Posted by Peter on February 28, 1999 at 14:29:31:
In Reply to: Re: Karen Webb posted by johnny five on February 28, 1999 at 05:48:39:
> Karen Webb's nice little intro book on Elements Press from UK,
> is that what you refer to?
That'd be the one...
You make some excellent points about
> civility that are probably very true. But, even if you can get everyone on the
> board to ban typing then what a boring board it would be.
Not necessarily. Typing itself per se isn't too bad, and even directly typing someone on the board isn't a problem _if they ask_ for an opinion. Besides, typing isn't the be-all and end-all of the Enneagram. Just scrolling down the 'contents page' for this board, we see that very few of the threads concern typing of people, and most of those that do are of the 'what am I?' variety...
> Maybe
> there is a need to have different grades of board. A 'bunny hill' for
> the young and faint of heart might be needed, where some young person
> new to the enneagram who has a tenuous grasp both on it and their ego
> won't have brusque Johnny Five dropping bricks of 'wisdom' on their heads.
Well, no... I'm not sure that incivility is called for at any level, and the idea of segregating people off doesn't seem right - besides, how do you assign the different people to the different boards...
> Maybe a separate board where people work intensely on typing is needed.
Nothing to stop you setting up a board if you wanted to - I belive that you can set up a free board on www.InsideTheWeb.com if you want to...
> The short time I've been on the board I've caught on that there are
> people here with a variety of levels of sophistication regarding both
> the enneagram and their own psychological state, and with varying
> levels of realistic grasp on just how much they actually know about
> this topic.
This does seem to be the case (I'd be rather surpirsed if it wasn't...), although I'm pretty sure that were we to generate lists of who was who, then I'm sure that they would differ a great deal...
> You're a good social leader to watch out for everyone, dude,
> more than I can say for myself. However, if a consensus develops on this
> issue I'll 'play ball' for the 'family values' softball team
> (I guess I'll be out in left-field!)
Well, thanks. I don't usually do the 'social leader' thing - it's just that I noticed that the usual civility on the board was breaking down a bit, and I thought that something needed doing. This board's had a few 'heated' moments before, and survived those, but I thought that this situation warranted a response...
> Regarding your other comments from the amanda string...
> Most of the typing guesses made by people
> on the board about themselves, each other, and famous people seem
> pretty off to me.
Again, each other and famous people doesn't happen here _too_ often. Typing famous people is a little tricky - we only usually get to see a certain facet of those people, and so we typically end up with a wide spread of opinions. As for self-typing - I'm inclined to say that most of the self-typings here are accurate - I certainly don't think that that many people here are sixes...
> I mean, they are as good a guess as can be made
> given that people are working off of those pop-enneagram books.
> The current level of understanding is OK for most of the public for
> just the reasons you mentioned regarding Karen Webb. Most of them
> are best off thinking what they think about what their own numbers are
> or they will have ego robustness problems.
Well... I probably didn't make something clear. KWs main objection (IIRC - if anyone has KWs book around, then could they quote for me?) wasn't the 'the truth hurts' objection, but that a lot of typings are based on misconceptions about a person, and those misconceptions can hurt, too - often more so than the truth...
> But, to you, Peter, I say that there is a core/essence 'starting-point'
> number for each person and that many people are delusional as to
> this deeper level of enneagram structure in their personalities.
> Usually the person thinks they are some number due to family background
> or they get the subtype right but are unaware of the next level.
Well, maybe... I can certainly see that a lot of people vary their behaviour depending on the situation, and I can see how family background plays its part - and there _are_ all sorts of stories as to various mistypings people make
> For example, you can have a 6 who acts like a 2 (ie, a 6 with a 2 subtype)
> and most enneagram typers will mistake that person for a 2. They will
> be accurate enough for parlor games, but will miss that next level.
> I would guess that happens on this board a lot.
Maybe a bit... I'm still not convinced that it happens nearly as much as you think it does with self-typings here, and I don't agree with your alternatives, either...
> De Bono is probably a 6, and if you like him that much you probably
> are also.
Well, I never implied that I liked him _that_ much - I was merely making an aside about intuition, and as I pointed out, I'm ambivalent about the value of his work.
It's _interesting_ that you say that if I like him so much, then I must be a 6. This raises a few interesting questions? Firstly, how can a liking for a single author justify a whole typing, and does this apply to other authors as well?
Talking about your typings, it's interesting, looking at your site, that 7s, 8s, 9s and 1s are conspicuous by their relative absence. Why is this?
> I'm an ambivert, extraverted half the day and introverted half the day.
Which half?? :)
> Of course, there is no convincing anyone of what I'm saying.
Probably not. You seem to do so many things that inspire people to not take you seriously - this doesn't help...
> If you really want to test it out why don't you read that Tony Hillerman
> novel I mentioned in an earlier post? That's why I put it up there,
> but hardly a response to that one. Until we go through some examples
> inch by inch, like Bible scholars doing a scripture exegesis, then you don't
> know what the heck I actually am talking about. And if you aren't
> willing to do even that level of work then you are not very serious
> in your criticisms of my method, such that it is, and are actually
> in that other category of person we talked of, the ones who need
> denial to protect their egos from things they are not ready to know
> about themselves.
Maybe some time... Still, it would take something fairly impressive to convince me, and your track record of being convincing doesn't exactly inspire confidence...
Please take this as an observation, not a challenge,
> since I don't care if you do it or not, just note that without such
> an effort to actually rigorously test my typing contentions it is
> hard for me to take your questions or criticisms seriously.
Perhaps if you were to choose an example or two that are a little more accessible to the rest of us on the board - most of us just don't have the time to read every single book recommened to them...
Peter, who really _must_ be getting on with his writeup now...