[Traditional Enneagram] Enneagram types throughout the world

[Virtual ghost]

This thread is directed to forum members that do not live in USA. (especially the ones from the countries that are not English speaking)

How often do you find Enneagram to be somewhat biased towards American culture ?



I often find that what Ennegram suggests may not nicely fit into the reality, even if the person is correctly typed.
In a way you can sense the same problems in MBTI as well but not so much since Ennegram is all about rationalization of your worldviews.


For example:
Due to the political and historical reasons your 1s may not be as religious and religious in such numbers ?
Since your society is not so conflict focused it does not have constant struggles and therefore 8s never develope such degree of forcefulness ?
Due to the various social programs 3s realize that they do not have to kill themselves with work to have a good life ?
Do 5s in your country tend to be less cynical ?
Are your 6s less likely to be into conspiracy theories ?


etc.



Did you notice that Americanization of your country helps in creation of more individuals that more nicely fit into Enneagram type ?
Did you notice that because of cultural bias you or someone else had a problem with mistyping ?



I am pretty sure that Americans will try to defend themselves against the stereotypes but from what I see Americans in general tend to fit Enneagram stereotypes much more often than people I watch every day in real life. (or people I meet on my local internet sites)

 

[Olm the Water King]

Hmm.. One thing that comes to mind is that the person who is considered our greatest poet in history and the person who is considered our greatest novelist of all time were likely both 4s. And the general national mythos has a certain 4-ness to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_Prešeren

France Prešeren[ii] (pronounced [fɾanˈtsɛ pɾɛˈʃeːɾən] ( listen)) (2 or 3 December 1800[iii] – 8 February 1849) was a 19th-century Romantic[6] Slovene poet, best known as the poet who has inspired virtually all later Slovene literature and has been generally acknowledged as the greatest Slovene classical author.[7] He wrote some high quality epic poetry, for example the first Slovene ballad and the Slovene national epic.[8] After death, he became the leading name of the Slovene literary canon.[9]

He tied together the motifs of his own unhappy love with that of an unhappy, subjugated homeland. Especially after World War II in the Slovene Lands,[9] one of Prešeren's motifs, the "hostile fortune", has been adopted by Slovenes as a national myth, and Prešeren has been described being as ubiquitous as the air in Slovene culture.[Note 1]

During his lifetime, Prešeren lived in conflict with both the civil and religious establishment, as well as with the provincial bourgeoisie of Ljubljana. He fell victim to severe drinking problems and tried to take his life on at least two occasions, facing rejections and seeing most of his closest friends die tragically. His lyrical poetry dealt with the love towards his homeland, the suffering humanity, as well as his unfulfilled love towards his muse, Julija Primic...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Cankar

Ivan Cankar (About this sound pronunciation (help·info)) (10 May 1876 – 11 December 1918) was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, poet and political activist. Together with Oton Župančič, Dragotin Kette, and Josip Murn, he is considered as the beginner of modernism in Slovene literature. He is regarded as the greatest writer in Slovenian literature...

...

Cankar was a relatively fragile personality, both emotionally and physically, but showed an unusually strong and persistent intellectual vigour.[2] He was a sharp thinker, who was able of poignant criticism of both his environment and himself. He was also full of paradoxes and loved irony and sarcasm. He was an unusually sentimental and somehow ecstatic nature, intensely sensitive to ethical issues.[21] He was very introspective: his works, which are to a large extent autobiographic, became famous for the ruthless analysis of his own deeds and misdeeds.

Cankar was raised as a Roman Catholic. In his high school years, he became a typical liberal freethinker. He rejected the religious dogmas and embraced the rational explanations provided by contemporary natural and social sciences.[22] Between 1898 and 1902, he fell under the influence of the thinkers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Friedrich Nietzsche. In the writings of the Belgian poet Maurice Maeterlinck Cankar found the idea of the existence of a world soul, with which the individual souls are connected and employed it in his own works.[22] Already around 1903, however, he turned to an original, slightly anarchist interpretation of Marxism. His later life was marked by a gradual evolution towards orthodox Christianity, which became evident after 1910 and especially in the last year of his life.[23] Although he never officially rejected his Roman Catholic faith, he was generally considered an agnostic, albeit sympathetic to some elements of traditional Catholic devotion.

Aside from that, there's also a strong dose of the need to be industrious and hardworking which is...1?

P.S.: Interestingly, 1 is the 4's security point.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Hmm.. One thing that comes to mind is that the person who is considered our greatest poet in history and the person who is considered our greatest novelist of all time were likely both 4s. And the general national mythos has a certain 4-ness to it.

Aside from that, there's also a strong dose of the need to be industrious and hardworking which is...1?

P.S.: Interestingly, 1 is the 4's security point.

Interesting, I never saw your country as particulary 4ish. On the other hand 1 is much better fit in my eyes.





As some of you already know I have a problem with my gut fix and I can't determine is it 8w9 or 1w9 (it is surely one of those two).
Tests do not give conclusive results and I have taken them too many times over the years to be reliable. The problem is that I am pretty sure that my fix is actually 1w9 however I do not want to associate myself with many things from profiles of type 1. Especially since many of claims in the profiles are obviously false in my case, but on the other hand underlying principles fit me very well. They fit me much better than 8ish rationalizations about life, actually they fit me so well that often they fit me better than 5ish worldview.



Problem: USA is highly structured country and laws are enforced on regular basis, therefore if someone wants to be labeled as good uncorrupt person it can be very easy to pick sides and choices.
But what would happen if the stigmatisation of good and evil is not so clearly labled ? Would a 1 from such environment be identical to 1 from orderly environment ? I do not think so. The 1 from unstructured environment would invest much more into thinking because there are no clear guidelines of what is expected and what is good. Therefore things need to be sorted out first.

Another problem is that a 1 would try to make some kind of order in the mess and for that this person would need plenty of power and energy. What would almost surely lead towards mistyping towards 8.
I am pretty sure that anyone that is either none American, comes from more liberal environment and/or it does not have a obvious 6 fix will have a problem fitting into type 1 , even if they clearly belong there bcause of basic motivations.




The thing that bothers me is that Enneagram as it is now attempts to close people into boxes that are all very situational and cleary depend upon culture and situation(s) in the living environment. I would even go as far as suggesting that enneagram should get another extra dimmension (something like another version of variant) that would tell basic information about your environment. The reasoning behind this is that different types seem to make different types of decisions because of the actual situations in their environment. 8 from a far left county would have many far left views, 6 in a very calm and safe country would grow into a 9 without too much problem, 1 from messy environment would probably be a real crusader, 5 from Sub-Saharan Africa would probably never become a science expert of western type ... etc.

 

[Virtual ghost]

No one will try to challange any of these ideas ?





Btw.

How would you define the difference between 8w9 and 1w9 ?


Extra challange: How would you try to tell the difference if the environment is unreligious and mostly none capitalistic ?

 

[Duffy]

Interesting topic.

I don't have anything at the moment on how a particular type manifests through different cultures, but I've been thinking how culture in general manifests as type. Like the USA seems very 3-6-9 territory. I think it's 6ish overall with directions of health pointed towards 3 & 9.

Japan seems very 1 & 6 > perfectionism meets familial obligations / stiff upper lip, "smile for mommy" type of deal. The recent phenomenon involving the spike in the modern day recluse, aka hikikomoris, make me think 5s and 9s in such cultures begin to collapse under the immense pressure. It's also no surprise hikikiomori tend towards otaku culture. I notice a lot of 5s and 9s on forums tend to like anime avatars, veering more towards the moe design. In particular, with 9s there's something about the fixation, which tend towards very simplistic cartoon qualities (big eyes, bright lighting, fairy tale signature qualities, etc.).

 

[hjgbujhghg]

This is an interesting topic.

I think the country I live in is very much 6-like. We're a small nation that was occupied by other countries for centuries. All through our history we were forced to listen and to follow orders of those in power over our own origins.

I think many people in this country are very much devaluing what we have here and feel shame because we were not able to be independent for such a long time. They crave change and seek more liberal ways of living, but there is always the need to follow. To get orders from someone in power and to have structure forced by someone else in order to feel safe. I think 6w5 sp is very characteristic for people who think like that followed by 6w7 or 7w6.

The other group of people pretend to be proud nationalist who will protect the traditions of our country at all costs. They basically fear novelty and change. Because there are very few minorities living here, fear of other races and cultures is unfortunately a common issue here. I think cp 6s fall pretty much into that as they often express themselves as the fearless warriors for the country.

I also think social varriant is very common here, followed by sp.

When it comes to tritype I think the most common would be 649 followed by 641. I think we all carry a sort of special snowflake outsider syndrome in us. Also all through history we've never been really fighters, we were more like... "yeah it sucks but whatever, let's drink some bear and talk about how this sucks" is pretty much typical slovak mentality lol...

 

[EtaCarinae]

Hmm, I think Germany is associated with 1 traits mostly. But actually it's quite 3ish. 3w2. Tritype 136 actually