Originally Posted by
Varlawend
Good question: I was just citing Gulenko's snapshot definitions of the functions and not really explaining myself. I don't think that Si always represents itself as conformism; at a more sophisticated level Si can be far more subtle than that. However, conformism may be a primitive manifestation of Si.
The reason that conformism might show up with Si at the primitive level is because it's trying to achieve comfort and harmony with the environment. Conformism is lazy, gives you a basic orientation so that you don't have to spend the energy confronting the chaos necessary to come up with a more original and effective one, and it's an easy way to access some amount of comfort and fitting in (but this only goes so far since being a doormat will soon cease to be comfortable). Conformism is also a social intelligence that is to some extent necessary for humans, allowing you to adapt to your environment without making any waves. Of course Si is regularly used for many other things and at higher levels. And it might be said that types who don't even have Si as one of their most used functions could still be said to suffer from the effects of primitive Si. ILI's, for example, can often be lazy, idle, etc.