Missed this post!
Maybe you're special. In my experience, ESTJs are equally as likely to believe that they're honestly objective as NTJs. Basically, 99% of the time. Never mind that the Fi is usually coming out strong in both, and either is likely to start slinging the objectivity accusations when they feel their emotional danger zone being crossed by the other. It's like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object: both are absolutely convinced that they're being scientific in their arguments, so by that token, the other must be emotionally deluded.
I'm probably just in denial.

I'll bet I do the same thing and don't realize it because I haven't introspected enough about it.
It does explain why I hate debating INTJs, though.
wow, i am more similar to ESTJs than previously thought!
cough Fi cough
Hi EJCC!
I have questions relating to tertiary Ne and inferior Fi in ESTJs. In what ways do these manifest in you? Do they ever have an effect on that ESTJ pragmatism? Can they blind your decision-making or get you carried away with overly-idealistic dreams?
Before I answer this, I'm going to nitpick your aunt a little
1. She gets caught up in every food or health fad that comes along and proclaims each one as revolutionary and raves about how everything will be magically fixed by it. While I am open minded to alternative forms of medicine etc to a degree, almost all of these have next to no basis in science and often sound like total snake oil to me. However, she just loves the idea that she is up with the play and ahead of the curve and that she can tell everyone about it. When you (politely) question the validity of these 'cures', she remains 100% convinced and provides some rather lame arguments for them that often consist of something along how she "saw this thing on Oprah".
I don't relate to this. I think this comes from her having different standards of what constitutes a "trustworthy source". I for one have not trusted Oprah since she started believing "The Secret". I'll believe those fads when someone like the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, (Wired magazine?), etc. tells me they're real.
2. She has become slightly pretentious and snobby the last few years. She likes to have friends who are wealthy, important or have lives she can indirectly boast about in stories she tells about them. It's not so much that she actually likes these people better, its the idea of them that pleases her.
I don't relate to status obsession.

I wasn't really raised with it. But I can see that it would be cool to have rich friends, if you really wanted them and finally had them. If I had a cool new thing for the first time, I'd probably brag about it too.
3. She boasts (not obnoxiously but slightly pointedly) about qualities her children have. Of course it is natural to do this to some degree but often it's not really that she finds these qualities intrinsically admirable - it's about how special and interesting they seem - such as, her son being fluent in German.

I'm confused by this complaint. Is this irritating to you? Also -- how are special and interesting traits not admirable? If I think something is really special and interesting, then I think it's worth bragging about, because I want everyone else to know how cool it is. I put admirable things in the same category. Anything that makes you go "Holy cow, are you serious?!?" as a result.
I ask because I didn't realize that that sort of enthusiasm turned people off.
4. She has these big dream ideas that are completely impractical and unrealistic. For example my family own a beach house with her family (and with my Dad's 2 other brother's families) and the house behind ours was for sale. She had this scheme of buying it to have for when her kids grow up so they could bring their families (BTW her kids are 17, 15, and with twin 11 year olds). She doesn't think that all that is YEARS away and that her kids might actually want to spent their holiday's elsewhere or even that we might sell our beach house eventually or even that the other house will likely cost a fortune to buy anyway.
Are you sure she was serious? Sometimes when my Ne is active I'll say things like "How cool would it be if...", but I won't actually mean it, and I won't plan on following up on it. I'll just think that the hypothetical scenario is fun. If your aunt really cared about it, she'd probably have followed up on it, called the realtor, asked the kids, etc. Because that's how ESTJs do those things. But if she made the statement and then did nothing and said very little about it later, then she was just being silly.
Now to answer your question: As you can tell by my responses, my Ne usually shows up with random ideas, silly thoughts, hypotheticals, big ideas, and LOTS OF ENTHUSIASM.

The most that my Ne ever gets in the way of my pragmatism is if I suddenly get the notion to buy all the materials necessary for a project, and then get bored with the idea and regret buying the stuff. Pretty much every "impulse buy" I've made in recent years has been due to Ne: "OMG HOW COOL IS THAT LET'S GET IT!" But for the most part, my Ne is effectively controlled by my Te. I don't let it get too out of control.
I don't really connect my Ne to my Fi in that regard, though. My Ne doesn't get used to dream idealistic dreams -- unless I'm in a silly mood, and I go "What if the world was made of candy corn..."

Usually when my Ne is prominent, it's in the form of an Ne-Te loop: having an idea for doing a cool thing, and then doing the cool thing. Makes for LOTS of study distractions -- but not really dreams of world peace.
Yep that's familiar
My ESTJ sister need validation when she's pissed-off - the worst thing you can do is belittle her feelings. You could yell at her or call her names and she can handle it but tell her she's being ridiculous and OTT (either directly or indirectly) and you'd better run for cover.


I do understand the desire to defuse the tension somehow. When my sister is getting mad in public, I'm often trying to calm the situation so she doesn't start unleashing on others.
It makes everyone extremely uncomfortable and often people will think she's a crazy bitch (which she isn't) and I'd rather protect her from that image.
I relate to all of this. The bolded is an especially interesting insight -- because since I don't know anyone else irl who is like that, and no one I'm friends with relates to it (one of my only fights with my ENFJ friend started when he got angry with me for "overreacting" to him teasing me when I was embarrassed), I do usually feel like a crazy bitch when I react that way. It's part of why I hate that the reaction is instinctive. I don't want to act like a crazy bitch. I don't want to be seen as that, because -- like you said -- I'm not one.