Yes this was/is definitely the atmosphere here regarding Fe-doms and part of why I just removed my type from my profile. But what does hamming it up for people do? It's almost confirmation in a certain way, isn't it? Who are they that you need to do this for? What is the opinion of faceless computer people and what is their influence on your life?
You make an excellent point. Knee-jerk Fe will attempt to bridge a gap or assume the harness on it's shoulders to make itself understood, so personal training in the area of restraint and prioritizing is important. Because you *know* it's gonna try, will you or nill you, and it'll be up to you to stop it or limit its involvement.
Maybe that's why I haven't felt a need to correct the perception in the way you've chosen to correct the misperception? Maybe the ways that individual ENFJs have gone about it on the forum depends on how strong what function is. Some have just left as a result and that's sad.
Ever see something wrong or even worse, not quite right, and feel this overpowering urge to correct it, like straightening a painting? I do that. Someone says something incredibly stupid or regressive around me, and I feel my body tense up resisting the urge to walk away or lose my patience. I know my ENTJ best friend struggles with wanting to correct inconsistencies too. They're like a rock in her shoe. I've had many discussions with her on "choose your battles", a discussion that cuts both ways. I understand what she's experiencing, but I can mitigate it with "I don't want to get involved in more drama".
Being sick has helped me to consider my own needs, and to try and reject anything/one who may be imposing on me. I hate guilt trips and will respond very negatively if one is aimed at me. I dig in my heels and won't budge. *visions of a person fruitlessly tugging on a mule's bridle*
There was a guy I knew, I couldn't avoid him b/c he was at work, and he thought it was funny to make racial comments about another guy in the garage, and I could immediately see the outright disgust and revulsion in not only myself but also my male ESFJ friend. ESFJ friend and I decided the guy was a lost cause and that we weren't going to chide him anymore for such displays, and that he was a waste of effort - you just know when someone's doing something to get attention or to be obtuse. ESFJ and I had little to do with him after that.
There's a thread happening right now about ENFJs and Manipulation and then to go and do the same thing and no one notices is curious to me. Or maybe they do notice and don't care, which makes all the mewling about Fe and how horrible it is moot to me. Because in reality, people love Fe. They eat it up. That's why I'm positive all this manipulative Fe complaining isn't coming from Fe-doms because proper working Fe is virtually undetectable.
I don't heed complaints of manipulation. To me, it's a cop-out to say "So and so manipulated me!" That person had your permission, dude. Get over it. The likelihood of you falling victim to a true con artist? Dunno - must be way slimmer than having to endure a parental/grandparental full court guilt press. I don't like it anymore than the next person when I can tell I've either been had or was being pushed in that direction, but I don't get manipulated. I get handled, I get talked at, I get non-compliance, I get doctored trussed-up reality. Crying wolf at every perceived control or slight is pointless and childish.
It's "society" -- meaning (according to Wikipedia):
a body of individuals of a species, generally seen as a community or group, that is outlined by the bounds of functional interdependence, comprising also possible characters or conditions such as cultural identity, social solidarity, or eusociality. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive culture or institutions. Like other groups, a society allows its individual members to achieve individual needs or wishes that they could not fulfill separately by themselves, without the existence of the social group. Society, however, may be unique in that it is ontologically independent of, and utterly irreducible to, the qualities of its constituent individuals. As a reality sui generis, or "of its own kind", it is emergently composed of social facts that often hinder rather than help the pursuits of the subjects that form its physical and psychological underpinnings.
Paraphrased: The good with the bad. It's childish to believe that you will always get your own way.
Don't delude yourself that you won't bend to another's will at some point, and in so bending, have made a way for yourself and have not been hideously and ridiculously degraded. I tend to look at anyone truly shouting about being manipulated as generally placing too much value on their opinions/person/independence, as if someone would WANT to be bothered to manipulate you. Can't that be seen a mile away? Those who shout the loudest about it, IMO, are the ones who fear it most, even when it's just a suggestion of a monster in the headlights and is really a moth.
Manipulation is a passive-aggressive mode. The people IME who get accused of it most aren't using manipulation, they're being overtly aggressive, perhaps without shouting or cursing, which makes it seem less brute.
My ISTP ex-bf was a drug addict and could be very nefarious and Machiavellian, and that smoke screen blinded me, but I didn't feel manipulated. I felt stupid, but trusting people isn't always stupid. It's just a risk you take. I also realized that he'd kept a great many people in the dark and that I wasn't being a fool.
But when it is coming from ExFJs is it somehow more vicious and insidious?
Nope!
