This thread has helped to bring into my consciousness how very toxic I find some of the energy and discussion on this site. There are various threads and streams and patterns in this - some of which I don't have words for and some of which I do.
One of the problems I see underlying the toxicity on this site is a persistent use and acceptance of type talk as a form of objectification.
Stepping back for a minute: The reason MBTI and cognitive process conceptual language/framework is a positive resource in my relationship with my INFP partner is that we just don't look at each other as objectified "INFJ representative" and "INFP representative." Instead, we look at each other as actual people who have as part of our makeup specific ways of processing information. So I don't relate to my partner as "the INFP" and she doesn't relate to me as "the INFJ" - we relate to each other as multifacted layered human beings. For us, the purpose of talking about our differences in cognitive processes is as a tool to understand each other better - not as a way to reduce each other into two-dimensional type objects. For us, our differing cognitive processes are part of a larger whole being (and no, I don't mean "there's enneagram etc also!" I mean actual specific multilayered human beings, with all that such a thing actually means for human beings in respectful non-objectifying connection). The same is true with me and my ENTP friend.
In sharp contrast: On this site, people regularly relate to each other as two-dimensional representatives of type. Persistently, people make objects of each other in this way - objects they then seek to use for various purposes. This is a pattern of casual, persistent, and very often unremarked-upon dehumanization. From what I can see, this two-dimensional/objectifying/dehumanizing use of type/cognitive function talk is embedded so deeply in the group culture here that it appears as a relatively normal and unremarkable way to relate to other people.
In such a context, statements such as this can actually be part of what appears to be, by group cultural standards, normal and reasonable interaction between people:
Originally Posted by Mane
for future reference:
your time is far better invested as serving discussions about the unhealthy extremes of your type as a living anecdote - you are welcomed to not waste it on me.
(Though this is a particularly explicit example, it is by no means the only one. Though a lot of the site's pattern of type-based objectification is more subtle than this.)
But outside of this site and contexts like it, outside of the invisible norms and assumptions here, my experience suggests that there are in fact some non-objectifying and non-dehumanizing ways to use the MBTI/cognitive process language. I have had long(ish)-term, persistent real life experience with approaches that are respectful, non-objectifying, non-dehumanizing and really valuable for human interaction.
So from my vantage point: While type-based objectification, dehumanization and use is too often the unremarked norm on this site (this thread is one among many displaying it in a variety of ways), such use of these concepts really isn't the only possible approach to using these concepts in interaction with others. Type-based objectification and use just seems normal and is so persistent in this environment because it is, somehow, embedded in invisible group norms of interaction between participants.