#ti-fe

The ongoing Ti-Fe dual

Again and again and again

“Many people discover relatively soon in life that the realm of their inferior function is where they are emotional, touchy and unadapted, and they therefore acquire the habit of covering up this part of their personality with a surrogate pseudo-reaction. For instance, a thinking type often cannot express his feelings normally and in the appropriate manner at the right time. It can happen that when he hears that the husband of a friend has died he cries, but when he meets the widow not a word of pity will come out. They not only look very cold, but they really do not feel anything! They had all the feeling before, when at home, but now in the appropriate situation they cannot pull it out. Thinking types are very often looked on by other people as having no feeling; this is absolutely not true. It is not that they have no feeling, but that they cannot express it at the appropriate moment. They have the feeling somehow and somewhere, but not just when they ought to produce it.”

If a person has an Fe/Ti axis, then, all other things being equal, he will tend to see all men as being essentially “cut from the same cloth” (Fe), while all observations pertaining to Thinking will unconsciously be seen as universally accessible, regardless of who made them (Ti). … Thus we have explained the Ti/Fe axis. By contrast, if a person has a Te/Fi axis, that person will be more inclined to view each person as unique, different and very much his own person (Fi). And with this differentiation – all men being decidedly NOT cut from the same cloth – a hierarchization of people is implied (Te). ... Se/Ni vs. Si/Ne If a person has an Se/Ni axis, then that person’s observations will be more singular and intense (Christopher Hitchens, Oprah Winfrey, General Patton). The person will stress one point of view (Ni), which is indeed frequently the viewpoint that generates the greatest yield here and now (Se). The singularity of observation involved will frequently lend a manifest and immediate quality to the Se/Ni type’s observations, which in turn tends to make them convincing. On the other hand, if a person has an Si/Ne axis, that person’s observations will be more multifaceted, drawing upon multiple perspectives at once (Ne). The person will also be more careful and meticulous (Si) because there is an unconscious striving to contribute one’s observations to building a system which is valid not just in the here and now, but which is perceived to be true in general: To generate the type of knowledge that could conceivably end up in a future textbook on the subject.