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PHQ | QUESTIONS FROM COMMUNITY: In this episode Joel and Antonia answer a question about personality types – ethics – IQ – and Emotional Intelligence.
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29 comments
Wow! Thanks for sharing that. How fascinating! I have explored the Graves Model and I find its macro (societal) and micro (individual) application fascinating.
I have intuited that ideals are evolving and we are seeing, what I believe, may be an upswing in intuitive personalities as people (at least in the western world) are becoming more intolerant of stagnation and traditional ideals (Si).
The era after WWII has always intrigued me. I’ve often felt like we took two steps forward and one step back after the War. Due to the War, Americans in general were forced from their insulated lives out into a world they knew little of. Then they came home the conquering heroes to a nation that celebrated by adopting more traditional ideals and forgetting, for a time, everything they had learned. Women were forced back into the home after feeling like their work had held a warring nation together. Men settled down to work corporate jobs and live in safe suburbs after seeing and experiencing the world. The 50s seemed very Graves 4 in its reliance upon institutions. But, I think it was a tenuous hold since it all exploded in the 60s.
(I was born in the 70s, so my reckoning of those decades preceding mine is more theoretical than experiential.)
As to your comment regarding climate – Fascinating! Antonia has observed that Graves shifts (macro and micro) are often accompanied by wars and/or conflict. So, you are saying that those shifts are also accompanied by climactic changes? Does that include the climate changes we are experiencing now?
I absolutely agree. I like to envision the different “worlds” like the inside of a clock tower. You have several interlocking cogs—the developed countries are one cog at one place on their cycle, interlocked with cog of developing countries which is at a different place in the cycle. Like you said, it evolves in its own time—I can’t make any of the cogs skip ahead in its revolution, it has to go nook for nook at a time (nook? I don’t know the word for the things on the side of a cog…ha, hopefully you know what I mean). This all harkens back to graves model/spiral dynamics thinking, each level emerging in a specific order.
Personally, I believe there is a correlation between the graves model, cognitive functions, and historical epochs. I decided one day just for shits and giggles to average the percentage of each dominant cognitive type to see if there was a pattern, using figures from several studies. In order from most common to least common its: 1. Si dominants, 2. Fe dominants, 3. Fi dominants, 4. Se dominants, 5. Ne dominants, 6. Ti dominants 7. Te dominants 8. Ni dominants. Maybe I am just looking for a correlation because I want there to be one (What the thinker thinks, the prover proves right?) I see the values attributed to those cognitive functions are much like the values at each graves level/the inferior qualities too. I’m not suggesting Si users are Graves level 1, I’m only contemplating whether the emergence of the graves levels follows the same pattern of emergence/evolution of the cognitive functions in our species.
Si/graves level 1: internal body sensations, security
Fe/graves level 2: tribal values
Fi/graves level 3: the individual
Se/grave level 4: hierarchial order (think aristocracy)
Ne/graves level 5: endless possibilities
Ti/graves level 6: egalitarian (this is where we are now) This might seem like a stretch. I guess I’m thinking of Albert Einstein—a Ti user/pacifist humanitarian. The Ti-Fe poles I spoke about above.
Te/graves level 7: systems thinking (this is where we are headed next in the developed world)
Ni/gravels level 8: holistic thinking (the last stage? then the cog repeats the loop?!?)
The US in my mind was at level 5 post WWII, with an Ne-Si polarized society (we can go to the moon, anything is possible/questioning and overturning old traditions like segregation in the South. the traditional role of women.) The 1980s/end of the cold war marked the transition into a more graves level 6 Ti/Fe world. This we can see in the rise of world humanitarian efforts, rise of the tech/internet and social media.
Whats interesting is, at each transition of an historical epoch you often see the emergence of new communication technology. Printing press, transatlantic telegraph cable, phone, airplane, radio, internet. Consciousness itself is communication between the different neurons. I’m a paleoclimatologist, and its the same situation for the planet. The earth tends to transition between climates and phases each time new “communication” opens up between ocean basins and circulation because of shifting continents/plate tectonics. Ha, yes that takes a grand leap of the imagination to see the correlation. I guess, the more I study ice ages, the more I realize cyclicity, the interconnectedness of everything, the constant pattern of rise and fall, and the role of communication in systems has played in the history of Earth and life.
Great comment Taylor! I especially like the addition of history to your analysis. I do think certain kinds of intelligence were celebrated differently throughout history. For instance, the wealthy magnates of the past (Rockefeller/Carnegie/Ford/Astor) seem more like they were using Te/Ni. They weren’t so concerned with the human element as they were with reaching their ultimate goal. Nowadays, such thinking is not celebrated by the western world (more of an Fe culture). So that even when someone reaches a pinnacle of success (Bill Gates) he sees the need to give back to the world.
What I think is interesting is how our Ti/Fe world is colliding with other cultures who are in the same place we were 100+ years ago. Cultures that are focused on achievement at any cost (under-developed Te) are drawing the censorship of the western world that has realized the world cannot sustain such myopic growth.
The problem with society, however, is that it evolves in its own time. Will an Fe/Ti dominant society be able to push a Te dominant society into Fe? I don’t think so. Unfortunately, everyone has to level-up in their own time.
(This is me just spit-balling here. Feel free to agree or disagree. ;) )
That’s a tough one. I can see how IPs could be more ethically driven (taking out the equation paradigm/environment). But as to EJs being more moral – do you think Te (Effectiveness) Drivers would use morals or ethics? I can see that a ESTJ (Te/Si) would be more interested in morals because of the Si copilot. But what about ENTJ (Te/Ni)? The Ni copilot might show up as more ethically driven, theoretically.
You do understand that there are two ways of looking at this. The glass can be half empty or half full, looks like you choose to see it half empty.