I like Fineline's post above. I want to point out that he was in the military before, and I grew up around it. So, both of us have plenty of Te influence in us, including understanding when Te gets to trump Fi ["A weapon is coming at you NOW. MOVE!!!!!"]
I would attempt to describe what Fi is in the following terms: the set of an individuals personal values, values that are viewed as universal and transcend any particular culture or point of origin. "I don't need society to tell me what pain is, I feel pain. Because I have felt pain, I recognize when others feel pain [more advanced people could recognize pain, or other feelings, even without having personally experienced them]. Pain sucks. When I see other people in pain, I will do what I can to alleviate or remove their pain. [A higher extension here would be from going from "people" to "other living creatures"]. I don't give a shit that society says it is improper for me, as a well to do person, to go and talk to and try to help out that destitute person over there. Said destitute person is in pain, I can help, therefore I will help. period." Notice the presence of 1) a personal value: reducing pain, 2) that this value is universal/not-culture-specific: "all people can experience pain, not just middle class white americans, 3) that this value leads to doing something: helping the destitute person, and 4) this value will say fuck you to society's general collective values if it feels like it should do so: "this person is a person, we are all the same inside, it doesn't matter that I make more money than them."
I would like to *attempt* to help define/explain Fi, both by talking about what it is, and contrasting some with what is it not.
Here is 1 description of Fe, from Henry Thompson's "Jung's Function Attitudes Explained", pg 90: "The Fe lives in
society, a world of interpersonal interactions governed by organized patterns of relationships that are supposed to be characterized by polite, courteous, and considerate behaviors. These common traditions have global rules for "appropriate" behavior during collective activities... The Fe is the
gatekeeper for societal norms-rightness and wrongness-by which human societies are supposed to live."
And now some form another Thompson [Lenore] pg 335 of Personality Type: "Because EFJ's learn to use their dominant function by anticipating the effects of their decisions on others, they may not be comfortable with internal states that can't be harmonized with the values of the group to which they belong. Asked how they "feel" about something, EFJ's react uneasily, as thought the question were designed to elicit a negative response and create disharmony....They're concerned about the
meaningtheir behaviors have for others. They feel guilty about expressing needs and impressions that would cast doubt on their values and commitments... indeed, EFJ's will deny negative thoughts or opinions for the sake of social harmony, particularly if the category or relationship warrants the strategy. Such denial strikes them as the better part of valor. Thinking types, with their penchant for impersonal accuracy, regard the whole business of tailoring truth to the category of relationship as dishonest-and more than a little irrational.""
Pg366:" {Fi} focuses our attention differently. It encourages a
personal relationship to an evolving pattern, a will to gauge the situation by an experiential ideal." pg 367: "Moral choices prompted by {Fi} are not derived from legal principles or the social obligations that accrue to our roles in the world. They're derived from the subjective experience of being human, our will to deal with a situation in terms of human ideals. Decisions made on this basis are frequently misunderstood as a product of emotion or a deliberate rejection of structural authority." "{Fi} bypasses structural considerations and puts human value first. Such discrimination is unquestionably illogical, but it's in no way irrational. Indeed, to place human value above statistical risk isn't
possible without the ability to reason."
continuing: "Some of our values, after all, are shaped by a specific context, and they're irrelevant when circumstances change. Others are quintessentially human and, as such, unconditional. Unconditional values can't be erased from the human psyche, no matter what kind of social system is in place. To express them is to see through the divisions external discriminations reinforce." "As suggested {Fi} is not a substitute for extraverted judgement. It won't solve the analytic problems that logic and causal reasoning are designed to address, and it won't establish a basis for predictable social interactions. But, conversely, it addresses aspects of human reality that Extraverted reasoning can not." "It should not be supposed, in this regard, that {Fi} is
opposed to {Fe}. Both involve the "right" ordering of our relationships and loyalties." "{Fi} relies on the inward right-brain criteria of experience and empathy to mark off decisions that go beyond our roles in society to affect us as human beings. Law and custom, afterall, are the lowest common denominator of a defined community. We associate character and humane behavior with the moral imperatives shaped by inner values."
"IFP's... are drawn to, more than any other type, to medical and religious occupations, and particularly to organizations like the Peace Corps, Doctors without Borders, and Habitat for Humanity, which allow them to take humane action transcending conventional Extraverted conceptual and social boundaries."
"It should be emphasized, however, that ENFJ's are {Fe} types, who act as social advocates. They help people to realize their potential in a way that society will ultimately accept. INFP's are advocates of the inner world, the values that connect us to other living beings in a fundamental way. They go where they feel needed, helping to nurture these values or to support people who have fallen through the cracks of a prevailing social system."
About Fi dom's: "They recognize by way of their own experience an unconditional value that links them with humanity as a whole." "They are holding with ideals that are larger, and more stable, than a universe of chance and possibility can contain..." "Value, for these types, is a fateful claim from within that align's one's behaviors with a larger purpose, notwithstanding perceived circumstance or social obligation. This is what makes {Fi}'s behavior seem irrational to an outside observer. They can't be causally deduced from the objective situation." ".. the human values that {Fi} brings to awareness are just that_introverted. They don't offer a basis for an objective social system. If anything, they offer a basis for
disattachment from social conditioning. This is what gives them the ability to change hearts. The only kind of world in which {Fi} could possibly obtain as a primary source of
social judegement is a chaotic, unpredictable one in which systems designed to protect the community have no power to do so."
pages 381 and 382 give an example of Mother Teresa using Fi ["elevating subjective values over extraverted social expectations"] and also talks about some of the dangers of Fi in terms of social structure and rejecting/not-having-in-the-first-place such structure.
"They know that unconditional values are truly unconditional, so they have no reason to make predictions about how an experience will meet or not meet thir needs." "[While not always seen as heroic]...the cumulative effects of thier actions accomplish an extraordinary things."
"Well -developed IFP's are at home in themselves, in harmony with life, and they teach largely by example. They don't have to preach; their values are expressed in the dispatch of ordinary life choices. INdeed, they're the most compassionate of the types, recognizing that even the most wretched of lives can be changes by hope and an appeal to dignity and human worth."
"Although feeling always determines a form of idealism, the values determined by {Fi} are different from the {Fe} sort. {Fe} presides over social values-current ideas about how relationships in the community are best conducted. {Fi} determines subjective values-convictions about how a life is best lived. Such experiences are trained by a direct experience of good and bad behaviors, and they are claim us from within. But relationship gradually teaches us that some of them transcend our individual circumstances, linking us irrevocably with other human beings." "IN general, however, well-developed INFP's live lives that don't look much different from anyone else's. What's different is their perspective. They strike others as unassuming, even deferential, because they treat people with unconditional love and compassion. In consequence, their actions, their choices, their way of life can awaken other to human values the community has not acknowledged."
"Such actions see through external distinctions of role, background, and status to focus on our common human links. INFP's sometimes underestimate their strengths because there are so many problems in this world that can't be solved by changing people's hearts. But they shouldn't. The effects of their decisions are often incalculable, renewing people's faith in human nature."
There, an uber-long list of quotations giving descriptions and explanations of both Fi and Fe. Discussing the value of both, and the importance or necessity of both. Both are important, both have uses. Fighting with each other, or attacking the other "because you don't do things my way!!!" is ultimately stupid and futile and anti-constructive.
The above strongly indicates 1) the socially/collectively-agreed upon nature of Fe 2) the individual nature of Fi, 3) the transcendence/universalness, or at least potential for, of Fi, 3) that Fe and Fi aren't [or at least shouldn't be] mutually antagonistic, 4) that both Fe and Fi have value that they bring to the table.
I think I have argued personally for most or all of the above before. Fidelia, I especially want you to read these deeply and take them to heart [or at least think about it], since oyu have asked many questions in the past that these help describe or explain.
Do I feel "afraid" or uncomfortable tro talk about Fi on this forum? No, I don't. Though I also avoid most of the "please describe Fi to non-Fi-ers" since they seem to start well-intentioned enough, then get seriously derailed by [what I see as] 1) "Fe says your not Fe enough, quit being so selfish and follow our rules and understandings!" or 2) T "your stupid and irrational, now go jump off a cliff you dumb irrational flakes". Do I feel liek its worth spending time on threads like this? Like Fineline, probably not. I just spent over an hour finding and quoting all this stuff, like none of which isn't stuff I haven't already said before in paraphrased form. Can I get this hour of my life back, please??? I have stuff to do that doesn't involve trying to justify Fi to Fe's or T's, and besides I'll get enough Fi "quit being irrational and self-centered and delusional and idealistic and flighty and get rational and assertive" hostility tomorrow at work anyways...
Fineline, I wanna join you here, and quit posting on this topic. Unless something especially worthwhile and insightful pops up to comment on. Though even then it will probably only be to say something that I've already said on this forum numerous times before...
PB: if I can add something meaningful to describing or explaining Fi, especially from one Fi user to another, please let me know. Otherwise I'm probably going to bow out. Its not my job to make non-Fi'ers accept Fi anymore than it is to make non-Buddhists accept Buddhism.
