George Carlin

[FlamingMask]

His stage persona is different from his actual personality, although they are obviously related.

YouTube - George Carlin - Archive Interview Part 1 of 7

That interview is very revealing, although I last watched the whole thing a while ago.

I would say INTJ or INTP. (I was thinking INTJ when I opened this thread).

 

[VagrantFarce]

He's ENTP. He only seems like an INTP in these recent interviews because he's older and thus his Ti/Si is more developed.

 

[FlamingMask]

Although, if I recall correctly, he talked about being very introverted/introspective as a child and was alone a lot of the time.

 

[onemoretime]

ENTP. It's made particularly clear with how bitter he became as he got older - classic middle age development of Si. The world isn't how it's supposed to be, and he's going to tell you about it.

No, there's not that much difference between the offstage stuff and the onstage stuff. His comedy is way too cerebral and way too connection-based (Ne-Ti combo) to not be indicative of the offstage persona. While he certainly is not the most gregarious in interviews - couldn't it be that he was just bored as hell with doing interviews after having constantly done them for 40 years?

Finally, the most telling sign for me - Shining Time Station. How else do you explain someone as cynical as Carlin jumping on board to do an educational show with high levels of interaction with children? An introvert wouldn't have been as enthusiastic about it, and it's a common trait of ENTPs that as much as we take joy in the connections in our heads, it's even more amazing when you see someone else make the connection, particularly a kid.

 

[FlamingMask]

Those really are good points, but one thing Carlin mentions is having the basic idea of his whole career planned out by about age 11. That sounds very Ni / J to me, and I guess I wouldn't really see him as an INTP after all, or any P type. His connection based humor could be Ni/Te or a combination of both N and T functions as a xNTJ.

I admit that his bitterness and constant contrasting to his youth sounds a lot like Si. I'm aware that people begin rounding out at around middle age. Do people fall on their fourth function in particular in middle age or do they just develop a range of functions and as a part of that their fourth function is being used?

 

[onemoretime]

Of course, the whole career planned out thing could be a big joke - we are wont to exaggerate in such a manner. The humor being, of course, who the hell has their career planned out when they're eleven? You're a child, and still enjoying childish things!

 

[Lithium Onyx]

I saw the HBO special yesterday as well. Rest in peace, Mr. Carlin.

I don't see INTP in him at all. I though perhaps ISTJ/ISTP, but I'm probably far off. Comedians are hard to type because of the differences between their stage personas vs. their actuall personality. With that said though, the misanthropy could, just as easily as his perceived extroversion, be an act, couldn't it?

 

[kendoiwan]

Always trying to claim one of ours...

 

[wastrd]

INTP and an obvious introvert.

 

[Aleksei]

Carlin was a very fucking obvious ENTJ. His routine essentially consists of tossing Te all over the damn the place. Consider The Ten Commandments broken down for example:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzEs2nj7iZM&feature=fvst"]George Carlin using Te[/YOUTUBE]

The whole act is about efficiency. He noticed where each commandment had fluff in it, and he cut it out to make them (in his opinion) work better. Took ten and ended up with two, and called it a success. The only other type he could be is ESTJ, but his Te doesn't rely on past experience or info at all, it's all about ideas he plucked out of thin air. That, and he was a very long-range planner.

That said, George Carlin was great. Rest in peace.

 

[bcubchgo]

I agree with ENTJ. Very externally ballsy with his logic. And he gets to the point quickly without candy coating anything.

 

[nozflubber]

Always trying to claim one of ours...

actually i know i already said NTP of some kind but ISTP certainly fits as well for Carlin. ISTPs love pointing out the shit no one likes to talk about yet notices, and that was a reoccuring theme in his shows

 

[Orangey]

ESTP. He doesn't really seem NT to me at all.

 

[TheDude72727]

I'd say ESTP. And not just because ESTP's are renowned for crude humor, (seven words you can never say on television).

E or I is hard to tell... but I know that his life certainly didn't seem planned. Air force radar technician? Disc Jockey? He also ran away from home pretty early on...

What I've gleaned is that he didn't really desire security, and he seemed rather impulsive. Quite contrary to what some others here seem to have observed...
On top of this, I'd be more inclined to call his humor observation based, rather than connection based. I mean seriously, most of the time it involves making fun of stupid people, and stupid things, in an extremely inflammatory way.

I can't be the only person getting the STP vibe...?

...

I think it can be agreed, though, that he's a T of some sort... if anything.

 

[Aleksei]

ESTP. He doesn't really seem NT to me at all.

His humor does not appear to have one bit of Ti in it. If he were an SP, he'd probably be ESFP.

I'd say ESTP. And not just because ESTP's are renowned for crude humor, (seven words you can never say on television).

E or I is hard to tell... but I know that his life certainly didn't seem planned. Air force radar technician? Disc Jockey? He also ran away from home pretty early on...

I'm reading his autobiography right now. The most obvious thing in it is that he's an extrovert, just from the first couple dozen pages. He loves attention, loves action, and he's always found performing onstage, being applauded, etc. absolutely thrilling.

As for planning, his buddy Tony Hendra (who wrote the bio on basis of interviews with Carlin), described him as a perennial long-term planner. He ran away from home because his mother was insufferable (my ENFJ aunt did the same -- she left with $500 on her pocket when she was 17 and never looked back). Then there's the fact that his Ni is apparent as well. An excerpt from Last Words:

An audience is the only group I can tolerate, because an audience wouldn't be a group if it wasn't for me. Which extends to every other audience that has ever liked me. More and more as I get older, when people come to me to tell me how much they enjoyed some piece at a concert or a club as long as forty years ago, I mentally see an audience of millions stretching away into the darkness. Individuals who in a sense I've met and some spark has passed between us, actual individuals in whose presence I've been but who have never been in mine, 1,500, 2,000, 3,000 at a time, but also one-on-one. Whenever they laughed I was speaking to them directly.

That, my friends, is Ni. ESTPs and ESFPs have it as well, but it's inferior so it's rarely as apparent as it appears here.

 

[Aleksei]

actually i know i already said NTP of some kind but ISTP certainly fits as well for Carlin. ISTPs love pointing out the shit no one likes to talk about yet notices, and that was a reoccuring theme in his shows

I'm flabbergasted. Why are half the people in this thread guessing Carlin as an introvert? ESTP, or even ENTP are reasonable guesses, but seriously, I anything is ridiculous.

 

[nozflubber]

bc its not like his energy seems to feed off the crowd in any of his shows, he just goes on his rants for an hour or so. He has a nice long, Ti-based assault laced with stern verbiage prepared well in advance. seems Ti-dom enough to me

 

[Aleksei]

bc its not like his energy seems to feed off the crowd in any of his shows, he just goes on his rants for an hour or so.

Extroverts generally like talking. It's why they're extroverted. As for whether he feeds off the crowd, just re-read my excerpt above -- or better yet, read Last Words. He feeds off applause and acclaim, he loves it.

And how are his verbal assaults Ti?

 

[disregard]

ENTP fo sho.

He is a fireworks show of Ne Ti.

 

[Aleksei]

Ne, how? Are ENTJs not supposed to be witty or something?