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the introvert interposes a subjective view between the perception of the object and his own action, which prevents the action from assuming a character that corresponds with the objective situation.

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The world exists not merely in itself, but also as it appears to me. Indeed, at bottom, we have absolutely no criterion that could help us to form a judgment of a world whose nature was unassimilable by the subject.

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Thus, just as it seems incomprehensible to the introvert that the object should always be decisive, it remains just as enigmatic to the extravert how a subjective standpoint can be superior to the objective situation. He reaches the unavoidable conclusion that the introvert is either a conceited egoist or a fantastic doctrinaire.

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[The extravert] naturally has subjective values, but their determining power has less importance than the external objective conditions. Never, therefore, does he expect to find any absolute factors in his own inner life, since the only ones he knows are outside himself. Epimetheus-like, his inner life succumbs to the external necessity, not of course without a struggle; which, however, always ends in favour of the objective determinant. His entire consciousness looks outwards to the world, because the important and decisive determination always comes to him from without. But it comes to him from without, only because that is where he expects it.

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Objective conditions may be either temporarily or locally abnormal. An individual who is accommodated to such con certainly conforms to the abnormal style of his surroundings, but, in relation to the universally valid laws of life. He is, in common with his milieu, in an abnormal position.

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If the conditions are maladaptive, say for example, in a crime stricken ghetto, the extravert will nearly blindly follow the predominant functioning of such a location, perpetuating the cycle of dysfunction. 

In terms of society, if society starts to go to hell, the extraverts are going to be the ones who continue to drive it into the ground. But extraverts are necessary for any such system to exist in the first place. I guess it is only natural for the captain to go down with the ship.




This is the early stages of integrating this information, so I'm interested in feedback.
Does each type have its strengths and weaknesses, or is one to be valued above the other?
Why are we seemingly born with a predisposition to view the world in such a polarized way?
And which type are you
Discuss.

MarkostheGnostic said:

There is no 'objectively better.' The inquiry of Kickle's was for personal testimony. I was only speaking from my own experience. Certainly, the flaming extravert takes an opposite view. I remember a former colleague, soccer-mom type exclaiming something like, "I can't stand coming home to an empty house!' Her life would be a nightmare for me with her two spoiled kids going to dance and soccer and karate and play dates, and on and on. Never reading, thinking, contemplating, but always attempting to fill an existential vacuum with endless activity. She once said, "You don't marry for love, you marry for lifestyle." That was pretty much the last straw for me. What a mindless, materialistic suburban bimbo she turned out to be. I'm not a loud and obnoxious person, and whereas all extraverts are not loud and obnoxious to fellow extraverts, they usually are experienced that way by introverts. Much of this seems constitutional, a la William Herbert Sheldon's somatotypes and associated temperaments.

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Introverts do tend to be more self-centered, but this is not always the case.  Extraverts can be quite self-centered too, treating reality more as a giant popularity contest with them at the center.

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I have referred in detail to the ultimate consequences of this exaggeration of the extraverted attitude, viz. to the injurious suppression of the subjective factor. It is only, to be expected, therefore, that a psychic compensation of the conscious extraverted attitude will lay especial weight upon the subjective factor, i.e. we shall have to prove a strong egocentric tendency in the unconscious. Practical experience actually furnishes this proof.

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Feeling in the extraverted attitude is orientated by objective data, i.e. the object is the indispensable determinant of the kind of feeling. It agrees with objective values. If one has always known feeling as a subjective fact, the nature of extraverted feeling will not immediately be understood, since it has freed itself as fully as possible from the subjective factor, and has, instead, become wholly subordinated to the influence of the object. Even where it seems to show a certain independence of the quality of the concrete object, it is none the less under the spell of traditional or generally valid standards of some sort. I may feel constrained, for instance, to use the predicate 'beautiful' or 'good', not because I find the object 'beautiful' or 'good' from my own subjective feeling, but because it is fitting and politic so to do; and fitting it certainly is, inasmuch as a contrary opinion would disturb the general feeling situation. A feeling-judgment such as this is in no way a simulation or a lie -- it is merely an act of accommodation. A picture, for instance, may be termed beautiful, because a picture that is hung in a drawing-room and bearing a well-known signature is generally assumed to be beautiful, or because the predicate 'ugly' might offend the family of the fortunate possessor, or because there is a benevolent intention on the part of the visitor to create a pleasant feeling-atmosphere, to which end everything must be felt as agreeable. Such feelings are governed by the standard of the objective determinants.

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