Posted by Dafyd on February 28, 1999 at 14:45:03:
In Reply to: Re: Just an observation.... posted by johnny five on February 26, 1999 at 04:13:17:
> I will not stand up for any off-the-cuff typing job I do based on a few
> lines written by someone I don't know on the board. I will stand up
> for the usefulness of practicing and trying to type people.
Distinguo (I make a distinction).
There is a difference between typing celebrities, typing people whom you know, and typing people with whom
you are arguing. (I wholeheartedly agree with Peter's post titled Karen Webb by the way.)
Actually, I don't like the word 'typing'. It suggests that you take someone, and then you press a key and
a lever comes up and prints the number on the person's forehead. The word makes the process sound impersonal
and automatic.
Celebrities, historical characters, and fictional characters. This is fine, so long as people are
suitably sceptical about the results. It is unlikely that in many cases one has enough information about
someone to make a correct judgement. However, discussing such things can help one understand things about
the enneagram, and I've done a fair share of it myself.
People you know. You have more information about them. On the other hand, if you make a habit of it,
you end up thinking you understand the people you know better than they understand themselves. This encourages
one to feel superior to the people whom one knows, which is a bad thing. In general, I try not to guess
people's types, unless I can't help it. I certainly wouldn't tell someone what type they were. Which leads me
to the next point...
People with whom one is arguing. I was in an argument this last week with someone whom I am sure was a Four.
If I had told him that, in the middle of an argument, what it would have meant was: 'you are just arguing this
because you are a Four, therefore I need not attend to your argument. Furthermore I am more clever than you,
because I know this about you, and you do not know this.'
It would have been rude. It would also have suggested to people listening that I thought that I was more clever
than I actually was.
That is why your posts have received so much unfavourable comment. We don't mind you posting things that you
disagree with. There would be no point in a discussion board if everybody agreed. I agree with some of the
things that you say, eg about professions likely to be Sixes. On the other hand, there's not much point in you
posting to a discussion board if you think that you're more clever than everybody else on the board and are
prepared to dismiss their contributions as only based on the pop-enneagram.
It also makes us more likely to dismiss your contributions as coming from someone who trying to show off, rather
than trying to further discussion. Which would be a pity, as it would be useful for you to share your perspectives.
Most of us haven't looked very deeply into Hurley and Dobson. If you think we should do so, argue the case rather
than just making the assertion.
If you reread that discussion, you'll find that all the unfavourable comments, as opposed to people disagreeing
with you, come after you said 'Jacques is probably a 6.' It would still have been wrong to have said that if he were
a Six. I seriously doubt he is a Six though. As a general rule, each person is always the best judge of their own
type - the burden of proof is always on the person who disagrees. Furthermore there's a discussion I had with him a
few weeks ago on this board about a subject that is usually extremely contentious. IMHO we treated the discussion as
if it were a joint investigation, with mutual respect, despite disagreeing about it. I suspect that that was because
we were both Fives. Sixes could still have had that mutual respect, but I don't think it would have shown itself in
that way. (It would have been respect across an acknowledged border, rather than respect from a similar vantage point.)
> I guess you'll have to take my
> word for it that I am a FIVE with a 6 subtype (that is a special way
> of putting it that is technically different than saying 5w6, but for
> the purposes of board conversations saying 5w6 would be close enough).
I did say in an earlier post that I could infallibly tell that you were a Seven. I hoped that everybody could
tell that I was joking. (The word infallibly was a clue. So was the :) ) I do accept that you're a Five.
I don't see why you shouldn't explain the distinction on the board? We'd be interested to read it.
AIUI, Hurley and Dobson criticise the usual way of discussing wings on the grounds that if it were correct,
then types Three to Six, for instance, would have no access to the gut centre. Thus they want to describe each
person as having a wing in their secondary centre, rather than in one of the types nearest to them.
I'm not sure that I agree with their understanding of their general model - they imply that in order to have
access to the gut centre, one would have to exhibit One, Eight or Nine traits. I don't think that is the case:
Ones, Eights and Nines are types who have a lot of gut energy, rather than ways of using gut energy. But one
could certainly argue the point, and I may not have understood the Hurley and Dobson point correctly.
> However, the 5w6's MBTI typology commonly accepted on the board, I would
> not agree with -- I'm an NFP.
Any enneagram type can be more or less any MBTI type. Some types are rarer than others - extravert Fives and
thinking Twos are pretty rare. Others are more common - IT Fives for example. But INFP is a pretty common
MBTI type for Five, or so I gather.
Anyway, you do have useful things to contribute. I'm just asking you to contribute them constructively.
Dafyd