Daily Excerpt: Understanding the Critic (Quinelle) - The Critic's Approach to Life


 

Excerpt from Understanding the Critic by Quinelle -

Chapter 5

Understanding the Critic’s Approach to Life

What is the Critic?

The Critic is an Intuitive Thinking Introvert (ITI). As such, he or she is a combination of the three expressed traits and the unexpressed trait Irrationality (emphasis on the Jungian definition, not the English-language lay definition).

Filatova describes the Critic in the following way:

Critics’ frowns and sullen expressions distinguish them from others. An onlooker might think that the Critic is criticizing them.

The figure is most often heavyset and bulky. Those who have strong Intuitive functions may appear unkempt. They do not pay attention to their appearance, causing those around them to want to look after them. In socializing, they are often gentle, courteous, and tactful. However, those with strong logic functions can be neat and orderly. Critics can be aggressive when their interests are threatened.

Critics perceive the world in its entirety and themselves as part of this completeness. They are philosophers, constantly watching the never-ending stream of events around them (p. 48).

A deeper look at each of these characteristics separately—Intuition, Thinking, and Introversion—provides insight into the Critic. Keep in mind that this ordering of the elements indicates that the Critic belongs to the Irrational personality group described by Jung.

Critics, like all Intuitive types, rely on personal impressions. They trust their intuitions more than they trust facts, data, statistics, or other kinds of objective input. Subjectivity is where they live and what they rely on. At the same time, they focus sharply on individual details, and sometimes the combination of this focus and what their Intuition tells them can make them uncertain.

Additionally, like all Intuiters, they live in the future and can be quite oblivious to what is going on around them, resulting in their being perceived as absent-minded. Routine is anathema to them, and comfort is not something they think about much. A Critic, then, can often appear to be lost in the world of his or her own ideas and internal motivations.

The type of Intuition displayed by critics can be said to be temporal. They understand the dynamics of development and are good at predicting where an endeavor is headed and where it may end up. Temporal Intuition can also be expressed in them as a poetic spirit or a form of mysticism, although neither of these characteristics is as strong in Critics as it is in their closest parallel personality type, the Romantics.

The Thinking type looks at the world as an objective system of laws and hierarchy. This type becomes involved in inventions and creations. They are fascinated by the structure of the universe but care little about the social world. They trust in facts and are unlikely to make rash decisions or hasty statements. Emotions confuse them, and they have a limited repertoire of appropriate responses in emotional situations; they would prefer to leave emotions out of their interactions and decisions.

The Introversion of the Critic propels him or her inward—into his or her own thoughts, values, and work. The value of ideas, for them, does not require the ability to operationalize them, i.e. make them real. The “real world,” then, and the world of ideas coincide for them, and the line of demarcation is gray and thin.

The Introverted Intuiter is good at foretelling events, especially if a change is in the air. However, they tend to look at these changes pessimistically, finding the negatives among the positives and assuming that difficulties will naturally lie ahead. Sometimes this gift takes on the cast of a curse: they begin to think that they know everything, there are no surprises in life for them, and most of it is bad. As a result, they can be melancholy at times. Other times, the “knowledge” of what may lie ahead makes them cautious. They are not risk takers and prefer gradual change to overnight overhauls.

The same is true in their interactions with people. When they meet new people, their strong Introverted Intuition leads them to feel that they are already old friends and that there is no surprise in the friendship—they already know the new person well. The positive side of this gift, though, is that their perceptions about people, especially ones they have not known long, can be pretty accurate and lead others to consider them as wise.

The Critic’s Strong Channels

Channel 1 (Personality Program) Characteristics of Critics

Critics scrutinize every question very carefully. Unlike Seekers who chase after change, Critics set a slow course—if they set a course at all—toward reaching their goals. They value incremental progress over rapid change, even when that change means gain.

The uncertainty that comes with seeing questions from all sides can cause them to hesitate when they should take steps that would benefit their families, their jobs, and themselves. Working within the big picture is less helpful to them than it could be because they are able to focus on the details within the picture and not simply slip into the stream of life that is flowing rapidly forward. If they do flow forward, it is at their own time, in their own way, and as a deliberate decision.

Channel 2 (Production) Characteristics of Critics

Critics are pragmatic in how they go about their daily lives. Their decisions are logical and practical in nature. Though they may have a poetic spirit at some level, this spirit does not interfere with making the choices that will get them closest to their goals.

Like other Intuitive Thinkers, they are skeptical of authority. Teachers have to earn their respect, as do political leaders, social leaders, and even parents and colleagues. Respect comes only when they see that the people they are dealing with “know their stuff,” i.e. that they have reasons for what they do, that they understand and effect the appropriate consequences—and accept them, and that they reach for logical conclusions, not emotional ones.

Dogmas amuse them, and, if amused enough, they will spend time reorganizing and restructuring the rules emanating from the dogma. As mentioned earlier, they can experience a deep spirituality, but they do tend to turn a blind eye to unquestioned/unquestionable faith, religious cults, and politics. “Do it because you are supposed to do it,” more often produces the opposite behavior than the one hoped for by the dogma-speaker, as do similar pronouncements, such as “everyone else is doing it,” “it has always been done this way,” “because I said so” (an ineffective way for parents to influence the behavior of Critic children), and, “that’s the rule.”

When Critics look to convince others of their persuasions, they use brainstorming sessions, group discussions (without peer pressure), shared governance, and other forms of democratic decision-making. For the Rational Sensers of any personality type, the Critic can feel emotionally threatening, though the Critic intends just the opposite resultant relationship from his or her democratic approach to drawing conclusions. The threat can seem even greater when the normal range of intellectual activity is undertaken by a Critic of above average intellectual capacity. Since Critics are given to what some others perceive as judgment and even criticism, relationships between Critics and non-Critics can become tentative from the side of the non-Critic. (After all, no one wants to be judged as not measuring up, especially by friends and especially where the “not measuring up” judgment refers to intellectual prowess.) With a proclivity for judging (even without realizing it) and the added trait of Introversion, Critics often earn the unfair label of being “aloof.”

Unlike Seekers, their Intuitive-Thinking peers, Critics are not likely to found any new institutions, but they are likely to develop new schools of thoughts that, over time, can change a profession or field. They are neither change masters, like the Seekers, nor implementers, like the group of personality types who are Rational Sensers; rather, they are idea generators.

The Critic’s Weak Channels

Channel 3 (Vulnerability) Characteristics of Critics

Critics consider emotions to be next to useless, something that gets in the way of getting things accomplished and that interferes with logical analysis. More often than not, a Critic will not express even an intensive emotion like love in words but through deeds. The Critic spouse of one non-Critic never said the words that most wives want to hear, “I love you.” Rather, when his wife went out of town on business, he would spend hours upgrading her home computer. Fortunately, she was able to understand the deed to represent exactly what the words would have.

That does not mean that Critics are incapable of strong feelings. Of course they are—whether those feelings be love, anger, frustration, or fear. They just simply choose to express those feelings in non-emotive ways.

Non-emotive expressions of feelings are not generally expected or understood by non-Critics. Take, for example, a non-Critic who comes to the Critic for sympathy. The instinct of the Critic will be to offer advice, try to analyze the situation with the non-Critic, look at the matter logically, and perhaps even try to explain why the non-Critic should have expected the situation. Clearly, this is not what the non-Critic wants and can come across as tactless. (Actually, it probably is tactless, but the Critic neither intends nor sees it that way.)

Tactless or not, the Critic is drawn to offering advice—or helping in any way. Critics love teaching (and disciplining), although they do not always understand what is good or bad in a given situation. Therefore, they proceed with the teaching, disciplining, and helping. Their weakness in the emotional channel can lead them to overdo helping, putting hours into helping someone else to their own detriment.

Channel 4 (Suggestibility) Characteristics of Critics

When it comes to determination, persistence, and drive, Critics can be quite contrary. Some can be very persistent and driven; others just the opposite. Even within one Critic, contrariness prevails. Give a Critic a challenging task in an area of interest, e.g., writing a deeply provocative book on his or her specialty, and the Critic won’t sleep until it is done. Driven to complete this task, the Critic will focus on nothing else until the task is completed. However, if asked to do something out of his or her area of interest, such as helping harvest a vegetable garden, the produce may rot on the vine. The Critic is not really lazy, but rather quite disinterested—and the Critic finds it nearly impossible to engage in boring tasks. 

Critics in Real Life

A well-known example of a Critic might be Mr. Spock of Star Trek. Introverted, he does not seek out companionship but will accept it from those he works with most closely. Intuitive, he is often the one to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat when all seems lost because of his innate ability to connect seemingly dissonant ideas and to think strategically. Given the Thinking personality trait, logic pervades all his decisions and choices. Finally, the Irrational trait may seem questionable—after all, are not all the episodes of Star Trek about action?—but Spock’s Irrational trait shows up in episode after episode when he cautions patience to Captain Kirk’s impulsivity or advises waiting out an event to see the turn it will take before choosing how to respond.

Other well-known Critic personalities, as suggested by Filatova, include Socrates, Sir Isaac Newton, Carl Jung, Honore de Balzac, Leo Tolstoy, Josef Brodsky, Thomas Mann, Richard Wagner, Ludwig van Beethoven, Charles de Gaulle, and Winston Churchill. Perhaps you can think of others? And of Critics among the people around you?

*Identification of the actual personality types of famous individuals is a matter of author hypothesis. To determine the actual personality type, the individual would have had to take a personality test. The hypothesis is made, then, based on observable behavior.

Something to Think About

Do you believe that you are a Critic? Take the test at the end of this book and determine if you are. If so, answer the questions in Section A below. If you are not a Critic but work, live, or play with Critics, answer the questions in Section B. Both are intended to provide real-life insight into the Critic and those with whom he or she associates.

Section A. Questions about Yourself as a Critic

If you are a Critic and you find yourself surrounded by non-Critics, whether in your office, school, home, or social groups, what might you expect to be the difficulties you will face, and how will you cope with them? Think, for example, about the following:

·       Most non-Critics are into communicating their feelings via words rather than actions and find touch comforting; how would you handle relationships where you are expected to be more “gushing” and to reciprocate touching that you already find off-putting?

·       Non-Critics are not nearly as logical as Critics and in some cases simply do not understand logical pragmatism, no matter how a Critic tries to describe it, explain it, or (good heavens) extol its virtues; and/or

·       With all the best intentions, a non-Critic may advise or even pressure a Critic to “put the book down,” or, “get out into the real world.”

Which of these things can you accept?

What can you do to adapt yourself?

What can you do to help those who surround you accept you as you are? (Can you, for example, have a discussion with them about Socionics and explain the conflict between your reliance on your (usually accurate) intuition and its centrality to everything you do and their greater tendency to look at life in a more objective, evidence-based vein? Can you show them some advantages to your intuition?

Section B. Questions about a Critic with Whom You Associate

If you are a non-Critic and find yourself surrounded by Critics (or, more likely, associating with a couple of Critics, given that Critics are relatively rare), what difficulties might you expect to face and how might you cope with them? Think, for example, about the following:

·       A Critic will avoid developing personal relationships, focusing instead on an idea, goal, campaign, principle of a matter, and so on;

·       A Critic will not tell you a “white lie” to make you feel good but provide an assessment based on both external data and intuited information; and/or

·       A Critic will often bring discord into a conversation or discussion in the form of skepticism and debate in order to get you to consider all angles of an issue.

Which of these things can you accept?

What can you do to adapt yourself?

What can you do to adapt the Critic? (Can you, for example, have a discussion about the ways in which discord can affect you or how much you appreciate a kind word here and there? Can you identify the elements you find lacking in your relationship and express your needs in a ‘Critic’ way—not emotionally dependent but conceptually based?)

Happy reading! Happy discovery!

Read more posts about Quinelle and her books HERE/

Read more posts about socionics HERE.


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