• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

[Type 8] Another view on the 8

entropie

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
16,767
MBTI Type
entp
Enneagram
783
Well after reading some descriptions about the Enneagram 8 on the internet and from the forums now, I decided to give you the source, I have drawn my Point of View about the 8 from.

It is translated from german and I hope I didnt destroy its meaning. It takes a more spiritual / humanistic approach. It is less about structured analysis and thinking-based ways to look at things.

What I want to accomplish is not to shed some better light on a personality that is interpreted as the "overbearing controlling tyrann", I want to show something about their motives and I think that exerpt fits em well.

Ok here it is (1:1 translation, hope it is readable):

Type Eight
---
Live wires
-
Eights are often recognized on first sight, because they are taller than life. They bring their influence to bear and draw attention to themselves. They enter a room buzzing and everybody knows that they are there. They are often louder and stronger than the rest of us. They draw their energy from experiencing their own strength. They are live wires. The energy of the eight is reflected in their gestures, their faces - and it is taxing to others.
-
Simply too much !
-
If you spent half an hour together with an eight, you want to flee. It is too much, it is simply too much ! That is meant when talked about the "voluptuousness" of the eight. Everything they do, they exaggerate. And they do it in a way, others would call "negative".
-
Confrontation
-
They meet reality confrontational. For this "confrontational intimacy" others do not have the appreciation for. Their advances are to start to argument with you. And one could think the eight does not like me. In reality the eight tries to come closer to others by behaving this way. And the eight is surprised at the others backing out. In their inner world eights are often sad and they ask themselves: "Why does nobody like me?" Nevertheless they do not change their rules of their game. They always try the same "advance".
-
Bad boys
-
While ones are sample childs, eights are bad boys. Their self-perception is: "I am upsetting". And they even like it to be "upsetting". One can imagine, how much problems eights have with church, where you are told: "Be nice and honest and good and pious". That makes no sense to an eight. The good guys are to eights sissies or cowards.
-
Altercation
-
An eight woman explained, she needed 40 years to develop confidence in Jesus. Because like Jesus was portraied - as blond, blue-eyed softie, who looks down smilieing on children - he did not tell her anything. This Jesus was not worth of her loving. Eights need someone, who get with them engaged into an altercation.
-
Justice
-
Eights do have, by factory design, a sense for justice. They see the dumbness and injustice in the world and they love to unmask it. They want to put mischief down. Without the eight the world would probably never change. One would get along with the dumbest systems.
-
Fighter
-
One should never try to challenge the eight. If you raise your voices, the eight raises his voice even higher. They love to fight and their is no price they would retreat for.
-
Hidden child
-
The key to the eight is to see the little boy or girl in them. You sometimes do not see it, but it is there all the time. They tend to show it in their whole life only to two or three other people. If eights start to behave like a wild and start bitching and roaring around and if you want to back off, it is the best to speak to the hidden child in them. Expect it that there is a hidden child.
-
The Protector
-
Eights try constantly to protect the little boys and girls in this world, everything that is weak and vulnerable. In the Developing World there are many missionaries, who are eights. They are ready to go through unbelievable offensivenesses. They take the greatest privations to help those people, who are in need of help. Their love towards the weak and vulnerable is boundless.
-
Passion
-
So if you try to inflate yourself and play the eight on them, they prick your ballon. But if you come weak and vulnerable, they will care for you out of their heart. At the end of their lives, eights sometimes carry a great burden around. They think about how many people, there have been who did not like them or who they have hurted. They actually stomp on others and spurn them. Their passion is equally their sin and their gift.
For eight this means: they have to overcome their devastating passions and they need to make way for life-making passions.
---

That is about it, thanks for reading, if you did so.

I think based on this description, their is no need for an Eight to be prone to a Te - function for example. With an existence based on passions.

Especially the last part about passions, I can rely to. And I find it very frightening..
 

Xander

Lex Parsimoniae
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
4,463
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9w8
Oh my.. perhaps I'm a little more 8 than I thought.....

Introverted 8... how's that fly? I meet my internal reality with force?????
 

Anja

New member
Joined
May 2, 2008
Messages
2,967
MBTI Type
INFP
Oh, entropie, I love this! It presents a fair and balanced view of the eight's place in society. As in all personality types it's a matter of motive and the quality of the "product" their acts create.

"Confrontational intimacy." A perfect phrase. Hee.

The point about the hidden wounded child, I think, is the key to helping eights with their anger issues.
 

entropie

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
16,767
MBTI Type
entp
Enneagram
783
Oh my.. perhaps I'm a little more 8 than I thought.....

Introverted 8... how's that fly? I meet my internal reality with force?????

I do not think that enneagram makes differences between intro- and extroverted.

There was that good thread from haphazard about "Intro- and Extroversion in society". She made two axis and she put entp for example wide on the energy extroversion scale, less on the social extroversion scale. That would meet the specifications for the eight :).

As concerned with your personal in- or extroversion. There are always to main functions that drive you, from which one is extroverted. My guess is an introverted 8 will have an harder time on that "self-sadness" thing.

Here is the link to the description, btw.:

Die neun Typen
 

Xander

Lex Parsimoniae
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
4,463
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9w8
I do not think that enneagram makes differences between intro- and extroverted.

There was that good thread from haphazard about "Intro- and Extroversion in society". She made to axis and she put entp for example wide on the energy extroversion scale, less on the social extroversion scale. That would meet the specifications for the eight :).

As concerned with your personal in- or extroversion. There are always to main functions that drive you, from which one is extroverted. My guess is an introverted 8 will have an harder time on that "self-sadness" thing.

Here is the link to the description, btw.:

Die neun Typen
Thanks but I'm afriad my german is far too rusty to be useful..

I'm thinking that someone's prediction of 9w8 may be closer than I thought... I'm almost assuredly a 9 but I'd not have thought of myself as an 8. They're too.... disruptive, or so I thought. Reading that post it makes more sense that it's disruption to clear the refuse and not just because an 8 cannot be bothered or is unfamiliar with more refined methods.

Oh and I wasn't thinking that my enneagram had any influence on my introversion or extroversion, merely the combination got me thinking...
 

entropie

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
16,767
MBTI Type
entp
Enneagram
783
@Anja , thanks

@Xander ok. And thank you too. I really want to get that overall wrong interpretation of 8's from the table :)

If you look for example in the wikipedia Enneagram of Personality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, even the first sentence about 8's is wrong.

Eights do not want to be in control. Maybe my english is too bad to get the meaning but too me it just delivers a completly wrong impression of 8's already in the first place.

Btw.:

Ego fixation: vengeance , *rofl*

If I get that dumbass, who wrote this, I am going to show him vengeance xD
 

Xander

Lex Parsimoniae
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
4,463
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9w8
I really want to get that overall wrong interpretation of 8's from the table :)
That's actually what makes me chuckle when people write about 9s being push overs... INTP 9... I have lines... no one crosses them..... and lives.
:devil:

I guess it's the same plague as that which hampers the MBTI, people expect those of a type to display the well known characteristics. That just doesn't happen. With a group of people you may well find that the ESFJ is the quiet one who does little and the INTJ is ruling the roost. Hell when we get a bunch of introverts together it's the extroverts who usually end up quiet and fidgity :D
 

entropie

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
16,767
MBTI Type
entp
Enneagram
783
I guess it's the same plague as that which hampers the MBTI, people expect those of a type to display the well known characteristics. That just doesn't happen. With a group of people you may well find that the ESFJ is the quiet one who does little and the INTJ is ruling the roost. Hell when we get a bunch of introverts together it's the extroverts who usually end up quiet and fidgity :D

I absolutely agree. The next great mystery I will set my mind too is the ENTJ. I do not know already, if I am right about the fact that ENTJ's get completly misinterpretated, but I am going to find out.
 

Xander

Lex Parsimoniae
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
4,463
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9w8
I absolutely agree. The next great mystery I will set my mind too is the ENTJ. I do not know already, if I am right about the fact that ENTJ's get completly misinterpretated, but I am going to find out.
Yup. The whole "ENTJs are malicious and controlling" is completely missing the point where the ENTJ is trying to plan including people... it's just they frustrated as all NTs do with "stupid" people. Those who resist the new thinking not because they have something better but just because they can't understand it.

ENTJ = big huggable bear (just don't tell them I said so :) )
 

Delphyne

New member
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
144
MBTI Type
INFP
I do not think that enneagram makes differences between intro- and extroverted.
That´s not quite true. The enneagram doesn´t cover the differences, but some types are more introverted, others more extraverted. Riso and Hudson figured out the following tendencies:
8, 7, 3, 2, 6, 1, 4, 9, 5 (from the most extraverted to the most introverted)
It makes sense. The most extraverted are the types of the assertive group (8,7,3), the compliant group (2,6,1) is following, and the most introverted are the withdrawn types (4,9,5).

If you look for example in the wikipedia Enneagram of Personality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, even the first sentence about 8's is wrong.

Eights do not want to be in control.
The basis fear of eight is of being controlled, therefore they try to control and dominante their environment, so no one can take advantage of them. Eights value their strength and despise weakness. Why do you think the first sentence is wrong?
 

Xander

Lex Parsimoniae
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
4,463
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9w8
That´s not quite true. The enneagram doesn´t cover the differences, but some types are more introverted, others more extraverted. Riso and Hudson figured out the following tendencies:
8, 7, 3, 2, 6, 1, 4, 9, 5 (from the most extraverted to the most introverted)
It makes sense. The most extraverted are the types of the assertive group (8,7,3), the compliant group (2,6,1) is following, and the most introverted are the withdrawn types (4,9,5).
I think that's mixing the common definitions of extrovert and introvert there.. Introverts can be very assertive, they are just more concerned with what's going on inside their heads than what's outside of it.

That is of course unless you're talking about incidence of assertiveness... in which case scratch all that lot and I'll just say "yup". :)
 

Delphyne

New member
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
144
MBTI Type
INFP
I´m talking about the Hornevian groups, the social style. Introverts can be very assertive, I agree, it´s just not the same as being in the assertive group, which blow up their ego if stressed.
 

Xander

Lex Parsimoniae
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
4,463
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9w8
I´m talking about the Hornevian groups, the social style. Introverts can be very assertive, I agree, it´s just not the same as being in the assertive group, which blow up their ego if stressed.
You mean "blow up" as in a bird trying to keep warm or more as in a few sticks of TNT?

The thing is that I see it as Es tend to be more dominant under average circumstances but when pressed it's the introverts who engage that extroverted strain and become the controlling power. I have no theory why, it's just a pattern I've seen.
 

entropie

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
16,767
MBTI Type
entp
Enneagram
783
I do not know much how I or E or assertiveness is related to the Enneagram test, havent thought about it much. Your points sound intresting though.

--
@Delphyne

Imagine one day your son, whom you someday told by any accident, you are an eight, comes up to you with a text like this:

Eights value their own strength and desire to be powerful and in control. They concern themselves with self-preservation. They are natural leaders who can be either friendly and charitable or dictatorially manipulative, ruthless and willing to destroy anything in their way. Eights seek control over their own lives and destinies and fear being harmed or controlled by others.

When I first read it, I saw all hope is lost for me turning my face one day to some good side in the world. I saw myself drinking soup at a table together with the imperator deciding the faith of the galaxy.

It is true, that 8's do not want to be controlled. The author of the text probably did want to deliver the supposed decisiveness of the 8's, through picking out accurate words, but that so completly failed. Everybody who reads "They want to be in control", completly gets that wrong. He later corrected himself and said, "they do not want to be controlled". And that are two pair of shoes.

The other thing "They are natural leaders who can be either friendly and charitable or dictatorially manipulative". Does the author really think that the 8's acquire their goals, through black-and-white thinking ? If he holds me for that dumb, I am really going to grab my bat and drive to his home. Maybe he meant that 8's have two different faces they use towards people. But that then needs to be explained in more detail.

Maybe I am crazy or something, but I think this wikipedia article is X-rated.
 

Haphazard

Don't Judge Me!
Joined
Apr 14, 2008
Messages
6,704
MBTI Type
ENFJ
If you spent half an hour together with an eight, you want to flee.

Does this mean that every single person I know is an eight?
 

entropie

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
16,767
MBTI Type
entp
Enneagram
783
*gg* well you PM'ed me like 3 times back that I see as complimenting :)
 

Delphyne

New member
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
144
MBTI Type
INFP
@ Xander

Guess my usage of the word wasn´t right. I mean the assertive group expands their egos, they make it bigger when faced with stress. Withdrawn types fit introverts better, because they tend to withdraw under stress. Though not all introverts are withdrawn types. There are a lot introverts who are Ones or Sixes and some Twos.

The thing is that I see it as Es tend to be more dominant under average circumstances but when pressed it's the introverts who engage that extroverted strain and become the controlling power. I have no theory why, it's just a pattern I've seen.
Fives have a line to Eight and are very good to hold their ground when pressed. Nines are the kings and queens of stubborn resistance. Nevertheless both tend to withdraw.
 

entropie

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
16,767
MBTI Type
entp
Enneagram
783
Fives have a line to Eight and are very good to hold their ground when pressed.

That is probably what makes em that sexy :wubbie: *grabs a cake and throws it in haphazard's direction*

*then covertly vanishes into the woods* xD
 

Delphyne

New member
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
144
MBTI Type
INFP
@ Entropie

One enneagram author (Claudia Naranjo) calls Eight “the sadistic character and lust”. I´m sure that sounds a lot better. ;) The enneagram is about fixations, passions and motivations, which controls a person. The mbti has a much more possitive approach. Every enneagram type is described in negative ways, because finally it´s about your main passion. Anger, pride, deceit, envy, avarice, fear, gluttony, lust and sloth. It doesn´t sound very nice.

Everybody who reads "They want to be in control", completly gets that wrong. He later corrected himself and said, "they do not want to be controlled". And that are two pair of shoes.
The eight has both pair of those shoes. Do you want me to grab an eight, drag him to this place and show you how eights like to take control? ;) Eights I met and who know the enneagram told me that they can identify with the need to be in control.
 
Top