Fi feels strongly and tends to be very black and white (especially when it is intense).
I'm not sure about this, but do you think it's possible that Fe-Ti people see things in many shades of grey, rather than black and white (kind of like Fi-Te is about emotions). Therefore it is important to be precise about expressing your ideas/feelings (hence the emphasis on the message) and it feels wrong to insist that things ARE a certain way, as Fi-Te may feel more comfortable doing (Te generalizes a little more, Fi feels very very strongly)? Just kind of thinking aloud. I haven't really tested all of that out yet against all the real life situations I could to see if it holds true.
Sorry,that was sloppy of me. I believe that Fi has the same shades of grey and need for precision that Fe lacks.
Ugh....yeah I'm glad you retracted that later in the thread. It's a big misconception about Fi & its values that they are "black and white". Fi forms broad concepts which allows for many ways to be right & wrong. Fi also focuses on underlying meaning. This can mean there is less interest in finding the "appropriate" way to express something, because that seems totally arbitrary. Who decides what is appropriate and what is not? Why must there be ONE correct way? From MY perspective, Fe seems a lot more black-&-white with its social protocol, even though I know that is not the case upon closer inspection.
I think Fi has a tendency to cause trouble with Fe because more often than not, Fi users make "intent" very important in a situation. Fi says "I didn't mean to cause any harm" and Fe says it's irrelevant. What matters is results, not method. You caused derision and impacted the group, whether you meant to or not. In that way, Fe is like Te. Fi would also be like Ti in that the methodology, having the right intent, or in the case of Ti, logic, is more important than the apparent outcome. I think the answer is, at least from an Fi perspective, to recognize that what's right isn't always what's right. I don't know about Fe, because I don't think I understand it well enough to judge it or its users.
I definitely think this makes some good points.
My ISFJ mom and I got into a discussion about expressing feelings. My mom said that it's important to express yourself in certain ways to make other people feel good, because those certain ways are clear & making people feel good is more important than anything. These ways she suggested were pretty much the usual social niceties, which I had earlier expressed to her make me blanch when they seem phony (and they often do). I asked why there must be one way, and why alternate methods were invalidated by so many people. It seemed as if we have to work off a script, which is frustrating when it is not saying what you feel accurately. It seems to ask for a denial of what you really feel, so that no one ever knows how someone really feels. I wonder, what is the point when you reach such a level of going-through-the-motions?
For my mom, the results seem to be everything, not the method, because the motive is to
affect. I realize that for her, that motive is genuine, because her feeling is about external harmony moreso than internal integrity, or rather, that external harmony is in keeping with her sense of internal integrity. To achieve good results, you use the language most people accept as correct, and in the case of being Si-dom, this especially means what is tried-and-true.
For me, to conform to some arbitrary standard of appropriate expression for a feeling can miss the point of the feeling itself. I'm more concerned with accuracy of meaning in the expression, not appropriateness of delivery. This does not mean I go having hissy fits in public, as suggested in this thread about Fi-ers. From my point of view, the Fe smoooooothness can seem passive-aggressive and to ignore the elephant in the room. Fi-ers usually HATE the elephant in the room. I also HATE embarrassing, unbridled, public displays of emotion, so the elephant WILL be pointed out, but it will be done with as little commotion as possible. Being an informing kind of speaker, Fi can be VERY diplomatic about that elephant, because it only involves stating empirical facts (Te), and suggesting meaning (Fi), being careful not to point the finger at people, just the problem. Fe seems to be bossy - this is what's wrong, this is the ONE way you should fix it, and it's the BEST way because it's how everyone else does it. It's important to Fi to allow people to find their own way, their own solutions, so that it will be consistent with their own individual feeling & needs.
Besides, I find external harmony is a facade when it's not connected to a genuine feeling. It goes back to the feeling that people are working from some script, and what they really mean has to be divined through reading between the lines. The Fe protocol just feels like tons of red tape to cut through.
My mom even insisted that you "fake it til you feel it", which highlights what I've always thought about Fi vs. Fe. Fi wants to start from the inside and work out, and Fe wants to start on the outside and work in. In a win-win situation, they meet happily in the middle.
Isn't it possible Peacebaby to still speak up, but to go about it in a different way? For example, I notice that many of the Fi users on here when they have a problem choose the most public possible way to proclaim it, without checking first to see that they have all the information, or seeing if it could be resolved privately. If the big guns need to be brought in then, you can keep going up the ladder?
I think the issue is that
1) You need to figure out why your concern should matter to the other person if it's going to be addressed properly.
2) You need to keep the other person from losing face, by not embarrassing them unnecessarily or addressing the problem publicly.
3) Offer a solution that you think would work more as effectively.
(I'm not saying this about you specifically. It's just a common Fi issue I see coming up in staff meetings etc. If they had spun their issue a slightly different way, the results would have been much better for everyone involved. They weren't wrong to speak up, but they didn't end up getting heard because of the way they went about it). I'd like to understand this better.
I don't have problems with 2 & 3 (well, a little with 3, when it becomes dictating & not suggesting), and I don't think those are an issue for most Fi-users, but I do take issue with 1. I think I addressed the accusation of Fi-ers throwing public fits above....so I'll move on.
Generally, with Fi-doms, and with most Fi-auxes, their own sense of individuality makes them acutely aware of others' individuality (and of course, since Fi has no context outside of itself, it needs the perceiving function to do this- why Fi can seem
very different via Ne or Se), and so you'll find a hallmark of Fi diplomacy is making an effort to find out what is important to every single individual in the group, because Fi people know this varies, and Fi people don't like to discount someone's feelings simply because they don't fall inline with the majority - feelings are important in themselves; value is NOT determined by external consensus for Fi. This is where you have ENFPs championing the underdog,and INFPs healing those hurt through understanding & listening instead of throwing a stream of cliche advice at them.
As I highlighted above, I find the Fe-users in my life saying stuff like, "You should do XYZ because it makes people feel good". Often times, they have a point, but at the same time, I think, "How do you know that makes
everyone feel good?". There's been a few times I tried to explain to my ISFJ mom how her Fe gestures come across as over-bearing and phony to me, how her conclusions about people can amount to assumptions, but she won't see it. This is why my feelings and perspective are constantly invalidated - they don't fit the external model for how people should feel, and people who use Fe assume that absence of Fe means no feelings, especially no feelings concerning other people. Fi seeks an accurate mode of expression, and Fe seems to seek the most widely accepted mode because its aim is to affect, which cannot be done if people don't comprehend you. It can be a results vs. method problem.
The method need not be genuine for Fe if the motive is and the results are good. Fi asks for all 3, but will sacrifice results if it means violating an underlying principle - basically, GOOD is not determined by the external results, because good results can come from something bad, and bad come can from something good. Morality is not results dependent for Fi. Doing the right thing can mean you suffer sometimes because it's not popular. It may cause upheaval, but if its necessary to keep integrity, then it's the lesser of two evils.
To "spin" a reason that is more palatable to people can mean being dishonest about your motive - this is how Fe seems manipulative sometimes. To Fi, this violates a principle that is often bigger than the issue at hand. Honesty is more important than stroking egos. Fi resents the demand for a facade, when the base reason should be perfectly valid in itself.
Generally, Introverted Feelers don't have much desire to affect those around them with their feelings, and so consensus is not needed for the Fi-dom to be content. What is needed is respect for their feelings, and they in-turn will respect your feelings. When Fi is asserting itself, it often means an issue is affecting them personally (ie. they refuse to be a doormat), or it hits on a global concept of good/bad that affects everyone. When a Fe-er asks for some external validation of a feeling, they are in effect, invalidating Fi. It can also feel like a language barrier - Fe gets metaphorically stuck on grammar sometimes when Fi is doing the best they can to translate something without losing all the meaning.
Fe people also invalidate Fi when they misunderstand the Fi-ers reasons. They'll assume it's because of XYZ, as that is what the surface problem appears to be or what most people quibble over. For Fi, that surface problem is merely symbolic at most. It's often the underlying meaning, what something implies on a larger scale that Fi is concerned with. I suppose this seems beside the point to Fe (which needs some external justification for it to "matter"), but to Fi, it's the essence of integrity. Without that consistency, there begins to form accepted rules meant to protect principles, but which violates them at times because they are too rigid. Fe social protocol feels "rigid" to Fi at times. To Fe, I think they see it as adapting to the accepted forms in order to communicate clearly and keep relations easy. So Fe is not rigid in that sense, and Fi is, as Fi sees adapting as losing meaning.
This is concerning where Fi & Fe divide, as again, they can often meet in the middle and have comfortable overlap.
Again, I am wondering why the assumption here is that I or other Fi users are not being diplomatic.
Yeah...I notice to Fe, diplomacy means being smooth in expression, and to Fi, it means looking out for different needs and perspectives & not invalidating them.