Checks and Balances

An Exegesis attempting to unravel the interactions between the dominant function and the secondary function

The Judgment Function is like the President: he calls the shots. The Perception Function is like his intelligence agency, such as the CIA, which supplies the President with information. For the country to run smoothly and deal with other countries, the President and the CIA must work in tandem. The President depends on intelligence from the CIA, and the CIA depends on the President to make the correct decisions based on that information, and to direct the CIA to look at the right things. See the Parliament of Attitudes for an exploration of why this may be.

Problems arise when the President and the CIA disregard each other. For instance, in a country with a strong President, the President might order the CIA to only look at information the follows his political goals. However, this will prevent the CIA from properly responding to the world. The President tells the CIA to find out how Iraq is harboring terrorists, but meanwhile, North Korea gets ignored. Oops. Now, the opposite situation occurs with a strong CIA: the CIA will bombard the President will tons of information. "This country is going to attack, and that country is harboring terrorists, so we should bomb here, and here, and here..." Unfortunately, when told that every foreign country deserves to be bombed and that all his citizens are spies, the President will get so out of his depth that he will no longer be able to make any useful decisions on which countries are most deserving of bombing and which spies should be interrogated.

At worst, a President will become a dictator and only use his intelligence agency to assist in his quest for a New World Order, ethnic purity, or saving the whales. Consequently, he will end up pursuing goals that are not relevant in the grand scheme of things, are riddled with assumptions, miss the facts, or are destabilizing to his country. On the other hand, if the CIA takes control, it will see conspiracies everywhere and a spy in every corner, but it won't offer any realistic way to deal with the situation. Flooded by briefs, special reports, and the clamoring of special interest groups, the President will become little more than a puppet. He will make decisions that are way off, such as bombing the wrong countries or ordering the execution of anyone who is vaguely accused of treason.

In other words, the temptation is for IPs and EJs with a Judging dominant function to put blinders on their secondary function so that it will only conform to the goals of the dominant. Thus, secondary Extraverted Intuition gets stuck in a box when it is supposed to be about thinking outside the box. Secondary Extraverted Sensation can no longer make any kind of impact on anything or look at the facts. Secondary Introverted Intuition can no longer take an objective view, and secondary Introverted Sensation will be stuck in chaos. With blinded secondary perception, IPs and EJs massively limit themselves.

For IJs and EPs, the temptation is to overload the Judging secondary function with Perceptions from the dominant function. At some point, the secondary function will become so muddled that it cannot make any logical distinctions, or respond to anyone's needs. Secondary Extraverted Thinking is no longer able to establish any practical criteria to objectively evaluate anything, and secondary Introverted Thinking is not able to see any chain of cause-and-effect. Secondary Extraverted Feeling is not able to establish any social relationships with others, and secondary Introverted Thinking cannot meet anyone's unique needs. With flooded secondary judgment, IJs and EPs are going to end up making very bad decisions.

Possible Examples:

INPs who have domineering Introverted Judgment seem to complain that nobody else is in rational or emotional harmony with the universe except for them. Then they use their Ne to view all the ways in which this judgment is correct. They are thinking outside of society's box, but inside their own. Ironically, by taking such an introverted stance, they actually prevent themselves from harmonizing with the universe!

• INTPs may declare that people are just mindless drones who have no clue how the universe works, then using their Ne to back up their Ti prejudices.

• INFPs may declare that nobody has any empathy, and then use their Ne to fill the big picture of how the world is being lost in evil and hate.

INJs who have rampaging Introverted Intuition seem to detect bias and assumptions in everyone's statements. This may lead them to indulge in political correctness, and hold every statement to the impossible criteria of having absolutely no biases at all. Ironically, by making the cure worse than the disease, INJs replace one biased exploitable system with another biased and exploitable system!

• INTJs may read assumptions into everyone's statements (dominant Ni) to an extent that they cannot establish any objective criteria (Te) to say how one assumption is worse than another.

• INFJs may read unfairness into everything with their dominant Ni, but cannot propose a better system for people to relate to one another (Fe).

More?...

Note how that in each case, a despotic President or over-zealous CIA leads to hypocrisy. Of course, there are special interest groups who profit from a tyrannical President or an over-zealous CIA. These groups will try to make sure the President bombs the Middle East flat, and that the CIA uncovers everyone with communist/terrorist/anarchist/socialist sympathies. This is the Tertiary Temptation. However, other groups might protest. For instance, the people might not want to be drafted to fight in wars that will alienate foreign countries, and the Supreme Court might object to the CIA snooping into everyone's business. This is like the Inferior Function engaging in insurgent behavior. Thus, it seems that personality may be a series of checks and balances between the functions.

~ Kevin Henochowicz