[Fe] Is Fe fake or manipulative?

[cascadeco]

It may be a timing issue... I think this came up in other threads a long while ago.

I know I don't have an infinite supply of empathy/support, and I don't believe I'm as good at nurturing and handling the raw emotions... Fi is better at that I think... and after a fixed time I need to see movement/progression from the other person. I have the sense that Fi-er's eventually reach this limit too, but I think it's reached sooner by myself at least. The message may be the same, but being a J I am more closure-oriented, thus I may have more of an external need for movement and visible pregression/change than you might, and if the person is continuing to spin his wheels without finding a solution, then I might lose patience and won't want to hear about it anymore. These things are SO very situational, so it's hard to be general about it, but for example I might need to see someone working towards something after, say, 6 months, whereas maybe you could work with them for 2 years while they're still tackling the issue. I dunno, just one initial thought (and I made those numbers up ).

 

[Resonance]

As someone with Fi, that's how I see it.

Everyone has Fi, and Fe. The error you're making is putting Fe as a counterpart to Fi. That's not accurate; it's more like Fe is a counterpart to Te. See?

As an 'Fi type', does Ti seem 'fake' to you?

 

[Anew Leaf]

People who prefer Ti or Fi can easily get annoyed with Fe and see it as "fake". I've come to respect it a lot more by seeing it as a reflection of genuine intentions, a genuine desire to affect the other people/the social environment in a certain way. That doesn't mean I never get annoyed with it, but I don't dismiss it like I used to.



They often overlap, I think, even though on occasion they can clash and see each other as "missing the point". Same with Ti and Te.

Couldn't have worded this better myself.

I think too Vala... that the older we get, the more comfortable we get in ourselves and we are more easily able to express ourselves. I had the same response as you did to Casca's post.

Casca:
For inspiration, I might affirm them, but also encourage/challenge them to try something out, even if it might not work. Because I do believe that most people can do pretty much anything they put their mind to -- it's often just fear, or the unknown, that prevents them. But to at least try.. I might encourage that. Or might show them a different angle, even though they may not be receptive to it. I'll note that I know they may not be interested in checking it out. Basically I have no interest in forcing people into things -- because frankly I don't think that's possible. It has to be from them, from their own volition/awareness, that they WANT to do something. I might try to plant a seed, or encourage, or give various alternatives, and then that' about all I can do. Anything I say is tailored to what I know about them as a person, about their situation, about who they are and what might drive them. They can take it, or leave it. And if they leave it, what can I do? I'm not out there to create mini-versions of Me; I want people to be THEM. And if I don't have enough in common with them, or we're too at odds for a relationship, then it's not a relationship I'll develop.

Also, just share what *I* think and such, not telling them they should think that. Because I really *don't* think they should think that. They're their own person after all. And if they happen to latch onto something I say that helps them out, that's awesome. If my own life/story/experiences provide raw material and they think well, if SHE can do it, I can do it.. then, that too.

Commonalities? Well, if I meet someone who's super into the outdoors/wildlife, conversation/commonalities might be built upon that. If I meet someone who's an engineer, I might then talk about how I started out in engineering, and ask them about that. If I meet someone who's into psychology stuff, obviously convo might take a deeper turn right off the bat. If I'm with the engineer, I'm not going to start talking about shopping at Banana Republic. We're not building any commonalities/connection on that. And so on.

It may be a timing issue... I think this came up in other threads a long while ago.

I know I don't have an infinite supply of empathy/support, and I don't believe I'm as good at nurturing and handling the raw emotions... Fi is better at that I think... and after a fixed time I need to see movement/progression from the other person. I have the sense that Fi-er's eventually reach this limit too, but I think it's reached sooner by myself at least. The message may be the same, but being a J I am more closure-oriented, thus I may have more of an external need for movement and visible pregression/change than you might, and if the person is continuing to spin his wheels without finding a solution, then I might lose patience and won't want to hear about it anymore. These things are SO very situational, so it's hard to be general about it, but for example I might need to see someone working towards something after, say, 6 months, whereas maybe you could work with them for 2 years while they're still tackling the issue. I dunno, just one initial thought (and I made those numbers up ).

I operate very similiarly to you in the first post I quoted from you, Casca. For me, I have kind of grown into that, versus it being my initial instincts. When younger, I did listen for months and years on end to the same people with their same problems. Now, I have much less patience for it. If I don't see any sort of progression in them, and it just seems like they are "using" me to complain.... then I will start to use my Te skillz more, and eventually I will check out of the situation entirely.

Your stuff about commonalities is how I operate as well with people I just meet. I try to make sure they are comfortable with me, plus I am genuinely interested in what makes them tick... So I will try to gently figure out something we can talk about and then get them going on a topic. This past weekend I had to go to a family function for the family my dad is marrying into. I knew about 5 people there out of the 30 that were there. Introvert nightmare at first. I ended up sitting next to one of the in-laws and discovered that he travels frequently. I got him talking about which countries he has visited, some of them were in common with ones I have been to, and the experiences we each had in these countries. Discovering these talking points is always a relief for me. Otherwise I feel like I can't break out my Ne (group is too large, and I am not a fan of calling undue attention to myself) and be my usual off the wall self... and Te is a bit too harsh... so I am stuck!

Ok, I am done rambling for now. /Saturned Out.

 

[Pan-en-theist]

We INFJs like to alter the perspective a bit. Here's something I read in Isabel's Gifts Differing( page 176) which I often think about>
She says that EJs are "unable to see the individuality of persons and situations; they fall back on assumptions--prejudices, conventions,
stereotyped attitudes and common misconceptions" UNLESS they learn to develop their introverted perceptive auxiliary. I believe this is
a sound judgement in many respects. Now for Fe. When extreme E..FJs have not developed the auxiliary, they can build affiliations and bonds with others that overlook the others' unique natures and the unique situations that they are in. It seems dumb and myopic and yes, manipulative, to more perceptive types. Yet if the E..FJs can get off and reflect on the mistakes they have made or the crises they have created (using either Ni to consider the multiple perspectives involved or Si to gather the relevant facts involved and whether this mistake has a history), they can temper that judgemental outlook and improve their relations with others. Well-balanced (Dom & Aux in a dynamic interchange) E..FJs are the glue that holds our society together with sympathy and charm.

 

[Elfboy]

Everyone has Fi, and Fe. The error you're making is putting Fe as a counterpart to Fi. That's not accurate; it's more like Fe is a counterpart to Te. See?

As an 'Fi type', does Ti seem 'fake' to you?

Ti seems redundant and semantic

 

[Anew Leaf]

Everyone has Fi, and Fe. The error you're making is putting Fe as a counterpart to Fi. That's not accurate; it's more like Fe is a counterpart to Te. See?

As an 'Fi type', does Ti seem 'fake' to you?

That's not what I am doing. You missed my point. I'm done trying to explain.

 

[Xenon]

I'm sure anything anyone wants to know about the difference between Fe and Fi are described somewhere in that incredibly long and heated thread from last year.

I don't much feel like wading through it right now (and being T-dom I may not have the best grasp on either anyway), but one thing that stands out in my mind is the emphasis Fi users seemed to place on intention and being "true to oneself", and the emphasis Fe users seemed to place on effect and results. This was actually a major factor for me in both becoming more sure than ever I'm not an Fi user, and in coming to accept that whole theory of how your preferred F and T functions are normally in opposite directions. I had been very skeptical of that previously.

 

[Resonance]

That's not what I am doing. You missed my point. I'm done trying to explain.

your point was that you don't get it, idk what you're trying to prove.

 

[Pan-en-theist]

A further comment. We INFJs use Fe as an auxiliary in dealing with others. We care deeply about the welfare of others, but we see them as individuals. So unlike ENFJs with undeveloped auxiliaries, our concern for others is contingent upon whether the "beholden" has, first, inklings of a self, and ,second, whether he or she is interested in developing the self's potential. Correct me if I'm wrong, other INFJs, but I don't think our empathy is interested in social conformity and conventionality.
When I empathize with another person, it's me-you, complete intimacy, no ulterior motives in getting you to be a better member of society. I think it's because our Ni Hero/Dominant is intensely individualistic.

 

[cascadeco]

Couldn't have worded this better myself.

I think too Vala... that the older we get, the more comfortable we get in ourselves and we are more easily able to express ourselves.

...... I had the same response as you did to Casca's post. I operate very similiarly to you in the first post I quoted from you, Casca. For me, I have kind of grown into that, versus it being my initial instincts.

Well, not to pull the age card, but I'm almost 33, and I am pretty sure where I'm at now, in terms of how I process things and 'operate' is bit more finetuned/layered than it was at 23, and certainly as a teenager. So I think it can be harder as you grow older to sift through more of your instinctual responses (or even be aware of what those pure instinctual responses might have been, because the pure isn't so relevant anymore), vs. the more nuanced responses based on experience and just added years or changing perceptions (or whatever) - because the nuanced becomes the reality, and becomes you.

It's kinda like... on these forums it might be more simplistic to try to speak of Cognitive functions as isolated things, but the reality is that when you throw a second function on top of that one, and then a third, and then a fourth, it becomes further nuanced so that the Bare-bones definition of the isolated function may not even be applicable at all to the resulting product/self... because the other functions end up adding to it/ modifying such that it's no longer as black&white as it was in its isolation. And the combo of functions changes the flavor dramatically in some ways - it's useless in some respects to compare an ISFJ to an ENFJ, for example, because the Fe is going to manifest in distinct ways, even if there are similarities/common themes as well.

As such:

Correct me if I'm wrong, other INFJs, but I don't think our empathy is interested in social conformity and conventionality.

Agreed.

 

[Anew Leaf]

Well, not to pull the age card, but I'm almost 33, and I am pretty sure where I'm at now, in terms of how I process things and 'operate' is bit more finetuned/layered than it was at 23, and certainly as a teenager. So I think it can be harder as you grow older to sift through more of your instinctual responses (or even be aware of what those pure instinctual responses might have been, because the pure isn't so relevant anymore), vs. the more nuanced responses based on experience and just added years or changing perceptions (or whatever) - because the nuanced becomes the reality, and becomes you.

It's kinda like... on these forums it might be more simplistic to try to speak of Cognitive functions as isolated things, but the reality is that when you throw a second function on top of that one, and then a third, and then a fourth, it becomes further nuanced so that the Bare-bones definition of the isolated function may not even be applicable at all to the resulting product/self... because the other functions end up adding to it/ modifying such that it's no longer as black&white as it was in its isolation.

As such:


Agreed.

What I mean by growing into it is that I was pushed by my mom to be more social and to ask people how they are, and to think of others, etc. It was a combination of getting older (not being a self-absorbed teen anymore) and purposely working on being more social in ways that didn't naturally occur to me. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but it is where I was coming from.

 

[iwakar]

I think it can be, every time I see someone with strong Fe I wonder why they are trying to be so nice. Furthermore they are always so pushy in promoting their Fe in others.

End thread.

 

[cascadeco]

What I mean by growing into it is that I was pushed by my mom to be more social and to ask people how they are, and to think of others, etc. It was a combination of getting older (not being a self-absorbed teen anymore) and purposely working on being more social in ways that didn't naturally occur to me. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but it is where I was coming from.

Oh, absolutely. Nurture impacts things for sure, and then what we end up deciding to work on for our own growth.

 

[Pan-en-theist]

Fe is a very complicated issue, I think. It has four manifestations, two as dominant functions and two as auxiliary functions. We need to carefully assess how Fe works as a dominant for ENFJs and ESFJs, how Fe operates as an auxiliary for INFJs and ISFJs.

 

[INTPness]

So basically what you're saying is "Fe is fake because it doesn't match the output of my other function [Ti]".

That's a bit like saying oranges are fake because they don't look like bananas.

No, I don't think that's an accurate comparison. If we don't analyze my individual functions - if we just look at me as a person in that moment and ask what I'm thinking or how I feel, the answer would be "I'm feeling very angry, pissed, disrespected, and I want to express that anger to those people." But, instead, I just use Fe and am nice to them (for the sake of social harmony). As I said, it is both fake and non-fake at the same time. It's not fake because I really do want social harmony. It is fake because I'm surpressing my true feelings/thoughts of anger and frustration, but I'm sort of "pretending" that everything is cool. I mean, if we're being real here - there's an element of fakeness about that, IMO.

No, what he is saying is that his real (ti) reaction is that he is annoyed, but he covers it up (fe) with being pleasant.

Right. Saturned understood what I was getting at. It's the "covering up" of Ti that gives it an element of fakeness. I'll say it again though - my contention is not that Fe is "totally fake". My contention is that Fe has good intentions and it definitely serves a purpose (I like my Fe) - but there is "an element" of fakeness in the way it acts sometimes. That's all - no reason to take offense.

That's not fake though, Fe reflects his desire for harmony and smooth relations and 'getting on with it'. Just because Fe doesn't reflect his inner experience doesn't mean it's fake, that's not what it's for.

This is a good point. I see what you're saying here and it makes sense. There's still that "covering over" of the "real thoughts of Ti" that show some fakeness.

How about this? How about the Fe-dom who always wants to portray a really good image to their neighbors (e.g., the "image" that my marriage is perfect, my husband makes a lot of money, our family has everything together, my kids are angels, we have no problems, etc.). I've seen this more than once in Fe-doms and, frankly, it's quite fake. It's fake because I can see how hard they try to portray this image, but in reality, it's a facade - it's a mirage - and you see the truth behind it that sometimes doesn't match up with what they are portraying.

So, I maintain that Fe *can be* fake at times.

 

[Amargith]

Would it be accurate to say that you frame the convo one-on-one you have with a person in an attempt to empathize with them and help them out within Fe-social niceties? You'll still make sure it's all about them (where NeFi-users are known to be more likely to interject and volunteer similar experiences in order to relate), so that you don't steal their spotlight, you ask them how they are, you go through the steps of social appropriateness to see if they're open to even wanting to discuss this with you, before you get to the core, you give them a reality check and try to stabilize their perspective by gently reminding them that the world isn't all about them and that it's not out to get them, etc etc.

Does that at all ring true?

 

[Hive]

Fe is a very complicated issue, I think. It has four manifestations, two as dominant functions and two as auxiliary functions. We need to carefully assess how Fe works as a dominant for ENFJs and ESFJs, how Fe operates as an auxiliary for INFJs and ISFJs.

... and tertiary for ExTP's and inferior for IxTP's. ExTP's are claimed to be able to manipulate well and are stereotyped as con men.

 

[figsfiggyfigs]

They're not exclusive.

 

[Pan-en-theist]

Can we drop the word "fake"? Nothing is fake in typology. Fake, as in not having meaning or reality. The extreme E..FJs (with no developed auxiliary) are truly acting in the reality of their convictions. If Fe seems fake to you, then drop it out of the chart. Try that. What happens?
We would have anarchy. There would be no civilization. If we're going to live in peace, Fe and Te are going to make it happen. Those extraverted judging functions may be conforming and restricting, but, at the very least, you need something to bounce your individualism off.
I say that after sixty years of intense individuality (Ni) trying to coming to terms with society's needs (Fe)

 

[INTPness]

Nobody is saying that Fe isn't valuable to people's personalities. I know it's valuable to mine and I'd be intolerable without it. It's just an honest, open discussion about some of Fe's drawbacks. No big deal. People rip on Ti all the time for its "uselessness". Well, guess what? It's my primary function. I know its value as well as anyone. And Fe users know the value of Fe. Nobody is saying that's its useless. We're just being honest and assessing some of its drawbacks - very real drawbacks. It doesn't need to be taken so personally.