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INFJ- Why So Shitty At Debating Ideas?

Jaguar

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There was an INFJ woman who made excellent arguments, then she'd apologize for what she said and drive me batshit crazy. Trust me, her arguments were solid. It was like painting a masterpiece then jamming her foot through it. Finally, I told her to stop saying "I'm sorry." If anything, it's caring about what others think, or hurting their feelings, that can hang someone up when debating.
 

Forever

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There was an INFJ woman who made excellent arguments, then she'd apologize for what she said and drive me batshit crazy. Trust me, her arguments were solid. It was like painting a masterpiece then jamming her foot through it. Finally, I told her to stop saying "I'm sorry." If anything, it's caring about what others think, or hurting their feelings, that can hang someone up when debating.

You'd probably hate me then, sorry. :wink:
 

á´…eparted

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There was an INFJ woman who made excellent arguments, then she'd apologize for what she said and drive me batshit crazy. Trust me, her arguments were solid. It was like painting a masterpiece then jamming her foot through it. Finally, I told her to stop saying "I'm sorry." If anything, it's caring about what others think, or hurting their feelings, that can hang someone up when debating.

Asking cause I genuinely don't get it. Why do you view it as a bad thing for her apologizing for aruging?
 

Jaguar

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Asking cause I genuinely don't get it. Why do you view it as a bad thing for her apologizing for aruging?

You don't put forth an excellent argument then wipe out the whole damn thing by apologizing for something as meaningless as "tone." Now the focus becomes apologizing to such a degree, everyone forgot her argument. If she had a shitty argument, it wouldn't matter. I wanted her to retain her argument, seriously. Btw, do not confuse making an argument with the more commonly accepted use of the word "arguing" as when two people are yelling at each other like jerks.
 

Amargith

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That sounds like she was trying to be aware of her lack of skill in the actual art of communication - did she really apologise just for the actual argumentation because she felt it wasnt strong enough or for the delivery of that argument? While the two areas can interconnect, the art of communication(/diplomacy) is about taking into account your audience and forming a connection to then maximise the effect of your rhetoric by facilitating understanding and creating an atmosphere of creativity and open-mindedness. She may have felt that she was lacking in that department to really drive her argument home (- which is an area of focus for NFs, in particular NFJS, I might add)
 

Jaguar

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That sounds like she was trying to be aware of her lack of skill in the actual art of communication - did she really apologise just for the actual argumentation because she felt it wasnt strong enough or for the delivery of that argument? While the two areas can interconnect, the art of communication(/diplomacy) is about taking into account your audience and forming a connection to then maximise the effect of your rhetoric by facilitating understanding and creating an atmosphere of creativity and open-mindedness. She may have felt that she was lacking in that department to really drive her argument home (- which is an area of focus for NFs, in particular NFJS, I might add)

The delivery. The content was top notch. She felt bad for delivering it with too much force.
 

Amargith

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The delivery. The content was top notch. She felt badly for delivering it with too much force.

Heh - well, then she was practising an extra skill. That skill is in fact what makes NFJs the best potential demagogues out there. Know your audience, know your content and marry them perfectly. Sounds like she was aware that she might not reach part of her audience.
 

Amargith

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Lol. I know, it's not what you would consider a priority in communication, but it's important to them - and a large part of their audience :D
 

Virtual ghost

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Lol. I know, it's not what you would consider a priority in communication, but it's important to them - and a large part of their audience :D


And that is why they are bad at debating ideas. Purpose of debating is finding a solution to certain problems and defining course of action. Therefore if you are focused on rethoric, tone and similar stuff you are introducing extra elements into the story that don't really matter (unless delivery was totally outside of any norm). I get constantly accused that I am "evil" because I saw peoples arguments into pieces pretty quickly. Why I am able to do that ? Mostly because I pay no attention to delivery and I only care about what was actually said.


This whole world is falling apart exactly because well warped shit is what sells these days and most don't care or even dare to ask something serious. Especially since they are too afraid that their tone of voice could be wrong, or something similary silly.


Just saying.
 

Amargith

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And that is why they are bad at debating ideas. Purpose of debating is finding a solution to certain problems and defining course of action. Therefore if you are focused on rethoric, tone and similar stuff you are introducing extra elements into the story that don't really matter (unless delivery was totally outside of any norm). I get constantly accused that I am "evil" because I saw peoples arguments into pieces pretty quickly. Why I am able to do that ? Mostly because I pay no attention to delivery and I only care about what was actually said.


This whole world is falling apart exactly because well warped shit is what sells these days and most don't care or even dare to ask something serious. Especially since they are too afraid that their tone of voice could be wrong, or something similary silly.


Just saying.

:shrug: Doing it your way means losing half your audience, easily. Yes, you may be more focused on debating the ideas, but does it really matter if you cannot communicate those ideas properly to other people? That stuff you consider irrelevant and fluff, many consider valuable information - which it is. It just happens to not be your cup of tea and not your area of expertise. There is nothing wrong with that, but it wouldn't kill you to actually look beyond your own strengths and recognise that they're doing something that is actually incredibly powerful and useful - just not in the fields you consider worth your time. Your choice, of course, and your loss should you close your eyes to that truth.
 

Virtual ghost

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:shrug: Doing it your way means losing half your audience, easily. Yes, you may be more focused on debating the ideas, but does it really matter if you cannot communicate those ideas properly to other people? That stuff you consider irrelevant and fluff, many consider valuable information - which it is. It just happens to not be your cup of tea and not your area of expertise. There is nothing wrong with that, but it wouldn't kill you to actually look beyond your own strengths and recognise that they're doing something that is actually incredibly powerful and useful - just not in the fields you consider worth your time. Your choice, of course, and your loss should you close your eyes to that truth.


I know very well that I will lose a part of the audience and I find that frustrating ... that is exactly why I made that comment. However I am certan that reality is reality and nice words will not change our deep concrete problems. There is a reason why there is the saying "Don't kill the messengers".


Silly example: Hitler that was almost surely an NFJ did not want to listen to his generals that were almost surely some kinds of TJs. The result of that was lost war. They even told Hitler not to build concentration camps since the steel and fuel are quite needed for tanks that need to be constructed in order to hold the line.


So yeah, Hitler did not lose any of the audience but he lost the war, what ended with death of half of his audience. :D






I trully don't want to come across as jerk here and today I am fireing upon you quite often, I just want you to know that I don't have bad intentions. I simply find many peoples reasoning frustrating in this regard. What reminds me of my ENFP teacher that commentated my paper with "I haven't seen such bluntness for quite some time". :)
 

Duffy

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And that is why they are bad at debating ideas. Purpose of debating is finding a solution to certain problems and defining course of action. Therefore if you are focused on rethoric, tone and similar stuff you are introducing extra elements into the story that don't really matter (unless delivery was totally outside of any norm). I get constantly accused that I am "evil" because I saw peoples arguments into pieces pretty quickly. Why I am able to do that ? Mostly because I pay no attention to delivery and I only care about what was actually said.


This whole world is falling apart exactly because well warped shit is what sells these days and most don't care or even dare to ask something serious. Especially since they are too afraid that their tone of voice could be wrong, or something similary silly.

I think you're ascribing more to this than necessary. A debate is essentially a formal discourse, nothing more / less. Actually, I take that back - at most, it's a contest. And as with any contest, the goal is victory. So if the purpose is to win, then what dictates this? If there's no formal way to declare victor, then in the minds of you or I.... who's to say? Naturally, this leads to the subject of the audience. Your ability to be a "good" debater is contingent on your ability to convince your audience (alas, an objective criteria). Which leads me to this: You convince your audience with any means deemed necessary. Just take a look at our "paragons of virtue" over in the political arena. It's the same in most places.
 

Chrysanthe

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I feel that it's because I rely too much on my Ti that I avoid debating because it seems I already have everything figured out... if I actually cared to use my Fe I might consider that others would have something more reasonable than what I've figured out myself. And I honestly don't know how well I debate since I don't really enjoy doing it. One of the primary reasons for this is my trouble with articulating everything I want to say... if I can't explain my thoughts completely and flawlessly, then the listener might interpret it the wrong way and completely miss what I'm trying to say, which makes me have to clean up the mess I just made.
 
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Virtual ghost

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I think you're ascribing more to this than necessary. A debate is essentially a formal discourse, nothing more / less. Actually, I take that back - at most, it's a contest. And as with any contest, the goal is victory. So if the purpose is to win, then what dictates this? If there's no formal way to declare victor, then in the minds of you or I.... who's to say? Naturally, this leads to the subject of the audience. Your ability to be a "good" debater is contingent on your ability to convince your audience (alas, an objective criteria). Which leads me to this: You convince your audience with any means deemed necessary. Just take a look at our "paragons of virtue" over in the political arena. It's the same in most places.


This goes well beyond INFJs and their skills but I will answer you honestly.


For the sake of context I am one of the few people on this forum that is from a country that is not traditionally democratic. Also we had major elections recently and there wasn't any debates on TV regarding that. Politicians openly said that debating on TV is pointless.


Is the debate a contest ? It can be but that is not its main purpose. Therefore the main purpose of the debate is finding a solution and if a few people does verbal masturbation with facts that can't be determined then we can only talk about circus (or reality show at best).


How to declare who won ? Reality will prove who was right and who was wrong and to which degree. In the case that there needs to be a course of action some evidence needs to be presented. Which during the debate need to be asseses in their validity and how complete the information is. Therefore if you organize a real debate it should often be pretty obvious who won if a viewer has common sense. However no one organizes such debates because viewers will have a hard time following something like that and may feel stupid. (and that is not nice) Especially since people may switch channel and TV company will lose money from advertising.


Therefore you end up in the situation that elections are decided with who has nicer wife or better joke. (and then people bitch for 4 years about "government this, goverment that).
Many people on this world have to realize that in many situations emotions are just extra package that does not matter in the current situations. Not to mention that those emotions are placed there to fool you or seduce you. My whole life I wear eticket "evil" simply because I don't play games and I leave to others here to decide if that is truly that undersirable.
 

morganelise48

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I agree that, everything considered, we're not very good at formulating arguments on the fly- especially when it comes to phrasing things in a way that will hold some mass/universal appeal. We are not mercurial creatures. I'm totally rubbish at improv debate, at any rate.

But when it comes to convincing individuals in a slower, ongoing dialogue- whom we've had a chance to get to know- then I think we can actually be quite good. I'm not sure if what I'm thinking of is really "debate" though. I think we have a tendency to pick up on what other individuals value and/or their belief system- after enough observation, we can pick up on someone else's rules of engagement and work within that system. (That's only where it's worth it to us- it's not always worth putting that much energy into.) The only time I really struggle (again- where there IS motivation and it's worth it to me) is when the person's belief system/rules of engagement feel dogmatically normal to me.
Agreed!
 

Duffy

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For the sake of context I am one of the few people on this forum that is from a country that is not traditionally democratic. Also we had major elections recently and there wasn't any debates on TV regarding that. Politicians openly said that debating on TV is pointless.


Is the debate a contest ? It can be but that is not its main purpose. Therefore the main purpose of the debate is finding a solution and if a few people does verbal masturbation with facts that can't be determined then we can only talk about circus (or reality show at best).

I think I get the gist of what you're getting at, but you lost me here. It doesn't jive with experience and observation. I suspect you and I are talking about different things and have different scenarios in mind. I debate all the time with family and friends. Seems to me that we engage in order to convince others the validity of our argument. The topic may vary and so solution finding is certainly not a prerequisite. I mean, here's the definition. It's why I said you were assigning more to it than necessary. Sounds to me that you've had just about enough the superficial side of Fe. :cheese: My condolences.
 

Virtual ghost

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I think I get the gist of what you're getting at, but you lost me here. It doesn't jive with experience and observation. I suspect you and I are talking about different things and have different scenarios in mind. I debate all the time with family and friends. Seems to me that we engage in order to convince others the validity of our argument. The topic may vary and so solution finding is certainly not a prerequisite. I mean, here's the definition. It's why I said you were assigning more to it than necessary. Sounds to me that you've had just about enough the superficial side of Fe. :cheese: My condolences.


My first language is not English and therefore it is logical that our definitions of the term "debate" don't overlap completely.
I grew up in a disfunctional society and therefore I have learned to shoot down everthing that does not make any real sense or is obvious BS and manipulation. Often the only order and stability that I had were the ones that I would make myself.


My specific problems with Fe is that often Fe makes everything much worse than it already is. Unhealthy Fe strong people manipulate other people and get away with it until reality finally comes knocking at the door. Therefore I have used Hitler example simply because this is example everyone is familiar with. Also Fe in my opinion is often source of the problems since for some reason Fe wants to achieve consensus even in areas where there shouldn't be one (especially since one side may be much more right than the other). What results with status quo situations that will hold until all hell brakes lose due to build up pressure. In other words it creates agony that in the end ends where we were in the start, but now everyone has personality disorder due to long agony.


As I already said to other people before: the so called communications skills in my opinion are often not really that despite their name. To me most of them look as if someone did not know how to earn money so he/she started to teach people how to "communicate". Therefore anytime people get the grasp of how to do it some new rule/tool comes along and the whole learning process starts from the beginning. What has lead the world into situation that no one knows what the other person is trully saying. Don't you think that it is stupid that a polititian that is considered to be great speach giver after a speach on TV has to get some kind of "outside commentator" that will explain to people what was he or she was saying ? Don't people think that everthing should be crystally clear if the person is really that good communicator ?


The so called comunication skills have the tendency to distract from many point and the main point is basically the very reason why we communicate in the first place. What leads into situation that no one listens anyone anymore because the factual basis of comunication is so distorted that listening feels like a waste of time. I trully think that it is sad that these days everthing has to be reduced to cheap marketing and motivation speeches.


 
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