Fear of an INFJ

[Deleted member 16771]

I'm overwhelmed by everything I want to say about this

I know, man, it's opened up a lot of avenues for me, too.

I get what you mean! But I think that the need for truth is as strong as the need to withhold it (in people generally). I think that's why I've accepted lies and betrayal as 'human behavior' (not taking/making it personal) so I won't be blinded by it while searching for the underlying truth aka intention (because it's more relevant to me in order to move forward (not very efficient, I know)).

I half disagree. If people weren't allowed to lie, there wouldn't exist a private self (which is also freedom). The act of demanding the truth could just as well be the harm.

This is a fundamental point which struck me - yeah, you're right. Lies, or withholding truths, shield the private self from intrusion, and therefore, almost paradoxically, individual freedom rests both on access to the truth and the choice to divulge our personal truths or not. We need access to the truth in order to make rational, informed decisions about our lives ('outer' freedom), while at the same time we need recourse to lies in order to protect our inner selves from unwanted intrusion or judgement ('inner' freedom).

I'm speculating, but I wonder if being blind to this use of lies to ensure freedom is rooted in a more 'masculine' way of being. I don't need to lie about anything because I am confident that I can weather any harm that comes to me because of it. I am immune from physical harm; I never feel physically threatened, and therefore I don't have to factor 'my truth' as a risk to my safety. By contrast, if I did feel this threat - maybe if I lived in a more repressive state or if I were a woman (I'm generalising, of course) - then I might be more conscious of the value of withholding the truth for this purpose.

Further to that, I'm aware that being completely open feels like an achievement in itself - it's a source of pride and value that I've achieved some form of completeness. I fear nothing, because I have no secrets to protect, lies to maintain, or things to hide. This feeling is coloured by masculinity or power, and I value it partly for that reason perhaps.

The other thing is that I don't think I worry about being blinded by lies or betrayal, or trust in the truthfulness of people 'naively'. I place great value in honesty, but I don't fear the dishonest as much as I simply don't respect them. For instance, I like to give people the chance to reveal their honesty - if I know something about you, I might not reveal that information immediately, but instead I'll ask you about it and 'test' your honesty in that way. If you lie, you lose my respect; if you tell the truth, you gain it. I'm rarely concerned with the 'intention' of the lie as much as I am with testing your character and your courage in adhering to a principle.

In fact, yeah, it's the thing for me. Character and integrity is everything. Lying is worse than the crime; it's the worst crime, in my view. I'm pretty sure that I care much less about the actual thing being discussed or the 'intention'.

In my mind, the act alone is just half the truth, or the "shell" of the "other" truth. Since I'm basing the "other" truth on my own imagination, I kind of owe people the benefit of the doubt. My nightmare is people who can fool me into believing their self serving intentions are good. If I get in a situation like this, I will need concrete truth to get out, because the abstract has failed me badly. Being denied the truth in a situation like this is emotional kidnapping and torture. Stagnation and regression.

This is fascinating.

You seem to have evolved the 'goodness' of human beings to a level below the surface. You can forgive deception only if it rests at the superficial level, as long as their deeper intentions are good. By contrast, what you really fear is if the intentions are also deceptive. It's like you've given yourself an excuse to forgive; an extra layer of 'what if?' to maintain your faith in a person.

For me, it is much simpler: a surface lie is evidence of inner corruption, and the person is practically 'lost' to my esteem depending on the severity of the lie. They then become like children to me - I lose all respect.

Why are you willing to accept deception at the 'superficial' level if you think their intentions are good? Is it important to you that you don't see people as completely bad/corrupt? Do you need to believe in their goodness?

It is terrible, but the intention decides how terrible it is(?).

There's an extent to which this is true, but again the use of lies as a test is in revealing an individual's strength of character and will. In a situation where a lie would be the easy way out, telling the truth reveals that a person is prepared to face the consequences of their reality despite negative outcome. The value of their word to them exceeds the pain of punishment. And so, when a person is prepared to lie about the small things, we can be absolutely sure that they'll lie about the big things when the stakes are much higher. In other words, a small lie with good intentions is in some ways worse than a big lie, because their threshold for enduring pain for the sake of truth is much lower.

This is gold. It's the same for me if we swap act with intention. The strategic web you see, I think for me is the defensive web people are positioned in (people protecting their false self).

Interesting. When I mentioned 'position', I meant the relation of individuals with others - that there is a 'structural logic' which dictates what kind of intentions someone is likely to have to serve their interests. E.g. a boss and a worker are in a particular 'positional relationship' to one another which almost automatically reveals that the boss is likely to want (intend) the worker to work more for less pay, while the worker is likely to want (intend) the opposite, and so when they interact, no matter what either of them say, their 'positional intentions' are going to be these. Of course, in reality the picture is much more complex and nuanced, such that with enough 'positional' information about an individual, you're going to be able to predict pretty subtle things about their likely intentions simply from this.

Now, are you saying that people position themselves, deliberately, in order to protect their 'false selves'? It would be great if you elaborated on this notion of the 'defensive web', because it seems like you might be implying that people seek out 'position' based upon psychological wounds.

Oh my God, I'm probably chronicly corrupt That's why I can't see it!

What!? Why do you say that?

 

[Infjente]

I know, man, it's opened up a lot of avenues for me, too.


What!? Why do you say that?

I need to sleep before I answer this one! I wish I could just download everything that's in my head instead of writing it

I don't know! I might be hiding/repressing it so much that it becomes everything I'm doing without me or anyone noticing it?

 

[Deleted member 16771]

I need to sleep before I answer this one! I wish I could just download everything that's in my head instead of writing it

It's because you type like an arthritic octogenarian, sister, lol. Don't worry, I'm happy to wait - it's a very enjoyable conversation, but takes a lot of energy.

 

[Infjente]

arthritic octogenarian

Why did I read this as 'antarctic octopus'?

 

[Daustus]

As an aquatic ocelot I take offense.

J/k

 

[mintoots]

Just love this kind of question.

Well…. I'm not really afraid…. sometimes I must be careful not to silence my emotions. I found my self able to shout out all the emotion and I really liked it. It was quite inside me, I was in peace with me and the world outside but when I opened the door it was painfull and I was afraid.

Emotions are an integral part of us but by dint of feeling almost only the negative ones coming from others I get tired.

so….. maybe I'm afraid to shut the door again and again hurting people near me.

I'm afraid of what I can do

Am I the only one????

Noona! I like your name. Is it Korean, by any chance?

 

[mintoots]

What about manipulation without lying or omission of truth? It's like working with the ingredients at hand. Aren't you just letting the world be, by then? Morality then would be a question of when not to interfere and when to interfere. It's a more difficult position to be in. I understand @Infjente's fear. I wonder though if corruption is inevitable, because feelings.

 

[Noona]

Noona! I like your name. Is it Korean, by any chance?

Hii, thanks Noona is a general name used from younger boy to older girl and it is informal, it means "older sister"

 

[John K]

There's something intriguing about these shells of old threads that lie scattered around the place but keep bursting back into bright light again every few years. I wonder if the originator ever returns to see

I fear being denied the truth. Betrayal, treason, lies, liars, &c.

Corruption is giving oneself the right to manipulate and control the truth for ones own advantage/gain. To me corruption is the worst threat to 'the truth', because ego and truth don't mix well together.

Your conversation is fascinating and very thought provoking. You both seem to have very deep rooted absolute values that determine where your compass points on these issues. Is life that crystalline though in reality? Is it not a lot more amorphous than that? To quote a hoary old cliche

Spoiler

You seem to be both talking about very different things. If someone scams a large sum of money out of me then they are an arse and my eternal blessings will follow them to the grave (an early one if justice is anything to do with it).

On the other hand what @Infjente calls corruption is much more complex. This sort of deception may or may not be culpable. Take the forum - most of us hide behind anonymous user names and avis. That seems to me to be an analogy for the way we use our personas in the real world. Consider the person who deceives themselves that they love someone else, and the other falls in love too with that well forged deception, and there is a lot of hurt when it unravels, but the morals of this are dreadfully difficult to perceive, particularly from within, because there was no intent to deceive. And there is someone who has learnt from childhood to project an image of themselves in order to fit in socially, and it's very successful and they don't know any other way - everyone who knows them thinks it's truly them, but it isn't at all. They are desperately unhappy because of the mismatch but they don't know how to be their true selves 'out there' and are very frightened that they will lose their friends and become isolated if they try. I have great compassion for these kinds of dissimulation.

How many of us cloak ourselves out in the open? How many go out there dressed only in their core spirit? My inner core being would wither and die in that fierce heat so I pretend to be other than I really am. At the same time I don't know who I really am even after 70 years - in fact the greater my self-knowledge the less I know in proportion. I can't go out into the world undressed like that - it would be unseemly, so I pretend. Is that corruption?

 

[mintoots]

There's something intriguing about these shells of old threads that lie scattered around the place but keep bursting back into bright light again every few years. I wonder if the originator ever returns to see





Your conversation is fascinating and very thought provoking. You both seem to have very deep rooted absolute values that determine where your compass points on these issues. Is life that crystalline though in reality? Is it not a lot more amorphous than that? To quote a hoary old cliche

Spoiler

You seem to be both talking about very different things. If someone scams a large sum of money out of me then they are an arse and my eternal blessings will follow them to the grave (an early one if justice is anything to do with it).

On the other hand what @Infjente calls corruption is much more complex. This sort of deception may or may not be culpable. Take the forum - most of us hide behind anonymous user names and avis. That seems to me to be an analogy for the way we use our personas in the real world. Consider the person who deceives themselves that they love someone else, and the other falls in love too with that well forged deception, and there is a lot of hurt when it unravels, but the morals of this are dreadfully difficult to perceive, particularly from within, because there was no intent to deceive. And there is someone who has learnt from childhood to project an image of themselves in order to fit in socially, and it's very successful and they don't know any other way - everyone who knows them thinks it's truly them, but it isn't at all. They are desperately unhappy because of the mismatch but they don't know how to be their true selves 'out there' and are very frightened that they will lose their friends and become isolated if they try. I have great compassion for these kinds of dissimulation.

How many of us cloak ourselves out in the open? How many go out there dressed only in their core spirit? My inner core being would wither and die in that fierce heat so I pretend to be other than I really am. At the same time I don't know who I really am even after 70 years - in fact the greater my self-knowledge the less I know in proportion. I can't go out into the world undressed like that - it would be unseemly, so I pretend. Is that corruption?

Is corruption just dishonesty?

 

[Deleted member 16771]

Is corruption just dishonesty?

Not quite.

In this context, you can imagine 'corruption' as a process whereby we become blind to our own badness, since we will have adopted 'excuses' to deceive ourselves.

Moral 'corruption' is like a rot, where something once good gradually turns bad.

 

[John K]

Is corruption just dishonesty?

Not quite.

My take on the discussion between @Infjente and @Deleted member 16771 is that what Deleted member 16771 objects to strongly is the lie, the conscious intent to deceive and gain benefit from doing so. What Infjente calls corruption may consciously be culpable, but may more profoundly be down to self deception and mis-orientation to ourselves and the world and not culpable. I feel that in fact most of us are self-deceived in this way - it's the price of being human, a place we can grow from if we so desire and are willing to take the risks. But ... the hurt that this can do to others is the same whether the damage was intended or involuntary. I would be well advised to keep well away from an ebola carrier, even though when it isn't their fault that they have the illness.

 

[mintoots]

Not quite.

In this context, you can imagine 'corruption' as a process whereby we become blind to our own badness, since we will have adopted 'excuses' to deceive ourselves.

Moral 'corruption' is like a rot, where something once good gradually turns bad.

And badness is automatically for selfish gain? What is the parameter for that which is bad or evil?

I wonder if manipulation is evil in itself or merely a way of transaction?

My take on the discussion between @Infjente and @Deleted member 16771 is that what Deleted member 16771 objects to strongly is the lie, the conscious intent to deceive and gain benefit from doing so. What Infjente calls corruption may consciously be culpable, but may more profoundly be down to self deception and mis-orientation to ourselves and the world and not culpable. I feel that in fact most of us are self-deceived in this way - it's the price of being human, a place we can grow from if we so desire and are willing to take the risks. But ... the hurt that this can do to others is the same whether the damage was intended or involuntary. I would be well advised to keep well away from an ebola carrier, even though when it isn't their fault that they have the illness.

In any such context, isn't contagion somewhat inevitable? If the virus exists or if evil exists, it is bound to spread, isn't it? Whether it be a form of damage or a positive influence, it is influence just the same.

Similarly, isn't religious indoctrination a form of manipulation and isn't that parallel to corruption as well? Isn't influence corruption?

 

[Deleted member 16771]

On the other hand what @Infjente calls corruption is much more complex. This sort of deception may or may not be culpable. Take the forum - most of us hide behind anonymous user names and avis. That seems to me to be an analogy for the way we use our personas in the real world. Consider the person who deceives themselves that they love someone else, and the other falls in love too with that well forged deception, and there is a lot of hurt when it unravels, but the morals of this are dreadfully difficult to perceive, particularly from within, because there was no intent to deceive. And there is someone who has learnt from childhood to project an image of themselves in order to fit in socially, and it's very successful and they don't know any other way - everyone who knows them thinks it's truly them, but it isn't at all. They are desperately unhappy because of the mismatch but they don't know how to be their true selves 'out there' and are very frightened that they will lose their friends and become isolated if they try. I have great compassion for these kinds of dissimulation.

I wouldn't call this 'deception', since deception is a deliberate and calculated behaviour. You used 'dissimulation' here, and that might be more appropriate for our purposes right now.

However, there's a certain level of complicity and awareness of such 'dissimulation', which is what makes the potential of 'corruption' so pernicious. We gradually allow ourselves to adopt certain deceptive behaviours which otherwise we wouldn't consider, based upon utilitarian calculations and other 'excuses'. For instance, in agreeing that withholding some truths about ourselves might be necessary - even desirable - for ensuring personal freedom in our inner worlds, we've effectively masked an immoral act in moral or amoral intent. We're aware of what we've done here, and yet still we've argued ourselves into accepting the behaviour, and hence we've also planted a seed of 'fear of corruption'. If we engage in much more of this self-deceiving behaviour, might we become completely bad? Might we corrupt ourselves into something we didn't intend?


My concern is not with the 'reality of human beings' as such, and therefore a statement like 'everybody lies' is meaningless to me. My position is concerned with ideals, shoulds and oughts, and so I do not much care if that makes me a rarity among humanity if I decided to live by such principles.

I've been thinking a lot about this, and particularly on the dichotomy between 'wartime behaviours' (like deception) and 'peacetime behaviours' (like trust), but that would need a blog post to properly unpack. My instinct, though, is that I find 'deception' so difficult to accept as something everybody routinely engages in because it represents the ingress of wartime behaviours into peacetime situations - it's like an unnatural blending of public and private spheres, or of battlefield and home.

 

[John K]

In any such context, isn't contagion somewhat inevitable? If the virus exists or if evil exists, it is bound to spread, isn't it? Whether it be a form of damage or a positive influence, it is influence just the same.

Well the notion of evil here is moot. If there is no evil intent then harm may ensue but it isn't evil - unless of course you accept an external force of objective evil.

Similarly, isn't religious indoctrination a form of manipulation and isn't that parallel to corruption as well? Isn't influence corruption?

There is no exclusively valid world view and religious perspectives have their place. Almost all the perspectives that people take in their relationship with themselves and the outside world are based on the faith they have in what they have been taught or experienced, whether religious or not. Corruption is the pollution of something that should be other than it is, the decay of something - many people see religion as a bastion against such pollution. Like all human ways of relating to the world, though, religion can be corrupted to evil ends

 

[Deleted member 16771]

This morning, I read a translation of Sun Tzu's The Art of War. I'm still back home, and it's on my bedroom bookshelf beside Clausewitz and other member of the 'strategy/warfare' canon. I read it because what's troubling me is the widespread adoption of amoral political philosophies in people's daily lives, particularly Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power and Machiavelli's The Prince. Related to this is of course the acceptance that people in our lives will lie, deceive us, and betray us (which is the crux of this discussion), and therefore there's the defensive instinct that perhaps we should 'play' life as if it were an amoral political game we needed to win.

Now, it's clear that, as Sun Tzu said, 'Warfare is one thing. It is a philosophy of deception.' However, what's absolutely bizarre is how business types adopt such teachings uncritically, giving themselves permission to behave like amoral Machiavellians in all of their dealings in life, and forget the other side of these works: namely, the home, nation, army, &c., and how to behave with them.

A lot of Sun Tzu emphasises the necessity of fostering esprit de corps in your army to achieve victory. Your army must be united, must trust its officers, and be motivated by a 'higher philosophy'. We deceive our enemies, not our comrades. Deceiving our comrades leads to disintegration and disaster.

Some people 'play at life' as if they're at war with every single other individual, and others believe that, in these times, we stand shoulder to shoulder with most other people as comrades. I despise, therefore, the ingress of hostile attitudes into spheres of life I believe should be ordered by peaceful, comradely principles. We are creatures of both war and peace, but the attitudes of one shouldn't flow into the domains of the other - this only causes stress and anxiety.

When individuals reveal themselves to be deceivers, liars, traitors, betrayers... then the response is very simple: cast them out, destroy them. Do not go searching for 'good intentions', or accept that such behaviours are 'human nature', because they've done war upon you. They've behaved in a way that is only appropriate in conflict. Such individuals, such behaviours, and such mindsets bring only ruin, and social systems can only tolerate so much of it before the corruption crashes the whole thing.

I don't care what 'human nature' currently is, because it's malleable and we ought to put more effort into distinguishing quality. There used to be a much higher proportion of psychopaths in the human population, until civilisations started executing them wholesale because they were a fucking nuisance.

 

[John K]

I wouldn't call this 'deception', since deception is a deliberate and calculated behaviour. You used 'dissimulation' here, and that might be more appropriate for our purposes right now.

However, there's a certain level of complicity and awareness of such 'dissimulation', which is what makes the potential of 'corruption' so pernicious. We gradually allow ourselves to adopt certain deceptive behaviours which otherwise we wouldn't consider, based upon utilitarian calculations and other 'excuses'. For instance, in agreeing that withholding some truths about ourselves might be necessary - even desirable - for ensuring personal freedom in our inner worlds, we've effectively masked an immoral act in moral or amoral intent. We're aware of what we've done here, and yet still we've argued ourselves into accepting the behaviour, and hence we've also planted a seed of 'fear of corruption'. If we engage in much more of this self-deceiving behaviour, might we become completely bad? Might we corrupt ourselves into something we didn't intend?


My concern is not with the 'reality of human beings' as such, and therefore a statement like 'everybody lies' is meaningless to me. My position is concerned with ideals, shoulds and oughts, and so I do not much care if that makes me a rarity among humanity if I decided to live by such principles.

I've been thinking a lot about this, and particularly on the dichotomy between 'wartime behaviours' (like deception) and 'peacetime behaviours' (like trust), but that would need a blog post to properly unpack. My instinct, though, is that I find 'deception' so difficult to accept as something everybody routinely engages in because it represents the ingress of wartime behaviours into peacetime situations - it's like an unnatural blending of public and private spheres, or of battlefield and home.

I agree with you fully when the situation is conscious and deliberate - the moral situation is clear cut then, though we might disagree on the details of what exactly is right and wrong.
What is interesting me is when there is a mismatch between a conscious perception of ourselves and what we actually are, when we deceive ourselves, though I appreciate that you use the word to mean something consciously chosen rather than in this way. I'm interested in how we present ourselves publically, and partially consciously, but inconsistently with our inner core character - which is where I believe most of us are at. The corruption than @Infjente talks about could easily fit into those sorts of situations, as well as where there is a conscious intent. This is a different sort of problem than an obvious 'sin'. I may very well present myself to you in a way that influences you profoundly, acting from a falsehood that lacks deliberate intent.

 

[Infjente]

@Deleted member 16771 @John K

I haven't been able to respond the last couple of days. But it's been in my head the whole time. I will reply when I can.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

@Deleted member 16771 @John K

I haven't been able to respond the last couple of days. But it's been in my head the whole time. I will reply when I can.

No worries, Innie. Take it easy

 

[Ramon Goudeau]

My problem is with the people that I let in, not the people that let me in. The problem is I love and dont get it back in a way that makes me feel loved in return. I feel tolerated. Not loved. I dont fucking ask for anything. I'll even give you my life. Even if you fuck me up emotionally, mentally. I'll still stay and take it for as much as I can. 1. 13 years , 2. 18 months, 3. 2 years. In exchange for love. When I dont feel that, I feel isolated and alone. When I have to go and actively seek out the affection, it is I having to seek, not it being given. I watch situations get created, and I just brace myself because later on, this will become an issue. I try to explain myself and end up defending myself and backing down. Being honest and seeking love causes me intense pain and anxiety and I just want the person to fucking realize what they're doing and fucking stop before it's too late. I even beg