LIE view on materialism and success

**Zero** · 03-05-2017, 12:48 PM

Well this is one of the biggest debates going on between people and I wonder how other LIEs view it and what do ESIs think about the LIE view on it.
I have never been able to make sense of the SLE or EIE view on this subject, alongside LSI. EIEs for example seem to care the most about prestige, LSIs seem to like that, SLEs seem to like expensive cars for their speed and power. EIE women i know also love buying expensive shiny clothing and things, which LSI also approves of. SEIs like expensive things for their home decoration similar to SLIs who also pay alot for their clothing and things.
My IEE friend buys huge cars and likes to impress people as a doctor and his SLI wife approves of it.
On the other hand the ILI doesn't seem to give a shit about luxury and can only speak to his computer while SEE is somehow materialist which the ILI doesn't care about much either!
How does this algorithm work??
But I can't say all betas are materialists and all gammas are not can I?
With me as LIE it has never been about money for the sake of money and I have never viewed success as having money. My LSI father always said as a rule, life is all about money, everything is money, and even though his extreme Ti would make sense in its own way, it still is not the way I naturally think.
To me anyone who has a worthy idea in this short life is a successful person and of course the definition of a "worthy" idea is wether it is useful or not, wether it helps and makes changes for better, or not.
I have no interest in luxury cars or big houses, I would pay more for a car that is environment friendly and useful, but I am not interested in impressing people with my posessions. I much prefer living a small cozy house to a castle. I would not pay for anything golden or any special brand of clothing. ESI seems to despise materialism. But I read in their duality description that their duality based on material benefit, how does this work?
[I will probably add some more later]

**Adam Strange** · 03-05-2017, 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by TheHiddenJack

Well this is one of the biggest debates going on between people and I wonder how other LIEs view it and what do ESIs think about the LIE view on it.
I have never been able to make sense of the SLE or EIE view on this subject, alongside LSI. EIEs for example seem to care the most about prestige, LSIs seem to like that, SLEs seem to like expensive cars for their speed and power. EIE women i know also love buying expensive shiny clothing and things, which LSI also approves of. SEIs like expensive things for their home decoration similar to SLIs who also pay alot for their clothing and things.
My IEE friend buys huge cars and likes to impress people as a doctor and his SLI wife approves of it.
On the other hand the ILI doesn't seem to give a shit about luxury and can only speak to his computer while SEE is somehow materialist which the ILI doesn't care about much either!
How does this algorithm work??
But I can't say all betas are materialists and all gammas are not can I?
With me as LIE it has never been about money for the sake of money and I have never viewed success as having money. My LSI father always said as a rule, life is all about money, everything is money, and even though his extreme Ti would make sense in its own way, it still is not the way I naturally think.

I pretty much agree with your observations here, within a certain margin of error. They match up fairly well with my own experience and observations. And I also agree that no other sociotype seems to have the attitude toward materialism and success that LIE's do.

Originally Posted by TheHiddenJack

To me anyone who has a worthy idea in this short life is a successful person and of course the definition of a "worthy" idea is whether it is useful or not, whether it helps and makes changes for better, or not.
I have no interest in luxury cars or big houses, I would pay more for a car that is environment friendly and useful, but I am not interested in impressing people with my possessions. I much prefer living a small cozy house to a castle. I would not pay for anything golden or any special brand of clothing. ESI seems to despise materialism. But I read in their duality description that their duality based on material benefit, how does this work?
[I will probably add some more later]

I know LIE's who have regular incomes (they are younger) and LIE's who have larger incomes and both drive very utilitarian cars. None of them seem to care that much about having flashy things, but at the same time they do like to have beautiful things. I think this is due to Si-PoLR, in the sense that LIE's don't really know how to make their surroundings comfortable, but they do seek things which either speak to their low-Fi emotions (they might collect art which says something to them, and "art" can include the house they live in) or they like things which are efficient (the latest gadgets, or something that works well enough (costs enough) that they won't have to buy it twice) because of their strong Te.

Being Te-doms and Ni-creative means that LIE's basically like to make things more efficient in the real world, and can do "conclusive imagining" to know exactly how to accomplish that. This means, of course, that success to an LIE involves accomplishing something which involves these strengths. Maybe inventing something (Ni) that makes life easier (More Te efficient) for lots of people, or steering resources into ventures which will eventually benefit lots of people.

LIE's may not care about money per se, but somewhere along the line, they realize that having money enables them to broaden the scope of their actions and gives them more time to do what they want, and they can quickly and easily turn toward having a minor focus on steering toward themselves more of the resources which surround all of us. I think of it as dipping my hand in the fast-moving money stream, and having some of the money redirected towards me. It is easier to do than most people think. Basically, you find a need and fill it. The bigger the need, the bigger your share, because you ask for what you want. It's just that simple.

If you earn more money in an hour than the people who cook meals, clean your house, make your clothes, and maintain your house and yard, then paying other people to do that, instead of doing it yourself, makes everyone better off. It is just more efficient. (You don't even have to make more than they do. You just have to make more in the amount of time that it would take you to do an equal quality job, than the amount that you would have to pay an expert in that area to do it.) The LIE is then free to do what he (or she) does best, which is the Te-Ni thing.

Personally, I like to spend my time imagining a better and more efficient future, not grinding away at some pointless work just to get money to buy things that I don't actually need. I am presently remodeling my house. The walls are torn out and everything is packed away or given away, and in my kitchen I have a sink, a stove, a microwave, a fridge, one spoon, one fork, two knives, one plate and one bowl, (no walls, no ceiling, no cabinets, no counters) and that's all I need.

I have been incredibly lucky in the sense that many of the things that I like to do are also things that people need and will pay for. As time has gone on, I've been able to tackle bigger and bigger things, and that small percentage of money that I have diverted to myself has gotten bigger. But money has never been the goal. It is just a resource for making my life easier.

Now, with respect to the idea that ESI's despise materialism, that is probably true. I'm not sure why, maybe it is the idea that to them, people are more important than things. IDK, I can't get inside their heads to know, but the ESI's that I have seen seem to be minimalists in a sense. They don't waste things and aren't profligate, which I find to be reassuring. I do know of an ESI who has a fantastic kitchen, but he also is a fantastic cook and his kitchen, along with his racing bicycle, seem to be his only expenditures.

ESI's like security but don't know how to achieve it. Everything that makes an LIE money-wise and efficient seems to make an ESI penny-wise and pound foolish. I've seen them waste both time and resources in order to save less time and fewer resources.

As for duality being based on material benefits, I think that description is true, while not being exactly what it seems. I don't think ESI's primarily want stuff. Rather, I think they want material (real world) evidence of a secure and stable and protected position. Here are some examples:

My best and oldest ESI friend has tenure in a University. Jobs don't get any more secure than that.

I have another ESI friend who works for an electronics company. They haven't given him a significant raise in years, but his job is pretty safe, so he stays there.

I commissioned an ESI artist to make some art for me. It was a collaborative effort on two pieces. (I talked, she listened, and she made art.) The first piece, she made entirely by herself and set a (very low) price on it. For the second one, she and I talked, she interpreted, and the work turned out to be very, very good. But some of what we talked about was how she could make a living as an artist, and part of that was my advice on how much she should charge for her work. She took what I said and doubled her rate on the second piece (she wanted to go visit Bolivia or something). This was still a good deal for me, and she got some measure of material security from it. I like to think that I showed her how to dip her hand into the money stream.

I work with two ESI's, one of them is in the engineering department. He is Indian and the company paid for his entry into the States. He hasn't asked for raises but has gotten them, because he's an extremely hard worker and is steady. I think, though, he's happier with the fact that I see that he is really valuable, and that he will become more so in the future. He's had a few failures, one kind of spectacular, but we definitely need to keep him around, if for no other reason than we've invested so much in his education.

These ESI's are all very different from LIE's. LIE's will tell you, "I can solve your problems. For money. Show me the money, or nothing happens. There are lots of other opportunities out there."
ESI's will say, "I will help you if you can offer me real security. But only if you're not a complete asshole. Don't expect a pushover, because I'm watching you."

**Delilah** · 03-05-2017, 09:00 PM

My guess is that Fi 'gets in the way' so to speak, a personal preference, an attitude to the object, might get in the way of gamma's 'aspirations' for materialism yet they're really aware of societal expectations of materialism because Se valuing; and maybe something can be said about Te here though I can't speak to it and its motivations; also subtypes;

I didn't know that IEE can be so into materialism as you explain though maybe just the look of the thing from the outside (?) - maybe he's playing at something or having a bit of fun with it?

**FDG** · 03-06-2017, 09:28 AM

I´d like to be succint so I´d put it this way:

1. if i´m doing something I really like I don´t care too much about money but usually it´s something peculiar, new and in demand so it´s also decently paid (not always!)
2. if i´m doing something mostly for the money I will only move a finger if it brings me a clear monetary benefit

I always aim for 1. but I try to have some special reserve skills to eventually resort to 2. if 1. fails.

Regarding ESIs I think many ESI guys really buy into materialism and showing off, big cars etc. - I find them a bit despicable. ESI women seem often very much into saving, saving, saving and then buying something expensive but durable.

**Milo** · 03-06-2017, 11:11 PM

Originally Posted by TheHiddenJack

How does this algorithm work??
But I can't say all betas are materialists and all gammas are not can I?

It's too complex for socionics to explain it alone.

You'll meet EIEs who aspire to live in luxury, same as you'll meet EIEs working in the slums of third world countries trying to benefit humanity in this way.

**Exodus** · 03-09-2017, 06:15 PM

Originally Posted by TheHiddenJack

Well this is one of the biggest debates going on between people and I wonder how other LIEs view it and what do ESIs think about the LIE view on it.
I have never been able to make sense of the SLE or EIE view on this subject, alongside LSI. EIEs for example seem to care the most about prestige, LSIs seem to like that, SLEs seem to like expensive cars for their speed and power. EIE women i know also love buying expensive shiny clothing and things, which LSI also approves of.

On the other hand the ILI doesn't seem to give a shit about luxury and can only speak to his computer while SEE is somehow materialist which the ILI doesn't care about much either!

I would agree with these observations.

SEIs like expensive things for their home decoration similar to SLIs who also pay alot for their clothing and things.
My IEE friend buys huge cars and likes to impress people as a doctor and his SLI wife approves of it.

Not so much these ones, or at least they seem less likely.

Seeking material wealth and expanding one's possessions is mostly about Se, although some Fe is involved in displaying said wealth. Gammas may define success to include other things than material wealth though.

**Muddy** · 03-09-2017, 08:42 PM

I'd say it's LIE's look-a-like, EIE, that is most likely to chase after the common societal definition of wealth and success, along with SLE to a slightly lesser extent. Gamma's view of success tends to seen more as overcoming obstacle's that are specific to the individual, rather then the advertised notions of success i.e wealth, money, swag. In some cases a gamma might chase after wealth but if they do it likely because they grew up poor and are trying to overcome past difficulties they have faced, rather then trying to impress their social circle like betas tend to.

**Skepsis** · 03-09-2017, 08:49 PM

I'm a metaphysical naturalist, which is known by the dualists as "materialism". I confess, I am one of these, but I am not a materialist in the sense that possessions, status, wealth, are most valuable in life. In fact, it seems silly to pursue these things by themselves, and is not likely to lead to a happy, fulfilling life.

**Delilah** · 03-09-2017, 11:32 PM

I know this is mostly about LIE, but I wanted to add and imo to understand gammas relationship with materialism and success you also have to be willing to look a little bit in the underbelly of society, this has the added benefit, if you will, of keeping alphas at bay (i'm not suggesting this is what you want, btw, indeed you may need alphas in order to not get bogged down by betas) - alpha considers such to be 'dirty' or getting your hands dirty.

I agree though that gammas relationship with both materialism and success is less straightforward than delta and even easy to miss compared to beta.

**Saoirse** · 03-10-2017, 01:59 PM

I think the combination of Sociotype and instinctual stacking type explains a lot of materialism/views on success.

Something I found interesting when I was dating an LSE sx/sp is that he was surprised to discover that I considered myself ambitious, and I was surprised to discover that he considered himself ambitious. Like OP said, I don't think of success as having money, and this LSE sx/sp mainly just wants a lot of money. And I suppose he doesn't think of success as helping a lot of poor people, which is what I need to accomplish to feel successful. But I also have an LSE so/sx friend who has the same view of success as me.

More directly related to the topic of LIEs, one of my favorite blogs was by an LIE sp/sx who was pretty materialistic, but like, in a nice way? He was very proud when he and his brother were able to buy a house for their mom (they had grown up poor), and he really enjoys luxuries like expensive food, clothing, and cars (Se HA + sp/sx?). I would link the blog, but he shut it down because he got his dream job, some position that requires a lower profile on the internet.