Cocooning-vs.-Conforming

Introversion and extraversion in the context of private and public environments

Cocooning vs. conforming

To "introvert" means to build and occupy a "cocoon": a set-up where you are in control and where the environment is highly adapted to you. For example, learning a skill and taking a job where you get to apply that skill relentlessly. Or having a private art studio where you get to make art your own way, without regard to sales or critics (). Or working in a library where you can explore and gather facts at your own pace, without regard to whether other people find those facts interesting or even whether you'll have any use for them ().

To "extravert" means to conform yourself to reality as it exists right now: to shape yourself to fit the reality. For example, if your culture views blonde hair as attractive, you might dye your hair blonde in order to fit in (Se). Or if there is a good deal available on something right now, you take it even if you're not sure how you can use that thing: you have to take opportunities when they come, not when you have a known use for them (Ne). Or, to reach a distant goal, you take action right now using whatever is available, making the immediate choice that improves your position according to criteria that you have defined, no matter how slight an improvement the limitations of your present situation force you to make (Te). Or, if your culture defines giving a gift as an overture of friendliness, then you give gifts to keep people friendly and expand your network of social influence and mutual obligation (Fe).

This might be the broadest sense in which Lenore uses the terms extraversion and introversion. They point out a biological distinction inherent in all living things, not just people or consciousness. A living thing is continuously adapting itself to its environment: reshaping itself to exploit what's available and expand into whatever space its environment provides. But if that's all a living thing did, it wouldn't be alive, it would be a gas. Something else that living things do is rework the materials of their environment into a form that matches their inner plan. A tomato plant converts molecules in its surroundings into leaves and tomatoes. A snail converts molecules in its surroundings into a shell where the snail can be safe and thrive. Every living thing constantly balances these opposing pulls: the extraverted need to expand into and conform to the contours of its environment, and the introverted need to create an environment or limit oneself to an environment suitable to the development of its own pattern.

Some living things tend to be oriented more by one pull than the other, hence the Extraverted/Introverted distinction.

Introverts in private

The above would explain a common observation about introverts: they usually have no idea what to say in a group conversation or upon meeting a stranger, but one-on-one with people they know well, they usually talk openly, loudly, and at great length. This would be classic introversion, not just the quietness among strangers but also the openness and richness that emerges in private. The tendency to become truly oneself only in specially controlled and filtered circumstances is the definition of introversion proposed here.

Some introverts say that they're "extraverted" with people they know, but that's just using the word "extraverted" to mean "loud and talkative". The idea proposed here is that when Lenore says "extraverted", she means the attitude of shaping yourself to your surroundings and what is do-able here and now, whatever that might be--not the introverted style of allowing yourself to come forth openly only among people with whom you've established a great deal of common rapport and shared understanding. An introverted attitude is to require a "cocoon" in order to freely let your spontaneous thoughts and creativity emerge.

The same phenomenon is in action among performers who are open and outrageous on stage, but private and quiet during everyday life, especially when interacting with strangers or in groups. The stage, even though it's a public performance, is still a highly controlled place. By the definition proposed here, these performers are just as introverted when they're being outrageous on stage as when they're being quiet in a group setting. The introversion is the need to have a controlled space in order to "come out and be yourself".

Extraverts in private

The above would also explain a phenomenon that's described less often: the way extraverts seem to dissolve as you get to know them. In public, in a group setting, the extravert has something to react against, something to give instant feedback right now. Not being in control, having to respond right now to action and stimulation that comes from outside, is what triggers an extravert to let himself loose and truly be himself. It's only in response to the outside world that an extravert's personality spontaneously takes shape. When you get an extreme extravert in a one-on-one situation that calls for a self to emerge mostly out of his inner nature, then it's the extravert who is tongue-tied. Without something external to react to, what is there to say? Without something truly outside himself to provoke him and stimulate him and react visibly to him, what is there to do? How could anything matter?

Introverts who marry or try to make close friends with extraverts often find themselves disappointed. What seemed at first like an amazingly clear and definite person, the introvert eventually starts to see as diffuse and empty, even soulless. In the "cocoon" setting that the introvert prefers, the extravert seems to have nothing inside to bring to the conversation. By the definition proposed here, the diffuseness and "uhh...nothing to say" that show up in private or in-depth settings are no less a manifestation of extraversion than the spontaneity and clarity that emerges when dealing with a group of strangers.

A quote from Nietzsche reveals the disgust that introverts can feel for extraverts:

"There are women who, however you may search them, prove to have no content but are purely masks. The man who associates with such almost spectral, necessarily unsatisfied beings is to be commiserated with, yet it is precisely they who are able to arouse the desire of the man most strongly: he seeks for her soul -- and goes on seeking."

Nietzsche seems to identify femininity with extraversion, so this quote represents as much a polemic against extraversion as against femininity.

Losing and regaining balance

Seen this way, life is a continuous process of maintaining a balance between extraverted and introverted needs. We get out of balance one way, we restore the balance, we get out balance another way, we restore the balance, and so on until we die. There is never any ultimate, perfect state to reach, there is only the process of losing and regaining balance.

Hypothesis: The function attitudes are forms of conscious awareness that tap you into your extraverted and introverted needs.

Going too far in the extraverted direction

Te: turning life into such a bottom-line rule-driven activity that the actual needs of life get forgotten. You "win" by the rules of the game you've defined, but the win is hollow, unsatisfying, and perhaps even destructive. For example, "winning" at business in a way that adds up to a lot of money in the bank but you're making a rotten product, you've squeezed out competitors who had better things to offer, your employees are miserable, and even your customers are miserable--they just can't do anything about it because your market position and government support are so solid. After all you've done, why do so many people think they'd be better off if you were out of the picture?

Fe: keeping yourself liked and keeping everything friendly and harmonious, to the point that you become a people-pleaser with no soul of your own. You lose touch with your own desires, your own ability to see and judge for yourself. Every decision becomes a political calculation: "Where will this make me stand in other people's eyes?" Living completely through others, at some point it becomes clear that you aren't contributing anything. You become an empty, smiling mask, and people learn to see through it. (Think of Ronald Reagan's and Nancy Reagan's smiles.) They also don't like that everything you do seems to be nothing but a political manipulation, though of course it doesn't seem that way to you.

Se: conforming so completely to cultural standards of attractivess or attention-getting that you reach a point of unsatisfying or destructive hedonism. Like in a W.C. Fields movie, every moment is disconnected from every other: there's no coherence, no connection between things, and no meaning or satisfaction. All you've got is the ability to make a splash right now. At some point, you're just consuming, fulfilling your appetites without regard to the life cycle that makes that possible. That's the point when you're destroying yourself and your surroundings, oblivious to any effects of your actions that aren't immediately visible. (For example, Chris Farley and John Belushi.)

Ne: destabilizing things so much, pouncing on every new possibility so much, that nothing can develop. The minute you make progress in one direction, you change course because some other opportunity catches your eye. When your word means nothing--when flexibility becomes outright lying--you've gone too far. (Look what trouble Bill Clinton got into over the word "is".) Eventually you wear away the accumulated capital that's needed to support speculative and uncertain ventures. There comes a point where improvisation no longer works, because there's no margin for error and you can't stack the deck anymore.

Notice that all of these ways of going too far are ways of being victims of one's own success: becoming so successful in outer, social activities that the stable, permanent needs of life--the foundation that makes social success possible--gets eaten away or lost sight of.

Going too far in the introverted direction

Ti: pushing elegance and "tight" harmony of things so far that all other factors and aspects of life get out of balance. You make an absolutely perfect design, work of art, theory, or whatever, but it's late and it neglects things that other people need in order to find it valuable. You pushed one factor all the way to perfection, but actually a great many factors are needed to make something successful in the real world, including the factors of "comprehensible to others" and "desirable to others".

Fi: being so concerned with maintaining the purity of your soul--e.g. your unconditional benevolence for every living thing--that you fail to do for yourself. Your own negotiating position becomes weak because you have nothing to offer but appeal to mercy. You and everyone around you is in desperate need, not because of "the system" but because you let yourself get into that position. Your social position is at the bottom, and people avoid you because they smell "loser". When weakness becomes a point of pride, not something to heal, then your values are no longer in sync with life.

Si: holding certain things so well protected that you choke off the adaptability of the system that you're in. For example, gradually adding a little bit more, a little bit more to your operating procedures to be sure of addressing every possible thing that could go wrong or has ever gone wrong. Eventually you get procedures so complicated that you can't capitalize on opportunities, can't get things done in a reasonable amount of time, and can't address the truly unpredictable except by setting up barricades to keep it out. At some point, stability becomes calcification.

Ni: seeing through everything to the point where you can't see anything. Viewing everything with a relentless neutrality, you keep yourself at such psychological distance from things that you can no longer act as a participant. At some point, you're no longer real, you're just a commentary on someone else's gloss on someone else's commentary. Living so much in a world of "phoned-in" representations from other people, all you can do is criticize any real-world trade-off for being "biased" or "unfair" or less than omniscient. Where once you contributed insight, now your contribution is mostly to throw sand into the gears whenever anything simple, straightforward, or feasible is about to happen.

Notice that all these ways of going too far are also ways of being a victim of one's own success. Here, the success is creating an environment so well suited to one particular interest of yours that you get out of sync with the rest of the world.

Developing the secondary

When things get out of balance, it's tempting to restore the balance by going to the opposite function. Perhaps the rule-driven ETJ who's taken definable success to the point that it's choking the life out of things could fix matters by taking on some of that unconditional Fi benevolence.

But it doesn't work that way, because J and P ways of navigating life clash much more strongly than E and I ways. The secondary function provides a way to restore the E/I balance without massively rewiring your brain or jettisoning your prior life investments. (See Inferior Function.)

For EJs, provides a symbol- and sign-driven way to see the many parts of reality that fall between the cracks of one's existing criteria of success. You gain judgement of when to follow a defined principle, when to act without regard for your ability to explain your actions, and when to sit back and let nature take its course.

For EPs, provides an interaction-driven, gestalt way to see connection between things and thereby see and value coherence in one's life. Beyond seeing what makes an impression, you can see a purpose--a purpose of your own, for which you don't need constant reaffirmation from other people.

For IPs, provides an interaction-driven, gestalt way to respond to the totality of factors that matter in a given situation, and thereby gain the willing aid of others and make their own contributions more useful. You learn to sense and go along with a larger flow, one that you can't fully understand or control. You learn to benefit from plugging into the system instead of fighting it.

For IJs, provides a symbol- and sign-driven way to plot a course to accomplish something tangible here and now: to spot what's possible and take that, and then see the next step, as opposed to trying to foresee and consider everything. Extraverted judgement provides a way to make intelligent trade-offs involving partial knowledge.

The secondary function does not turn introverts into extraverts or extraverts into introverts. It just brings you a conscious perspective that enables you to give weight both to unconditional needs and aspirations and to the limitations and opportunities of your present real-world situation. Your dominant function tends to lead you to explore and cultivate only one of these.

Gaining an extraverted perspective means becoming more aware of the options made available to you by the wider society or by present circumstances, thereby improving your negotiating position. Gaining an introverted perspective means becoming more aware, in more detail, of the kinds of things that persist, or are worth protecting, throughout the give-and-take of life, regardless of whether other people see them or also take them into account.