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INTJ "Intelligent" Myth

simulatedworld

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Can we define selfish, here, please!!!

How is being cognizant of, and accountable for your feelings and opinions selfish!?!?

I don't bend my values to accomodate others, or myself.

I know when I am being a shithead, and I know when others are being shitheads, and furthermore, I will concede and reconcile if I end up mistakenly viewing someone as a shithead when in fact they were/are not.

Being self-aware, introspective and idealistic does not make you selfish.

Human nature does.

My and most other Fi-users feel/use/integrate empathy in our global perspectives as well as in our intimate spheres, so much so that it truly baffles me to think/imagine, a healthy Fi user being categorized as selfish.

I think this adage is pretty fitting in describing an aspect of Fi,

"Know one's owns roots to embrace others"

Wow, an Fi user is baffled at how anyone could consider Fi users selfish. Astonishing.

There's a reason I put "selfish" in quotes in my post.

Reread these sections of uumalu's explanation:

uumlau said:
Fe/Ti tries to communicate with Fi, but can get stuck on this selfishness crosstalk. Fe's feelings are shared: feelings are precisely how you connect with other people. If you're not sharing your feelings, if you do not adjust your feelings to accomodate others, you're being selfish. But remember, this is all because Fe is a primary communication tool: by hiding one's own feelings, by not adjusting one's own feelings in response to others, of course it looks selfish to Fe.

uumlau said:
However, the same thing is true between Te and Ti. When I talk with someone using Te, there is a free flow of ideas. The ideas change and alter on the fly, we work together to develop new ideas, to share ideas. We connect and communicate via ideas. Enter the Ti user, who alternately seems like a brick wall, black hole, or source of technically correct and accurate but useless and noncommunicative information (think Microsoft Technical Support). With Te, I can't tell a Ti user a damn thing. I present ideas to the Ti user, who only procedes to pick them apart, accuse me of being inconsistant or incomplete or shallow. In the meantime, I hardly get any clue what the Ti user thinks. I get no "hooks" with which to show him where he might have some bad assumptions. He rejects my ideas based on his bad assumptions, and keeps on saying things like, "I don't understand how that could be true," and leaving me without a clue on which stupid idea he has in his head that makes him possibly think it couldn't be true. Why? Because he has to figure it all out for himself, selfish bastard. He can't trust even for a moment that I might be correct.

Selfishness is in the eye of the beholder.
 

simulatedworld

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Jesus christ, man.

Stop putting me in a fuckin' sealed box, and READ MY FUCKING WORDS.

I did read your words, and I responded by quoting the parts of uumlau's post that have already fully explained your concern.

If you'd read it already, you wouldn't be wondering about how the word "selfish" is used in this context, and you'd probably understand how the Ti+Fe perspective comes to view Fi as selfish.

You'd also probably understand how the Fi+Te perspective comes to view Ti as similarly selfish, and how both perspectives are ultimately relative.

Instead of reading uumlau's synthesis of the two perspectives, you just blurted out "OMG HOW COULD Fi EVER BEEN SEEN AS SELFISH????", which you'd already know if you'd actually read his post.
 

SillySapienne

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Selfishness is in the eye of the beholder.
No.

If you don't see/understand how some people are more innately selfish than others, I don't know what to say.

If you can't comprehend when you are acting in a particularly selfish manner, rather than in a less selfish manner, again, I don't know what to say.
 

SillySapienne

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I did read your words, and I responded by quoting the parts of uumlau's post that have already fully explained your concern.
My apologies, you edited your post after I responded to it.

You and I both know what your original post was, in fact, I quoted it in its, then, entirety.
 

simulatedworld

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No.

If you don't see/understand how some people are more innately selfish than others, I don't know what to say.

If you can't comprehend when you are acting in a particularly selfish manner, rather than in a less selfish manner, again, I don't know what to say.

Translation: "If you don't agree with the Fi+Te conception of selfishness, there's clearly something wrong with your perspective." sigh.

So your response to the idea that Fi+Te and Ti+Fe both have a limited perspective on selfishness that is biased by their own cognitive priorities is simply, "NUH UH THE Fi IDEA OF SELFISHNESS IS OBJECTIVELY RIGHT!!!"?

Great. Score one for inter-type communication.

I think uumlau's explanation is dead on. Selfishness is relative depending on one's perspective. Te sees Ti as selfish for its uncompromising treatment of ideas, and Fe sees Fi as selfish for its uncompromising treatment of feelings.

This is a really big idea that could potentially do a lot in terms of bridging the gigantic Fi+Te vs. Ti+Fe communication gap.

But instead of considering that, you seem more interested in simply declaring that your perception of selfishness is clearly the "correct" one.

This doesn't strike me as very productive. In fact, it almost seems a little...selfish? :huh:


My apologies, you edited your post after I responded to it.

You and I both know what your original post was, in fact, I quoted it in its, then, entirety.

The information had already been provided in its full text twice in this very thread. If you had read it before posting, you wouldn't need to ask how anyone could ever possibly view Fi as selfish.
 

SillySapienne

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I think they just feel it's selfish because we won't engage in their Fe cuddlefests... :yes:
:D

Fe, which I have plenty of because I am an Feeler, through and through, is pleasant when it's supporting a good cause, and deleterious when it is used to accomodate, allow, encourage, and or promote bad things for the sake of "peace".

To appease others in order to avoid conflict, or confrontation of the truth "behind" the current feelings/scene is the easy way out.

It temporarily works, but ultimately perpetuates the underlying problem.
 

Zarathustra

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:D

Fe, which I have plenty of because I am an Feeler, through and through, is pleasant when it's supporting a good cause, and deleterious when it is used to accomodate, allow, encourage, and or promote bad things for the sake of "peace".

To appease others in order to avoid conflict, or confrontation of the truth "behind" the current feelings/scene is the easy way out.

It temporarily works, but ultimately perpetuates the underlying problem.

Well, let's hope you're not just appeasing me with Fe on that one.

I hope that's an Fi conviction. :wink:
 

SillySapienne

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Empathic concern may produce an altruistic motivation to reduce the other person's distress.[12] The challenge of demonstrating the existence of altruistic motivation is to show how empathic concern leads to helping in ways that cannot be explained by prevailing theories of egoistic motivation. That is, a clear case needs to be made that it is concern about the other person's welfare, not a desire to improve one's own welfare, that primarily drives one's helping behavior in a particular situation.

Empirical studies conducted by social psychologist Daniel Batson has demonstrated that empathic concern is felt when one adopts the perspective of another person in need. His work emphasizes the different emotions evoked when imagining another situation from a self-perspective or imagining from another perspective.[13] The former is often associated with personal distress (i.e., feelings of discomfort and anxiety), whereas the latter leads to empathic concern.

Empathic concern - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

simulatedworld

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:D

Fe, which I have plenty of because I am an Feeler, through and through, is pleasant when it's supporting a good cause, and deleterious when it is used to accomodate, allow, encourage, and or promote bad things for the sake of "peace".

To appease others in order to avoid conflict, or confrontation of the truth "behind" the current feelings/scene is the easy way out.

It temporarily works, but ultimately perpetuates the underlying problem.

Problem: Deciding what counts as a "good cause" or a "bad thing" requires an Fi value judgment. This shows absolutely no evidence of Fe; in fact, all you've done with this post is declare implicitly that Fe is and should always be subservient to your Fi values.

You literally just said: "Fe is great as long as it doesn't get in the way of Fi--if it does that, then it's bad." You've done nothing but restate the case for Fi's superiority.

Being a Feeler in no way guarantees proficiency in Fe. As uumlau notes:

uumlau said:
Fe's feelings are shared: feelings are precisely how you connect with other people. If you're not sharing your feelings, if you do not adjust your feelings to accomodate others, you're being selfish.

Note the bolded part--and its direct contradiction of Fi's most important values.

You don't have "plenty of Fe" by any stretch of the imagination. If you did, you wouldn't allow your Fi-driven value judgments of "good causes" and "bad things" to supersede Fe's emphasis on accommodation of your feelings to those of others.

In order to have "plenty of Fe", you need to be able to set aside your own feelings in favor of accommodating those of others. By declaring that Fe is great as long as it doesn't require you to compromise your Fi values, you've completely nullified any possible use of Fe in the first place and revealed that Fi is dramatically more important to you.
 

Zarathustra

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Selfishness is in the eye of the beholder.

I think a lot of this could have been avoided if you'd used quotes around this "Selfishness".

While you did so earlier in your post, even I read this as a little bit of backtracking away from uumlau's ultimate conclusion:

So it really isn't selfishness, on the part of Ti or Fi. Selfishness is solely an issue of maturity, and this forum in particular has a bad habit of blaming immature behavior on types. The type only gives a basic indication of how immaturity will typically be expressed, it isn't the source of the immaturity.
 

Zarathustra

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You don't have "plenty of Fe" by any stretch of the imagination. If you did, you wouldn't allow your Fi-driven value judgments of "good causes" and "bad things" to supersede Fe's emphasis on accommodation of your feelings to those of others.

In order to have "plenty of Fe", you need to be able to set aside your own feelings in favor of accommodating those of others. By declaring that Fe is great as long as it doesn't require you to compromise your Fi values, you've completely nullified any possible use of Fe in the first place and revealed that Fi is dramatically more important to you.

Plenty is an absolute term, not a comparative one.

She didn't say she had more Fe than Fi, which is really what ^ is pointing to.
 

simulatedworld

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I think a lot of this could have been avoided if you'd used quotes around this "Selfishness".

While you did so earlier in your post, even I read this as a little bit of backtracking away from uumlau's ultimate conclusion:

The idea that selfishness is relative to one's perspective seems central to uumlau's point. He's saying that neither Fi nor Ti is truly objectively selfish on its own, just that Fi seems selfish to Ti and vice versa.

How does this diverge from his conclusion?


Plenty is an absolute term, not a comparative one.

She didn't say she had more Fe than Fi, which is really what ^ is pointing to.

It seems to me that, since Fe values accommodating the feelings of others by altering its own, someone with "plenty of Fe" should be able to understand quite easily how Fi might be perceived as selfish (even if such a perception is ultimately erroneous or incomplete.)

But she didn't say, "While I value Fi more highly than Fe, I can see why people who emphasize Fe more might come to view Fi as selfish."

She just asked how on earth anyone could possibly see Fi as selfish. I would think someone with a good understanding of Fe would be able to understand how this position comes about, even if she doesn't agree with it.
 

Zarathustra

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And Sim, you didn't respond to my very serious argument that truly cuts to the heart of this issue:

I think they just feel it's selfish because we won't engage in their Fe cuddlefests...

:wink:
 

SillySapienne

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Selfishness is relative depending on one's perspective
Um, k....

This sentence evokes so many memories and thoughts that I feel overwhelmed.

Selfishness exists, it is a part of human nature, some forms of which are not even Bad, but Good.

However, altruism exists, too.

We are a social species, we are cooperative, empathetic, and we generally care about our species, hence us even having the means to communicate on this forum.

Why do people write?

Why do scientists share their theories?

Why do we help the sick and the old?

Because, we are human beings, and we therefore care for human beings.
 

Zarathustra

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The idea that selfishness is relative to one's perspective seems central to uumlau's point. He's saying that neither Fi nor Ti is truly objectively selfish on its own, just that Fi seems selfish to Ti and vice versa.

How does this diverge from his conclusion?

Because I disagree that his point was that selfishness is relative to one's perspective.

Selfishness is selfishness; perceived selfishness is perceived selfishness.

His point is that the perception of selfishness is often a problem due to differing type's functions conflicting with one another.

I think uumlau concludes that people on this forum are constantly calling other types' behavior selfish, when, in fact, they are merely having a conflict due to differing type functions, and that using the term "selfishness" in this case is a misnomer and problematic.

That, ultimately, true selfishness is caused by immaturity, not type.

That is why it's important to use quotes around the term (when you're talking about the kind of "selfishness" that is being perceived not due to immaturity, but due to type difference.

And that's why you used them in the first place. :yes:
 

simulatedworld

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And Sim, you didn't respond to my very serious argument that truly cuts to the heart of this issue:



:wink:

Cuddling is good for the soul. It's science! btw, edited above post if you care to respond to the latter section.


Because I disagree that his point was that selfishness is relative.

His point is that the perception of selfishness is often a problem due to differing type's functions.

I think uumlau concludes that people on this forum are constantly calling other types' behavior selfish, when, in fact, it is immaturity that breeds selfishness, not type.

That is why it's important to use quotes around the term.

And that's why you used them in the first place. :yes:

Well, okay, but wouldn't differing perceptions of selfishness + the fact that neither is objectively correct imply that perception of selfishness is relative?


Um, k....

This sentence evokes so many memories and thoughts that I feel overwhelmed.

Selfishness exists, it is a part of human nature, some forms of which are not even Bad, but Good.

However, altruism exists, too.

We are a social species, we are cooperative, empathetic, and we generally care about our species, hence us even having the means to communicate on this forum.

Why do people write?

Why do scientists share their theories?

Why do we help the sick and the old?

Because, we are human beings, and we therefore care for human beings.

What is the relevance here? What point are you trying to make in relation to what we were talking about?
 

Zarathustra

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Sorry, Sim, edited that post like 1,000 times before I just finished.

(that's how I roll)
 
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