[INTP] INTP, enneagram 5w4 and art

Entropic · Aug 20, 2012

(Another article I wrote and taken off Personality CafÃ©)

There appears to a tendency among INTPs that are enneagram 5w4 and music preference. Specifically, it appears that the 5w4 INTP seeks music that is focused on connection and disconnection. I don't think we need to go further into the specifics of the INTP or the definitions of cognitive functions for now, but I think we do we need to define what enneagram 5w4, also known as the Iconoclast, is:

The Five with a Four-Wing: "The Iconoclastâ€

The traits of the Five and those of the Four reinforce each other in many ways. Both Five and Four are withdrawn types: they turn to the inner world of their imagination to defend their egos and to reinforce their sense of self. They both feel that something essential in themselvefs must be found before they can live their lives completely. Fives lack the confidence to act, and Fours lack a strong, stable sense of identity. Thus, Fives with a Four-wing have difficulty connecting with others and staying grounded. People of this subtype are more emotional and introverted than Fives with a Six-wing, althrough paradoxically, they tend to be more sociable than the other subtype. As a result of their Four component, they are also more interested in the personal and intrapsychic. The two types also have some significant differences in their approach. Fives are cerebral, holding experience at arm's length, while Fours internalize everything to intensify their feelings. Despite these differences--or because of them--these two personality types make one of the richest subtypes, combining possibilities for outstanding artistic as well as intellectual achievement.

Notewothy examples of this subtype include Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenburg, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georgia O'Keeffe, John Cage, John Lennon, k. d. lang, Laurie Anderson, James Joyce, Emily Dickinson, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Buster Keaton, Gary Larson, Stephen King, Tim Burton, Clive Barker, Franz Kafka, Umberto Eco, Jean-Paul Sartre, Oriana Fallaci, Glenn Gould, Peter Serkin, Hannah Arendt, Kurt Cobain, and Vincent van Gogh.

In healthy people of this subtype, we find the union of intuition and knowledge, sensitivity and insight, aesthetic appreciation and intellectual endowments. Fives with a Four-wing are likely to be involved in the arts as writers, directors, designers, musicians, composers, choreographers, and so forth. The subtype has been somewhat overlooked in many descriptions of Fives because they do not fit the stereotype of the academic/scientific Five (the Five with a Six-wing). This subtype is more synthetic in its thinking, pulling things together and seeking out new ways of looking at things, Also, Fives with a Four-wing tend to utilize their imaginations more than the analytic, systematic parts of the mind which are more the domain of the other subtype. If they are involved in science, Fives with a Four-wing are drawn to those areas in which there is less emphasis on experimentation and data collection than on intuition and comprehensive vision. This subtype is particularly aware of--and on the lookout for--the beauty in a mathematical formula, for example. For this subtype, beauty is one of the indications of truth, because the order which beauty represents is a confirmation of the objective rightness of an idea. One of the foremost strengths of healthy Fives with a Four-wing lies precisely in their intuition, since intuition helps them uncover areas of knowledge where their conscious thoughts have not yet ventured. The Four-wing adds a desire to find a unique, personal vision to the curiosity and perceptiveness of the Five, and the result is a propensity to "tinker" with familiar forms until they become something almost unrecognizable. In talented Fives with a Four-wing this can lead to startling innovations in their chosen fields of endeavor.

In Average Fives with a Four-wing, the Four-wing adds emotional depth, but causes difficulties in sustaining efforts and in working with others. Fives with a Four-wing are more independent than Fives with a Six-wing and resist having structures and deadlines imposed on them. There can be an off-putting detachment from the environment, both because they are involved in their thoughts and because they are introverted and emotionally self-absorbed. Analytic powers may be used to keep people at arm's length rather than to understand them more deeply. Emotionally delicate, people of this subtype can be moody and hypersensitive to criticism, particularly regarding the value of their work or ideas, since this impinges directly upon self-esteem. Both component types tend to withdraw from people and be reclusive. They can be highly creative and imaginative, envisioning alternate realities in great detail, but can get lost in their own cerebral landscapes. The Four-wing gives a propensity to fantasizing, but with the Five with the Four-wing, the subject matter tends toward the surreal and fantastic rather than the romantic. Individuals of this subtype can become highly impractical, spending most of their time reading, playing intellectual games, or specializing in trivia. There is often an attraction to dark, forbidden subject matter or to any way of self-expression which would disturb or upset others. Some Fives with a Four-wing become fascinated with the macabre and the horrific. As they become more impractical and fearful about their possibilities in life, one typical solution is to find emotional solace in various forms of self-indulgence--in alcohol, drugs, or sexual escapades.

Unhealthy persons of this subtype may fall prey to debilitating depressions yet be disturbed by aggressive impulses. Envy of others mixes with contempt for them; the desire to isolate the self from the world mixes with regret that it must be so. Intellectual conflicts make their emotional lives seem hopeless, while their emotional conflicts make intellectual work difficult to sustain. Moreover, if this subtype becomes neurotic, it is one of the most alienated of all of the personality types: profoundly hopeless, nihilistic, self-inhibiting, isolated from others, and full of self-hatred. Unhealthy Fives with a Four-wing retreat into a very bleak, minimal existence, attempting to cut off from all needs. The self-rejection and dispair of the Four combines with the cynical nihilism of the Five to create a worldview that is relentlessly negative and terrifying. Social isolation, addiction, and chronic depression are common. Suicide is a real possibility.

What is important to understand about enneagram 5w4 is how 5w4 is expressed in art. Because the core of 5w4 is the detachment and objectivity of 5, the art of 5 tends to often be impersonal in nature. Emphasized with the desire by 4 to feel unity, enneagram 5w4 is often expressed in a search for connection. As with 4, 5w4 feel that the ego is defined not by what one is, but what one is not in contrast to everyone else. The internal logic of the 5w4 becomes "If am what you are not". It is this logic along with the detachment of 5 that makes the art of 5 often appears as cold, twisted and dark. Whereas the 4w5 is expressed with the emotional warmth of 4 at the core, there is no warmth in 5w4 art. I also want to stress that the differences between 4w5 and 5w4 is the direction of connection - 4w5 focuses on the internal self, to modify the self to fit into an ideal to reflect the 4's ideal of Holy Origin, whereas 5 is pointing outwards like 5 always does which reflects the 5's ideal of Omniscient. Another way to describe 5w4 art is to therefore call it abject, first defined by Julia Kristeva:

In critical theory
Drawing on the French tradition of interest in the monstrous (CÃ©line), and of the subject as grounded in filth (Lacan),[3] Julia Kristeva developed the idea of the abject as that which is rejected by/disturbs social reason - the communal consensus that underpins a social order. The "abject" exists accordingly somewhere between the concept of an object and the concept of the subject, representing taboo elements of the self barely separated off in a liminal space.

According to Kristeva, since the abject is situated outside the symbolic order, being forced to face it is an inherently traumatic experience, as with the repulsion presented by confrontation with filth, waste, or a corpse - an object which is violently cast out of the cultural world, having once been a subject. Thus the sense of the abject complements the existence of the superego - the representative of culture, of the symbolic order: in Kristeva's aphorism, "To each ego its object, to each superego its abject".

From Kristeva's psychoanalytic perspective, abjection is done to the part of ourselves that we exclude: the mother. We must abject the maternal, the object which has created us, in order to construct an identity. Abjection occurs on the micro level of the speaking being, through his/her subjective dynamics, as well as on the macro level of society, through "language as a common and universal law". We use rituals, specifically those of defilement, to attempt to maintain clear boundaries between nature and society, the semiotic and the symbolic, paradoxically both excluding and renewing contact with the abject in the ritual act.

The concept of abjection is often coupled (and sometimes confused) with the idea of the uncanny, the concept of something being "un-home-like", or foreign, yet familiar. The abject can be uncanny in the sense that we can recognize aspects in it, despite its being "foreign": a corpse, having fallen out of the symbolic order, creates abjection through its uncanniness - creates a cognitive dissonance.

By extension, in contemporary critical theory, "abjection" is often used to describe the state of often-marginalized groups, such as women, unwed mothers, people of minority religious faiths, prostitutes, convicts, poor and disabled people.[13] The term space of abjection is also used, referring to a space that abjected things or beings inhabit.

Illustrative cases

Abjection is a major theme of the 1949 work The Thief's Journal (Journal du Voleur) by French author Jean Genet, a fictionalised account of his wanderings through Europe in the 1930s, wherein he claims as a criminal outcast to actively seek abjections as an existentialist form of 'sainthood'[SUP][15][/SUP]

The film Alien (1979) has been analysed as an example of how in horror and science fiction monstrous representations of the female resonate with the abject archaic figure of the mother. Bodily dismemberment, forcible impregnation, and the chameleon nature of the alien itself may all be seen as explorations of phantasies of the primal scene, and of the encounter with the boundaryless nature of the original abject mother.

As Kristeva points out, abjection blurs the boundaries between object and subject. From the 5w4â€™s point of view, this would ultimately mean blurring the boundaries between the objective and detached nature of 5 mixed with the more sensible and subjective nature of 4. However, because the core is 5, emphasis is on detachment. 5w4 art is therefore highly impersonal with a focus on seeking knowledge and understanding to deflect the fear of 5, especially in relation to oneself. The fascination for abjection seems to embody the fear of 5w4 when looking from the outside. The 5w4 is not a subject as would be the case with 4, but it is not entirely an object either as would be the case with 5. Instead it is something in-between; the existence of 5w4 equals abjection itself. The abject personifies the way the 5w4 views and understands the world, especially in relation to the ego. Not quite an object, not quite a subject. This is why abjection is often expressed by being repulsive, morbid and grotesque: human but not quite. Understanding the abject therefore provides understanding of the ego which is a strong desire in 5w4. as the 5w4 INTP seems to experience oneself as being a liminal existence.

Abjection and the INTP
The fascination for the abject can perhaps best be explained by looking at the INTP. Not only is there a strong correlation between INTP and enneagram 5, but more emotional INTPs tend to often turn up as 5w4 and confuse themselves for INFPs. This is part because of the nature of inferior Fe which has a strong desire to connect and is one of the driving functions that helps the INTP to develop an emotional life. It is also common that INTPs that are 5w4 have a high and well-developed Fi which is not too surprising, and that many of them are interested in the arts and are artists themselves. However, INTPs are still Ti-dominant and are thus ruled by subjective logic and emotional detachment. This often results in the INTP taking upon an attitude of: humans are just machines made out of flesh. Here we can already see the subjectivity of enneagram 4 merging with the dominant objective perspective of 5. The end result is therefore neither man nor machine but a man-machine.

The driving forces behind this perception seem to lie in the general INTP-outlook of the world being Ti-dominants, and expressed in the constant struggle to connect with the world itself through inferior Fe. Indeed, the 5w4 is called the Iconoclast, and the iconoclast does that â€“ attacks and breaks down whatâ€™s established making it abject. Dictionary.com defines iconoclast as:

noun
1.
a person who attacks cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc., as being based on error or superstition.
2.
a breaker or destroyer of images, especially those set up for religious veneration.

Not only do 5w4 INTPs have an interest and fascination for 5w4 art, but the art produced by 5w4 INTPs tend to reflect a certain image of disconnection and apathy, especially in music (and I apologize beforehand due to the limited range, but they perhaps exemplify what I am trying to say the best), but it also tends to merge the desires of 5 and 4 into abject art:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH9EPSXqXkE&feature=player_embedded"][/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5IpHczLeV8&feature=player_embedded"][/YOUTUBE]

Entropic · Aug 20, 2012

What is interesting to note about these songs is the overwhelming SiTiFe being present. However, the way the lyrics are phrased does not seem to indicate dominant Si or even auxiliary Si but tertiary. In the first example we essentially have a dominant focus on TiSi apathy, but the apathy revolves around Fe and inability to connect. In the second example we have more of a focus on Si and it sounds like something I could write, coupled with Ti and Fe. The Fe is expressed in the sense of disconnection and Ti is more hidden but present in the overall apathy of disconnection simply being a logical and unavoidable result. In the third there is more of a balance between Ti and Si and Fe is present in the distance the lyrics create between mortality and divinity. Especially in the latter I think the desire of 4 to connect to the collective consciousness comes into play, as the ideal of 4 is strongly present. It is not on an individual level disconnection is felt, but it is a struggle between two ideas â€“ man and god and the separation between the two.

I would also like to mention that in addition to the form of lyrical content, the genres are all cross-over. In the first example, it is melodic death/doom metal with an emphasis on doom metal; in the second example it is again melodic death/doom metal but with an emphasis on death metal; and in the third example it is simply melodic death metal without any clear definition if the emphasis lies on melody or death metal. In addition it is interesting to note that melodic death metal is one of the hardest-to-define heavy metal subgenres as it blends so many different styles into one more widely accepted style.

Last but not least, I would also like to contrast these examples with my own works and I think the similarities will become clearer:

There seems to be a general tendency with a focus on connection; mostly on a complete inability to do so. Either one has attempted to reach out and been declined or reaching out is not even possible. Whatâ€™s important to note is in particular the strong Si present in all examples coupled with Ti apathy, reflecting an overall frustration about Fe. Si points towards a longing, a past that no longer exists based on the failures of Fe. This realization leads to Ti capitulation as is emphasized in the poems and the lyrics I provided. There is a sense of despair, of giving up, a pointlessness to it all.

I would say that even in abject art that is not specifically about music or poetry, this tendency persists. In Alien, especially in film four, the mutated alien-human hybrid desires to connect to the mother but is refused due to its abject nature. This tendency is reflected in the entire franchise but perhaps the most pronounced and clearly defined in the fourth film. There is a focus on the filth, the morbidity, that one is indeed not wanted or desired due to lacking specific qualities that would make connection possible. Being stuck between two worlds, the 5w4 is forced to endlessly seek out a way to combine the desires of 5 and 4 and find a balance between what's unique and what's acceptable, just like the INTP struggles with Ti apathy and individualism contrasted with the form of inferior Fe.

[INTP] INTP, enneagram 5w4 and art

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