[MBTI General] Good Person = Feeler??

[Totenkindly]

Perhaps we're talking semantics but when you agree that you would adapt situationally, that includes to people. And when you say you would adapt specifically because you "wouldn't want someone else to do X to you" -- that can also be applied to people.

That's not manipulation, that's consideration which I'm guessing even though you say adaptation = manipulation you still practice on a daily basis.

Yes, if the definition of "manipulation" is going to be so broad, then we are all guilty of it just in order to live together at all.

To me, the intention end-goal is the definer of "manipulation":

Am I behaving the way I am in order to create a safer/happier world just for myself, or to take advantage of someone else for my benefit, at their expense? (this is manipulation: Self-centered tailoring of the self to appease others)

Or am I doing things not just for my benefit but for the maturation and actualization of other people? (This is consideration: Tailoring of the self in order to benefit others and the community as a whole, including oneself.)

Inexperienced T's seem to get hung up on an impersonalized view of truth... as if truth is something completely outside human interaction/nature and thus reducing people to objects that should operate the same as rocks or trees.

People operate under a different system than "objects." You have to learn the system and see how people best operate, and then, if your goal is to better people, learn how to say truth in ways that actually create positive result.

What NT's seem to label as truth early as children (and have to work to mature out of) seems simplistic and sloppy to me. Others are forced to pay the expense of the T speaking the "truth." Let the tables be turned for once, and have the young T be faced with constant blunt criticism under the guise of "truth-telling"... and be amazed at how angry they'll eventually get, and how negatively it will impact their maturation as people.

 

[substitute]

Subs, do you have the effect of rubbing people up the wrong way? Are you often the centre of controversy and argument?

No, as I said, I get along with almost everyone just fine, better than fine - great. It's just these few people, but few as they are, they have big mouths and still manage to make my life difficult. As I also said, elsewhere, I mostly just do paperwork, mind my own business, play with my kids, drive around places and explore, and get along nicely with people.

But if someone comes along and starts laying out judgements about me regarding things they don't know dick about, you're damn right I get vocal about it - and why the fuck shouldn't I?

 

[Eternue-MDL]

...

End Eternue - I don't think 'selfish' is very fair - as I said earlier, perhaps a bit dumb and naive of me, true, but as I said, the arrangement was something they benefited out of more than me, and being a dumbass when it comes to predicting or knowing or understanding these kinds of feelings (since they're the sort of thing that would never even cross my mind, it's not always instinctive for me to think that for others, not only would they cross their minds, they'd run free and ramble all over them and generally rule them!). I made a mistake, but I erred on the side of leniency I think, not selfishness.

My motives, however misguided, were well-intentioned, so I kinda resent this blackening of my intentions - it's in fact exactly what I was talking about, that because I tried to do some good, but not out of empathy, that it therefore wasn't good, and was selfish/mean/whatever. It's what I find so frustrating about dealing with Fe types - that if I make a mistake because of faulty reasoning, or because of using reasoning where it wasn't able to help, I get 'value judged' as a person... when really all that's been at fault is my reasoning, which I'm quite prepared to admit. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person.

I mean, what would you suggest? That I never have any arrangement with anyone ever again, in case they invest their entire emotional world in it or go psycho on me if I try to end it? As I said, I didn't understand or have the chance to understand just how much they invested in the arrangement until it was way too late to curb it. Especially when they made the offer when I couldn't possibly have imagined how much it meant to them, considering I'd only known them like, two weeks at the time. It would never naturally occur to me that people who've only known someone for such a short time, and babysat their kids once, would have such things in mind when they make a seemingly innocent offer to babysit for me.

Actually, I can see that you are oblivious to understanding those emotional undercurrents and the importance of those things. Perhaps you should read a short play called Trifles by Susan Glaspell.

I will reiterate, there is a large background here with which we, the readers, are unfamiliar. How can we possibly assist or even assign value upon what only those who interact with you in real life have seen, known, or understand?

Yet, the larger topic you've attempted to approach is not your particular situation but overall Good Person = Feeler. In the MBTI sense, I say no. However in the human sense, I cannot imagine a human divested of feelings/emotion without being self-destructive or a sociopath.

 

[Varelse]

Fixed.

Nice and good are not the same thing. Good is better than nice, but nice is more pleasant. For everybody.

True...I'm tired of people confusing the two, myself.

 

[FemMecha]

Yet, the larger topic you've attempted to approach is not your particular situation but overall Good Person = Feeler. In the MBTI sense, I say no. However in the human sense, I cannot imagine a human divested of feelings/emotion without being self-destructive or a sociopath.

It's also difficult to imagine a person completely ruled by extreme feelings/emotions without "being self-destructive or a sociopath". Interestingly sociopaths can exhibit rage over unexpected details rather than what would typically matter to someone.

I think Jennifer defined it here...

...Or am I doing things not just for my benefit but for the maturation and actualization of other people? (This is consideration: Tailoring of the self in order to benefit others and the community as a whole, including oneself.) ...

Being a constructive person has to do with the ability to place self in the larger context of others. This can be accomplished through reason and/or through the emotion of connectedness. It appears to be best accomplished by both. Self-centeredness is not the absence of emotion. It can be driven by emotion. It is the absence of reason and the inability to comprehend how self relates to others.

 

[Xander]

No, as I said, I get along with almost everyone just fine, better than fine - great. It's just these few people, but few as they are, they have big mouths and still manage to make my life difficult. As I also said, elsewhere, I mostly just do paperwork, mind my own business, play with my kids, drive around places and explore, and get along nicely with people.

But if someone comes along and starts laying out judgements about me regarding things they don't know dick about, you're damn right I get vocal about it - and why the fuck shouldn't I?

Very ESTP

You know sometimes people's misconceptions are well founded from their perspective but cannot be translated necessarily to your perspective. Bite and you fuel the fire. The odd thing is that your saying it's related to being a T and yet it seems more related to your F side than anything.

Anyhow this seems more entangled than perhaps you let on so perhaps my estimations are a long way out.

 

[Eternue-MDL]

Inexperienced T's seem to get hung up on an impersonalized view of truth... as if truth is something completely outside human interaction/nature and thus reducing people to objects that should operate the same as rocks or trees.

People operate under a different system than "objects." You have to learn the system and see how people best operate, and then, if your goal is to better people, learn how to say truth in ways that actually create positive result.

*That was well put. (Though I do believe in immutable truths, I don't believe humans react to these truths in the same way or as they ought.)

It's also difficult to imagine a person completely ruled by extreme feelings/emotions without "being self-destructive or a sociopath". Interestingly sociopaths can exhibit rage over unexpected details rather than what would typically matter to someone.

I agree with you on this. Either extreme is quite unhealthy. Thank God we're born with a capacity for both!

 

[substitute]

True...I'm tired of people confusing the two, myself.

Yes, I was just going to say that what cafe said was something much more reasonable, that I could happily live with. I'm quite free with admitting that I'm not always a nice person - I know I can be difficult at times but then so can anyone else, that just means I'm human and imperfect, but I'm not in any kind of exclusive club there!! I know I can sometimes misjudge situations, but again - who doesn't? I don't see why someone having a personality flaw needs to so often be inflated and exaggerated into a general judgement about their human worth.

Eternue is right in saying there's a long back history with that particular situation - namely that those people have few other friends for a good reason, because they ARE maladjusted and obsessive and possessive and generally too demanding and clingy - I've known very feely types (including an INFJ I know) disassociate themselves from them for the exact same reasons I have, and it was only on the advice of loads of other people that I decided to do what I did anyway, after quietly putting up with the situation for a long time even though it was driving me potty, because I just didn't want to upset anyone.

In actual fact, since I started this thread last night, worried about people I care about believing what they were saying, little did I know that by this afternoon I'd have been phoned and texted by a load of people offering me support and condemning the way that couple behaved towards me both before and after the breakup. I've also been congratulated on finally screwing up the courage to break free of them. I didn't do any machinations or manipulations, I didn't defend myself to anyone, I just went out for a drive today on my own to get away from it all, and while I was out, I got all these phone calls on my cellphone. Ten minutes after I got back, three people called by to see if I was alright, and to express support for me and disgust at how I've been treated. edit - and one just called now to apologise for laying into me about it yesterday without checking their facts! I quote: "I should've known it wasn't like they were saying, because you're one of the most long-suffering people I've known."

So in fact it appears that the moral of the story for me is more like "have more faith in your friends to spot a psycho when they see one and not fall for anything they're told about you", and "have more faith in your own hard work at doing good and being the best you can all the time, to speak for itself regardless of what anyone else tries to tell people". Oh, and also, "I've known a couple of really fucked up ExFJ's and have to remember they're not all like that".

But again, even if I were making the mistake of judging a type by the examples of it that I've known - I'm certainly not the only one around here who does that, and I think it's a very human and natural mistake to make, since all of us can only really speak from our own experiences.

But that's why I didn't want to discuss the issues of my personal relationships. I didn't "ask for pity" as wildcat absurdly proclaims, and if anyone can find anywhere a quotation of me that even suggests or hints that I have any problem dealing with my own kids, then I'll be damned!

I do find things rather confusing though, this weird world... I mean, in the one sense, so many people who observed my situation (and some who only knew about it in text format) were telling me for ages that I was tolerating too much and trying too hard to come onto their level and that I should be able to expect them to try to meet me half way rather than make me do all the accommodating. But then on the other hand, when I try to do exactly that, I'm told that I'm somehow defficient in some vital human quality, without which I can never hope to be judged as a good person!

And yeah, there is a lot of my feelings involved in my responses because basically I'm being kicked around 'til black and blue, now both in person and on the fucking internet by total strangers, when all I've done is, in my own dumbass way, tried to be good! (Ok, now I'm asking for pity... lol well, not asking exactly, but hoping maybe!)

 

[Xander]

Substitute,
(thought I'd be nice and take the time to write the whole thing for once )

Be honest with people, not tactless but honest. Tell someone when thy hurt you without lashing out. It often works wonders. Oh and yes you should trust those that "know" you to know you and not to just claim they know you when they obviously couldn't predict that you just ate your toast butter side down thinking "Ha predict that you predicting machines you" because that would be paranoid ... funny but paranoid.

What's that Rudyard Kipling quote that always brought up at times like this?
I'll go google.

 

[Athenian200]

Hmm... I probably wouldn't have handled that the same way, but I don't think you deserved her reaction in the least. What I would do is just instead of telling them I don't think less of them, I would have just cited to them the specific things they had done to hurt me, and explained that this was why I didn't want to associate with them anymore. Basically, I would feel forced to choose between closed and open, while you felt that you could ask for a reprieve/cool down without terminating the friendship just yet. I probably would try to ask them to address the things that bothered me first, and if that didn't work out, decide whether to terminate the friendship, or endure it.

I have this thing, that if you stay within a certain boundary, you're my friend, and if you cross it, you aren't anymore. I think that's why she felt confused... she didn't understand how you could have not judged her, but still wanted to back away from the friendship. I have trouble understanding that myself, but I can see that other people don't necessarily think the way I do, and would have been able to figure out what you were conveying.

And even if I had been offended and thought it was unreasonable, I wouldn't have gone out and blackened your name for something like that... I mean, they aren't even her children.

As for whether things can be fixed... I would try to resolve things first, while still in touch, and only reach a point of asking for them to go away if I wanted to end the friendship. Basically, I sacrifice flexibility for security/certainty, and that's what you have to expect from J's.

Finally, your mistake that allowed her to go around trying to defame you was that you let them in too close before knowing in advance whether you could trust/get along with them. I specifically hold people at a distance until I feel that I can get along with them. Also, I tend to try and build up things I can use against them if they turn against me, so I can threaten to defame them in turn if they think about doing something like that to me. I wouldn't want to have to do that, but if they started attacking me in that way, I would feel like I had to defend myself socially by returning the "favor."

Anyway, It's been interesting to see how differently some people approach things.

 

[cafe]

When I have been the victim of that kind of character assassination, if I give it time, things usually come out okay. Like you, people who know me either know better or will eventually get around to asking my side of the story or the person who is saying the bad stuff finally gets enough rope and hangs herself.

That doesn't mean it isn't terribly distressing in the meantime. When you make an effort in your life to be authentically good, sometimes you don't come out looking good because you don't have the time and energy to focus on spin doctoring everything you do. Being good is a lot of work, internally and externally. Generally, the truth does come out and if it does not, well, you aren't so much doing it for them are you? You do it from you own sense of what is right and as your worship to God. Haven't people that try to do right and serve God always been misunderstood?

I'm glad that it has worked out okay for you, but I want you to be assured you are not in the boat alone.

 

[Totenkindly]

In actual fact, since I started this thread last night, worried about people I care about believing what they were saying, little did I know that by this afternoon I'd have been phoned and texted by a load of people offering me support and condemning the way that couple behaved towards me both before and after the breakup. I've also been congratulated on finally screwing up the courage to break free of them. I didn't do any machinations or manipulations, I didn't defend myself to anyone, I just went out for a drive today on my own to get away from it all, and while I was out, I got all these phone calls on my cellphone. Ten minutes after I got back, three people called by to see if I was alright, and to express support for me and disgust at how I've been treated. edit - and one just called now to apologise for laying into me about it yesterday without checking their facts! I quote: "I should've known it wasn't like they were saying, because you're one of the most long-suffering people I've known."

So in fact it appears that the moral of the story for me is more like "have more faith in your friends to spot a psycho when they see one and not fall for anything they're told about you", and "have more faith in your own hard work at doing good and being the best you can all the time, to speak for itself regardless of what anyone else tries to tell people".

Yup. It's scary to not "defend" yourself and to just let your life speak for itself, but I think you learned an important thing here -- that your friends know you better than you had thought. And people are smarter than sometimes we feel they are. Again, it is simply the lack of control that I would find (well, actually DO find) terrifying: If I don't actively defend myself, will people think poorly of me?

In any case, you now know that you're doing lots of stuff "right." And you can trust your friends. And they actually DO know you.

I didn't "ask for pity" as wildcat absurdly proclaims, and if anyone can find anywhere a quotation of me that even suggests or hints that I have any problem dealing with my own kids, then I'll be damned!

It did seem to come from left field -- Wrigley Field, by my accounts, and I'm on the East Coast!

And yeah, there is a lot of my feelings involved in my responses because basically I'm being kicked around 'til black and blue, now both in person and on the fucking internet by total strangers, when all I've done is, in my own dumbass way, tried to be good! (Ok, now I'm asking for pity... lol well, not asking exactly, but hoping maybe!)

Oh, suck it up, princess...!

<ps. That was supposed to be a joke. >

Seriously, though -- screw them. They don't know you. They have no part in your life. Who cares what they think, beyond the "common courtesy" level? Give them only as much weight as they are due, then ignore them. Why should you think they have more of a handle on you than you and your RL friends do?

What's that Rudyard Kipling quote that always brought up at times like this?

Wait, wasn't it, "Now I know why tigers eat their young" ?
(Or was that Rodney Dangerfield?)

 

[substitute]

Seriously, though -- screw them. They don't know you. They have no part in your life. Who cares what they think, beyond the "common courtesy" level? Give them only as much weight as they are due, then ignore them. Why should you think they have more of a handle on you than you and your RL friends do?

The real problem is that I've been stripped of my Q powers. It's hard to remember that you can't just re-set everything back to normal again once you've had your fun, or turn the people who are barking at you into dogs, and you realise you have to get on with these schmucks* cos you're stuck with them for the rest of your life... ugh!


[pokes NF's with sticks]




*humans

 

[wolfmaiden14]

You do good. And you try to understand, but not everyone can be perfect, and not everyone can understand everything. You learned, and that's what's important. Walking away with a lesson and not just animosity is what makes you a good person. And I'm glad you have friends that realize that!

 

[digesthisickness]

Under normal circumstances I'd feel the same way when it comes to people, but in some cases there's more at stake and you have to make the effort, pointless and annoying though it may feel. Plus, though my initial instinct is just like you - 'Fuck them, meh' - I have religious beliefs that have me making an ass of myself because I felt guilty and ashamed of just being willing to fuck 'em and leave them flailing and hurting because of a misunderstanding, I feel compelled to try and rectify the situation.

But the attitude I described, I think it's fair to say that is one that's native to most ENTP's, even if it's normally not turned towards the world of people and relations, but rather, objects and experiments etc.

maybe the problem is that i said "please" when i should have just said, "do not speak for me and all ENTPs".

it is not an 'ENTP thing' to lose the ability to see when a situation is futile and then walk away.

this experience of yours is a "you" thing.

the only time i've ever dug in my heels and sacrificed to such a degree was in a romantic relationship. not a family or friend relationship where being objective over emotional is automatic, but when i was "in love".

and, even then, i was objective enough to walk away without regret when (and precisely because) i'd done all i could and knew it.

being a 'good person' doesn't have to include putting other's needs ahead of your own so that everyone is happy, but recognizing and accepting others (as well as yourself), faults and all, and that that means not everyone is going to be content in some situations. there are times when just letting someone think what they want and letting go IS doing the right thing for yourself and them.

stop dragging me through the mud with you.

 

[substitute]

maybe the problem is that i said "please" when i should have just said, "do not speak for me and all ENTPs".

it is not an 'ENTP thing' to lose the ability to see when a situation is futile and then walk away.

this experience of yours is a "you" thing.

the only time i've ever dug in my heels and sacrificed to such a degree was in a romantic relationship. not a family or friend relationship where being objective over emotional is automatic, but when i was "in love".

and, even then, i was objective enough to walk away without regret when (and precisely because) i'd done all i could and knew it.

stop dragging me through the mud with you.

Hey, ouch! .... deleted the rest cos it's another stupid derailment of me trying to defend myself pointlessly in public! Will take it to pm...

 

[Snail]

I confess that I am, in some ways, no better than your enemies. My main definition of morality (as applied to other F types) is empathy-dependent. I have heard that some T types can develop strong sympathy to mimic empathy, but somewhere, deep down, it always seems like T types can, at best, pretend to be good people. Perhaps it is the will to be good that has the value, however, and if the desire to empathize exists without the ability, I believe the act of choosing is what qualifies as being good. Our intentions have greater moral significance than our actions, and it is this loophole that redeems the T types by removing responsibility for those things that cannot be controlled by the will. It would be unfair to judge them using the same standards I apply to myself. If a person intends to be a compassionate, empathetic person, but is born with the T as a spiritual handicap, it is insensitive for someone to label that person immoral. We are only morally responsible for acts of the will, not for conditions with which we were born. Being born with a T is not a sin. Therefore, a T who wills compassion and empathy is good whether or not he is effective at manifesting those qualities.

 

[Thursday]

dear substitute,

thats bullshit on their part
do for yourself and your kids
cuz if you need space, make it

the end,

AvereX - Disappearing One and Ruler of the Elves

 

[murkrow]

I'm not going to read this thread I'm just going to answer the question of the title:

Yes, only feelers can be good people. Ts know there is no good.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Yes, only feelers can be good people. Ts know there is no good.

True.