I've been having interpersonal difficulties with my INTP office mate over the last several months that basically can be boiled down to a fundamentally different view of relating. The best I can articulate the distinction is that it's something akin to positive versus negative rights. Relating and connectedness for Fe is understood in a "positive" sense in that it is active and generally obliges action. The existence of a relationship between two people is dependent upon their participation in it--the things those involved do to outwardly acknowledge the bond they share, and the extent to which they act out the role that that bond has created for them. I'm not exactly doing the mindset justice, but it's what I seem to get from it.
The Fi perspective takes a "negative" view of attachment. The inaction that preserves the integrity of individual space. Fi relationships are about that freedom to simply be without anything interfering with the other party's expression of themness. There's that desire to get to that point where you feel connectedness on that deepest level to glimpse deeper still into that common thing that gives rise to us all. That emphasis, though, on individual space also leads to the mentality that what happens in your space is on your terms. No one is owed anything just 'cause. Fi-users don't oblige easy, and that "positive" Fe attitude can end up looking like so much self-entitled bullshit to us. Your uniqueness, your value as an individual is inherent to you, and can't be diminished by me acknowledging it or not. It's yours; it's sacrosanct and inviolate. Give me the chance to give you something real and genuine, freely. Being compelled to externalize the feeling that I have for you, that connectedness between us, is like being violated. It creates grounds for heartfelt loathing.
I understand why Fe could find such an attitude to be selfish. There is more in play and at stake than how I feel about something individually. There is some greater good to be considered out there somewhere, I guess. And, moreover, I'm apart of that greater collective whether I "choose" to be or not. While there are no islands, there are the things that we share in common. Those things can be anything--material, intellectual, emotional, whatever--and it's the voluntary giving and taking of them that creates relationships. Fe entitlement, in my view, utterly corrodes that interaction. When someone's basic attitude is that they have some sort of "right" to partake in what's yours, or have some say in how you manage yours without any greater justification than some vague appeals to "common courtesy", it's hard to construe it as anything other than a power play.
That gets at the heart of my issues with Fe. Despite all it's anxious feelings about it's myriad obligations, it's fundamental lack of respect for individual choice means that it has no real concept of responsibility. Or freedom. You can't have either without respect for choice.
These things only crystallized for me as of late. Not totally unrelatedly, I've been catching up on Breaking Bad over the past month or so, and have joined many others in my contempt for Walter's ENFJ wife, Skyler. Anna Gunn, the actress who plays her, wrote an op-ed for The Times a couple of weeks ago defending her character by saying that people hated her because she was a "strong woman", and, you know, sexism. To be fair, I don't see her as particularly strong. I think if your basic attitude is that everyone owes you something, it'd probably be pretty easy to go around being demanding, controlling, and generally placing what you feel to be best above any other consideration. Why would you ever be otherwise?
Your post isn’t so much about the communications between Fi and Fe; it’s more about the *attitudes* underlying the communications.
Still, that’s as strong an exposition of Fi attitudes as I’ve ever seen. I like it. So I would figure I would springboard off of that and try to find some middle ground. For example, taking Fi-users first:
Fi users are all about autonomy and independence: the integrity of personal space. They consider the concepts of individual choice, responsibility and freedom as central: These are the things that create “genuineness.†In the opinion of Fi-users, Fe seems to be the opposite of this; Fe puts emphasis on obligations, exchanges of mutual courtesies, and taking guidance from the feelings of others. But to the Fi-user, all that Fe stuff is superficial and gets in the way of true connection; Fe entitlement frustrates Fi autonomy. The Fi-user says that true connection comes from voluntary exchanges, i.e., from a spontaneous upwelling of emotion and not from exchanges of emotion in accordance with some etiquette manual.
The other side of the coin is the viewpoint of Fe-users:
Fe-users see Fi individuality as egocentrism and narcissism. In contrast, the Fe-user stands for something outside himself, something objective and solid: an ideology, a community, a good product. The lives of people are benefitted and enriched by Fe-users in very tangible ways. The Fe networker helps the participants in his network connect with each other and benefit from the network; the network brings the community to the aid of each individual in the network. The Fe team-leader uses the power of the team to achieve a benefit far beyond what the individuals could have achieved themselves. The Fe salesman provides a service to the community by informing them of a good service or product, listening to the customer, and ensuring a good fit between product and buyer, etc.
Naturally there are some downsides to both functions (with the Fi-user first):
Many Fi-users basically aim to get from point A to point B while interacting with other people as minimally as possible. So they ignore common courtesies in their hurry to get to the meat of the transaction, they tread on people’s toes (figuratively, that is), they cut people off and neglect to give them a full and fair hearing. It gets interpreted by others as obliviousness and laziness, and that’s not far from the truth: Fi-users simply don’t pay attention to the common courtesies that others take for granted or the not-so-subtle signals provided by others. So a big downside to being internally-oriented is that sooner or later Fi-users find themselves embroiled in conflicts that they simply didn’t see coming. Another downside of being internally-oriented is that when Fi-users finally do decide to pursue an objective in the outside world, they are typically clueless about how to maneuver in the IRL environment; they know only themselves, their own needs, and their goals; so they easily get sucked into bad relationship deals such as enabling and codependency.
As for Fe-users:
There’s an old saying that when you’re a hammer you see everything else as a nail. If you identify yourself too closely with an external product or service or idea, it becomes hard to see much beyond that framework. The Fe networker may have no use for people outside his network; the Fe team-leader may get a “get-aboard-or-get-out-of-the-way†mentality. Another downside of being externally-oriented is being unable to function without a high degree of consensus in the immediate environment. This can lead to a variety of problems: If Fe-users are unable to advocate for their own needs (or identify personal needs apart from their product or service), they can burn out and become martyrs. Or they may have difficulty maintaining relationships due to an inability to tolerate minor differences of opinion or tolerate petty rebuffs from the other party.
Solutions for both Fi-users and Fe-users:
Obviously, a meeting place in the middle is preferable. I won’t go into detail on the specific solutions, because such suggestions tend to raise hackles; neither side likes to hear that they should be doing things differently. Most people are getting by just fine in life, doing whatever comes natural to them. They just wish *everyone else* would do things differently.
But, having said that:
Fi-users can mitigate the worst faults of their position by practicing some mirroring on a daily basis: Give people a fair and full hearing, and then reflect the concerns and courtesies of the other party at the start of your response before talking about your own concerns. It may feel fake, but it will help attune the Fi-user to the environment around them and the cues of others, thereby smoothing their way in the real world.
Fe-users can mitigate the worst faults of their position by practicing some self-actualization. For example, don’t be thrown off when you can’t reach a high degree of consensus in your environment. As I said in an earlier post, “We don’t have to like each other; that’s immaterial in a boundaried relationship.†If you can’t achieve consensus, then focus on what’s most important to you personally: your personal mission or agenda. Focus on that thing, restate your case with that as your main point, and you can often get pretty close to what you need from the interaction even in the absence of consensus. If you wish, think of it as “mirroring†the Fi-users around you.