The INFJ type in American Society

In a dream I had last week, I was at a T-shirt store. The store was overcrowded, and I really wanted a white t-shirt. Somehow I got the attention of an African American salesman, who recommended I instead try a military green tone. I tried it. And loved it. Per Jungian analysis, the symbolistic interpretation of this dream illuminated an encrypted message that my personal unconscious was attempting to convey. I needed to drop the white persona I was acting out in society for a more natural one.

I am an INFJ — this should be familiar to you if you’ve taken the Myers Briggs test.

I walk home everyday from work, and reflect on transpired events. It takes quite a bit of emotional stamina to get through the day, to be heard, to listen and empathize, to be assertive, to obey and order, to care and understand, and be understood. The act of countless adaptations I undergo each day to remain level-winged and even-tempered makes me question how much of the day I spend in actually being myself — that is my real Self (with a capital S). Not some adapted, contorted version.

I contemplate whether I’d hold the same social position, career title and dignity if I suddenly began acting out my authentic persona. Probably not. And pardon the absolutist claims that follow here.

American society is for the extraverted, the vocally opinionated, the loud ones who shout excruciating detail from the treetops. The mindful, and the more quieter patiently listen, relentlessly cycling in and out of self-analysis, weighing the multi-dimensional blast radius of every phrase being considered for articulation. In doing so, they pay a heavy personal tax each time they interact with society. It gets painfully expensive.

In that light, I repeatedly find myself enduring an enormous psychic strain during social discussions where topics of common interest or decisions of strategic proportions are being conversationally pursued. In the essence of contributing to the conversation with a thought of my own, I instead find myself ingesting a concatenation of frivolous opinions, cursory arguments, obvious remarks encrusted within an inattentively lazy or compulsive attitude.

I’ve dialogued with folks about this hopeless feeling, and questioned whether society is even capable of deep listening. Its a complex question.

Sometimes social settings appear to be a camaraderie of extraverted folks attempting to secretly usurp one another for the purpose of gaining social power. There is no authentic listening. The introvert quietly observes and often goes home unheard. Most of this can be cleverly attributed to our instinctual makeup, or some sociological theory. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone even myopically frames this as a personal insecurity thing — their claim further validates my argument. And in doing so, I feel they hand-wash themselves out of their respective personal responsibility that is automatically implied by our diverse society.

An additional element that eats away at me is the nasty anti-intellectual vein running through American society. This vein is as old as our country itself. Anti-intellectualism is compounded by a society where everyone is an expert, where all opinions are equal, and where the real experts are practically dead. After reading Richard Hofstadter’s pulitzer prize winning Anti-intellectualism in American Society, I’ve finally discovered an extravagant assortment of explanations to problems I’ve previously only experienced in society. The fathead, loud and dumb, know-nothingism attitude that dominates a powerful side of everyday religion, politics, business, and education.

If extroverts talk past the introverts, anti-intellectuals take it to the next level. Their antics completely bury the introverts, and render any hope to be heard useless. So with that in hindsight, how far down the chain of the vocally suppressed does that leave the innocuous introvert? If they are to be ambitious, and earn a living in this extraverted, part anti-intellectual society, can they really accomplish personal goals while being wholly authentic?

An INFJ cannot single-mindedly provide solutions to this deeply rooted cultural and social reality. It is the transformation of hearts and attitudes. It is an inner willingness to self-reflect and change in each individual. It is the authentic desire to empathetically listen for unique substance, to avoid reductionism, and eliminate pigeonholing. It is to gain awareness about your prejudices and biases, and recognize the quieter ones who appear content around us without saying much. It is all of this and more that needs to occur if we are to call ourselves a “diverse and inclusive society” someday.