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Category and Sympathy

Mole

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Let us look at the board in front of us. And we see it is categorized. It not only has a large number of categories but it has sub-categories and sub-sub-categories.

In fact the board in front of us is a hierarchy of categories.

And then we look at the threads themselves and we find that almost all are asking for sympathy. And as if by some miracle, they get what they ask for.

It puts someone who loathes categories and hierarchies of categories in a difficult position, as it puts in the same position someone who loathes sympathy.

Of course I love creativity and empathy, the very antitheses of categories and sympathy.

So I have been accused for 6,000 posts of breaking category, of posting off topic.

And at a slightly deeper level I am accused of being unsympathetic.

In fact members openly try to get rid of me.

But what is most interesting is that this is institutional. Both categories and sympathy are not only supported by the members but by the administrators and moderators.

So the best the creative and empathic can do here is survive. There is no possibility for the creative and empathic to thrive.

So the only interesting question remains - why is this board devoted to categorizing and sympathy?
 

Little_Sticks

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Hi Victor. I thought sympathy was a subset of empathy.

So the only interesting question remains - why is this board devoted to categorizing and sympathy?

Anyway, isn't that pretty much how human beings function? We categorize the world with logical structures and categorize our relationships with sympathetic and empathetic structures. The less we do of the two above the more primal and less intelligent we become. That's the way I see it anyway.
 

Mole

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Oh what a blow that phantom gave me.

Hi Victor. I thought sympathy was a subset of empathy.

Anyway, isn't that pretty much how human beings function? We categorize the world with logical structures and categorize our relationships with sympathetic and empathetic structures. The less we do of the two above the more primal and less intelligent we become. That's the way I see it anyway.

Sure, Little_Sticks, you see it that way because you are literate and are part of a literate culture.

And Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville made exactly the same observation of the USA in the 19th Century. And it remains true today.

And a literate culture privileges the eye and so is a visual culture. Whereas my culture is an aural and auditory culture and we listen rather than see.

And naturally the members of a visual culture see those of an aural culture as more primal and less intelligent.

So you constantly insult us with the best intentions in the world.

And if the members of the visual culture are part of the largest economy in the world, they start to be oppressive, particularly if their military/industrial complex is in a constant state of war, and their companies are constantly seeking short term profit, and they have the most successful propaganda system in the world.

Fortunately the literate are being replaced by the electronic. And so the privilege of the eye will be replaced by a democracy of the senses - we shall lose our minds and come to our senses.

Naturally this is disorientating for you and causes you the emotional pain of cognitive dissonance, so we expect you to keep lashing out and invading other countries. After all, the aural is invisible to you, and as you stagger around the globe we can hear you say, "We don't know who the enemy is. We can't tell the combatants from the civilians", and then we hear you whisper hurt and perplexed, "Oh what a blow that phantom gave me".
 

Little_Sticks

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Well it wasn't really meant as an insult. If I view someone as less intelligent than I, it doesn't mean I have to look down on them or consider them insignificant or someone in the way of the intelligent to do so. As an example, I could see someone who is raised to think that life is a trial to get into paradise with Allah and thinks to accomplish this they have to fight and destroy all other religions as unintelligent. But when I say unintelligent I'm not talking about their intellectual capacity. Instead it is my perception that they are concerned only with hating and making the world a torturous place for others and I see that as unintelligent.

But do they see it this way? Of course not. And they probably view me as unintelligent. I suppose the only way to truly alleviate this problem though is to accept them as additional constraints on reality, see them as neither anything but what my understanding is capable of seeing them as and adapt to them within reason like everything else, and accept that life is just a question until death.

Outside of that though, I don't particularly agree with my government in the way it handles its economic policies or how it handles and directs its own internal functioning. I don't think it can be said either whether being oppressive with the military is true or not. There is a lot of shit going on in the middle east and we have a choice to get involved or do nothing and hope it doesn't get worse or turn into something devastating like the third Reich in World War II. The invasion of Iraq was questionable, not because of the idea of liberating a country, but because a lot of our military and soldiers are from poor families that don't feel like the people at war with them deserve any respect or dignity because the soldiers themselves don't get any from their own country. Guantanamo Bay is a prime example. No one knows if we are a good or bad presence and even we aren't sure. Our leaders are stupid, sometimes corrupt, and without compassion and moral conviction. People with moral conviction tend to stay away from the military for this very fact. And a lot of people just serve because they don't know what else to do, unfortunately. That's not exactly the kind of military you want. And it doesn't help that the leaders are incompetent and send soldiers into situations with an enemy that is more or less unpredictable to them. That's a big no-no in military strategy. That's probably one of the biggest problems with the US - bad leadership. A lot of soldiers have even had horror stories of being treated badly and getting the boot without any help after losing limbs. It's chaotic. We have the effect of communities failing and people more relying on their families for support, leading to a further competitive survival instinct and fear in society, a government that becomes increasingly corrupt with each day as it grows more and more power and restraints over peoples lives, and the stupid ignorance people have to believe the government will take care of them/things while it builds and maintains an aristocracy. It's disgraceful that american citizens have so little control over the workings of their government and yet believe they do.

The government is at the point where it should probably be stripped of a lot of its powers except those we need to defend ourselves from foreign invaders. And it would be nice if there was a way to eliminate pork barreling by having more people involved in the government and able to represent themselves instead of some lousy politician that will screw up the rest of the country as long as it gets what its state wants from the government. Pork barreling is probably partly an inherent trait in standard human relations, but the more aware people are, I think the more willing they will be to let go of a project they want for their state in order to do much more good for the country as a whole.

But I'm not even sure what we're/I'm talking about now. And some stupid asshole is likely going to take out of context everything I wrote about or try to turn it into a rant, so I just want to preemptively say a couple words in case that happens.

"FUCK ALL"
 

Mole

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There is a lot of shit going on in the middle east and we have a choice to get involved or do nothing and hope it doesn't get worse or turn into something devastating like the third Reich in World War II. The invasion of Iraq was questionable, not because of the idea of liberating a country, but because a lot of our military and soldiers are from poor families that don't feel like the people at war with them deserve any respect or dignity because the soldiers themselves don't get any from their own country.

The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials after WW II found that aggression, that is, invading another country, is a war crime.

And unlike other countries your's will not allow itself to be brought before the International Criminal Court.
 

simulatedworld

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lol @ the idea that categories are the opposite of creativity

translation: "Categorizing people is an evil and oppressive international conspiracy to destroy individuality and creativity"

wow gosh victor we've never heard THAT one before. :doh:

here's an idea for you: for some people (read: people other than you--yes, they actually do exist!) categorizing is a way of expressing creativity and furthering our understanding of the value in other people's individuality.

are you capable of taking that idea seriously? if not perhaps you should reexamine your arrogant self-assessment as creative and open-minded, and stop projecting your cognitive preferences onto everyone else/declaring anyone who doesn't share them "uncreative."
 

Mole

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lol @ the idea that categories are the opposite of creativity

translation: "Categorizing people is an evil and oppressive international conspiracy to destroy individuality and creativity"

wow gosh victor we've never heard THAT one before. :doh:

here's an idea for you: for some people (read: people other than you--yes, they actually do exist!) categorizing is a way of expressing creativity and furthering our understanding of the value in other people's individuality.

are you capable of taking that idea seriously? if not perhaps you should reexamine your arrogant self-assessment as creative and open-minded, and stop projecting your cognitive preferences onto everyone else/declaring anyone who doesn't share them "uncreative."

This is a big ask Sim. And you have just come back.

Perhaps you might like to start off with a more modest proposal.
 

simulatedworld

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This is a big ask Sim. And you have just come back.

Perhaps you might like to start off with a more modest proposal.

I dunno, I figured since I was posting in one of your threads it'd be more appropriate to just repeat the same tired paranoid self-serving conspiracy theory drivel I've already posted 10,000 times.

Don't you think?
 

Mole

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Vitamin S

I dunno, I figured since I was posting in one of your threads it'd be more appropriate to just repeat the same tired paranoid self-serving conspiracy theory drivel I've already posted 10,000 times.

Don't you think?

Oh come on Sim, no one can accuse you of being tired of paranoia or self serving conspiracy theory drivel. I mean that's why you read every word I write and why you take your valuable time to reply and let me know where I am going wrong.

Sim, you are an essential element in our diet, and behind your back we call you Vitamin S.
 

simulatedworld

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Oh come on Sim, no one can accuse you of being tired of paranoia or self serving conspiracy theory drivel. I mean that's why you read every word I write and why you take your valuable time to reply and let me know where I am going wrong.

Sim, you are an essential element in our diet, and behind your back you are known as vitamin S.

On the contrary, my dear Victor--I am positively sick to death of your paranoia and self-serving conspiracy theory drivel.

While you are quite articulate and stylistically unique, I find the content of your posts dreadfully boring and repetitive.

Every single one reduces to, "MBTI is an evil conspiracy intended to crush the soul of humanity and I'm the only one clever enough to recognize it" and/or "Categorizing people is evil and dehumanizing because it squelches freedom of self-expression."

And as much I hate to use Jungian functional terms to explain it, you don't seem to realize that all you're doing is mindlessly parroting the fundamental axioms of Fi, again and again.

There's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to categorize yourself if you don't want to, but your ongoing assumption that anyone who views categorization differently from you is uncreative and/or part of an evil international conspiracy to subjugate creative expression is a laughably limited perspective for someone who clearly considers himself so multi-faceted.

For people like me, categorizing is a form of creative expression. The categories are not static and they do not box people in; rather, they constantly shift and rearrange themselves the more I learn about the nature of other people and their similarities, differences and personal idiosyncrasies.

You don't seem able to conceptualize categories as anything but static, one-sided, lifeless, stifling threats to your individuality, and I get pretty tired of hearing you miss the point of personality categorization so spectacularly because your outrageously grandiose ego has you so convinced that you're the only one unique/brilliant/special/perceptive enough to recognize the true of nature of this nefarious conspiracy.

You have such a ridiculous prophet complex and it's rooted in nothing more than simple narcissism.

But hey--at least you have a broad vocabulary and you're good stringing words and sentences together in an aesthetically appealing manner. That's gotta count fer somethin', don't it?
 

Mole

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The Medium is the Message

While you are quite articulate and stylistically unique, I find the content of your posts dreadfully boring and repetitive.

You are quite right Sim. I repeat things over and over again. I repeat myself and I repeat myself again like a parrot. But I am sure as you know, there is method in my madness.

You notice I repeat the content over and over and over again, knowing full well that any repetition will induce a trance. I get you to focus on the content, I arouse your emotions, I even get you to criticise me, and then as the coup de grâce, I complain, I complain to the high heavens that you are criticising me and making ad hominem attacks.

And by this time you are fully focused on the content and I can let the medium do its work, for the medium is the message.
 

Thalassa

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My response to this thread is that the OP is clearly an Fi dom who feels a sense of loathing toward his inferior Te.

Oh, and then there's that whole conspiracy theory Ni. Sim's prediction of ISFP is right on target.

Oops. There I go, putting you into a category. But then again, this is an MBTI site, so quelle surprise, dude.
 

simulatedworld

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You are quite right Sim. I repeat things over and over again. I repeat myself and I repeat myself again like a parrot. But I am sure as you know, there is method in my madness.

You notice I repeat the content over and over and over again, knowing full well that any repetition will induce a trance. I get you to focus on the content, I arouse your emotions, I even get you to criticise me, and then as the coup de grâce, I complain, I complain to the high heavens that you are criticising me and making ad hominem attacks.

Your ego is out of control.

You've built up such an outrageously narcissistic self-image as some kind of visionary prophet destined to save the world from the evils of MBTI that you're no longer capable of taking in any new information from the external world. Anything that contradicts your narcissistic fantasies is rejected as a defense mechanism. (Talk about Fi+Ni loop!)

You are not inducing a trance in me. I am not in a trance. The "method" to your madness is simply building up your own ego by pretending your bizarre and misguided conspiracy theories represent some form of magical truth that only you, The Prophet, can truly understand, because it supports your overwhelming desire to view yourself as supremely unique and perceptive.

The greatest irony here is how grossly incapable you are of actually understanding the perspectives from which personality categorization is approached, juxtaposed against your hilariously inflated opinion of yourself as the only one capable of seeing "the real truth." You're so painfully out of touch with any truth that conflicts with your enormously egotistical Prophet fantasy that you obscure your own view of most of the perspectives you pride yourself on understanding fully.

And yet, again and again, you repeat the same nonsense, demonstrating nothing but your own utter failure to truly identify with any perspective other than your own.

You are so incapable of stepping outside the bounds of your own biases that, rather than actually try thinking critically about how others approach the categorization process and recognizing that the categories are constantly changed and updated to better reflect the individuals they describe, you are forced to conclude that the whole thing must be some grand international conspiracy that only you, The Prophet, in your infinite wisdom and delusions of grandeur, have been capable of discerning.

Even worse is that you'll probably never realize this. Even now your vastly overblown ego is inventing ways to dismiss everything I'm saying and convince yourself that it's all invalid because I, as a lowly peasant who tragically lacks your God-given prophetic powers of supernatural insight, am simply too imperceptive to recognize the real truth of this insidious plot to destroy all human individuality that somehow, somehow, no one but you has ever been clever enough to pick up on.

Isn't it more likely that you're simply delusional? No no, of course not--it's everyone else who's delusional, not The Prophet!

And by this time you are fully focused on the content and I can let the medium do its work, for the medium is the message.

Translation: "Haha, I have outsmarted you once again by tricking you into doing exactly what I wanted, because I am so clever/unique/perceptive, haha!"

:doh:


My response to this thread is that the OP is clearly an Fi dom who feels a sense of loathing toward his inferior Te.

Oh, and then there's that whole conspiracy theory Ni. Sim's prediction of ISFP is right on target.

Oops. There I go, putting you into a category. But then again, this is an MBTI site, so quelle surprise, dude.

I think it's more that he's threatened by TiFe than Te. Note his constant references to "DOUBLE BLIND STUDIES OMG OMG OMG" whenever he wants to bash MBTI--it's very Te. By insisting upon empirical evidence for an idea that makes no empirically demonstrable claim, he has a conveniently perpetual excuse to dismiss it on Thinking grounds as well as Feeling.

Ti likes to build models and categories for everything and Fe likes to create collective moral standards that can be applied broadly to everyone (which necessitates a lesser degree of moral individuality.) Both of these ideas are so extraordinarily threatening to Victor's FiTe value system that the only way he can cope with them is by inventing highly intricate conspiracy theories painting himself as a visionary prophet charged by God with the task of ridding the world of the evils of TiFe.

He's romanticized his presence on a typology forum, the very source of the Evil itself, as some sort of brave and noble crusade to strike directly at the heart of Evil. He believes himself to be on some sort of sacred quest in the name of Good (his idea of Good, of course, being FiTe), and the quixotic nature of this effort (he probably knows it'll never really get anywhere) only serves to reinforce his ego's romanticized ideal. "I'll continue to fight Evil until the day I die, no matter how hopeless it seems, because I'm a TRUE hero!" :doh:

I think he may legitimately suffer from Paranoid Personality Disorder. I'm not even kidding when I say I hope he'll choose to seek psychiatric help at some point.

(And no, Victor, I don't propose that anyone force you to do that if you don't want to. I simply hope that you'll one day choose to do so of your own accord.)
 

Thalassa

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Your ego is out of control.

You've built up such an outrageously narcissistic self-image as some kind of visionary prophet destined to save the world from the evils of MBTI that you're no longer capable of taking in any new information from the external world. Anything that contradicts your narcissistic fantasies is rejected as a defense mechanism. (Talk about Fi+Ni loop!)

You are not inducing a trance in me. I am not in a trance. The "method" to your madness is simply building up your own ego by pretending your bizarre and misguided conspiracy theories represent some form of magical truth that only you, The Prophet, can truly understand, because it supports your overwhelming desire to view yourself as supremely unique and perceptive.

The greatest irony here is how grossly incapable you are of actually understanding the perspectives from which personality categorization is approached, juxtaposed against your hilariously inflated opinion of yourself as the only one capable of seeing "the real truth." You're so painfully out of touch with any truth that conflicts with your enormously egotistical Prophet fantasy that you obscure your own view of most of the perspectives you pride yourself on understanding fully.

And yet, again and again, you repeat the same nonsense, demonstrating nothing but your own utter failure to truly identify with any perspective other than your own.

You are so incapable of stepping outside the bounds of your own biases that, rather than actually try thinking critically about how others approach the categorization process and recognizing that the categories are constantly changed and updated to better reflect the individuals they describe, you are forced to conclude that the whole thing must be some grand international conspiracy that only you, The Prophet, in your infinite wisdom and delusions of grandeur, have been capable of discerning.

Even worse is that you'll probably never realize this. Even now your vastly overblown ego is inventing ways to dismiss everything I'm saying and convince yourself that it's all invalid because I, as a lowly peasant who tragically lacks your God-given prophetic powers of supernatural insight, am simply too imperceptive to recognize the real truth of this insidious plot to destroy all human individuality that somehow, somehow, no one but you has ever been clever enough to pick up on.

Isn't it more likely that you're simply delusional? No no, of course not--it's everyone else who's delusional, not The Prophet!



Translation: "Haha, I have outsmarted you once again by tricking you into doing exactly what I wanted, because I am so clever/unique/perceptive, haha!"

:doh:




I think it's more that he's threatened by TiFe than Te. Note his constant references to "DOUBLE BLIND STUDIES OMG OMG OMG" whenever he wants to bash MBTI--it's very Te. By insisting upon empirical evidence for an idea that makes no empirically demonstrable claim, he has a conveniently perpetual excuse to dismiss it on Thinking grounds as well as Feeling.

Ti likes to build models and categories for everything and Fe likes to create collective moral standards that can be applied broadly to everyone (which necessitates a lesser degree of moral individuality.) Both of these ideas are so extraordinarily threatening to Victor's FiTe value system that the only way he can cope with them is by inventing highly intricate conspiracy theories painting himself as a visionary prophet charged by God with the task of ridding the world of the evils of TiFe.

He's romanticized his presence on a typology forum, the very source of the Evil itself, as some sort of brave and noble crusade to strike directly at the heart of Evil. He believes himself to be on some sort of sacred quest in the name of Good (his idea of Good, of course, being FiTe), and the quixotic nature of this effort (he probably knows it'll never really get anywhere) only serves to reinforce his ego's romanticized ideal. "I'll continue to fight Evil until the day I die, no matter how hopeless it seems, because I'm a TRUE hero!" :doh:

I think he may legitimately suffer from Paranoid Personality Disorder. I'm not even kidding when I say I hope he'll choose to seek psychiatric help at some point.

(And no, Victor, I don't propose that anyone force you to do that if you don't want to. I simply hope that you'll one day choose to do so of your own accord.)


1) I don't understand how he can lecture us about community and dialogue and acceptance of other cultures when he seems to primarily talk to himself with these self-congratulatory diatribes. It's weird to me that he says he wants to promote true intimacy and sharing and people being authentic and acting as a community, but then alienates others with his posting style.

2) If he has a problem with TiFe more than Te, why do I enjoy the categories of MBTI, typology, and function theory so much? Why am I interested in it? It seems like Te would also want to find categories to assess human behavior, etc. to make it seem more "orderly"
 

Tiltyred

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Let's humor him. He's harmless ... we can read Wind In the Whatevers and sing Kumbaya, wait a minute, where's my guitar, ok, here w'go, key of G ...
 

Thalassa

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Let's humor him. He's harmless ... we can read Wind In the Whatevers and sing Kumbaya, wait a minute, where's my guitar, ok, here w'go, key of G ...

I actually love The Wind in the Willows. I did one of my student projects on it in college.
 

Tiltyred

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Well, there y'go. What a small world and how much we all have in common, right?

And I'll just close with a :hug: smilie and run before the Fe police come after me 'cause I hear the sirens in the distance...:newwink:
 

simulatedworld

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1) I don't understand how he can lecture us about community and dialogue and acceptance of other cultures when he seems to primarily talk to himself with these self-congratulatory diatribes. It's weird to me that he says he wants to promote true intimacy and sharing and people being authentic and acting as a community, but then alienates others with his posting style.

Excellent point.

2) If he has a problem with TiFe more than Te, why do I enjoy the categories of MBTI, typology, and function theory so much? Why am I interested in it? It seems like Te would also want to find categories to assess human behavior, etc. to make it seem more "orderly"

I would suggest that your fascination with typology is more Ne-oriented, because you like finding patterns and connections between ideas.

Te won't appreciate any kind of categorization until it can be supported objectively and measurably. Ne, on the other hand, appreciates it as long as it can see any kind of correlation, whether or not it's particularly precise.
 

Coriolis

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The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials after WW II found that aggression, that is, invading another country, is a war crime.
So all those poor sods who hit the Normandy beaches on D-Day should have been packed off to Nuremberg along with Bormann, Hess, et. al., or at least their leadership should have been. What is the difference between an invasion and a liberation???

Observations painted with such broad strokes sacrifice precision and sometimes coherence, especially when laced with loaded terminology.
 

Stevo

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Victor...

You crack me up sometimes, man :D
 
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