From
this site:
The Social instinct is driven towards gaining protection and empowerment within larger entities. Soc's typically react strongly against anything which would jeopardize or displace their position or reputation.
From
here:
The subtype is determined by whether you are unconsciously preoccupied with personal survival (self-preservation), whether you incline towards one-to-one relationships (intimate) or whether your style of relating includes a lot of people (social)."
My understanding from reading the descriptions available online is that so variant is an unconscious drive that inclines people to want to feel part of a larger group.
I think the point here is that they do seem to have
more of a handle on social convention (what it is
and the purpose of it). Like PB wrote, if I’m understanding her post correctly. This isn’t to say it’s done mindlessly- even the urge to want everyone to eat at the same time isn’t necessarily mindless or arbitrary, it definitely gives a very tangible feeling of community. But not everyone craves that sense of community. And it can *seem* arbitrary to people who don’t inherently crave the same sense of community. This is a point I tried making earlier, and I don’t think I did/am doing a very good job. Even the most mindful, most thoughtful of expectations can seem arbitrary to someone with different unconscious drives- and it goes both ways. I’d be interested in hearing how least sp variants feel about dealing with sp dominants, because there are bound to be just as many issues in that direction as well. (And then
we can show up and be all like “it’s not that we
don’t care about the group or others…â€)
I think a part of the problem here is perhaps that least so variants are saying the expectations- which can be completely reasonable and thoughtful, coming from an so variant standpoint- can *seem* arbitrary and confining from a least so point of view. This is the ‘memo’ that we’re not getting: why is a group feeling so important, what makes this convention necessary/helpful, what’s the point? Since it doesn’t fill some need in us as it does for so variants- it can *appear* arbitrary, if we project our own unconscious drives into it. And I could be wrong, but it seems like so variants are reading this opinion and- attaching their own experiential associations of ‘arbitrary social expectations’ (and, thusly, Fe)- trying to point out that so variant
isn’t about Fe style arbitrary social rules. And rightly so, it isn’t,
from an so variant standpoint. It seems to me that maybe what the so variants aren’t understanding is that we’re trying to describe a special sensitivity to the arbitrariness- coming from an existential position where the unconscious drive to feel like a member of the broader group is particularly weak.
Anytime there are people dealing with each other- there
are rules of engagement coming into play. Even someone with the weakest of so variants will still- on
some level- feel the need to be part of a group, and will therefore pay *some* attention to these rules. The ‘arbitrariness’ of these rules is completely relative to an individual. And if so variant isn’t at least in part about paying more attention to what these rules are (or should be)- enough to feel like an appreciated member of a group/community- then I don’t understand what it is. I mean, I don’t understand the argument that so variant isn’t related to paying attention to ‘manners’ and etiquette. There’s a difference between extremely shallow etiquette and more thought-out, purposeful etiquette- but to argue that it isn’t related to etiquette or paying attention to ‘rules’ at all doesn’t make sense to me. How can someone- whose primary unconscious drive is to feel like a member of a larger group-
not be interested in rules that hold a group together? Again- this isn’t to say that the ‘rules’ are swallowed whole in the exact form they are received, it’s possible for the interest in rules to take the form of questioning them. But I don’t see how it’s possible to be so variant and be largely impervious to them. I think the difference between these two things might look like this:
So variant thinks: “I don’t see why it should reflect on someone’s character, when it comes right down to it, whether or not they hold their fork correctly at the dinner table.â€
Least so variant: *is impervious to having just offended someone by holding fork wrong way at dinner table, and doesn’t even particularly care- in the chance it should get pointed out- unless the person who pointed it out is especially relevant*
I’m open to disagreement on this^, if someone thinks it’s off.
I also want to clarify something I wrote earlier. “And it seems like least so variant FJs can be just as rigid, but the expectations we get rigid about are more personalized/specific.†I didn’t mean to imply that so variant Fe’ers don’t make personalized/specific expectations for individuals they know- it’s just that I *think* it’s a LOT more localized in least so variants. I’ll throw all that personalizing energy into just a few people (the sx aux probably)- I don’t spread it out amongst as many people as an so variant might. I’m pretty sure it’s exactly why
this sp/sx description includes “Others can be taken aback by how suddenly and completely this type can lock into them, and by the depth of understanding of the other's condition. They attach to others at an organic, root level, in contrast to the other subvariant's surface formality.†I just wanted to make clear: I didn’t mean to imply that so variants aren’t likely to form personalized expectations for individuals they know.