Whoa. It's taken me about a week to sort through this entire thread. I had shamefully missed this sub-forum until I came across this thread... And what an interesting thread it is. And, I have now added this sub-forum to my regular skulking activities so watch out TypologyCentral!
What I've Learned about Fe from my Te
Lessons to be Learned from Te. I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of months thinking about the limits of my Tertiary Te which runs very strong in me. In fact, I have always taken personal pride in my ability to wield my Tertiary Te with more finesse than the average Tertiary Te user. I'm still working out the details in my head, but it definitely seems that there are tremendously powerful analogies between the "limits" of Te and the "limits" of Fe.
I've come to appreciate that in order for my Te to do what it does best which is get things organized and done in a logical, often sequential manner, it sacrifices the subtlety and nuance that Ti is so good at perceiving. I've also learned that Ti often feels hostile to the blunt, seemingly one-dimensional assessments that Te makes in the name of <insert the task trying to be accomplished here>. And it does seem that you could make the same assessment about Fe versus Fi if you just reread the above sentence and substitute Fe for Te and Fi for Ti.
Suggestions for Fe Users
How Fe Might Better Communicate with Fi. I've incorporated my new understanding of the limits of my Te into my presentational style by trying to be more careful to not share my Te observations so bluntly. Now I work hard to make sure I allow for the murky subtleties of Ti by saying things like, "Well, there is no pat answer, but I think in this situation..." and have found this works very well in bypassing Ti's hostility to Te.
I share my story of realizing the limits of Te because I think it might shed some light on what might be a more Fi-friendly approach for Fe-users. Fe seems very one-dimensional to Fi. And, perhaps Fe, much like Te, sacrifices shades of gray in the name of black and white pronouncements that serve it's agenda which in Fe's case is creating smooth interpersonal relations in a straightforward manner.
Your thoughts/feedback are appreciate.
I would agree with this assessment.
Te users tend to
think in terms of simple, declarative statements. Interestingly, one reason I tend to
write in simple, declarative statements is not just because of Te, but because I was taught that it was bad form [in writing] to include qualifiers that don't actually add any information. For example, if one is writing an essay that is obviously an opinion piece, the words "I think" are entirely extraneous and add no information whatsoever. Similarly, hedge words like "might" and "may" and "mostly" and "appears" and so on were similarly regarded as padding to make word-counts add up to the desired 1000 or whatever.
So, I learned to state things directly, that if someone had a different opinion, that one could similarly disagree in a direct manner. This is how Te just works.
But there is a large segment of the population that is remarkably offended (or even intimidated) by the sheer certainty of such diction. No one can know the truth so well. Thus such people contrariwise
require the hedge words, not unlike requiring news reporters to talk about an "alleged" crime or criminal, if there has been no conviction. Phrases such as "I think" and "it might be the case that", and so on, turn out to be needed to allay such offense from the outset, that the actual core idea may be communicated.
Thus here, in a typology forum, I end up saying that a type "
tends to do thus and such," rather than just "does thus and such." I would rather use the latter, since it is more clear to my ears, and the "tends to" with regard to typology should be assumed, in my opinion - it is typology, after all, so it's all about "tends to" and belaboring that it is only tendencies and not precise descriptions feels like a waste of verbiage to me. Yet, I find I waste more verbiage arguing language with people who would rather argue about how imprecise my wording is than about the idea I stated, so I add the damn verbiage and the fussing goes away.
I should note that the language to use does depend on the environment in which one is communicating. In business messages, my language becomes much more direct and simplified. Most executives, for example, want a clear report that they can read within a few minutes and understand their options and make a decision - they don't want all the data, nuances and observations that were synthesized into the report, because it's
your job to do the thinking and synthesis. If you add in all the qualifiers and nuances and raw data, you're basically telling them to spend all the time you just spent - if not more - studying the issue and make a decision for themselves, at which point they're wondering why they even hired you.
I've spent much time helping friends in various workplaces rephrase their emails to drop the extraneous info, whether it be logical details that no non-technical person could decipher, or emo details about how difficult one's job is, or hedge words that sound like one is trying to weasel out of one's responsibilities, or whatever. The rule of thumb I gave all of them was to stick to the facts without using technical jargon, and if you need a decision from someone, give a bullet-pointed list of options and their consequences, ranging from doing nothing to the most elaborate and ideal fix.
In a typology forum, however, adding the qualifiers and hedge words for discussing ideas goes a long way. People are just sharing ideas, here, not making executive decisions. It does no harm to add a few extra words that make sure everyone hears one's idea, and not how one said it wrong.