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Bob Dylan

BlackCat

Shaman
Joined
Nov 19, 2008
Messages
7,038
MBTI Type
ESFP
Enneagram
9w8
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
So apparently you don't see Si in NPs... But he would be an INP according to you.
 

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

Consulting Detective
Joined
Aug 10, 2010
Messages
1,450
MBTI Type
JiNe
Enneagram
5W4
INFP.

Idealistic, wildly imaginative and abstract, avoidant and private in interviews. Not a J. He doesn't care about success or anything, always laid-back and not taking things seriously. Doesn't care what anyone thinks about him and just writes for his causes and when he has something he wants to express. The amount of imagery, metaphors and just generally imaginative ideas is very N, Ne inparticular. He writes music because he wants to and has something to say. Shows tons and tons of Ne and Fi.
 

Spurgeon

New member
Joined
Jun 21, 2011
Messages
239
MBTI Type
xNxx
Bob Dylan - Ti Dom?

I've seen Dylan typed as INFP, ISFP, and ENFP, but has anyone considered INTP or ISTP?

For some reason, I just don't get an "F" vibe from him.

I really don't know why, but something in my gut tells me he's INTP or ISTP.

I have no strong opinion on this, so any arguments for or against would be appreciated. :)
 

KDude

New member
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
8,243
I think he's just a self-absorbed ISFP. They don't necessarily have to be soft or nice. The way he forms his arguments in videos like this doesn't seem like Ti to me.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnl5X5MQKTg].[/youtube]
 

wolfy

awsm
Joined
Jun 30, 2008
Messages
12,251
I think he's just a self-absorbed ISFP. They don't necessarily have to be soft or nice. The way he forms his arguments in videos like this doesn't seem like Ti to me.

I see him the same way.
 
A

A_priori

Guest
Bob Dylan's type?

Hi guys, I was just wondering what others pegged Dylan as? If I was to guess I would say INFP but not entirely sure as he does seem almost T in some ways. Anyways am i intrested in hearing what others think..

Cheers!
 

Forever_Jung

Active member
Joined
May 23, 2009
Messages
2,644
MBTI Type
ESFJ
He's very clearly ISFP in my books. Any sort of N mysticism/surreal/philosophical intuitiveness you might see would probably just be the Fi-Ni axis. His vaguely intuitive vibe is common among ISFP's, in my experience. Dylan is very much about the senses. The man had no Ne, and a ton of Fi.

His words are more about imagery than metaphor. He wants the sounds/images of the words to produce a feeling. He isn't that concerned with deeper, metaphysical meaning in the sense a lot of people thought he was back in the day.

Even when I read Chronicles, Dylan's autobiography (which is a fantastic book, btw), he talked a lot about what happened on a concrete level, what was said, how he felt, what people looked like, what something sounded like, even the weather--but he didn't really get abstract that much.

Dylan is very sensitive to his environment and was great at expressing the feelings of his time, but he wasn't trying to be a philosopher. In fact he often said, with a tone of frustration: "there's no message!" when asked about what his surreal lyrics meant in the mid-60s. He identifies more with Elvis than William Blake. Bob Dylan is definitely an in the flesh guy.

John Lennon is a better example of an 'N' musician of that time.

As ambivalent as I am about Keirsey, I thought his site did a good job of contrasting Dylan (ISFP) vs. Joan Baez (ENFP).

http://www.keirsey.com/4temps/bob_dylan.asp
 

Siúil a Rúin

when the colors fade
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
14,037
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
496
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Fi Dom for sure!

I thought Joan Baez was way too focused and in the end forceful to be an ENFP. When watching her biography she comes across extremely NFJ. I related a lot to her in her early years until she became pure Fe. She was really forceful and tried to change aspects do Dylan to make him more of a social reactionary. One time Ina social hippie gathering, she took everyone's weed and flushed it down the toilet. Could any ENFP do something like that? She was arrested several times for social causes and her eyes are fiery and intense. Her voice is very relaxed and her musical expression could be any of the NF types, but she had to be an F Dom, and the outward looking aspect to her social conscience makes me think Fe on fire.
 

violet_crown

Active member
Joined
Jun 18, 2009
Messages
4,959
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ENTJ
Enneagram
853
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
He's very clearly ISFP in my books. Any sort of N mysticism/surreal/philosophical intuitiveness you might see would probably just be the Fi-Ni axis. His vaguely intuitive vibe is common among ISFP's, in my experience. Dylan is very much about the senses. The man had no Ne, and a ton of Fi.

To second this, I think about Dylan like I think about Faulkner (who was also ISFP). They're both fairly concrete story-tellers, but there's a fascinatingly organic sorta metaphysics that permeates their work that's pure Fi-logic. Faulkner's whole ethos as an author revolved around "the human heart in conflict with itself", which I feel could just as easily been said about Dylan. There's an instinctual understanding of the individual, what is true about a man, and what he must do next to carry on given where he's come from.

These artists understood men not just as individuals, but as microcosms of the inexorable forces of the cosmos. Unseen, unspoken, but knowing in the soul itself that as is above, so is below. That's the wisdom of the Ni/Se axis. While an NTJ can point to that dynamic and recognize it conceptually, an SFP simply embodies it. Leverages it, even, without ever understanding why, "It just seems to work."
 

citizen cane

ornery ornithologist
Joined
Apr 30, 2010
Messages
3,854
MBTI Type
BIRD
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Instinctual Variant
sp
Most websites type him as ISFP. Of course this cant be wrong, because the internets never lie.




In all seriousness, in inclined to agree.
 

Forever_Jung

Active member
Joined
May 23, 2009
Messages
2,644
MBTI Type
ESFJ
Fi Dom for sure!

I thought Joan Baez was way too focused and in the end forceful to be an ENFP. When watching her biography she comes across extremely NFJ. I related a lot to her in her early years until she became pure Fe. She was really forceful and tried to change aspects do Dylan to make him more of a social reactionary. One time Ina social hippie gathering, she took everyone's weed and flushed it down the toilet. Could any ENFP do something like that? She was arrested several times for social causes and her eyes are fiery and intense. Her voice is very relaxed and her musical expression could be any of the NF types, but she had to be an F Dom, and the outward looking aspect to her social conscience makes me think Fe on fire.

Yeah, I can definitely see what you're saying. I wasn't all that interested in what type she was, so much as I was trying to contrast a real NF (whatever NF she might be) with Bob. You're probably right, actually. This also reminds me of the vintage SNL sketch called: "Make Joan Baez laugh":

Announcer: It's time to play America's most challenging show: "Make Joan Baez Laugh"! With our host, Big Bill Franklin!

Bill Franklin: Thank you, Don Pardo! Hello, everybody, and welcome once again to "Make Joan Baez Laugh"! Before I bring out Joanie - Joan - Miss Baez - Ms. Baez! Whoo! I'd like to point out that tonight is sort of a milestone for us. We're beginning our 9th season, which makes us the longest-running game show in television history! Thank you! We've had over 2,000 amateur and professional comedians on the show trying to make Joan Baez laugh, and so far no one's succeeded. Let's see what our jackpot is up to!

Announcer: Bill, it's $2,560,000!

Bill Franklin: Yeah! Over $2.5 million! She's incredible, sin't she? Well, let's bring her out now, the star of our show, Ms. Joan Baez!

[ Joan Baez walks out sad-faced with her guitar in tow ]

Joan Baez: [ singing ]
"Why Chernobyl?
Why, why, why why?
Why George Gobol?
Why, why, why why?
Why the bombs in Paris?
Why, why, why why?
Why did Jean Harris kill that guy?
Why, pourque, why?"

Bill Franklin: Oh, boy! Joan, how do you do it? Nine years without evrn cracking a smile?

Joan Baez: How can anyone laugh, Bill, when there's so much suffering in the world? THe United States is the wealthiest nation on Earth, and yet we still have millions of children who go to bed hungry.

And on it would go like that. :D

While an NTJ can point to that dynamic and recognize it conceptually, an SFP simply embodies it. Leverages it, even, without ever understanding why, "It just seems to work."

Yes! I like all of your post, but the concept of embodying that dynamic, is a perfect description of Dylan.

If you follow his career, you will see he is almost acting out an archetypcal character, he seems to become a human symbol. He started out a the sensitive folkie character and just BECAME the definitive folksinger. Then he goes all hip and electric in the mid-60's and becomes one of those crash-and-burn hedonistic rock Gods. He was clearly the same person, yet seemed radically different. Then in the late 60's he morphed into a country bumpkin, and his lyrics went from amphetamine fueled poetic epics to simple Nashville songcraft. His singing voice and his manner once again shifted radically. And he just kept morphing throughout the ages, representing new ideas, feelings, movements. The man himself never really seemed to give it much thought, but the groups he had become a figurehead of, were devastated/enraged when he moved on to the next thing.
 

redrocker

Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2018
Messages
50
MBTI Type
INFP
Bob Dylan

I think that he is probably an ISFP. A true poet with lots of symbolic imagery.

Here is the 1965 Press Conference in San Francisco which is an entertaining and revealing interview.

YouTube
 
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