace)

According to Von Franz,

We are still probably aeons away from realizing such a state of free mutual interrelatedness among all human beings. A profound respect for the real 'otherness' of the other being or ethical group is needed as well as the intimacy of a feeling of identity. But even this is not yet the ultimate stage of possible development....There exists another stage..... which I would like to call a personal connection of fate through the self with selected people . ...It is a relationship with the Self in the other person, with her or his totatily and oneness of opposites. Only love and not mind can understand the other person in this way. This form of love, Jung writes, 'is not transference and it is more primitive, more primeval and more spiritual, than anything we can describe. That upper floor is no more you or I, it means many, including yourself and anybody whose heart you touch. There is no distance, but immediate presence. It is an eternal secret - how shall I ever explain it? (page 32, Human Survival and Consciousness Evolution)

Thich Nhat Hanh has in mind this 'mysterious something that makes any deep real encounter of two human beings possible' when he reminds us:

When you meditate, it is not just for yourself, you do it for the whole society. You seek solutions to your problems not only for yourself, but for all of us. (page 47, Being Peace).

The fact that, at some profound level, we 'inter-are' accounts for how it is possible, according to Von Franz, to mediate conflicts occuring between external parties through an internal reconciliation of opposites. By being able to maintain opposites in a state of dynamic synthesis within oneself, the outside world is brought into harmony.

This capacity for facilitation that seems to come naturally to the Nine can, however, degenerate into compromise and collaborationism . Instead of peace and harmony we have static states in which standoff, indolence and indecisiveness prevail, preventing positive change and creative movement. Let us call the D-quality associated with reconciliation and harmony 'stagnation, compromise and indolence'.

[Cerelict]

[Aylen]

Seems so/sx too. Song not video.

[epheme]

@silke I get what you're trying to do with the image in the first post, but I don't relate to it. It's more like I feel connected to all those things. Like all those things are a part of me and I'm a part of all those things in an awe inspiring way. I am the very thing that's "bigger" than me. Like, I'm a cosmic dancer or something and that feels joyful and impassioned. Makes me overflow with love.

It's not "I'm so enormously insignificant" but rather "it's so amazing that I'm part of all of this".

[Suz]

@silke I get what you're trying to do with the image in the first post, but I don't relate to it. It's more like I feel connected to all those things. Like all those things are a part of me and I'm a part of all those things in an awe inspiring way. I am the very thing that's "bigger" than me. Like, I'm a cosmic dancer or something and that feels joyful and impassioned. Makes me overflow with love.

It's not "I'm so enormously insignificant" but rather "it's so amazing that I'm part of all of this".

I feel exactly the same way.

EDIT: but i do like the idea of threads to characterize each enneatype. Maybe lets not just limit to pictures/photos/videos, but also include discussions on each type.

[suedehead]

[Aylen]

I think an so/sx 9.

[anndelise]

[Galen]

[Amber]

[Amber]

[Amber]

“A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.”

“Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.”

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

“You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.”

“Meditate.
Live purely. Be quiet.
Do your work with mastery.
Like the moon, come out
from behind the clouds!
Shine”

―Gautama Buddha

[Aylen]

I got this from a 972 on FB.

[Aylen]

The inner landscape of the Nine resembles someone riding a bicycle on a beautiful day, enjoying everything about the flow of the experience. The whole picture, the entire situation, is what is pleasant and identified with rather than any particular part. The inner world of Nines is this experience of effortless oneness: their sense of self comes from being at one with their experience. Naturally, they would like to preserve the quality of oneness with the environment as much as possible.

Their receptive orientation to life gives Nines so much deep satisfaction that they see no reason to question it or to want to change anything essential about it. Because Nines develop psychologically this way, we should not fault them if their view of life is open and optimistic. But we may fault Nines when they refuse to see that life, while being sweet, also has difficulties which must be dealt with. Their refusal to fix the tire when it goes flat, so to speak, is symbolic of their problem. They would rather ignore whatever is wrong so that the tranquillity of their ride will not be disturbed.


- See more at: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/t....rins6V6X.dpuf

Only the healthiest Nines achieve an awareness of themselves as distinct persons who can actively choose what they need and want. Healthy Nines know how to take direct positive actions for themselves. By contrast, average Nines have a relatively passive orientation to life. They still have substantial vitality and willpower, but their willpower is used to deflect others, to resist, to fend off reality. Average Nines use most of their energy to maintain and defend two boundaries against the environment. One is against the outer environment: Nines do not want their inner stability to be affected or influenced by other people. The second is against aspects of their inner environment: this can include feelings, memories, thoughts or sensations which would be jarring or upsetting, thus ruining their balance and harmony. These boundaries do protect the Nine’s inner world, but they do so at a high price. What they do not see is that they cannot really contribute to others, or even love them, if they do not develop themselves as persons, and that real development requires risking discomfort, questioning or even releasing one’s inner “balance,” and sometimes facing truths which are unpleasant and uncomfortable. But this does not matter to them since, for average Nines, personal growth, individuality, and self-determination are not values whereas “stability,” peace, and comfort are.


- See more at: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/t....rins6V6X.dpuf

Stuff like this is how I know 9 is tertiary for me.

[marooned]

Stuff like this is how I know 9 is tertiary for me.

hah. i don't relate to most of that myself. i think helen palmer is my favorite on nines, and reading her stuff was how i started looking seriously at nine for myself.

mainly i see it for myself as the fairly simple mechanism of not being able to set priorities in my life and stick to them, as well as being an escapist from external reality to some extent. so attention for a nine often works such that whenever i probably should be working on some real world problem like cleaning my apt, or job hunting, or doing my laundry, or dealing with finances, getting enough sleep, etc. my attention is suddenly grabbed away by something far more interesting which i then immerse myself in to the detriment of my life and ability to function. if i identify things i need to work on, somehow i can never maintain attention on any of them. so it's this experience of my attention being always on the wrong thing, which is actually really painful and unpleasant (a feeling of being stuck in inertia) rather than the wonderful life of peace nine descriptions like to give.

i'm not likely to turn into a person who can maintain internal peace by denying turmoil... my inner experience is full of turmoil - it's just i can't seem to make myself do anything about it. as long i have this problem, i'll identify with nine. that said i can escape situations i dislike by turning my attention inward to internal fantasy (which is much like what you quoted, in essence, even though the way it's written really doesn't ring true to me). this is a coping mechanism i learned as a child because my home life was fairly bad (i had an overbearing father who i was afraid of) and there was nothing i could do about it. as an adult though, this coping mechanism keeps me stuck in bad situations because i can't seem to gather up the attention and drive to change them. so it makes sense that anger isn't "working" correctly, because anger is something that provides the impetus to change something rather than just being moved along as though everything is out of my control.

i also learned through my childhood that my needs weren't important (presenting anything i needed might anger my dad, so i learned to suffer in silence). eventually i kind of learned how not to notice my needs at all, rather than suffer through something i could do nothing to help. emotionally, i can be rather masochistic and have a bit of a victim mentality, usually seeing myself enslaved by others and their oppressive demands. this is why i prefer to avoid people. i suppose the E5 piece doesn't help here either as i usually feel i have very limited internal resources (energy?) and i see others as trying to sap away what little i have. interaction with others is usually incredibly draining. (eta: although in contrast to this pattern that seemed to win out in the case of my dad, and now in my life... i was fairly emotionally demanding with my mom and sister who i was safe with. when i'm around them, i'm still that way... but it seems in the rest of my life, it's almost like i associate the entire external world with my dad/that relationship - well and maybe part of the fear of demands part comes actually in part from my mom too.)

another thing i related to was a video about types and counseling by the fauvres. the tendency noticed with nine is that in counseling a lot of insight will emerge as well as ideas about what to do about their situation, but when you meet with the nine in the next session you find nothing has actually been *done* between sessions. it's as though the nine only holds these ideas conceptually and can't actually get them into action (which applies to being out of touch with the instinctive center - the ability to act goes out the window). what happens between sessions is the nine will in some sense "forget" any plan of action (although it may not have felt like a plan to the nine to begin with), or will have consistently remembered it, but procrastinated doing anything. again, though, the insight returns along with new ideas about what to do - which once again don't get implemented. and the pattern goes on. this can be somewhat befuddling to a counselor: as in, if you understand, why don't you *do* something about it. (personally i think in my case, low dopamine might *really* have something to do with this issue.)

lastly, i relate to the merging aspect of the nine, especially in romantic relationships. the way i come to understand something often also involves merging with that concept, feeling, idea, etc. i explore things through sort of empathetically embracing them in my mind.

i didn't always have this host of problems, most of them began emerging with increased lifestyle pressures which i wasn't able to cope with well. and i've always had limited energy/stamina, which is why it's important for me to be strategic. but even when healthier i think my attention followed a similar pattern of seeking intense stimulation (whether emotional or intellectual or an activity) over taking necessary actions (doing work). and so, i really am quite lazy.

also, as health declines, some of the "stimulation seeking" can devolve into its lower energy-level manifestation of "zoning out," which helps to reveal the mechanism for what it really is. zoning out is incredibly awful in feeling... like being a vegetable... it's like death where you're so stuck in inertia that you can't get out. but if one is going to that rather than acting on their priorities, that is significant, imo. basically i think that nines learned deep down that their needs and priorities are not important, and so a pattern was learned to avoid addressing them or connecting to them properly. it's a pattern that arises for some out of certain childhood situations, and then is rehearsed on a deep inner layer of consciousness over and over again. what a really unhealthy nine would seek, would be oblivion.

(fantasizing too can devolve into dissociation and depersonalization - a break from reality entirely. this reveals that the inner fantasy life is in fact escapism, which keeps one from doing something to fix their life.)

[Olly From Wally World]

So I mentioned in some enneagram group that I read a few paragraphs of Naranjo's 9 (and maybe someone else's briefly but I forget if I really did) and I had an image of a person in a portrait with a weaker contour line around them or without a strong outline. Like the painting is lush and maybe even with beautiful scenery and that person is in the background with an outline around them in pencil or something, lol. Some guy says that it's funny because such a portrait for type 9 does exist on some Spanish Website.



He says "It's a metaphor: the person blends with the bench he/she is sitting on and the doves are feeding out of him/her as though he doesn't exist. The paint is called 'conformismo' which may be translated as 'abnegated over-adaptation' or 'resignation'."

My image didn't really include the blending aspect, like how the bench blends into the guy but my impression was that there's a weak boundary or sense of self, as if they are apart of what's there or around them to the point where the individual self isn't too important, hence the 'meh' accedia-like attitude'. With that I could better understand how someone could develop a 'go-with-the-flow, fatalistic response, it's like the world is bigger and more significant than you and you're (somewhat apart of it) so why fight it?

[silke]

@silke I get what you're trying to do with the image in the first post, but I don't relate to it. It's more like I feel connected to all those things. Like all those things are a part of me and I'm a part of all those things in an awe inspiring way. I am the very thing that's "bigger" than me. Like, I'm a cosmic dancer or something and that feels joyful and impassioned. Makes me overflow with love. It's not "I'm so enormously insignificant" but rather "it's so amazing that I'm part of all of this".

@silke the image you posted is one that I very much relate to...like I am just an ant in a colony going about foraging or performing whatever other menial jobs or roles which might come my way in this world...an ant that can be wiped out so easily such as by a larger entity...just one of the creators many creations...why I ask....why make us play this 'game' called life....is it for the creators interest such as to be studied and experimented on - to be his plaything?...something which he can occasionally watch and care about/or not.

@epheme you might not relate to it but some other 9s will relate as per Shay's response -- it's just that there's more than one way of experiencing any type.
Are there any pictures, quotes, or videos that you feel are more representative of your experience?

[epheme]

@epheme you might not relate to it but some other 9s will relate as per Shay's response -- it's just that there's more than one way of experiencing any type.
Are there any pictures, quotes, or videos that you feel are more representative of your experience?

I didn't mean to imply that it was inaccurate - I just wanted to add my perspective. It was a valuable input . One, that I'm sure, resonates with some 9s, it's just not the way I experience E9.

And I will try to remember to post some things in this thread to convey my experience when I get the chance.

[Not A Communist Shill]

When I see some of the things in this thread, they don't appeal perhaps because there is something synthetic about them and\or there is something alarming and unbalanced about them.

[epheme]

When I see some of the things in this thread, they don't appeal perhaps because there is something synthetic about them and\or there is something alarming and unbalanced about them.

I agree.

[powerrainbowcrystal]

no offense but i hate these quotes. i will correct them using truckology:

“A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.”

If a man isn't talking enough then maybe he's just being a coward.

“Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.”

Saying that doesn't help people who feel alone and like nobody really understands them. You can maybe say that but it's just hot air.

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”

This is bullshit. It's just not true. Even if you blew up planet earth and then gained the powers of levitate and flight you still would have some way of measurement from where you float in relation to Jupiter. Even if objects didn't exist in space there would be some way to measure space itself. I think the deeper meaning of what this quote is trying to say is that labels can be artistically limiting, sometimes you just want to get lost in something and forget what the time is.

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

Not true for me. People get burned all the time by my anger. I kinda hate when somebody is clearly being hurtful to OTHERS and then somebody goes "well you are just hurting yourself!" Yeah fucking right that's such a cop-out and they know it.

“You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.”

No. I will smile in glee as I get my revenge and execute my anger in ways I feel that are self-justified. (or maybe i will forgive and ascend as a higher being- i don't know yet cuz being half-demon is more sexy to the ladies) anger is better than powerlessness/depression - it's like the movie carrie. she was depressed/victimized/powerless and the next step above that is Rage. It's only natural.

Evil and self-hatred are the same thing. An evil person is like destined to get murdered, its like in the script they're setting up for themselves- that's what is so sad about it. and why str8 girls have empathy for THE LOST.

[golden]

no offense but i hate these quotes. i will correct them using truckology:

“A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.”

If a man isn't talking enough then maybe he's just being a coward.

“Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.”

Saying that doesn't help people who feel alone and like nobody really understands them. You can maybe say that but it's just hot air.

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”

This is bullshit. It's just not true. Even if you blew up planet earth and then gained the powers of levitate and flight you still would have some way of measurement from where you float in relation to Jupiter. Even if objects didn't exist in space there would be some way to measure space itself. I think the deeper meaning of what this quote is trying to say is that labels can be artistically limiting, sometimes you just want to get lost in something and forget what the time is.

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

Not true for me. People get burned all the time by my anger. I kinda hate when somebody is clearly being hurtful to OTHERS and then somebody goes "well you are just hurting yourself!" Yeah fucking right that's such a cop-out and they know it.

“You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.”

No. I will smile in glee as I get my revenge and execute my anger in ways I feel that are self-justified. (or maybe i will forgive and ascend as a higher being- i don't know yet cuz being half-demon is more sexy to the ladies) anger is better than powerlessness/depression - it's like the movie carrie. she was depressed/victimized/powerless and the next step above that is Rage. It's only natural.

Evil and self-hatred are the same thing. An evil person is like destined to get murdered, its like in the script they're setting up for themselves- that's what is so sad about it. and why str8 girls have empathy for THE LOST.

Hate me, ok, but what strikes me in what you wrote is you described someone alone and not experiencing connection, and someone depressed, victimized, powerless, and those are states of being that can result from anger directed at the world ... and I think that's the thing that can burn you bc it keeps ppl alone and disconnected, and then whatever or whoever oppressed you or harmed you has sort of won, sometimes.

I'm not saying ppl shouldn't experience their anger, bc what's emotionally worse than being forced to repress your emotions until you're well trained in repression so you can do it all by yourself?

I'm just expressing my narcissism here , you might conclude, bc I've been trying to figure this stuff out for myself for a while. Anger can be a highly motivating feeling, it leads ppl to stand up for themselves and other people, to set boundaries (say no), to experience who they are, to make things a little more right when someone is wronged.

How to use anger by channeling it into actions that improve my life is what I wanna be better at. I think that's probably the place it can go so I don't go on hurting myself. The anger is still there, but it's changed into something that can lead to new places.

And maybe that idea of action can tie back in to some of the stuff that's said abt E9, like the "indolence" and "indecision" in the OP.

And I don't know that you generally come across as angry, btw. That's not how I see you online, anyhow.

[suedehead]

Sloth is a vice. I'm ambivalent about the idea of being pleasant or acting like I don't have boundaries, and I don't think that facade represents anything that I feel internally. People that you caricaturize in that way based on a surface impression might not even like you.

[Aylen]

There are times when you look up into the sky and are convinced that there really is something more than love that matters. Things are falling apart, all the old beliefs and dreams are dying, and you can’t find any sort of reference point around which you can organize it all. What you were so convinced of only days ago has lost its meaning. You are being reassembled from the inside by the unrelenting activity of love, but in ways the mind will never understand.

Falling apart and then coming back together. Only to fall apart yet again. While it may be tempting to conclude that grace has abandoned you, look closer. For the partial must always die in order for wholeness to be revealed. While you may have a preference for flow, for clarity, and for certainty, the beloved does not share this bias, and will use whatever she must to reach you, and to unleash her allies of transmutation within.

If you remain too identified with the ‘falling apart,’ you drop into the trance of disembodiment. You lose contact with the gooey, muddy earth and with the radiance of immediate experience, becoming mistattuned to the wisdom buried inside somatic pathways. You forget how intelligent and creative it is inside you, and that you are never, ever in need of fixing. You forget that the darkness, when provided sanctuary, is brighter than a thousand suns.

But if you remain too identified with ‘holding it all together,’ you disconnect from your essence-vulnerability, from untamed aliveness and spontaneity, and you turn from the wild reality that your heart could break at any moment. You forget that it is through your brokenness that you will emerge, and that the cracks in your heart are the portals through which the poetry of your life will flow. The aliveness you are longing for will only be found in the risk of unbearable intimacy with all things.

Right in the middle of falling apart and holding it together is the secret place, the alchemical holding field of the dark and the light. The creativity here is outrageous and is the end of your world as you have come to know it. But yet here you are, called to organize your life around love, and to give your heart to others – to do whatever you can to help beings everywhere, to know how rare and sacred it is here. Somehow, you have returned home.

Matt Licata

947

[epheme]

"The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Taka (the Great Spirit), and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men. "

-Black Elk, Oglala Sioux & Spiritual Leader (1863 - 1950)


__________________________________________________


"What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across
the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

-Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator (1830 - 1890)

[epheme]

E9 Disney style

[Amber]

I am less alarmed now that I see people who self-type as E9 are actually contributing with their own representation of their mom-type instead of solely criticizing and chopping what's already here. It feels more authentic ... less artificial.

[epheme]

“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”
― Rumi

[epheme]

[silke]

LII-INTj type 9

[Hays]

Alpha NT-type 9

Brilliant - nearly made me cry, maybe I am enneagram 9, anyway I better go down a couple of my menopausal tablets now.

[suedehead]

[Aylen]

@suedehead I saw a panther's eyes (just like your image) earlier today when I was listening to a song with my eyes closed. It was pretty clear and lasted awhile. After I saw him I was speeding through a dark tunnel that had flashes of blue lights on either side of me. Like a time lapse video. Anyway, I had my inner eyes locked on him. Cool synch...

[silke]

Cyntoia Brown - 9 so/sx, likely Ti-LSI

[marooned]

aw2.JPG

meh.JPG

grr2.jpg

i know the last one doesn't seem particularly nine-ish... but it's the way he fights, as though he is one with everything and the literal essence of his surroundings... it's actually a rather nature-focused picture; he fights with the forces of nature around him. i mean after all, if one becomes a healthy representative of their type, they are no longer limited by the type's issues and so they can be godlike... and if necessary act effectively in ways that wouldn't really be considered characteristic of the core type (i.e. nine and fighting/confronting).

[Aylen]

Watched some videos, courtesy of a friend (I owe you one) and I think Wendy James may be a sx first, or possibly second, 9, sp last. Could be IEI-Fe.

Edit: IEI-Fe sx/so 9 is what I am thinking for now.

[marooned]

marilyn from 'the divide'

the_divide_rivers_of_grue-2.jpgrosanna-arquette-as-marilyn-in-the-divide.jpgTHE DIVIDE _14_.jpgthe-divide-4.jpg


--

dena riley:
http://www.aetv.com/the-killer-speak...lf-as-a-victim

[marooned]

[marooned]

[Amber]

Some parts of this article reminded me of the essence of E9. http://www.culturemachine.net/index....e/view/242/223

Second, we consider the ways in which Latour and Foucault deal with the subject, and its relations to identity.In particular, we note that underpinning both these thinkers' treatments is a view of the human (but also, in Latour, of the non-human) as at once fixed and fixable, but also fluid and 'fluidable': whereas for Latour the emphasis that is placed upon fixability and fluidity is allowed de jure, for Foucault fluidity has a de facto status which 'prompts' the various techniques and technologies of self (fixity).We suggest that neither of these approaches is satisfactory, for the fluid-ised self/identity is never knowable, except as 'in-process', and the fixed subject/identity is too knowable - a 'mere' cipher for a network or assemblage (Latour) or discursive formation (Foucault).We suggest that self/identity is most interesting at those points of transition from fluidity to fixity and vice versa.

3.3. Fluidity and fixity

For Foucault then, 'soi' has an irreducible fluidity ('multiplicité') that is the 'object' of discipline, knowledge, governmentality, and so forth.It is always on the verge of escaping the techniques and technologies which are deployed in power/knowledge networks - of becoming 'deterritorialised', as Deleuze and Guattari (e.g. 1988) put it.We may say that there is an 'essential potential' (de facto) in such fluidity.In contrast, for Latour, the actant is fixed (even as it is 'in process') in the nexus of a network (cf Michael, 1996).Any change is contingent upon other shifts in the network: there is a 'contingent potential' for fluidity - an in principle (de jure) movement into a deterritorialised or nomadic or rhizomic state.Or rather, there is a jump into another fixed state - another role within a reconfigured network.Where for Foucault there is always the fluidity of 'soi' lingering beneath the surface of an 'identity', for Latour there are only other potential actant-roles.
If these characterisations hold water, an interesting issue emerges.The fluid 'soi' can never be grasped - in its essence it is ungraspable, and ungraspability is its essence.In contrast, the role that Latour unravels is only too graspable: it ends up being a mere cipher for the network as a whole - it is wholly determined.Of course, various efforts have been made to overcome this model of the actor-actant (e.g. Mol and Law, 1994), and generalising beyond the human to the nonhuman, of the entity.More particularly, the singularity and territoriality of the actants that inhabit Latourian networks are feasible only because the network is itself singular.As Star (1991; Bowker and Star, 1999) points out, we all straddle multiple networks, and engage with them to varying degrees of centrality and marginality.These networks rub up against each other and rather like two blocks of ice in close contact, the pressure yields fluid.So, rather than look for fluidity as grounded in the essence of the self, we suggest that given that humans (and nonhumans, for that matter) are always relational, always between networks, then they are always on the verge of such fluidity (and this obviously links up to those moments of innovation captured in the term 'technique'). (...)

Interestingly, then, although we started out by criticising Foucault and Latour for their over-emphases on fluidity and fixity respectively, it is possible to move to a rapprochement between these two, and such a move reveals that what is crucial is the point of transition between the fluid and the fixed.Foucault and Latour are like two pieces of a puzzle waiting to be joined.