#Bill Gates spectrum behavior

[in-sightjournal]

Ask A Genius 1017: The Steven Stutts Session

Rick Rosner, American Comedy Writer, www.rickrosner.org Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Independent Journalist, www.in-sightpublishing.com Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Steven Stutts asks, “What do you think of the relationship between intelligence and awareness?” Rick Rosner: In fiction, I’m thinking of Sherlock Holmes, the genius who notices patterns in the world and details that people of regular…

[iamwhoyouthinkaboutinbed]

Charisma on command. - How to spot a Narcissist before they hurt you.

Having the world view them in a way that strokes their ego: They’re hyper driven to maintain the persona that they have constructed. For example, Elizabeth Holmes wanted to be the female Steve Jobs so she wore black turtlenecks, and had plenty of them and she used them everyday for work. She copied Steve’s live demo slow reveal of the product and hired a bunch of ex apple employees at the beginning of her company. 

(In an attempt to maintain their persona) They will lie about seemingly ridiculous things: Maybe they tell fantastic stories about their own life that never happened like: The fire festival co-founder who insisted that he purchased an island owned by Pablo Escobar when in fact they were actually kicked off of that island by the real owner for even mentioning Pablo Escobar’s name in the promotional materials. Now in Elizabeth’s case, on ridiculous lies she told all the time was about her real voice. Since there’s no real victim, this type of lie to promote a particular image might seem quirky and forgivable but be very wary of these for they can be signs of a deeper need to control how people see them, and which is a textbook narcissistic trait and these people are ofter very disconnected from the feelings of guilt or shame that would discourage other people from this fraudulent and damaging behavior. 

They have a different relationship with lying: Most people have limits on how flagrantly we’re willing to lie, we prefer instead to bend the truth and the more egregious our lies become, the more visibly uncomfortable we are. Not so much with the narcissistic type. They can tell boldface flagrantly fossilized without skipping a beat, mostly because they don’t take it as an exact lie. Extremely smart people, including an ex Secretary of State and Silicon Valley investors whose job is to be skeptical, but not one them caught Elizabeth, very likely because she doesn’t exhibit the same nervousness around lies that most people would. So, do not assume that a calm demeanor means that someone is telling the truth, especially if they are this narcissistic type. If this person is for instance or even deeper on that spectrum into psychopathy, studies that involve FMRI scans show that they might now even spend any extra time processing alive because their brains don’t need to seem to suppress the truth to even focus attention or control body language. All of that occurs naturally to them, it’s like they’re inventing a world in their head with no effort, and this is how many people get fooled by compulsive and pathological lies, they assume lying must stress other people out because it stresses them out, and it makes no sense that anyone could lie so comfortably so they assume that comfortable demeanor means the liar is telling the truth. 

A much better heuristic for you to detect pathological lies is the 10,000 foot view, and this means rather than watching one individual’s body language or even listening to their explanations of which there will be many, you summarized their claims at a very high level and then you let your intuition tell you if that just make sense. 

In the case of Elizabeth Holmes, this is exactly how the reporter who cracked her case was first inspired to dig into her story, he said: ‘’And that story, that something that struck me as odd which was this notion that a 19 year old college dropout with just two semesters of chemical engineering under her belt has dropped out of college and pioneered groundbreaking new science, you know that’s something that’s possible in the realm of computers and computer software obviously with Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, cause they both have done that, but in medical science you need the formal training, and you need to do years and decades of research to add value’’

This is an important point, it seems that psychopaths, sociopaths, whatever you call them, and I’m not saying that Elizabeth falls in any oh these particular categories, but whatever this compulsive lying category is, these people have an easier time tricking our brains than they do our gut reaction, and its partially because they have an explanation for everything.

They often don’t give up on the lie: when most of us get caught red-handed we slump our shoulders in defeat, all that is left to do is feel shame, say we’re sorry and hopefully be forgiven. But this type of person who lies compulsively will continue even when the cat is out of the bag. Billy McFarlane of fire festival, for instance, ran a second scam while was out on bail, he offered his email list for the fire festival tickets to the Grammys to meet & greets with celebrities like LeBron James, of course, which he had no access to, if they would just send him some money. 

Now, this is what Elizabeth Holmes told investors just a mont before Theranos shut its doors after she had been barred from holding a position as an officer of a public company by the SEC, in a letter to shareholders that day she basically explained that the company would likely be liquidated by the end of July, but the interesting things is that she was telling people that she was going to start a new company. Yes, just after being convicted os securities fraud and with criminal charges pending Elizabeth maintained the idea that she would be running a company soon. And again, this just goes to illustrate that this type has a very different relationship with truth, images takes precedence over external reality and it seems to happen effortlessly.

Finally, in the event that you do raise your issues with this type of person… They will likely to dismiss you: They’re very likely to trow you off in one of two ways. Typically they will label you a hater and cut you out as Elizabeth Holmes and her boyfriend did when subordinates raised issues. One of the subordinates received this emails from Sunny Bhiwani: ‘’That reckless comment based on absolute ignorance is so insulting to me that had any other person made these statement, we would have held them accountable in the strongest way. The only reason I have taken so much time away from work to address this personally is because you are Mr. Shultz’s grandson. The time that Elizabeth and Daniel have personally spent with you on this topics is a privilege - again not a right - that you are abusing now, insulting the people who have served the company and it’s mission the hardest and the longest and demeaning their intentions. Regardless of your intent, your actions and the patronizing comments in this email do not reflect that intent. 

I have now spent an extraordinary amount of time postponing critical business matters to investigate your assertions - the only email on this topic I want to see from you going forward is an apology that I’ll pass on to other people including Daniel here.’’

Or if you’re more powerful, they’ll sway your concern by appealing to some kind of conspiracy against them. Holmes for instance said that no one could see the technology at Theranos for this reason: ‘’The only way that investors were gonna get responses to their questions was if they signed NDA’s because the Theranos proprietary technology trade secrets were so valuable, and  that Quest and LabCorp, the two dominant players in the Lab industry, were trying to find out answers to those questions by any means possible.’’ 

So, when you start to hear with us or against us ultimatum, or hearing about how secrecy is necessary for reasons that might make for a good plot in a John Grisham novel, BE ON RED ALERT. In my experience it is more often the case that someone is trying to con you. 

[weebsinstash]

Did you see elon's dickriders defending him by saying 'he's on the autism spectrum guys dont judge him!!!!!' just straight up throwing nd folk under the bus and acting like being a spoiled narcissistic clown is a symptom of autism

Dude literally two of the people I consider my closest friends whom I've met online are both autistic and they are the most sweetest kindest supportive people i have ever had the pleasure of calling friends who have supported me through extremely difficult times in my life 🥺

Elon has just downright unempathetic behavior coupled with always needing to be the smartest guy in the room while lacking the qualifications for all the attention he feels entitled to receive, like when Dave Chapelle invited him up and everyone was booing, stopped to laugh at Dave Chappelle's jokes, and then booing Elon again, and he has to go on Twitter going on about "leftist snowflakes in LA" because yeah that's definitely who's going to Dave Chapelle stand-up. And then also DC implied people were only booing because they were poor and its like wow ok just insult the people who came to your show because you invited some random billionaire douchebag up especially during record inflation and people still suffering from the pandemic? He's not even funny, he's not what people came to see, it's a fucking stand up show, it's like if you went to a Taylor Swift concert and she said "alright everyone put your hands together for special guest Bill Gates"

But no he's gotta act like he was only treated with absolute public humiliation because "oh clearly those people were just emotional and unreasonable because My Penis Is Just So Huge And Big And Everyone Loves Me Because I Am Cool" ykwim like it's annoying behavior from a man with, 9 children i think it is? Also shout out to his trans daughter who literally chose to be disinherited and change her last name because she is disgusted by him and rejects every and any connection to him, may she live a happy life ❤

[horsenews12]

Invoice To Prevent Mistreatment Of Tennessee Strolling Horses Passes

A good house to me means homeowners who correctly care for the horse whereas it’s theirs; then if or when they need to promote it, they take the time to search out it one other good residence. 

My Three Kids died Sunday, according to the racing board. She had one win in 14 career starts and earnings of $14,908. She finished second in her final race on Feb. 6 at Golden Gate. NIANTIC -- It is a horrible story of animal abuse, however now, there is hope for a gaggle of uncared for horses.

A North Dakota man accused of feeding moldy hay and denying water to numerous horses that wound up dead or sick has been charged with felony animal cruelty.

 Mercer County deputies found 15 lifeless horses and 11 lifeless foals and fetuses over the weekend on the property of Shanan Weigum, of Zap, They additionally discovered a donkey and 39 horses in poor condition, as well as four dead lambs. 

The Bismarck Tribune stories that two of the sick horses needed to be euthanized and two were transported for therapy of infections. Zap is positioned about 60 miles (ninety six.5 kilometers) northwest of Bismarck. 

CARLTON, Ore. — The proprietor of a horse farm southwest of Portland is dealing with a felony charge for animal neglect, after investigators discovered almost 50 horses there weren't being given sufficient food or water. 

CARLTON — The owner of a horse farm southwest of Portland is facing a felony cost for animal neglect, after investigators discovered nearly 50 horses there were not being given sufficient food or water.

This can also be true if you have calves in your possession too. Their stables must be cleaned twice day by day and should be strengthened enough to have the ability to cease the elements from posing a risk to your horses. Remember that a proper environment applies to both the indoors and outside.

In 2020, Stetson began 149 horses at Fon and completed fifth within the standings with 22 wins and a 15 p.c win rate. He then went west to claim leading coach honors at Arapahoe Park last summer with 22 wins from a hundred and fifty starts – he's consistent. 

Stetson trains to race; watch for his runners at the entry field and winners circle. Vaughan feels that almost all of her rescue horses originally got here from houses with a properly-meaning person who lacked the experience wanted to take on a horse, particularly one that turned out to have behavioral issues.

 Instead of taking the time, assets and energy needed to work by way of those problems, people gave up and returned the horse. I APPLAUD PROFESSIONAL trainers who often absorb abandoned, neglected and/or rescued horses to properly train and put together for a hopefully long-term and good house.

The group has repeatedly demonstrated the facility of partnering with horses—in non-driving interactions—to successfully obtain private progress and therapeutic.

 Horses stay in herds, which implies they can get anxious if they’re the one ones round. Older horses are particularly prone to this, and so they usually require a bit extra care than the youthful ones.

When she went to feed her horses the subsequent morning, she knew one thing was incorrect. They say SCRAPS simply showed up and took their animals. SCRAPS says they were investigating expenses of Animal Cruelty, Transporting or Confining Animals in an Unsafe Manner and operating an illegal commercial kennel. 

Hollingsworth’s lawyer Steve Greenberg objected to that request, saying he’d seen no evidence that his consumer presents any hazard to his animals. While he acknowledged Hollingsworth could have had a lapse in judgment in using NuNu onto the busy expressway, Greenberg said his client did not intend to seriously injure the horse. 

Weeks after he pleaded not responsible to a felony animal abuse charge, the person often known as the “Dreadhead Cowboy” has been ordered to have no contact with any of the horses he owns while his criminal case performs out.

The horse gained that race and another contest in February of final year in Florida after receiving adulterated and misbranded PEDs earlier than each races, according to the indictment. 

Cable news show Spectrum News 1 aired a characteristic on Cal Poly Pomona’s Horses for Heroes program on multiple newscasts on Feb. 12. Through this system, 10 scholar veterans had been matched with horses at the W.K. 

Kellogg Arabian Horse Center for the mutual advantage of the horses and the veterans. One recent morning, he drove down a dusty non-public drive lined with orange groves.

A few weeks earlier, a resident had called him on his cell phone to report a suspicious van there. The people inside appeared to be taking footage of horses. 

So far, that is the only case that the Animal Hospital has seen this year. If you could have any questions about this case or the plant itself, contact your native veterinarian. It is also crucial to contact your veterinarian should you suspect that your animal has consumed the plant. 

It is not only toxic to horses, but in addition to cows, sheep and goats. Project Horse is one of the solely equine therapy centers within the United States targeted exclusively on mental well being and wellness.

Posted on-line this month, the coverage replaces one that limited consumers to purchasing 4 wild horses every six months until granted particular permission. Senate and House leaders will now meet to type out the differences between the bills in what is known as a Conference Committee. 

We want the Senate to hold the line on each wild horses protections and horse slaughter. Senate handed a win to wild and home horses on Wednesday by approving a Fiscal Year 2019 “mini-bus” appropriations package deal that included protecting language for wild horses and burros as well as an anti-slaughter provision.

 Orlando and Willerslev's paper hints at the other kinds of discovery that these applied sciences can allow. X Y Jet received the celebrated Dubai Golden Shaheen at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai in March 2019, which paid $1.5 million to the winner, highlighting a career of 12 victories and more than $3 million in earnings  about horses .

Furthermore, you’ll wish to make sure to supply your horse with adequate blanketing and shelter. No matter in case your shelter is a run-in shed or a stable, having a spot for the horse to go is essential for proper care, as horses will need to get out of the wind and rain.

 Make certain you are always on the lookout for indicators of sicknesses similar to runny eyes and noses, coughing, or wheezing to maintain on high of your horse’s well-being. Visual checkups must be carried out every day, so you don’t miss something that’s preventable by mistake.

 The Southwest, the final of three stakes set for today, was originally scheduled for Feb. 15, along with the Grade III, $600,000 Razorback Handicap for horses 4 years old and up. Both had been twice postponed because of ice and record snowfall. Each joins the $200,000 Spring Fever Stakes for fillies and mares 4 years old and up as right now's feature races.

[leecyprint]

Celebrities Breaking Stereotypes: The Rise of Those with Autism in the Spotlight

In recent years, the number of celebrities openly sharing their experiences with autism has been on the rise. These individuals are breaking down stereotypes and changing the way society views autism. Through their work and activism, they are raising awareness and advocating for acceptance and understanding.

Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects communication, social interaction, and behavior. It is a complex condition that affects individuals differently and to varying degrees. Despite this, people with autism have often been marginalized and misunderstood in society.

However, with more and more celebrities sharing their experiences, the public perception of autism is slowly changing. These celebrities are using their platform to educate the public and promote understanding of autism. By doing so, they are helping to break down stereotypes and create a more inclusive society.

In addition, some celebrities with autism have been outspoken about their experiences and have used their platform to raise awareness about the condition. This has helped to break down stereotypes and has increased understanding about the strengths and challenges of autism. It is also important to note that some celebrities may have been diagnosed with autism later in life or may have undiagnosed autism, further highlighting the need for better understanding and education about the condition.

Some of the celebrities who have come forward to share their experiences with autism include actress Holly Robinson Peete, singer Susan Boyle, and model, actress, and television host Padma Lakshmi. These individuals have used their experiences to raise awareness, advocate for change, and inspire others with autism.

In conclusion, the rise of celebrities with autism in the spotlight is a positive trend that is helping to break down stereotypes and promote understanding and acceptance of autism. As more and more individuals come forward, it is our hope that society will become more inclusive and supportive of those with autism.

This article is based on the following sources: https://leecyprint.com/celebs-with-autism-elon-musk-and-bill-gates/

[trustcall]

Kennedy child study center bronx

#Kennedy child study center bronx full

That’s why our program evaluates each child and makes individualized recommendations that fit that child’s - and that family’s - needs. Our Approach to Feeding Disorders Treatment:Īs a parent, you know there is no one size fits all solution to treating feeding disorders in children. Our program is here to help you alleviate the frustrations that come with meal time. We understand that by the time you and your child visit our program, you have tried many feeding strategies on your own. We work with children with behavior-related feeding issues (including children with autism spectrum disorder) and those with medical issues that make eating or swallowing difficult.

#Kennedy child study center bronx full

Retrieved January 2, 2022.The Pediatric Feeding Disorder Program at Kennedy Krieger Institute treats the full spectrum of feeding disorders, from aggressive tantrums to vomiting during meal time. "Paul McGrath, Actor, Dead at 74 Host of Radio's 'Inner Sanctum' ".

^ "High School of Computers and Technology".

^ "High School for Contemporary Arts".

^ "Bronx High School for Writing and Communication Arts".

^ "NYC Department of Education School Search".

^ "Department of Education phases out five low-performing schools".

^ "School Principal Dies at His Desk Evander Childs Stricken as He Tries to Answer the Bell for Morning Exercises".

Jack Shapiro (1907-2001) was an American football player for the Staten Island franchise of the early National Football League, noted for being the shortest player in NFL history.

Carl Reiner (1922–2020) was an American actor, comedian, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned seven decades.

Paul McGrath (1904-1978) was an American actor.

("Evan Hunter" may have been taken from Evander Childs High School and Hunter College). He also wrote the 87th Precinct police novels under the pen name Ed McBain.

Evan Hunter (1926-2005) was a pen name of American author and screenwriter Salvatore Albert Lombino, who wrote the novel The Blackboard Jungle (1954), which was adapted into the film Blackboard Jungle in 1955.

Harry Helmsley (–1997) was an American real estate billionaire whose company, Helmsley-Spear, owned the Empire State Building.

Philip D'Antoni (1919-2018), American film and television producer best known for producing the Academy Award-winning film The French Connection.

High School of Computers and Technology (X275).

High School for Contemporary Arts (X544).

Bronx High School for Writing and Communication Arts (X253).

Bronx Academy of Health Careers (X290).

The New York City Department of Education operates six public high schools on the Evander Childs campus: The campus is located at 800 East Gun Hill Road. Evander Childs High School was closed that year and split into six smaller, specialized schools. Īs part of the mayor of the city's push of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's small schools initiative, Evander was labeled an "impact" school in 2008 and slated to be phased out not long afterward. In 1938, James Michael Newell, working under the Public Works of Art Project and the Federal Art Project, painted eight murals titled The History of Western Civilization at the school. The campus was named after Evander Childs, principal of Public School 10 in the Bronx who died at his work desk on April 11, 1912. The former Evander Childs High School, part of the Evander Childs Educational CampusĮvander Childs Educational Campus is a cluster of public high schools located on the campus of the former Evander Childs High School in the Gun Hill section of The Bronx, New York City.

[ammarbamahkale]

Bringing interviews to life

ID:123411

Data: May 10,2021

I collected the best ten in interviews, In the beginning I worked on Barbara Walters ,Including five interviews by Barbara Walters, after that I worked on another five interviews by Larry king, the first developing four points explaining and analyzing these interviews the type of, second description of the interview the interview quality, third questions, and fourth the interview style.

Biography of Barbara Walters: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Barbara-Walters

Barbara Walters was born on September 25, 1929. She is an American journalist in the fields of journalism, writing, and broadcasting. She works for the National Broadcasting Corporation ABC News magazine. Barbara Walters has presented many morning televisions programs, such as "Today" and "The View." She also presented the magazine "News Magazine", in addition to her work as an assistant broadcaster on the World News program at ABC News.

Walters was famous in her early days for her presentation of the morning television news program “Today”, which she presented on NBC News for more than 10 years. Walters gave thousands of private interviews where she interviewed many famous American and international personalities. She also conducted an interview with the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the late Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar Sadat, the late Jordanian King Hussein, Chinese Prime Minister Jiang Zemin, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, former Russian President Paul Yeltsin, the current Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi. Barbara has also met all American presidents and their wives since the Richard Nixon administration.

This American journalist succeeded because she was determined to continue striving and was doing her best to win the public's approval, and her program was also met with a great response from viewers.

Biography of Larry King: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Larry-King

Larry King was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Russian Jewish immigrant family in 1933. Larry King was at the age of nine when his father died from a heart attack. Due to this tragic incident, his mother had to live on subsidies to raise him and his younger brother. Larry King went on to find work after he graduated from high school.

His dream was to work in the media, so a friend advised him to go to Miami, and there he applied to work in a small radio station. In the restaurant, his wages were only $ 50 a week.

King is described as a giant of television presentation, as he was a successful partner in founding CNN from 1985 until 2010, and won many awards including two Peabody Awards, a prestigious award given annually by the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia in recognition of for media achievements.

In 1995, he met the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, the Jordanian monarch King Hussein, and the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He introduced everyone on the screen through his program, and his guest list included a wide spectrum, from the Dalai Lama to Elizabeth Taylor, from Mikhail Gorbachev to Barack Obama and from Bill Gates to Lady Gaga. He had even met with Paris Hilton who spoke about her time in prison in 2007 and had also met Michael Jackson's friends and family members to talk about his death in 2009.

The famous American journalist Larry King, one of the most prominent media faces in the United States, died on Saturday at the age of 87, at the Cedars Sinai Center in Los Angeles, due to infection with the Corona virus. Larry King has been described as the master of the microphone, giving around 50 thousand interviews in his life. He was famous for wearing bras in his conversations, during which he hosted world leaders, movie stars and community celebrities.

Barbara Walters.

The first interview is E.L. James in Barbara Walters 10 most fascinating people. https://youtu.be/XzRbcL-a6M8

Interview description:

The interview is about the book '50 Shades of Grey' and the author of the book is asked many questions about it. She is asked about how it has affected her personal life and about her feelings towards it.

Style of interviewing

The style is casual but very comedic. The interviewer is very personal at times and extremely forward. She even repeats a question when she doesn't get a full answer. Both and interviewer and author can be heard laughing several times. Overall, it is a very open and informal style of interviewing.

Types of questions

The interviewer asks very open and personal questions. The questions allow the author to explain herself.

Quality of the interview

The quality is good for its theme and style. The interviewer's tone of voice suits the comedic and casual style of the interview. It is quite funny and there are several moments of laughter. However, in terms of professionalism, I would say that some of the questions were quite inappropriate.

Larry king.

The first interview stared Sacha Baron Cohen. https://youtu.be/qqa7YhsroW8

Interview description:

The interview was not official between the journalist and the guest, and the atmosphere of the interview was also filled with ridicule, mockery and belittling of Arab presidents who were recorded in history at their best. The guest showed poor behavior during the interview.

Style of interviewing:

The style of the interview was neither interesting nor enjoyable, and the guest had the audacity to imitate some of the dictatorial Arab presidents. There was a lack of enthusiasm in the interview.

Types of questions:

The types of questions between the two parties were generally normal but at times the guest would refrain from answering some questions and the journalist would repeat the question to obtain the answer. I would not consider the questions as having been too strong or embarrassing.

Quality of the interview:

The atmosphere in the interview was one in which there was a lack of commitment and respect by the guest to the journalist. For example, the guest was taking saliva out of his mouth on to the floor in front of the journalist and was acting in other disgusting manners.

Conclusion:

After completing the analysis of the interviews, we will present to you a graph that shows you what points were repeated a lot and what points were repeated a little in terms of previous interviews, formal or informal, the atmosphere of the interview, the type of questions and the quality of the interview.

Also, in terms of my research and my follow-up of the top ten interviews of Larry king and Barbara Walters, I found that "Barba" enjoys direct questions with the guests, and that she seeks to meet very official figures, for example she has interviewed several heads of state and politicians in the world, and that she seeks to be the one who did the first interview. In her interviews with people, the formal atmosphere is dominant. However, the questions vary from an individual to another.

As for the interviews of Larry king, they are largely based on comedic questions and personal questions from one person to another, as Larry king’s interviews are often informal, but rather rely on laughter and comedy, and he works to smooth out the atmosphere with various questions.

[jumpydolly]

Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen... (2)

Summary: Your favorite past times are bar hopping in search of different ways to get you drunk, nights with the lone wolf sheriff of Hawkins, Indiana, and becoming greatly awestruck over the powers of one mysterious little girl. 

Jane has no idea what any of that means.

Or, in other words, a series of drabbles regarding you, the lovely Jane, and the less than lovely Jim Hopper.

Chapter One: Honey, I’m Home!

Chapter Two: Relationship Advice 101

Karen Wheeler was a woman who strived for success. Well past her prime, she had struck gold within the idea of white picket fences and middle-class wealth. Of course the best place to look was a man with a well-paying job, his behind sitting on a pile of cash—compiled up in hundreds, you imagined—due to his hard work, dedication, and the fortune of being a part of a supposedly superior race. Now Ted Wheeler, arguably an airhead, fell in love with Karen’s youthful appearance and reckless demeanor and snatched her from the life of trivialities to fulfill a family society desired... and that was where her three children Nancy, Michael, and Holly came in.

That was Karen Wheeler in a nutshell.

You did not like Karen Wheeler.

However, she opened her home to you on the worst of nights, coddling you like a lost, lovesick teenager because your love life was a sham. She would reach up and shuffle around for the coffee grounds in her cabinet along with the container of sugar that would surely be gone by the time you left, providing you that warmth the cruel man couldn’t give you. A shitload of cream was the curt remind out of you, the blur of your unconsciousness fogging up any filter you thought you had, and your nose scrunched up as if about ready to follow the tears prepared to streak down your face. Those were your worst of nights, because the scent of those coffee grounds would reach your nostrils and your heart would ache because somehow the bitter fuel tasted like heaven only when Jim Hopper himself opened those pearly gates… and you would shut down all over again.

Somehow Karen saw fit to chime in with advice here and there, chiding your broken form with quotes from a fantasy novel—a romance plot you doubted she would ever live, yet no one was to know of your own thoughts but you—and the attempts made to comfort a friend who didn’t know the path their life was leading them was futile. Perhaps a fraction of you longed for those words of warning, a tone pitiful of a friend in unrequited love, pulling a body overwhelmed with exhaustion into Karen’s long and spacious driveway in hopes of saving. There were few times where she had ignored your cry for help, her lips tugging into a frown but eventually willing her hands to invite you to her suburban household. It was either that or losing a valuable bill in her wallet after a night out drinking, one she never remembered but still suffered with the effects nonetheless.

This time, you figured, would be no different, except no words could escape you regarding your morning. Your morning, you wished it was, but the addition of another threatened to ruin the balance you deceived yourself into existing. It was quite a predicament you found yourself in the middle of, attempting to comprehend the notion of Jim Hopper, a man who found the answer to sweet release in the nearest fool of a woman, opening his cabin to not just you but a child slowly blossoming into adulthood. She also happened to refuse to speak more than a few words at a time when conversing with you, which is why you refused to call her a preteen until she acted like one. It wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest if your irritation was reason for her mere existence, and every fiber of your being would believe that to be true until the day you left this Earth you assured.

All you could do was throw your head up high at the toddler babbling nonsense at you in her high chair, eyes wide like nothing in the world was as interesting as your issues, and pray she wouldn’t end up like this girl. “’Sup, Holly,” you said, and it was quite fitting to reach for her attention considering her own mother couldn’t will her interest in you out of her. In such a mundane household where life hadn’t begun for her yet, where worries of love and strife were of distant thoughts, watching the tears and snot she would have already picked from her nose run down your face was amusing. Something about your suffering was entertainment to kids you supposed.

The blonde halted in pulling at her twin ponytails, opening her palm to wave at you. At least she gave you that.

“A shitshow—” A shitshow, that’s what my life is. You can buy bootlegs for it in some dark back alley, was what you wanted to say, but a sudden gasp left your fellow adult as she narrowed her eyes at your impudence. Scoffing at your cheeky behavior, she reminded you of your faults and complemented your mischievous grin with a frown. Upon your vulgar vocabulary, the mother of three wasted no time in shoving the carrot puree against her youngest daughters’ taste buds, banishing the thought of such words from the little girl’s head with acquired taste. Never again would you corrupt the naivety of this child with adulthood, which was a shame because Holly was quite the listener.

Showing up uninvited at the Wheeler household was always a common occurrence from you, yet snow boots you recognized as Mike and Nancy’s sat beside the door untouched. Streaks of coalescing colors among the spectrum spread along the floor, the sun providing that existential warmth in case the winter proved too cold. Never have you needed relationship advice before the children left for school, instead of when the moon rose to its highest and the day was mere minutes away from ending. Your appearance would have proven bothersome, except earlier events left you in a cluster of emotions you could not describe, and you threw away the possibility of interrupting what upper middle-class life must have been like for some clarification of where your life was leading you.

“So, um… remember when I told you about the guy I was sort of… kind of with?” Karen found you at the corner of her eye, waiting for your riveting continuation. “Well… he brought a kid.”

Judging by her reaction, you concluded that it would have been better to seek solace in a beer bottle.

[isiswrites]

a manifesto- a call for the end of liberalism, and an analysis of the 2020 election

10/18/2020 

The hypocrisy of “both sides” of the political two-party system is impossible to ignore; every day the conservative and the liberal party become more deeply entrenched in their own self-produced agendas. While most critiques of “both sides” are often center-right leaning and are encoded with messages of propaganda against extremist factions (often misguided and identified incorrectly), leaving the reader with a dissatisfied sense of center extremism, this is a critique drawing heavily on a Marxist scholarship and grassroots activism. While most would classify these perspectives as “progressive”, that term has become synonymous with a Bernie Sanders “reform” driven ideology that relies heavily on blame and cultural classism. This critique of the modern political parties and the Liberal’s abhorrent approach to “voting fascism out” resides somewhere so far left that it may touch some ideology of anti-big government libertarians-- as the political “spectrum” is most likely shaped as a circle instead of a straight line with polarizing ends. What the libertarians would take up arms to (no pun intended) is the vehement anti-capitalist and anti-private ownership approach to modern socioeconomic and political matters. The only solution to a country in need of constant reform is a complete upheaval of all governing systems. Abolition is the only answer to a failing government-- this calls for the abolition of capitalism, the criminal justice system, and politics as we know it. The framework we need is anti-racist, anti-oppressive, anti-classist, and also pro collectivity, communism, and ultimately activist-driven. 

The fundamental reality is that while the two party system controls the political realm in real applicable ways (which bills are passed, supreme court nominations, and public discourse), the social movements that are heavily categorized by “two party bipartisanship” are more nuanced-- instead of it being as simple as “the right” and “the left”, social movements and unrest derive from groups that are challenging to define. It is not so easily defined as Democrats and Republicans or Liberals and Conservatives-- while the real tangible implications of political decision making happens between these two parties, the discourse that motivates opinion, choice, and most fatal-- violence-- is hard to place. Social discourse, the “zeitgeist” of individual and collective political unrest, and thoughts are taking hold in somewhat of a makeshift fashion, thus producing a diaspora of political opinions. 

This “diaspora” of political opinions, emotions, and identities is a tool intentionally weaponized by the establishment-- and I would argue, upheld largely by establishment democrats. Collectivism or true community cohesion is the largest threat to our government’s autocratic “democracy”. Liberalism and neoliberalism are founded upon a myth of the individual, and the power of communal spirit and collective action promise to turn those ideas on their head-- reminiscent of a Marxist approach to modern philosophy. The maintenance of the economic order of capitalism through the production and reproduction of us (citizens) as individuals is not the only or highest form of psychological violence our government commits against its own people-- establishment government representatives work to also uphold a cultural and sociopolitical order by restricting our ability to be communal beings. The fact that we cannot name or place these diasporadic social movements or bodies of thought and belief are intentional-- the two party system does not want us to know where to look to find others like us. The belief and acceptance by Americans that there are two boxes wide enough to fit us all is a condition of mass manipulation and the product of the most successful bi-partisan campaign our country has ever seen-- a campaign that prioritizes violent individualization and hypercapitalism above all else. 

We see this belief in the establishment and ignorance of the emotional diaspora of political opinions in this county the most clearly when we depoliticize our emotions and identity politics and examine the inauguration of Donald Trump, and the Democratic outcry and downright hatred projected onto Trump supporters. Following the thread of deconstructing our communal emotions in a capitalist environment, and for the sake of definition, “liberals” refer to people who associate themselves with the Democratic party and work to uphold establishment liberalism. Many Democrats would not, on first examination, appear to be this sort of establishment liberal, and would not identify as such. Put simply, moderate Democrats denounce the violent BLM protests, are excited about voting for Joe Biden, and express their distaste for poor working class Americans through their cultural elitism. The “Trump supporters” I am most uniquely interested in are not the rich Republicans who have historically voted red for “economic reasons”, but those who voted for the loud mouthed, highly opinionated, and violently charged man on the grounds of social and cultural disenfranchisement-- justifying their vote and working to excuse casual racism and xenophobia through their own process of being cast off by mainstream culture. To define a type for easier identification, I focus on the poor, working class, blue collar white american men who feel an attachment through Trump and the alt-right through their inability to grapple with or find identity through the left-dominated mainstream media and “culture”. We see here a battle between white suburban mothers who first expressed collective action in the 2016 Women’s March and the rural mid-30s white man who has experienced unemployment and seen his neighbors die from opioid abuse. We see a struggle between class, culture, and the hypermasculinization of the “American Dream”; it's a battle between two individual identities, one highly rewarded by a “safe” community, and the other cast away from its long-standing supremacy. In this battleground we see how Trump’s racist hypercapitalism was elected, and will most likely be elected again. 

Within a hyper-capitalist society, the only accepted form of communalism or tribalism is an association with one’s economic class. Liberals will denounce Trump and his policies, yet be the first to excuse their neighbor, coworkers, or dinner party guest’s choice to vote for him based on economic justifications. They will excuse the behavior of those within their class-- the judgement, conflict, and exclusion will only come at the expense of those above or below them. The problem is always “rednecks”, “hicks”, “billionaires”, and “the 1%”. Liberal communities refuse to acknowledge their own as evil-- a community of individuals that actively “other” anyone who does not fit into their morally righteous club. The problem is never “the soccer mom” or the dad who is awarded the economic privilege to be a “stay at home dad”. The problem lives somewhere beyond the gated community, beyond the voting booth, and far away from the public schools that are advertised as a selling point for property. Class solidarity trumps moral judgement or empathy. Class solidarity has been prioritized most effectively by the moderate liberal class; the villainization of poverty and a lack of education has not only worked to discredit an entire subsector of our society, but has also worked to produce its own supremacy. 

The 1% did not elect Donald Trump. Donald Trump will maintain power and authority because of the lack of empathy, care, organizing work that moderate establishment democrats have ignored over the last four years. Since 2016, there has been no true investment into closing the wealth gap or the cultural gap between the rural/urban divide. There has been a lack of cross-aisle conversations in a true, radical approach to community healing and restorative justice. While restorative justice often refers to communally healing from a criminal act of harm, restorative justice in emotional political cultural settings are centered on a harm that is not inherently criminal, and has failed to be named by the current administration. Establishment Democrats are angry with the “right” and morally just aspects of Republican and alt-right rhetoric, but their approach to navigating these very real and impactful issues rooted in violence and oppression is ineffective, and at best, shallow. Liberalism is still upholding the same values we denounce in our Instagram stories and Facebook posts-- Trump and the alt-right are making an uglier and more violent face of what liberalism has been all along-- the reason people are denouncing Trump and his voters is rooted in a fear of their own racism, classism, misogyny, and hyperindividualism being more visible. Liberalism does not want to disappear racism and violence, it does not want to reestablish economic and cultural classes-- it wants to uphold these through a more clandestine approach. It does not want to understand economic and cultural oppression in an authentic way-- it is not asking the questions to uncover the implications of forgotten rural economic systems and how hypercapitalism has ruptured communities (both spatially and emotionally). 

Liberalism has not only ignored the social and economic underclass, but has worked to intentionally create the diaspora previously referred to. While class solidarity exists across political party lines for affluent classes, the underclass is plagued with a lack of cohesive identity or central communal force. A true communist approach would be to respect the proletariat's outcries, understand their lack of identity and expression of hatred as a cry for help, and to mobilize to work towards a community that is not founded on class solidarity. Liberalism has rendered a unity in class struggle among the poor impossible-- there are new “layers” to class which have undermined the ability for a true proletariat uprising. This is intentional and has been done by the liberal class to establish difference and maintain “othering” among a shared experience. Poverty does not connect people in a meaningful way-- education, race, and culture (learned through exposure and privilege) have come to define the underclass on grounds more important than economic status. The unemployed newly college graduated art student has less in common with the rural construction worker than they do the aristocratic affluent class-- their sense of the world, culture, and their identity through their liberal education places them at a higher respected value than the “white trash” population-- even if they are at the same economic situation. Long over are the days of collective action on the grounds of economic oppression and exploitation-- class solidarity does not exist when the upper classes and the machine of neoliberalism has worked tirelessly to undermine class solidarity or communalism in general for the under class. Dismantling capitalism under a communist movement would have to include reshaping our interpretations of culture, class, and status. 

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11/04/2020

The 2020 election should come to no surprise, although establishment democrats are wearing a mask of preformative outrage. Their anger-- although valid in the face of an outward and violent proclamation of violence and authoritative power, with the newly added layer of a conservative supreme court-- is misdirected. While around half of the votes counted have been cast for a man who stands on the platform of bigotry, it is not correct to assume that half of the American people agree with his dogma. The enemy is not southern voters. The enemy is not “uneducated” racist individuals-- the enemy is white supremacy. Liberalism's obsession with individualism ends up hurting its own cause. The overarching system of white supremacy is to blame for the overwhelming amount of “red states”. Trump country is not a collection of racist individuals, it is white supremacy in action. Liberalism will call into fault everything but this truth, because admitting this is the true source of our political reality would be calling into question the validity of liberalism itself. 

“Red states” within the electoral college are not red because of the previously aforementioned “white trash” individuals-- voter suppression, gerrymandering, and state sanctioned violence against Black and Brown bodies are to blame. Southern states are more diverse than Northern states (urban areas, which are more diverse, vote blue). Southern states have higher proportions of Black residents, which is a fact ignored by liberals in the outcry of the red wave. Our government has worked tirelessly to prevent Black people from voting. This is a highly successful bi-partisan state-sanctioned campaign against Black people. “Both sides” have worked to uphold systems like the electoral college, have worked to barr felons from voting (33% of Black men have felonies in the United States), and created systems which are hard to access physically as well as emotionally through a long history of redlining and segregation. Many people living in southern states cannot legally vote, and if they can, feel isolated from their government. Even for those who register to vote, polling stations are often far away from Black neighborhoods and white racists use scare tactics to prevent voting. While external influences restrict the coveted “Black vote” that liberals viscously pray on and weaponize during election cycles, the internal struggle of identity, isolation, distrust, and inherited trauma make it hard for Black voters to believe in anyone. And that is valid. 

Trump’s tailing behind Biden in a “too close to call” race to the presidency should come as no surprise. Southern states do suffer from racism-- but not in the ways in which Liberalism is quick to accept. The violent individualization of people has manifested itself in the Conservative ideals-- freedom, private ownership, and small government are dog whistles for anti-Black rhetoric. Southern whites work to preserve the sham of freedom that Trump idealizes. They believe his empty promises of prosperity, recovering economics, and expanded personal rights. They see Black people, immigrants, queer people, and progressives as the enemy. They vote against their own interests because of neoliberalism’s fanatical obsession with the individual-- white supremacy as a guiding principle manifests itself as racism in the everyday person. This individual has access to voting in the South. Black people do not. 

White supremacy and neoliberalism are the enemy of all. The systems in place in America work to suppress the working class and isolate people from one another through violent individualization. Misdirected anger from poor whites results in violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, and votes for a bigot. Misdirected anger from establishment democrats result in a protective elitism that excludes southern and rural whites and reinforces their “acts of resistance”. The working class is experiencing a diasporadic identity crisis which results in the impossibility of mobilization. Neoliberalism and white supremacy is strengthened by these internal and external tensions. It is our collective responsibility to dismantle these systems and rewrite a code of ethics for our country which prioritizes coalition building, community strength, and empathy-- and the voices of Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) should be central to this effort. It is the responsibility of white people in power (politically, culturally, and economically) to leverage their positionality to incite Real Change.

[transdivergence-blog]

Our ableist system discourages autism diagnosis in adults.

They say that early intervention is one of the most important things you can do for someone with autism. They have developed computer programs that detect autism in newborns. The topic of children with autism is common. We are all aware that there are all sorts of little ones out there on the spectrum. We meet their little brains in grocery stores and during the commute. We hear them blurt out things in church (if you go to church) We see them struggle with allistic people’s behavior in regard to their behavior. Sesame street now has a beautiful autistic muppet. Steven Universe is brimming with neurodivergent content. We have come very far in accepting ASD kids. What about the adults? Einstein didn’t speak until he was three. Bill Gates memorized the Torah when he was young. It is estimated that there are 64 million autistic adults in the United States alone. (I have no source because I’m practicing spoon economy right now)  

Ableist culture, our culture, is having a very difficult time catching up with the notion that autism is an acceptable mode of human operation, in fact the mode of operation behind most all technological advancement. I used to believe that this lethargic move toward understanding us was purely systemic lag. I don’t believe that anymore. I believe that the ignorance of our need for diagnosis and help is intentional, that the system is well aware of adults with undiagnosed ASD, and I think, mostly from my own experience but a little bit of research as well that the ableists fear the financial strain that reaching out to said population will put on the system.

I have been fighting for over thirty years to have my autism recognized. Most of that time I was unaware that it was autism, but I remember even well into my adult life running into autistic people and feeling a kinship with them. About five years ago I moved into a house with some people on the spectrum one of which is @sapphicaspiewitch, my stepchild and my best friend. They showed me that I was indeed fully autistic, and they have supported me through an incredible struggle as I fought to understand and eventually advocate for myself.

Why is a diagnosis necessary? I see the negative effects of lack of diagnosis everywhere. Psychiatry is one of the only medical disciplines that does not look at the organ they are treating. Psychiatry is a discipline of assumption. (They have all been making asses out of each other for a very long time) I am a proponent of Occam’s Razor. Simply put that the answer with the least assumptions is most likely the correct one. The biggest issue with autistic adults is being medicated for mental health issues they do not have. We are not sick but those pills the Psych-assumption-Squad has been shoving in us is making us sick. You can’t treat autism with medication. It is not an illness.

Three years ago I was diagnosed with DID and later bipolar disorder. I started on seroquel to ‘help with sleep’ and was trapped for about a year in the throes of medically induced depression. All I really needed to know was that I was having difficulty with sensory processing. The pills made my life infinitely worse. I nearly took my life several times because I felt there was no way out.

I went to my psychiatrist and asked to investigate whether or not my problem had to do with ASD. He shot me down, 

“How many diagnoses do you want?” he said.

I said, “I don’t want any diagnosis. I need one.”

He told me that all of us are on the spectrum and that he saw me a surely dissociative and nothing else. I nodded my head, held my tears in and bid him good day. I went to my family physician and asked if I might be able to see a psychiatrist who specialized in autism in adults. She sent me to Dr. Patel and my thirty year quest was over. I now have my diagnosis and have moved to a more progressive place, connected with a group called the Primary Care Network, and life is incomparably better.

This message is really pointed at undiagnosed adults on the spectrum. If you are on a pill regimen for bipolar disorder (the most common misdiagnosis for autistic adults) or the like then pay attention. The way we are being treated is systemic abuse. We are killing ourselves or living lives without happiness and comfort because our ableist system does not want to foot the bill to actually make us better. We have been swept under the drug-rug and ignored because our condition makes allistic folks uncomfortable.

If you are an adult suffering from severe mental problems but you are of above average intelligence, maybe a computer programmer or a musician, or a quirky crafty weirdo and you wonder why the pills aren’t working you owe it to yourself and the rest of the autistic community to probe into whether you are on the spectrum. The Pills are not working because you aren’t sick. You’re special!

[jerdle-typology]

Enneagram 5

The Five in Profile

Healthy: Observe everything with extraordinary perceptiveness and insight. Are mentally alert, curious, have a searching intelligence: nothing escapes their notice. Display foresight and prediction abilities. Able to concentrate: become engrossed in what has caught their attention. / Attain skillful mastery of whatever interests them. Excited by knowledge: often become expert in some field. Innovative and inventive, producing extremely valuable, original works. Highly independent, idiosyncratic, and whimsical. At Their Best: Become visionaries, broadly comprehending the world while penetrating it profoundly. Open-minded, take things in whole, in their true context. Make pioneering discoveries and find entirely new ways of doing and perceiving things.

Average: Begin conceptualizing everything before acting—working things out in their minds: model building, preparing, practicing, gathering resources. Studious, acquiring technique. Become specialized and often “intellectual”: involvement in research, scholarship, and building theories. / Increasingly detached as they become involved with complicated ideas or imaginary worlds. Become preoccupied with their visions and interpretations rather than reality. Are fascinated by offbeat, esoteric subjects, even those involving dark and disturbing elements. Detached from the practical world, a “disembodied mind,” although high-strung and intense. / Begin to take an antagonistic stance toward anything which would interfere with their inner world and personal vision. Become provocative and abrasive, with intentionally extreme and radical views. Cynical and argumentative.

Unhealthy: Become reclusive and isolated from reality, eccentric and nihilistic. Highly unstable and fearful of aggressions: they reject and repulse others and all social attachments. / Get obsessed with yet frightened by their threatening ideas, becoming horrified, delirious, and prey to gross distortions and phobias. / Seeking oblivion, they may commit suicide or have a psychotic break with reality. Deranged, explosively self-destructive, with schizophrenic overtones.

Key Motivations: Want to be capable and competent, to master a body of knowledge and skill, to explore reality, to remain undisturbed by others, to reduce their needs.

Examples: Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Friedrich Nietzsche, Stanley Kubrick, Georgia O'Keeffe, Emily Dickinson, Simone Weil, Bill Gates, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacob Bronowski, James Joyce, Gary Larson, David Lynch, Stephen King, Tim Burton, Clive Barker, Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk, John Cage, Glenn Gould, Charles Ives, Bobby Fischer, and Vincent van Gogh.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE FIVE

The connection between genius and madness has long been debated. These two states are really poles apart, the opposite ends of the personality spectrum. The genius is someone who fuses knowledge with insight into the nature of reality, someone who has the ability to see things with utter clarity and with awe-inspiring comprehension. What separates the genius from the madman is that the genius, in addition to extraordinary insights, has the ability to see them correctly, within their context. The genius perceives patterns which are actually present, whereas the madman imposes patterns, projecting erroneous perceptions onto every circumstance. The genius may sometimes seem to be out of touch with reality, but only because he or she operates at a more profound level. The madman, however, is truly out of touch with reality, having nothing but delusions to substitute for it.

The Five is the personality type which most exemplifies these extremes. In the Five, we see the genius and the madman, the innovator and intellectual, the mildly eccentric crackpot and the deeply disturbed delusional schizoid. To understand how these widely diverse states are part of the same personality type is to understand the Five.

In the Thinking Triad

Fives are members of the Thinking Triad. Their potential problem results from the fact that they emphasize thinking over doing, becoming intensely involved with their thoughts. Fives think so much that their mental world becomes all-engrossing, virtually to the exclusion of everything else. This is not to say that Fives do nothing at all, but that they are more at home in their minds, viewing the world from a detached vantage point, than they are in the world of action.

All three members of the Thinking Triad—Fives, Sixes, and Sevens—focus their attention on the world outside themselves. This may seem to contradict the statement that Fives are engrossed in their thoughts, but it actually does not. Fives focus their attention on the external world for a variety of reasons, one of the most important of which is that the material they think about comes through their sense perceptions—the accuracy of which they can never be completely sure of because they are not certain about what lies outside themselves. The only thing they know with certainty is their own thoughts. Hence, the focus of their attention is outward, on the environment, while identifying with their thoughts about the environment. The source of many of their problems is their need to find out how their perceptions of the world square with reality so that they can act in it—and do things with confidence.

Problems with Security and Anxiety

Like the other two members of the Thinking Triad, average Fives tend to have problems with insecurity because they fear that the environment is unpredictable and potentially threatening. Further, they feel powerless to defend themselves against the world’s many dangers: they believe they are not capable of functioning as well as others and so make it their number one priority to acquire the skills and knowledge they feel are necessary for them to be able to operate adequately in life.

Their Basic Fear, of being helpless and incapable, influences their behavior in significant ways. Fives believe that their personal resources and capacities are limited, so they respond to their anxiety by downscaling their activities and needs. The more anxious they feel, the more they minimize their needs. While this can be a sensible approach to problems at times, anxious Fives may reduce themselves to living in extremely primitive conditions in order to allay their fears of inadequacy. Naturally, given this orientation, Fives feel easily overwhelmed by others’ needs as well, and try to avoid situations in which others will expect more from them than they feel able to give. As their fears increase, Fives begin to “shrink away” from the world and from connections with others.

When Fives are healthy, they are able to observe reality as it is and are able to comprehend complex phenomena at a glance because they are participating in life and testing their perceptions. In their search for security, however, the perceptions of even average Fives tend to become skewed. Their thinking becomes more convoluted, elaborate, and increasingly fueled by anxiety. As they withdraw from the world, it only heightens their fears that they cannot cope with it. Eventually, even basic living requirements seem overwhelming and frightening. And if they become unhealthy, Fives are the type of persons who cut themselves off from most human contact. Once isolated, they develop their eccentric ideas to such absurd extremes that they become obsessed with completely distorted notions about themselves and reality. Ultimately, unhealthy Fives become utterly terrified and trapped by the threatening visions which they have created in their own minds.

Their problem with anxiety, one of the issues common to the personality types of the Thinking Triad, is related to their difficulty with perceiving reality objectively. They are afraid of allowing anyone or anything to influence them or their thoughts. Because they doubt their own ability to do, they fear that others’ agendas will overwhelm them or that people who are more powerful than they are will control or possess them. Ironically, however, even average Fives are not unwilling to be possessed by an idea, as long as the idea has originated with them. Nothing must be allowed to influence their thinking lest their developing sense of confidence be diminished, although by relying solely on their own ideas and perceptions, and without testing them in the real world, Fives can become profoundly out of touch with reality.

The upshot of this is that average to unhealthy Fives are uncertain whether or not their perceptions of the environment are valid. They do not know what is real and what is the product of their minds. They project their anxiety-ridden thoughts and their aggressive impulses into the environment, becoming fearful of the antagonistic forces which seem to be arrayed against them. They gradually become convinced that their peculiar and increasingly dark interpretation of reality is the way things really are. In the end, they become so terrorized that they cannot act even though they are consumed by anxiety.

The basis of their orientation to the world is thinking; personality type Five corresponds to Jung’s introverted thinking type.

Introverted thinking is primarily oriented by the subjective factor…. It does not lead from concrete experience back again to the object, but always to the subjective content. External facts are not the aim and origin of this thinking, though the introvert would often like to make his thinking appear so. It begins with the subject and leads back to the subject, far though it may range into the realm of actual reality…. Facts are collected as evidence for a theory, never for their own sake. (C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, 380.)

Although they correspond to Jung’s introverted thinking type, Fives are perhaps more precisely characterized as a subjective thinking type because the aim of their thought is not always introverted (that is, directed toward themselves); rather, it is directed often outward toward the environment, which Fives want to understand so that they can be safer in it. The impetus for their thinking comes, as Jung says, from “the subjective factor,” from their need to know about what lies outside themselves, as well as from their anxiety when they do not understand the environment. This is why thinking is the method Fives use both to fit into the world and, paradoxically, to defend themselves against it.

One of the results of the way Fives think is that even healthy Fives are not very deeply rooted in visceral experience. They are the type of people who get a great deal of intellectual mileage out of very little experience because they always find something of significance where others see little or nothing. This may lead to great discoveries. However, when they stop observing the world and focus their attention on their interpretations of it, Fives begin to lose touch with reality. Instead of keeping an open mind while they observe the world, they become too involved with their own thoughts and dreams. This leads them further away from the world of constructive action—the very arena in which their self-confidence needs to develop. They may spend a great deal of time playing around with ideas or visions of alternative realities which have almost no practical impact on their lives, leaving them more fearful about themselves and feeling more vulnerable to the predations of the world.

Parental Orientation

As a result of their formative experiences, these children became ambivalent to both parents. Fives, like Twos and Eights, were in search of a niche within the family system, a role that they could fulfill that would win them protection and nurturance. For whatever reasons, though, they perceived that there was no place for them to fit in—that nothing they could do was wanted or needed by their family. As a result, Fives withdrew from active participation in the family to search for something that they could “bring to the table.” Fives want to find something that they can do well enough to feel like an equal of others. Unlike other types, however, since Fives’ underlying fear is of being helpless and incapable, they generally look for areas of expertise that others have not already explored. In a sense, their agenda is to focus on the search for and mastery of subjects and skills, until they feel confident enough to “reenter” the world.

In the meantime, Fives strike a kind of unstated bargain with their parents which carries over into all of their subsequent relationships: “Don’t ask too much of me, and I won’t ask too much of you.” Fives feel that they need most of their limited time and energy to acquire the knowledge and skills that they believe will make them capable and competent. Thus, average Fives come to resent intrusions upon their space, their time, and certainly upon their persons. What to another type might feel like a comfortable distance can feel uncomfortable to an average Five. The reasons for this may relate to the Five’s feeling of not having a place in the family. They may have felt crowded out or figuratively or literally intruded on by their parents and their agendas. Their parents may have nurtured them erratically, or may have been emotionally disturbed or alcoholic or caught in a loveless marriage, and therefore not dependable sources of love and reassurance. The result is that these children become ambivalent not only toward both parents, but ambivalent toward the world.

Fives attempt to resolve their ambivalence by not identifying with anything other than their thoughts. They feel that their thoughts are “good” (that is, correct, and can be safely identified with), while outside reality is “bad” (and must therefore be vigilantly watched), so that it can be repulsed at a moment’s notice. In average to unhealthy Fives, the sense of being crowded may have resulted in their feeling unsafe in their bodies. They then become profoundly detached, indifferent to physical comfort, and extremely cerebral, as if the quality of their material existence was irrelevant to them. Fearful Fives are willing to jettison many comforts and even needs in order to protect the space and time they feel they need to pursue their interests—that is, those areas they are trying to master.

They continue to find their parents, the world, and other people fascinating and necessary, but Fives also feel that they must keep everything and everyone at a safe distance lest they be in clanger of being overwhelmed by some outside force. Thus, from the very way they think—their “cognitive style"—Fives set up a strict dualism between themselves and the world: they see everything as essentially split into two fundamental areas—the inner world and the outer world, subjects and objects, the known and the unknown, the dangerous and the safe, and so forth. This sharp split between themselves as subjects and the rest of the world as objects has tremendous ramifications throughout their entire lives.

Problems with Detachment and Phobia

When they are healthy, Fives do not have to detach themselves from the environment, because they feel secure and confident enough to fully participate in the world around them. Because they are interacting with the environment, their observations are accurate and balanced. But as they deteriorate down the Levels of Development toward unhealth, their perceptions become more intensely focused on what seems to be threatening and dangerous in the environment. As a result of their preoccupation with things they find fearful and dark, their mental world becomes filled with anxiety. Ironically, however, the more fearful Fives become, the more compelled they feel to investigate the very things that terrify them.

In the end, since they invariably focus on what is threatening, Fives turn their terrifying projections into their only reality, and in so doing, turn their minds against themselves, literally scaring themselves out of their minds. They become completely defenseless against the environment, which they find supremely dangerous because their minds have made it so. They become so phobic—and their sense of capability becomes so fragile—that it is extraordinarily difficult for them to function or turn to anyone for help. Yet, unless deteriorating Fives can reach out to someone, they have few ways of getting back in touch with reality.

If they live like this for long, their thought processes become so delusional and terrifying that they must separate themselves not just from the world but even from their own thoughts. Neurotic Fives become schizoid, unconsciously splitting themselves off from their teeming minds so that they can continue to live. Their reality has become hellish: dark, painful, and without hope. Recoiling in horror, they retreat into emptiness—and yet more horror.

ANALYZING THE HEALTHY FIVE

Level 1: The Pioneering Visionary

At their healthiest, Fives have the paradoxical ability to penetrate reality profoundly while comprehending it broadly. They are able to take things in whole, perceiving patterns where others see nothing but confusion. They are able to synthesize existing knowledge, making connections between phenomena which no one previously knew were related, such as time and space, the structures of the DNA molecule, or the relationship between brain chemistry and behavior. If they are artistically inclined, they may develop entirely new art forms, or revolutionize the form they are working with in ways that have not been seen before. These innovations often become the new platform from which others will learn and create.

The healthiest Fives do not cling to their own ideas about how the world works. Instead, they encompass reality so profoundly that they are able to discover unanticipated truths they could not have arrived at by mere theorizing. They make discoveries precisely because they are willing not to know the answers, keeping an open mind while they observe reality.

Because they do not impose their thoughts on reality, very healthy Fives are able to discover the internal logic, the structure, and interrelated patterns of whatever they observe. As a result, they have clear thoughts into obscure matters, and are able to predict events, often far in advance of the ability of others to verify them. Fives operating at the peak of their gifts may seem to be prophets and visionaries, although the explanation is simpler. They possess foresight because they see the world with extraordinary clarity, like a weaver who knows the pattern of a tapestry before it is completed.

The result is that they transcend rational thought to reveal objective reality, and in so doing they move toward the ineffable, to a level of comprehension where words, theories, and symbols are left behind. They perceive the world in all its complexity and simplicity with a vision that seems to come from beyond themselves. They are closer to contemplatives than thinkers. This is the quality of the “quiet mind,” discussed in Buddhism and other spiritual traditions. When the mind becomes still and quiet it becomes like a mirror which accurately contains and reflects whatever it turns toward. Healthy Fives are not using their minds to defend against reality; rather they are allowing reality in, understanding that they are not separate from it.

Very healthy, gifted Fives so perfectly describe reality that their perceptions and discoveries seem simple, even obvious, as if anyone could have thought of them. But the genius’s insights are obvious only in hindsight. To have made the leap from the known to the unknown, and to describe the unknown so clearly and accurately that the discovery accords perfectly with what is already known, is a great achievement. Similarly, anyone can “create” a new form of artistic expression, but to do so in a way that is powerful for others changes the way that others perceive reality, is both rare and extraordinary.

Thus, very healthy Fives are intellectual pioneers who open up new domains of knowledge and creativity. An individual Five, if sufficiently gifted, may well be a genius of historic dimensions, able to make staggering intellectual breakthroughs for mankind. A genius of the highest caliber may understand the way the world works for the first time in history. Less gifted individuals may have a sense of the genius’s excitement when they first understand calculus or how to use a computer. Their understanding is new to them, and can be thrilling. Others can only imagine how exciting it must be for someone to discover something totally new—when the discovery is new not only to that individual, but to humanity.

Yet, at Level 1, the brilliance of very healthy Fives is entirely unselfconscious. What Fives themselves are most aware of is feeling at home and at peace in the world. Because they have transcended their fears of being incapable and helpless, they are also freed from their relentless pursuit of knowledge and skill. They no longer feel overwhelmed by other people or by challenges and are able to bring their hearts and minds together for the compassionate use of their knowledge and talents.

Level 2: The Perceptive Observer

Even though Fives are not always this healthy, they are still extraordinarily conscious of the world around them, its glories and horrors, incongruities and inexhaustible complexities. They are the most mentally alert of the personality types, curious about everything. Healthy Fives enjoy thinking for its own sake; possessing knowledge—knowing that they know something, and being able to turn it around in their minds, to play with ideas—is extremely pleasurable for them. Knowledge and understanding are exhilarating. They are fascinated by people, by nature, by life, by the mind itself.

Given sufficient intelligence, healthy Fives penetrate the superficial, getting to profound levels very quickly. Their insights can be brilliant because they have the uncanny ability to see into the heart of things, noticing the anomaly, the curious but heretofore unobserved fact or hidden element which provides a key for understanding the whole. Because they see the world with unfailing insight, they always have something interesting and worthwhile to say. The act of seeing is virtually a symbol of their entire psychological orientation. If something can be seen, that is, apprehended either by the senses or by the mind, Fives feel that it can be understood. Once something is understood, it can be mastered. Then Fives can act with the confidence they desire.

Nothing escapes healthy Fives unnoticed because they do not merely observe the world passively, they concentrate on it, noting how things go together to form patterns and have meaning. People and objects are perceived in detail, as if Fives were training a magnifying glass on the environment. Since their minds are so active and they find everything around them fascinating, healthy Fives are never bored. They like learning what they do not know and understanding what is not obvious. No matter how much they know, they always want to learn more, and since the world is, for all intents and purposes, infinite in its complexity, there is always more to know.

Healthy Fives are also able to perceive far more than others because they have the ability to sustain concentration; they are not easily distracted. They quickly become deeply involved in the object of their scrutiny so they can understand how it works—why something is as it is. Their intellectual curiosity leads them to expend considerable effort to find out more about those things which have caught their attention. They are incredibly hard workers who will patiently attack a problem until they solve it, or until it becomes clear that the problem is insoluble. They will labor in obscurity for many years because they are excited about what they are exploring or creating. Because healthy Fives are accustomed to pursuing their interests with little support or attention, they are not dissuaded by others’ indifference or lack of comprehension. The process of exploring, learning, and creating is more enjoyable to Fives than achieving a final goal. They take delight in questioning reality and tinkering with familiar forms until they become almost unrecognizable, especially in the arts. They are also very good conceptualizers, asking the right fundamental questions and defining the proper intellectual boundaries for the problems with which they are involved. They do not attempt to do the impossible, only to understand what they have not understood before.

Regardless of their actual intelligence, most Fives consider themselves “smart” and perceptive, and see these as defining characteristics. Many Fives are not intellectuals or scholars, but all focus their attention in the world of ideas, perceptions, and ways of looking at reality. They are constantly on the lookout for something that they have not noticed before, or a way of connecting disparate ideas or activities they have been exploring. Having a new insight into a question or creative problem they have been grappling with gives them a sense of confidence and goads them into deeper explorations.

Fives are aware that others may view them as “unusual.” This may be due to their intelligence, a highly developed sensory acuity, idiosyncratic behavior, or perhaps their penetrating gaze. Fives are not interested in being “different” like Fours are; instead, they view their status as outsiders with a shrugging acceptance. They tend to be unsentimental about life, and this lack of sentiment extends to their own circumstances as well. Fives can also appear to be unusual because they are willing to follow their curiosity and their perceptions wherever they lead. They are relatively unconcerned with social convention; rather, they want to be unencumbered by activities that take them away from what they are really interested in.

Healthy Fives want to feel competent and capable in the objective world, and yet, the very act of inquiring into things begins to shift them away from active participation and toward the role of an outside observer. Even at this stage, healthy Fives are subject to a certain amount of anxiety about the environment if they do not understand it. (And, of course, because they cannot understand it until they deal with it, they are caught in a conundrum.) Therefore, the habit of observation reflects not simply a dispassionate curiosity but a deep personal need.

Level 3: The Focused Innovator

Once Fives have identified themselves as intelligent and perceptive, they begin to fear that they might lose their perceptiveness or that what they are thinking may be inaccurate. So they begin to focus their energies intensely into those areas that they are most interested in with the goal of really mastering them. In this way, Fives hope to develop an ability or a body of knowledge which will ensure that they will have a place in the world. They are not interested in merely acquiring facts or skills, but in using what they have learned to go beyond what has previously been explored. They want to “push the envelope,” both because it is a greater test of their competency, and also because they want to create a niche for themselves which no one else could have come up with.

Sometimes the results of their explorations are ingenious inventions and technological marvels which yield highly practical results. At times, their tinkering may produce startling new discoveries or artistic works. At other times, few things may result from their original ideas, although in time, those ideas, too, may have practical applications. What is impractical in one era often becomes the underpinning of an entirely new branch of knowledge or technology in another, such as the physics which made television and radar possible, or a few scraps of ideas which later produce a novel or a movie.

Because they are looking for new areas to explore and master, healthy Fives are generally open-minded people. They are not attached to particular points of view, and are curious to learn what other people think about things. They believe that there is almost always something interesting to learn from another person’s perspective. They are also patient about explaining their own thoughts to others, even when their thoughts are complex or the other person is slow to understand. Healthy Fives want to communicate, and they want others to understand what they are saying.

Because Fives understand things so perceptively, their profound knowledge enables them to get to the heart of difficulties so that they can explain problems, and possible solutions, clearly to others. Healthy Fives like sharing their knowledge because they often learn more when they discuss their ideas with someone else. This is why healthy Fives make exciting teachers, colleagues, and friends. Their enthusiasm for ideas is infectious, and they enjoy fertilizing their own areas of expertise with those of other intellectuals, artists, and thinkers, or, really, with anyone who is as interesting, curious, and intelligent as they are.

As much as they like being among those who can understand and appreciate their insights, healthy Fives are nevertheless extremely independent. For the most part, innovating, learning, and creating are solitary adventures best embarked on alone. Because they never know where their projects and discoveries will lead, Fives value their independence very highly; they are willing to be as unorthodox as their inquiries require, pursuing their interests and discoveries regardless of the sanctions of others or of society. They are not afraid to challenge existing dogmas, if need be.

Their innovations can be revolutionary, overturning previous ways of thinking. Owing to the nature of their interests and the scope of their intellects, healthy Fives give us powerful ideas which can literally change the course of history. The worlds of art, dance, cinema, and music have many times been “scandalized” by the strange new creations of Fives—which later on become widely accepted standards of “how things are done.”

Healthy Fives are also in possession of a whimsical sense of humor. They are attuned to life’s many absurdities and ironies and enjoy sharing their wry observations with others. They have a way of distorting the picture of reality just enough to highlight some assumption or way of looking at life that has no logical underpinning. They are fascinated by strange, offbeat subjects and love tinkering with objects, images, and words. There is a taboo-breaking quality to the humor of even healthy Fives, because they are attracted to looking at subject matter that others would reject or turn away from. Their imaginations are powerful and they use them to visualize the solution to a problem or to create an alternative reality. For this reason, many artistic Fives become filmmakers, cartoonists, or authors of genre fiction (science fiction, horror, black humor). The aesthetic sense tends to run in two extremes: minimalist and spare on one end, and surreal and fantastic on the other. Most Fives who are involved in the arts are not interested in simple “human interest” stories or narratives. They want to direct their audience’s attention beyond their daily concerns toward truths which are more absolute—especially those that are hidden in the “ordinary world.”

In the process of mastering those areas which interest them, healthy Fives accumulate knowledge. People of this personality type develop expertise in various disciplines, whether in the arts (for example, abstract expressionist painting, electronic music, or Egyptian hieroglyphics), or in the sciences (how to build a computer or put a satellite into space). Healthy Fives are usually polymaths, possessors of knowledge in a wide range of subjects and expert in them all. Healthy Fives know what they are talking about and share their knowledge with others, enriching the whole of society with their learning. They are also relatively confident because they are actively doing things with their insights, and it is precisely because their insights are so on target that both healthy Fives and their ideas are especially valuable to the rest of society. Where would we be without the computers and antibiotics, the sophisticated communications media and the technological innovations of all sorts which make up the modern world?

ANALYZING THE AVERAGE FIVE

Level 4: The Studious Expert

The essential difference between average Fives and healthy Fives is that average Fives begin to fear that they do not know enough to act or take their place in the world. They feel that they need to study more, to practice more, to acquire better technique or run further tests, to involve themselves even more deeply with their subject. (“The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”) For whatever reason, they fear that they will not be able to put their concepts and ideas into action. Convinced that they are insufficiently prepared to put themselves on the line, they retreat into an area of their experience where they feel much more confident and in control—their minds. Every personality type deals from its strongest suit, and the intellect is what Fives are gifted with and what they favor in their development. Rather than innovating and exploring, however, average Fives begin conceptualizing and preparing. In a word, healthy Fives use knowledge, whereas average Fives are in pursuit of it.

Because Fives have become adept at playing with concepts and their imagination, they are more sure of themselves when they are “in their heads,” and from this Level down they begin to avoid more direct contact with the world. They can spend many hours conceptualizing a problem or an idea for a song, but hesitate to put their ideas out as real, concrete forms. Average Fives get stuck in “preparation mode,” endlessly studying, gathering more background information, and practicing. Or they may simply develop the idea for a book or an invention in their imagination and never actualize their projects in reality. “I need a little more time” is a repeating refrain from average Fives. They are not being reluctant for no reason, however: their hesitation belies their growing lack of faith in their ability to cope with the world.

Because they are beginning to experience themselves as somehow less prepared for life than other people, average Fives feel compelled to gather whatever information, skills, and resources they believe they will need to “build themselves up.” To this end, Fives begin to disengage from social activities and spend more and more of their time and energy acquiring these resources. Their homes become a reflection of their minds, storage areas for their collections of books, tapes, videos, CDs, gadgets, and so forth.

Average Fives are typically bookish. They haunt bookstores, libraries, and coffeehouses catering to intellectuals who discuss politics, films, and literature far into the night. They love scholarship, and are fascinated with the technical appurtenances by which they acquire knowledge. And while they will spend money to obtain whatever tools they need to pursue their intellectual interests, be they medieval manuscripts or computer equipment, average Fives are usually loath to spend money on themselves or their own comfort because they identify with their minds and their imaginations, not with their bodies.

In their pursuit of mastery, average Fives tend to become highly specialized in some field, delving into a body of knowledge not understood by most. (As specialists, they take pride and pleasure in their ability to say, in effect, “I know something that you don’t know.”) Some Fives may become specialists within an academic discipline—analyzing genetic structures, or the mathematics of snowflake formation, or the migration patterns of birds in the Amazon Delta. Others may specialize in less academic areas, becoming specialists in antiques, stamp collecting, comic books, or jazz. Their approach to collecting becomes a metaphor for their whole approach to life: gathering in more material and incorporating it into the body of what they believe they know or can do.

Their predilection for collecting can combine with their desire to specialize in surprising ways. Fives may have a complete video collection—organized by director, of course—of every major horror or science fiction film between 1950 and 1990. The completeness of the collection and the thorough knowledge of its contents becomes important. An average Five would feel superficial if he or she had only a few Beatles albums or only three Beethoven symphonies. They want to acquire the complete Beatles catalogue, including rare bootleg recordings, and have all nine Beethoven symphonies as recorded by various orchestras. To observe the chronological progression of the Beatles’ music or to compare and contrast the different recordings of Beethoven’s Third Symphony become enjoyable pursuits for Fives, and a certain degree of knowledge is gained by these activities, to be sure. But Fives might well wonder how profitably they are spending their time in these endeavors. They achieve at least a temporary feeling of competency by mastering these narrow areas of interest, but are beginning to avoid the kind of activities that might really help develop their confidence.

Average Fives have begun to identify more completely with their minds, and although this is not entirely problematic, it is not without consequences. As we have seen, healthy Fives are highly observant of the environment and attuned to the world around them, but because of their increasingly cerebral approach to life, average Fives begin to miss things. They focus intently upon certain details and may overlook other relevant information entirely. They tend to make a science of whatever they are interested in, whether history, linguistics, stereo equipment, jogging shoes, or the sociology of ape families. It is here that we see the beginning of their tendency to abstract from reality, concerning themselves with only those aspects of reality which capture their attention. They are by no means out of touch with reality in any unhealthy sense yet. They are, however, narrowing the focus of their perceptions so that they can pursue their interests in more depth.

Although they may not be aware of it, average Fives begin to approach most new experiences by trying to analyze them or to find their context in relation to what they already know. This is the shy person who tries to learn how to do a dance by watching people dancing and trying to analyze and memorize the different steps and movements. The easiest ways to learn to dance is to jump in and start moving, but average Fives fear to enter an activity until they have worked it all out in their minds. Usually, the dance is over by the time the Five is done “figuring it out.” This can be a cumbersome way of learning things, but it does have some positive aspects. Because their method of learning is so systematic, and because they are observing and memorizing every step of any process they engage in, many Fives can explain to others how they arrived at certain conclusions or achieved specific results. And at Level 4, Fives enjoy sharing their expertise with others. They can discourse enthusiastically and at length on the projects they have been pursuing. Unfortunately, average Fives may not be comfortable talking about much else. Their personal lives, their hopes, desires, and disappointments, and especially their feelings become private matters, and they are reluctant to share these parts of themselves with others. They prefer to discuss subjects of interest to them, and to arrive at deeper “truths” through intelligent conversation.

Level 5: The Intense Conceptualizer

As average Fives retreat into the apparent safety of their minds, they ironically begin to heighten their insecurities about their abilities. After all, they are putting less and less time into anything outside of their narrowing interests, and are less willing to try new activities. They shift into mental high-gear, using whatever internal and financial resources they have to gain a sense of confidence and strength that would allow them to move forward with their lives. Unfortunately, average Fives often misapply this energy, getting increasingly bogged down in what others would see as trivia and losing perspective on which activities will actually help them in their lives. They spend endless hours engaged in their projects, but are unable to come to closure, both because they are more uncertain of themselves and their ideas and because they are afraid to leave the security of their cerebral constructs.

As a result, Fives believe that they have no inner resources to spare. They fear that other people and their emotional needs will overwhelm them, or at the very least, sidetrack them from their projects. Fives believe that everything depends upon their acquiring a skill or ability that would give them a chance to survive in what they increasingly perceive as a world without pity or mercy. They may deeply want to connect with others, but feel that this is not possible until they can develop the sense of confidence and mastery they seek. Average Fives begin to view most of their social interactions as intrusions upon their time and space—time and space they believe they must devote to their quest for mastery. To defend themselves against these potential “intrusions,” they withdraw further into their own inner worlds by intensifying their mental focus and activity. If Fives began to create alternative realities in the healthier levels, they begin to inhabit them at Level 5. Average Fives do not want anyone or anything to distract them from whatever they believe they are gaining by exploring those realities.

Strangely, though, average Fives begin to distract themselves. If all of their energies were devoted to constructive projects, their behavior might be more comprehensible to others, but their growing insecurity causes them to spend much of their time engaged in any sort of activity which might provide some temporary sense of confidence and competence. In their minds, Fives can feel capable and fully in control of their situation, which begins to compensate for their fears about being powerless and incapable in the real world.

They plunge into complex intellectual puzzles and labyrinthine systems—elaborate, impenetrable mazes by which they can insulate themselves from the world while dealing with it intellectually. They get involved in highly detailed, complicated systems of thought, immersing themselves in obscure theories, whether these have to do with the abstruse regions of such traditional academic studies as astronomy, mathematics, or philosophy, or with esoteric topics such as the Kabbala, astrology, and the occult. They are endlessly fascinated with intellectual games (such as chess, computer simulation games, or Dungeons and Dragons), making areas of study into a kind of game, and games into an area of study. They often develop a strong affinity for genre fiction, especially science fiction and horror. Exploring the dark and fantastic realms of the imagination gives Fives the feeling of mastering something—even if it is only an image in their imaginations. Their interest in strange, disturbing subject matter is both a further search for “turf” unclaimed by others and a counterphobic reaction to their feelings of helplessness.

The thinking of average Fives becomes increasingly uncensored: they are willing to entertain any thought, no matter how horrible, unacceptable, or taboo it may seem to others. Fives are in pursuit of the truth, and if the truth is unpleasant or upsets existing conventions, so be it. In healthy Fives, this tendency is laudable and the source of many great discoveries. In average Fives, however, it starts to create problems. Because they are not participating as actively in the world, they are getting fewer “reality checks.” Consequently, their exploration of potentially unsettling subject matter begins to add fuel to their anxieties about the world and themselves.

Because of these fears, and because their imaginations are causing them to see ominous implications in almost everything, average Fives are typically fascinated with power. They feel that knowledge is power and that by possessing knowledge, they will be secure because they perceive more than others do—and hence, can protect themselves. They are attracted by areas of study which deal with some form of power, whether in nature, or in politics, or in human behavior. However, Fives are also ambivalent about power and suspicious of those who have power over them. They feel that whoever has power may use it against them, rendering them completely helpless, one of their deepest fears.

One way that average Fives maintain their independence and avoid the potential control of others is by becoming more secretive. They become increasingly unwilling to talk about their personal or emotional lives, fearing that to do so would give others power over them. Additionally, speaking about such things might well plunge them into a more direct experience of their own fears and vulnerability—a prospect that average Fives distinctly wish to avoid. In any event, Fives begin to control others’ access to them, not by overt deception but by offering little information about themselves; they can be terse, cryptic, or totally uncommunicative. They also control access by compartmentalizing their relationships and different aspects of their lives. A Five will tell one friend about his professional life, while another friend will learn of his fascination with insects. Still another will know about his romantic life, while another knows where the Five likes to go late at night. No one gets the complete picture, however, and as much as possible, average Fives will make sure that these different friends do not meet to “share notes.”

This state of affairs would be difficult to maintain if Fives had too many friends, but to keep their life simple and to allow more time for their private pursuits, at Level 5 they do with relationships what they do elsewhere in their lives, they begin to reduce their needs. Average Fives become more determined to continue their projects and want to avoid any involvements or dependencies that might hinder them. They begin to “cut back” on creature comforts, activities, and relationships. Anything that might compromise their independence and their freedom to continue with their interests becomes expendable. Fives at this point are so caught up in their mental world that even basic amenities and comforts become almost irrelevant to them. They can become extremely Spartan and minimal in their existence, requiring less of others so that others will require less of them. Average Fives will often take employment far beneath their capabilities because they want to avoid becoming entangled in the demands of a more challenging career. Ironically, they are avoiding living their lives so they can devote time to preparing to live their lives. They live for whatever pleasures and small victories they may derive from their cerebral preoccupations.

The problem is that average Fives have stopped observing the world with any consistency, and have instead focused their attention on their ideas and their imagination. This is a turning point in their development. Rather than investigate the objective world, average Fives at this stage become preoccupied with their own interpretations of it, mentally detaching themselves from the environment or even their own emotional experiences by becoming more intensely involved with their ideas. Healthy Fives are extraordinarily perceptive and aware of their environment. To the degree that Average Fives are absorbed in their own thoughts, they perceive very little of the world around them.

As Fives speculate and theorize, turning their ideas around in their minds, examining them from every angle, endlessly producing new interpretations, they lose the forest for the trees. With every new conjecture, they have no sense of certitude that their speculations are final: everything remains hanging in the air, in a cloud of possibilities. For example, the more they write, the more complex the exposition becomes, until it is virtually incomprehensible. As brilliant as they may be, average Fives do not easily publish their ideas because they cannot bring them to a conclusion.

Furthermore, all ideas seem equally plausible to Fives, since they can make a convincing case for almost anything they think of. Anything thinkable seems possible. Anything thinkable seems real. They are intellectually and emotionally capable of entertaining any new thought, even horrifying or outlandish ones, since speculating on new possibilities is virtually all they do. Their ideas, however, begin to have no direct connection with the outside world. (The problems of epistemology not only fascinate them, average Fives unwittingly live them out.) But establishing a relationship between their ideas and reality is no longer the primary function of the thinking of average Fives. Instead, speculation and imagination maintain the sense of self by keeping the mind active.

Moreover, for all the time they spend thinking, average Fives at this Level do not communicate to others clearly, because their thought processes are so complex and convoluted. They get into too much detail; their ideas become highly condensed. The stream of consciousness floods out in elaborate monologues, making it difficult for others to follow their train of thought. They go off on tangents, jumping from one point to another without indicating the intervening steps in their logic. A perceptive observation about Jackson Pollock’s painting technique may be followed by a disquisition on modern media and the hazards to biological systems of higher levels of chemicals in the environment. Their monologues may well be fascinating, and possibly breathtaking in the sweep of their intellectual range; however, their discourses may also be strange and tedious, because the mental exertion required to follow them is exhausting. Nor is it always clear that the trip will be worth the effort, although average Fives think that whatever they have to say is as interesting to others as it is to themselves.

They begin to function as disembodied minds because, as far as they are concerned, the body is merely the vehicle for the mind. At this Level, they do not pay much attention to their physical condition except when that gets in the way of their thinking. They become so deeply involved in projects that they forget to eat or sleep or change their clothes. They frequently look like the proverbial absent-minded professor, missing a button when putting on their shirts or forgetting to tie their shoes. No matter. To them such considerations are insignificant: the life of the mind, the excitement of pursuing their interests, is what counts.

Both for better and for worse, they are extremely high-strung, as if their nervous systems were tuned to a higher pitch than those of the other personality types. (Nines also become more cerebral and imaginative in the average Levels, but their affect is very different. Nines become placid and passive, while Fives become agitated and intense.) Fives seem to lack the ability to repress the unconscious impulses which erupt into their minds, fueling their intense involvement in their perceptions, their work, and their relations with others. They find it difficult to do things casually, and find close relationships with others particularly taxing.

The more detached average Fives are, the more ambivalent they are to just about everyone—they are attracted to people, yet suspicious about them. They want to figure out what makes other people tick, just as they analyze other objects of intellectual interest. (“What you just said was fascinating—you’re incredibly angry at men, aren’t you?”) Yet they usually try to avoid getting deeply involved with others because people are unpredictable and potentially demanding. Average Fives believe there must be a catch. They cannot imagine why anyone would be interested in them personally and fear that others may expect something from them which they will not be able to deliver. Further, emotional involvements arouse strong feelings which average Fives find difficult to control: the passions flood too easily into their minds. But because most Fives also have strong sexual impulses, they cannot avoid involvements altogether, as much as they would like to. Thus, though Fives find people and relationships endlessly fascinating, they remain wary.

It is therefore typical of average Fives either to be unmarried or to have stormy relationships with people. Intimacy with others gets so involved, so complex and exhausting, that they stop trying to make contact with others and become reclusive, ever more completely burying themselves in their work and ideas. Doing so only fuels their feelings of helplessness, though, and as Fives become more isolated they are increasingly prey to their own growing fears about themselves and the world. Their view of reality grows ever more bleak and doubtful. They have great difficulty accepting the idea of a benevolent universe, let alone a benevolent God. Moreover, the problem of evil is an enormous stumbling block: the horror and uncertainty of the world is so apparent to Fives that any God who allowed the world to be as it is must be sadistic, an evil God, a God they refuse to become involved with.

Level 6: The Provocative Cynic

In time, the complexities Fives create in their minds cause new and more troubling problems for them. Nothing is clear or certain; anxiety increases. They are more desperate than ever about whatever projects and ideas they are trying to develop and fear that other people will demand that they give up their pursuits before they are ready. They fear that they will be drawn “off course” by the intrusions of life and are determined to defend against whatever they perceive as a threat to their fragile niche. At Level 6, through their style of speech, their manner of dress, and the subjects that they involve themselves with, Fives are saying to the world, “Leave me alone!” If others could not get the message before, Fives become more aggressive in their efforts to scare people away.

On the surface, Fives at this Level may seem intellectually arrogant, but they are actually less certain of themselves. Even their most valued ideas and projects begin to seem futile to them, and they alternate between defending them aggressively and finding them worthless. They begin to take more extreme and unorthodox positions, as if they were trying to extract more confidence from ideas that are becoming meaningless for them. Fives may not be entirely convinced of the radical views they express, but express them they do, wielding them like cutting tools. Further, their own subconscious fears about their inability to cope with the environment are frequently erupting into their minds, and they live in growing terror of the world and others. They feel uncertain and uneasy about nearly everything, and it infuriates them that other people seem to be content or oblivious to the horrors which they notice. They therefore begin to undermine others’ certainty or contentment by “sharing” their provocative views. (“So you’re going to the beach? I was just reading the latest report on the ozone layer. Studies show that the chances of getting skin cancer have gone up by nearly one hundred percent.”) There is often an element of truth in what Fives express at this point, but their intention is no longer to arrive at the truth. It is to use their knowledge as a way of unsettling others. And because they have spent so much time gathering information, they can easily use it both to reinforce their conviction that the world is rotten and to subvert other people’s sense of security.

A certain extremism is as typical of their social style as it is of their intellectual viewpoint. In political or artistic matters, antagonistic Fives are usually radicals, populating the avant-garde. They love to take ideas to their furthest limits—for their shock value, to defy what has conventionally been thought or done, or to puncture and demolish popular opinions. (And even if they are not as correct as Fives think they are, their provocative ideas virtually force others to react to them, stirring up debate or even hostility.) As dyed-in-the-wool nonconformists and dissenters, they rebel against all social conventions, rules, and expectations, whether these involve feminism, politics, child rearing, sexual liberation, or all of them in some peculiar combination. They have an ax to grind. Understanding has been abandoned for polemics.

At Level 6, Fives use their entire lifestyle as a statement of their views and as a rebuke of the world. They may choose to live an extremely marginal existence to avoid “selling out.” At this Level, “selling out” may mean any kind of regular employment or even having a relationship. They may wear intentionally provocative clothing or groom themselves in nonconformist ways. Of course, social protest can be a vital and healthy impulse in any culture, and healthier Fives (as well as other types) may well use provocative language, art, or style of dress to make a point. But with lower average Fives, the point is that there is no point. Life is futile. People are stupid. My own life is meaningless. Although other types are certainly part of the picture, this attitude is common in many of the “alternative” cultures that have developed in the latter part of the twentieth century. Grunge, cyberpunk, heavy metal, and other youth subcultures embrace this ethos.

Ironically for those so given to complex thought, Fives at this Level have also become more reductionistic, oversimplifying reality and dismissing more positive, alternative explanations of things. For example, dismissing the flower, reductionistic Fives focus on the ooze from which it sprang, as if the brightest blossom were “nothing but” mud in some significantly altered state; painting is nothing but the desire to smear feces; God is nothing but a projection of the father into the cosmos; human beings are nothing but biological machines, and so forth. The result is that their ideas mix legitimate insights with extreme interpretations, while Fives themselves have no way of knowing which is which.

An irrational element—a kind of perverse resistance to reality—has begun to taint their thought processes. Fives at Level 6 are not crazy, even though their ideas may be strange and extremely unorthodox. Healthy originality, however, has deteriorated into quirky eccentricity; the genius has become little more than a crank. |They may assert that arcane secrets are hidden in numerical codes derived from the names of characters in their favorite TV show, or that all rational thought is meaningless.) Others may well have entertained outlandish ideas, but lower average Fives dwell on them, sometimes using all of their time and energy to “prove” them. Their extreme ideas are so much a part of their sense of self that Fives will defend their ideas at all costs, asserting them vigorously and attempting to demolish all counterarguments. Contentious and quarrelsome, they also worry about establishing their intellectual priority and protecting their ideas, threatening lawsuits if they think that someone has stolen one of their brilliant theories.

Even so, as radically extreme and reductionistic as many of their ideas are, average Fives are not necessarily completely off the mark. They are usually too intelligent not to have something interesting to say. The problem is knowing which of their ideas are valuable and which are not. This is because, at a deeper level, Fives are becoming cynical and hopeless about all of their ideas and projects. A profound pessimism is creeping into their thoughts, and they begin to see all viewpoints as equally irrelevant. They can argue any point because everything seems equally true or untrue, and therefore equally worthless. Fives at Level 6 may even enjoy arguing viewpoints which they find repugnant just to reaffirm their intelligence while simultaneously proving the futility of making any further efforts.

Fives at this stage give the appearance of being extremely involved in their projects, but a closer inspection usually reveals that they are spending much of their time in relatively inessential activities. They may need to put together a résumé, take care of bills, or complete a project for work, but will instead devote their efforts to reading a book on ants, creating a detailed computer database for their record collection, or studying strategies to improve their chess game. They put more and more of their time into activities which will do little to improve their situation, and which actually become harmful because they are distracting Fives from what they really need to do. They are so unsure of themselves that they feel completely unable to engage in many activities—especially those that might improve their quality of life—and keep gravitating to situations that give them the temporary feeling of having their lives “under control.” Average Fives may not be able to face a job interview or learn to drive a car, but they can conquer the world, survive a nuclear holocaust, or wield awesome occult powers in the world of their imaginations.

At this Level, Fives feel profoundly unsettled and anxious about their apparent helplessness in what seems to them a dark and hostile reality. They feel that it is extremely unlikely that they will ever find a place for themselves in the world, and in fact, their abrasive behavior is making this a real possibility. Fives desperately want to find something they can do that will make them feel more connected with the world, but their fear and anger cause them to retreat further and further from any contact with others. They are tormented by their tempers and by their teeming imaginations: insomnia is not uncommon. If they could reach out to others and acknowledge their own suffering, Fives could turn around their difficulties and reconstruct their lives. If they continue to turn away from the world, however, they may eventually cut off what few connections remain in their lives and plunge into a much more terrifying darkness.

ANALYZING THE UNHEALTHY FIVE

Level 7: The Isolated Nihilist

The need to keep others at a safe distance to protect their frantic search for mastery sets the stage for Fives to become extremely antagonistic toward anyone who they believe threatens their world. Unfortunately, as they become more unhealthy, their self-doubt becomes so great that almost everything threatens them. It seems to them that the only way that they can be safe is to cut off their connections with others and “go it alone.” They feel hopelessly ill-adapted for life and are profoundly disgusted with the world. Unhealthy Fives are convinced that they are never going to find a place for themselves in society, and so they turn their back on it. They become extremely isolated and prey to growing eccentricity and nihilistic despair.

Their aggressions are aroused when people question their ideas—or worse, if their ideas are ridiculed or dismissed. To maintain what little remains of their self-confidence, which is thoroughly wedded to their ideas, unhealthy Fives go on the offensive: individuals must be discredited, their ideas shown to be worthless, their solutions to problems an illusion, their world a fool’s paradise. Thus, unhealthy Fives unwittingly provoke others into rejecting them, and then become cynical about the value of all relationships. But in so doing, they become profoundly cut off from others and extremely hopeless about the possibility of ever relating to anyone.

Indeed, their need to reject what others believe is so strong that they take pleasure in debunking whatever is positive in life, trying to prove the virtual impossibility of human relationships and the complete rottenness at the core of human nature. Unhealthy Fives take delight in deflating what they see as the bourgeois illusions by which others get through life so comfortably, and to which they have not fallen prey because of their greater intellectual honesty.

As usual, there is a half-truth operating here. While others may well be living too comfortably for their own good, while some people may be self-deceptive, while some families and some relationships may be tainted by hypocrisy, jealousy, and struggles for power, it does not necessarily follow that cynicism is the best response. Unhealthy Fives throw out the baby with the bath water: faith, hope, love, kindness, friendship—all are extraordinarily difficult for them to believe in because of their fear of involvement with others. Attachment to others is too threatening at this stage, so unhealthy Fives must justify their isolation by becoming nihilistic and cynical about all relationships, indeed, about the value of humanity itself.

Just as an intense stream of water from a fire hose can hold back a crowd, the intensity of their minds, overheated by their erupting aggressive impulses, repels everything that might influence them. They “burn their bridges behind them,” ending friendships, quitting jobs, and emptying out all but the barest of necessities in their lives. (“To hell with everything!”) It is as if unhealthy Fives were attempting to purge themselves of everything but their most basic life-support systems so that they will not be dependent, and therefore potentially overwhelmed by anyone or anything. This process may be taken to extreme degrees. Unhealthy Fives may end up living out of a car, or squatting in a condemned building so that they will not be part of “the system.” They neglect themselves physically, paying no attention to their appearance, eating poorly, and going unwashed. Alcoholism and other forms of substance abuse are quite common at this stage, and the rebellious side of Fives has no hesitation about using illicit drugs. Their experimental nature may also lead them into trying new “designer drugs” or substances known to be dangerous, such as heroin. Drugs are harmful for any type, but for Fives they can be particularly debilitating. Unhealthy Fives are already having great difficulty facing even the basic maintenance of their lives, and their connection with reality is extremely tenuous. Drugs further erode their confidence and drive them further into isolation, thus accelerating their deterioration.

At this Level, unhealthy Fives believe they must maintain their isolation so that they will not be influenced by anyone. While usually not violent, they may rant and rave, write long diatribes and denunciations, or suddenly withdraw into a glowering, hateful silence. Since most people are repulsed by this kind of behavior, the isolation of Fives rapidly deepens, which is exactly what unhealthy Fives want. Yet, for that reason, they are vulnerable to ever worsening distortions in their thought processes. They are no longer getting “reality checks” from others, no longer comparing their perceptions to reality, and what few forays into the environment they do have are tainted with their growing terror. All of their experiences become confirmations of their helplessness and of the utter meaninglessness of life. Unhealthy Fives feel besieged by even minor problems and view all interactions with others as invasions upon their fragile space. Aggressions—and fear—continue to escalate.

Some of the personality types are able to conceal the degree of their distress in the unhealthy Levels, but Fives are clearly and unmistakably unstable. Others can see their disintegration and are both saddened and horrified, but unhealthy Fives’ aggressive defense of their isolation makes interventions difficult. Even the hint that they may “need help” may trigger their fears of helplessness and incompetency and drive them deeper into pathology. Unhealthy Fives also retain their ability to reason to some degree, and can cleverly argue away any positive input, dismissing any possibility that their dark and corrosive view of life may be in error. They have no expectations of themselves or others and retreat into a reality as bleak in its actuality as it is in its outlook.

Because unhealthy Fives are terrified of the world and of their own inability to cope with it, they stew in a destructive mixture of dark, twisted fantasies, feelings of contempt for others, and honor at the emptiness of their lives. They want to act, to do something that would discharge the relentlessness of their teeming minds, but they feel crippled by fear and have no belief in themselves or others. Consequently the intense force of their irrational thoughts keeps building without relief. They are filled with rage at a world which they believe has rejected them, but feeling powerless to do anything about it, they avoid all contact with others, let alone reach out for help. It is as if they cannot stop cutting themselves off at the knees. Unhealthy Fives may still be brilliant or talented, but their nihilism destroys any chance of their doing anything constructive with their abilities, and thus building up their confidence. Instead, they tear down everything in their lives, devaluing and rejecting all their attachments to the world. Yet, unhealthy Fives are worse than merely isolated; they are filled with aggressions and impulses which cannot be discharged, because they do not want to get into violent conflicts with others. Unhealthy Fives are thus trapped in a terrible dilemma: they are obsessed by their aggressions yet unable to act on them because they fear the consequences. They want to accomplish something in the world, but their bleak, cynical attitude does not allow them to engage in any activities that might improve their situation. The result is that they do nothing, and the intensity of their own minds begins to devour them.

Level 8: The Terrified “Alien”

As unhealthy Fives retreat further and further into their isolation, their belief in their ability to cope with the world disintegrates. Further, their lack of contact with other people allows their fearful thoughts to run rampant without being checked. They begin to feel that the world is closing in on them, and that it will show them no mercy. At this stage, Fives have reduced their activities and their living conditions to the point where there is nowhere left to retreat. They may be living in a single room and almost never venture forth from it, or literally hiding out in the basement of a friend’s or relative’s house. The only place left to go is deeper into their own minds, but because their minds are the true source of their terrors, this becomes their ultimate undoing.

At Level 8, Fives have tremendous difficulty distinguishing between the sensory impressions generated by the environment and those which have their origin in their fearful thoughts. Thus, unhealthy Fives see all of reality as an implacable, devouring force. The world appears to them like a delirious fever dream—an insane landscape, like something out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Almost nothing in the environment is a source of comfort or reassurance. The more Fives look at the world through their distorted perceptions, the more horrified and hopeless they become.

As their fears spread and grow in intensity, they encompass and distort more of reality until doing anything becomes impossible, because everything is charged with terrifying implications. Thus, neurotic Fives may begin to be incapacitated by phobias. Inanimate objects take on a sinister appearance—the ceiling is about to collapse on them, their armchair may swallow them up, the television is giving them brain cancer. They may also experience hallucinations—hearing voices or having grossly distorted visual perceptions. They begin to experience their bodies as alien, perceiving their physical selves as turning against them just as the environment has seemed to turn against them. Neurotic Fives cannot rest or sleep or distract themselves, because they must be vigilant—and because they cannot turn off their minds. As a result, they become physically exhausted, which only compounds their problems.

Even average Fives can have trouble sleeping, but unhealthy Fives literally cannot sleep. They are afraid of being more vulnerable to malevolent forces while they sleep and are also afraid of their dreams, which can be intensely violent and disturbing. They may increase their drug or alcohol use as a way of shutting down their minds, but this only adds to their exhaustion. Sleeplessness heightens the intensity of their thoughts, leading to hallucinations. The childhood monsters in the closet become real for them. Their fear and insomnia wear them down physically, leaving them emotionally volatile and physically fragile.

What begins to frighten neurotic Fives even more is that their thoughts seem to have a life of their own. Their thoughts are uncontrollable, scaring them when they do not want to be scared. Their minds race wildly and they become terrified by fears from which they cannot possibly escape, since, after all, their fears originate in themselves. Like Dr. Frankenstein, they are in danger of being destroyed by processes to which they themselves have given life.

Their healthy ability to find connections and to draw conclusions from disparate facts now works against them. Mental connections go haywire; they relate things which have no basis in fact, yet neurotic Fives are absolutely convinced that they are related. The behavior of birds becomes indicative of political trends. The number of raisins in a bowl of cereal portends the number of months to global cataclysm. Unhealthy Fives see existence as pointless and horrifying, yet constantly assign sinister meanings to trivial daily phenomena.

Unhealthy Fives are unable to stop the destructive force of their distorted thinking because they have cut themselves off from almost all of the constructive outlets for their tremendous mental energies. Their minds have become like a light bulb with more electricity coursing through its filament than it is designed to handle—five hundred watts through a one-hundred-watt bulb. Their thoughts blaze with a terrifying intensity which is rapidly burning them up. They cannot stop their horrific thoughts and fantasies and are almost completely incapable of doing anything positive for themselves. Worse, they resist all help from others, fearing that they will become even more powerless by accepting assistance. Getting help would also be the final confirmation of their own uselessness, their own inability to cope. They are likely to avoid or flee anyone reaching out to them.

Unhealthy Fives would like to destroy everything, so detestable has the world become in their eyes. Their rage, fear, and aggressions have become all-consuming and overwhelming, yet Fives are still unable to act or to discharge their destructive impulses and feelings. Their actions become erratic and irrational, even frightening, but they are still only minor responses to the eruptions of chaos in their psyches.

Life becomes unbearable: they seem to see too much, as if their eyelids had been removed. But the truth is that their minds are devouring them. The world becomes filled with terrors because their minds are filled with terrors. No part of their mind offers any solace or comfort.

Level 9: The Imploding Schizoid

To exert what little control remains over their growing terror and despair, neurotic Fives attempt to use the same defenses they have used all along—detachment and compartmentalization—but at this stage of pathology, these methods are ineffective at holding their fears at bay. They become increasingly schizoid, splitting off from terrifying parts of their psyches and identifying with whatever remaining ideas or fantasies offer some sense of power over their disintegration. But the relentless force of their fear keeps breaking through, leaving Fives feeling that they have no safe space left, even in their minds.

Ultimately, neurotic Fives come to believe that they can no longer defend themselves from hostile forces in the world or from the terrors in their own minds. In fact, most Fives at this Level cannot distinguish between these two realms: they have collapsed into one continuous experience of pain and horror. At this point, Fives want everything to stop. They want cessation, to end all experience in oblivion. There are two main ways that they are likely do this.

The first and most obvious of these is suicide. Like unhealthy Fours, neurotic Fives are likely to take their own lives, although for somewhat different reasons. Fours destroy themselves out of self-hatred and to silently accuse those who they feel have let them down. Fives tend to commit suicide because they see life as meaningless and horrifying. There is simply no point in continuing to exist. (Of course Fives with a Four-wing and Fours with a Five-wing will display some combination of these motivations.) All that unhealthy Fives perceive in themselves and the world fills them with terror and nausea. They conclude that the only way to stop their horrible experiences is to stop all experience. Like Hamlet, the prospect of “not being” becomes a “consummation devoutly to be wished.”

If they do not commit suicide, unhealthy Fives “solve” the problem of how to control their minds, especially the overwhelming anxiety produced by their consuming phobias, by unconsciously splitting consciousness into two parts. Neurotic Fives retreat into that part of themselves which seems safe, regressing into an autistic-like state which resembles psychosis.

At this final Level, Fives may defend themselves from reality by unconsciously cutting themselves off from every connection with it. To put this another way, unhealthy Fives are so terrorized by their thoughts that they must get rid of them somehow. They do so by identifying with the emptiness that remains within themselves when they detach from their remaining identifications. In effect, they detach themselves from themselves, like parents who, to stop being tormented by the memories of a dead child, throw away everything that reminds them of the child. The result is that neurotic Fives live in a totally empty house—the self which has been purged of everything that reminds them of their terrifying and painful attachments to the world.

Thus, neurotic Fives deteriorate into a state of inner emptiness and, if they continue to live this way, in all probability into a form of schizophrenia. *

All their former intellectual intensity and capacity for involvement is gone. Fives at this stage are utterly isolated from their environment, from other people, and from their inner life—from their ability to think, to feel, and to do.

Unhealthy Fives have finally succeeded in putting distance between themselves and the environment, although at the price of completely removing themselves from it through suicide or a schizoid break. The irony is, however, that Fives retreat from reality to gain the time and space to build their confidence and ability to deal with life, but they ultimately destroy their own confidence and talents, even their own life, through their fear and isolation. Those Fives who do not take their own lives may end up living a life of helplessness, dependency, or incarceration—the very situation they most feared—as a result of severe psychotic breaks with reality. In a final effort to escape from the horrors around them, Fives attempt to remove themselves from the environment. But what they have removed themselves from is not actually reality, but the projection of their anxieties about reality. They have succeeded only in removing themselves from their thoughts and feelings. Once neurotic Fives have done this, they become unable to cry out to anyone from the void they have created within themselves. All is emptiness within the abyss of the purged self.

THE DYNAMICS OF THE FIVE

The Direction of Disintegration: The Five Goes to Seven

Starting at Level 4, Fives under stress will begin to exhibit many of the qualities of average to unhealthy Sevens. Average Fives tend to retreat from connection with others and from activities in the world which they fear they will be unable to accomplish. Thus they become increasingly narrow in their focus and concerns. The move to Seven can be seen as an unconscious reaction to this shrinking of the Five’s world, albeit in the scattered, hyperactive discharge of anxiety found in the average to unhealthy Seven.

At Level 4, Fives are focusing their energies in studying, practicing, and preparing. They do not feel confident to enter the arena of life and believe that further developing their knowledge and skills will give them the protection they need to survive. Along with this, however, comes a desire for variety and a restlessness of mind characteristic of type Seven. Also like Sevens, Fives at this Level are constantly acquiring information, building their collections of music, books, and videos, or whatever else captures their interest. They move from one topic to another, looking for the subject that will satisfy them, for the project they can really get involved with. But in this state of restlessness, none of their pursuits are entirely satisfactory to them.

At Level 5, Fives have become even more preoccupied and involved with their projects and ideas. They are beginning to isolate themselves socially and to become more focused on their thoughts than on the world around them. Fives begin to be starved for stimulation, and under stress may begin to involve themselves with a wide variety of experiences which do not relate directly to their central projects or motivations. They distract themselves with video games, movies, and science fiction and horror novels. They love to let their minds free-associate, and can enjoy moments of silliness and offbeat humor which often surprise the people around them. Fives under stress may also develop a taste for nightlife, exploring restaurants, bars, and nightclubs—often as voyeurs. They will usually be secretive about this, however, and few of their friends will be aware of this aspect of their lives. As their anxiety escalates, so does their desire for distraction and stimulation.

At Level 6, Fives are becoming more fearful, and despair of ever finding a niche for themselves. They become threatened by most interactions with others and can be antagonistic and provocative in defense of their intellectual or creative “turf.” They get into high gear in their avoidance of anxiety, and can be insensitive and aggressive in their pursuit of whatever they want at the time. The jaded, calloused qualities of the Seven only reinforce the Five’s growing cynicism, making them impatient with people and extremely hardened in their view of the world. Some may find them wild and exciting at this level, but most people are put off by their intense, bristling energy. Further, Fives under stress will not hesitate to use drugs or alcohol to quell their anxieties. They will pursue whatever offers them relief from their pain and fears, even if their escape is costly and short-lived.

At Level 7, unhealthy Fives are extremely isolated, cut off from contact with others and the world, and consequently have no constructive outlets for their inner intensity. When they go to Seven, they discharge this energy in a variety of escapist behaviors, which only makes them more dissipated and incapable. Unhealthy Fives lurch from an isolated, fearful state to one of wild activity. Their minds are beginning to run out of control, and when they can no longer contain their fear, this enormous mental turbulence gets acted out in impulsive and often irresponsible ways. They lunge into mindless activity, by which they succeed only in getting themselves into worse trouble and more serious conflicts with the environment. They are irrational, have extremely poor judgment, and make poor choices about which actions to take. When others question their self-destructive escapism, their responses can be abusive and infantile.

At Level 8, Fives are full of terrors and cannot distinguish the horrific images that erupt from their unconscious from reality. Under increased stress, their behavior becomes manic and reckless. Moving to Seven now, deteriorated Fives go totally out of control. Some of the terrible things they have feared may actually happen as a result of their erratic and irresponsible behavior. And as fearful as Fives have become, they are often heedless and unaware of real dangers. For example, they may be killed—not because they are devoured by their furniture or exposed to death rays from their television, but because, not watching where they are going, they get run over by a truck. Out-of-control Fives are reckless and accident-prone: they may be poisoned, not by the KGB but because they mistakenly ate something they should not have. Neurotic Fives need to reestablish contact with reality (particularly the positive aspects of it), although at this Level they are completely incapable of doing so. They act impulsively, erratically, and hysterically, like a manic-depressive Seven, becoming increasingly unstable and unpredictable.

At Level 9, Fives are consumed with terror and are desperate to escape the horrors they perceive around them. Similarly, they cannot find anything in themselves which inspires confidence or gives them any sense that they will be able to cope with the rest of their lives. Fearing that they have reached some sort of horrible dead end, they may compulsively do permanent harm to themselves or someone else. Even if they do not kill themselves, their reckless activities may well have severely damaged their health and limited their ability to pursue any further activities. Like unhealthy Sevens, they are debilitated, burned-out, and paralyzed with fear. As anxiety reaches an ever new pitch, they may do something irrevocable, such as impulsively killing someone or committing suicide.

The Direction of Integration: The Five Goes to Eight

Fives typically do not feel that they know enough to act: there is always more to know. They will always feel insecure until they have mastered the real world and are not simply masters of their own minds. From a psychoanalytic point of view, their egos are typically too weak for the ids—their aggressions and other impulses tend to overpower their minds.

This no longer happens to healthy, integrating Fives because they have incorporated their perceptions of the world into themselves by identifying with them instead of merely observing them. They no longer identify just with their thoughts, but also with the objects of their thoughts. Thus, integrating Fives have overcome their fear of the environment and are learning to trust it. Hence their self-confidence grows, after the manner of healthy Eights.

When they go to Eight, Fives also realize that, as little as they think they know, it is still more than almost anyone else. They also realize that they do not have to know absolutely everything before they can act. They will learn more as they do more; they will be able to solve new problems as they arise. They understand that they will know what they need to know when they need to know it. Their confidence will come not from some collection of skills or some vast body of information that they have memorized, but from a real connection with their presence in the world. They then experience themselves not as separate from the world, not as a helpless speck, but as a powerful, integral part of it.

Integrating Fives act from a realization of their own genuine mastery. While they do not know everything, they know enough to lead others with confidence. The correctness of their ideas has been so well confirmed by reality that they no longer fear acting. They acquire the courage it takes to put their ideas, and consequently themselves, on the line. Thus, integrating Fives realize that they are able to contribute something worthwhile to others. As a result, their thoughts are finally given expression in action and possibly in leadership. Integrating Fives show others how to do what only they know how to do. And, as we have seen, the practical value of their ideas may be incalculable.

THE MAJOR SUBTYPES OF THE FIVE

The Five with a Four-Wing: “The Iconoclast”

The traits of the Five and those of the Four reinforce each other in many ways. Both Five and Four are withdrawn types: they turn to the inner world of their imagination to defend their egos and to reinforce their sense of self. They both feel that something essential in themselves must be found before they can live their lives completely. Fives lack the confidence to act, and Fours lack a strong, stable sense of identity. Thus, Fives with a Four-wing have difficulty connecting with others and staying grounded. People of this subtype are more emotional and introverted than Fives with a Six-wing, although paradoxically, they tend to be more sociable than the other subtype. As a result of their Four component, they are also more interested in the personal and intrapsychic. The two types also have some significant differences in their approach. Fives are cerebral, holding experience at arm’s length, while Fours internalize everything to intensify their feelings. Despite these differences—or because of them—these two personality types make one of the richest subtypes, combining possibilities for outstanding artistic as well as intellectual achievement. Noteworthy examples of this subtype include Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenburg, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georgia O'Keeffe, John Cage, John Lennon, k. d. lang, Laurie Anderson, James Joyce, Emily Dickinson, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Buster Keaton, Gary Larson, Stephen King, Tim Burton, Clive Barker, Franz Kafka, Umberto Eco, Jean-Paul Sartre, Oriana Fallaci, Glenn Gould, Peter Serkin, Hannah Arendt, Kurt Cobain, and Vincent van Gogh.

In healthy people of this subtype, we find the union of intuition and knowledge, sensitivity and insight, aesthetic appreciation and intellectual endowments. Fives with a Four-wing are likely to be involved in the arts as writers, directors, designers, musicians, composers, choreographers, and so forth. This subtype has been somewhat overlooked in many descriptions of Fives because they do not fit the stereotype of the academic/scientific Five (the Five with a Six-wing). This subtype is more synthetic in its thinking, pulling things together and seeking out new ways of looking at things. Also, Fives with a Four-wing tend to utilize their imaginations more than the analytic, systematic parts of the mind which are more the domain of the other subtype. If they are involved in science, Fives with a Four-wing are drawn to those areas in which there is less emphasis on experimentation and data collection than on intuition and comprehensive vision. This subtype is particularly aware of—and on the lookout for—the beauty in a mathematical formula, for example. For this subtype, beauty is one of the indications of truth, because the order which beauty represents is a confirmation of the objective lightness of an idea. One of the foremost strengths of healthy Fives with a Four-wing lies precisely in their intuition, since intuition helps them uncover areas of knowledge where their conscious thoughts have not yet ventured. The Fourwing adds a desire to find a unique, personal vision to the curiosity and perceptiveness of the Five, and the result is a propensity to “tinker” with familiar forms until they become something almost unrecognizable. In talented Fives with a Four-wing this can lead to startling innovations in their chosen fields of endeavor.

In Average Fives with a Four-wing, the Four-wing adds emotional depth, but causes difficulties in sustaining efforts and in working with others. Fives with a Four-wing are more independent than Fives with a Six-wing and resist having structures and deadlines imposed on them. There can be an off-putting detachment from the environment, both because they are involved in their thoughts and because they are introverted and emotionally self-absorbed. Analytic powers may be used to keep people at arm’s length rather than to understand them more deeply. Emotionally delicate, people of this subtype can be moody and hypersensitive to criticism, particularly regarding the value of their work or ideas, since this impinges directly upon self-esteem. Both component types tend to withdraw from people and be reclusive. They can be highly creative and imaginative, envisioning alternate realities in great detail, but can get lost in their own cerebral landscapes. The Four-wing gives a propensity to fantasizing, but with the Five with the Four-wing, the subject matter tends toward the surreal and fantastic rather than the romantic. Individuals of this subtype can become highly impractical, spending most of their time reading, playing intellectual games, or specializing in trivia. There is often an attraction to dark, forbidden subject matter or to any way of self-expression which would disturb or upset others. Some Fives with a Four-wing become fascinated with the macabre and the horrific. As they become more impractical and fearful about their possibilities in life, one typical solution is to find emotional solace in various forms of self-indulgence—in alcohol, drugs, or sexual escapades.

Unhealthy persons of this subtype may fall prey to debilitating depressions yet be disturbed by aggressive impulses. Envy of others mixes with contempt for them; the desire to isolate the self from the world mixes with regret that it must be so. Intellectual conflicts make their emotional lives seem hopeless, while their emotional conflicts make intellectual work difficult to sustain. Moreover, if this subtype becomes neurotic, it is one of the most alienated of all of the personality types: profoundly hopeless, nihilistic, self-inhibiting, isolated from others, and full of self-hatred. Unhealthy Fives with a Four-wing retreat into a very bleak, minimal existence, attempting to cut off from all needs. The self-rejection and despair of the Four combines with the cynical nihilism of the Five to create a worldview that is relentlessly negative and terrifying. Social isolation, addiction, and chronic depression are common. Suicide is a real possibility.

The Five with a Six-Wing: “The Problem Solver”

This subtype is the one that has been most often associated with Fives—the intellectual who is interested in science, technology, acquiring facts and details. Fives with a Six-wing are the “analysts” and “cataloguers” of their environments; they are problem solvers and excel at dissecting the components of a problem or thing to discover how it works. The traits of the Five and those of the Six-wing combine to produce one of the most “difficult” of the personality types to contact intimately or to sustain a relationship with. Both components, the Five and the Six, are in the Thinking Triad, and Fives with a Six-wing are perhaps the most intellectual of all the subtypes. They also tend to be more disengaged from their feelings than Fives with a Four-wing. Persons of this subtype have problems trusting others, both because they are essentially Fives and because the Six-wing reinforces anxiety, making any kind of risk taking in relationships difficult. However, the coping mechanisms of the Five and Six are somewhat at odds, creating an inner tension between the two components. Fives find security by withdrawing from others while Sixes find security by working cooperatively with others. Hence, their interpersonal relations are erratic, and in general are not an important part of their lives. Noteworthy examples of this subtype include Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, Sigmund Freud, Simone Weil, Jacob Bronowski, Charles Darwin, Edward O. Wilson, Karl Marx, James Watson, Ursula K. LeGuin, Alfred Hitchcock, Doris Lessing, Cynthia Ozick, Bobby Fischer, B. F. Skinner, Isaac Asimov, Howard Hughes, Ezra Pound, and Theodore Kaczynski.

Healthy people of this subtype are more extroverted and focused on the external world than Fives with a Four-wing. They are not particularly introspective, preferring to observe and understand the world around them. Healthy Fives with a Six-wing observe the world with extraordinary clarity, combining the Five’s drive for mastery with the Six’s quest for certainty. The result is a gift for drawing meaningful conclusions from disparate facts, and an ability to make predictions based on those conclusions. They are often drawn to technical subjects, engineering, science, and philosophy, as well as inventing and repair work. The Six-wing gives this subtype a greater ability to cooperate with others and to bring a disciplined, persistent approach to their endeavors. There is more aptitude for and interest in the practical matters of life, and with sufficient talent, Fives with a Six-wing can combine their innovation with business savvy, sometimes with very lucrative results. Their attention is more often directed at objects than at people, although they identify strongly with key people in their lives. They may feel things deeply, but are extremely restrained in their emotional expression. In them we find an intellectual playfulness, a good sense of humor, as well as other attractive, lovable qualities. If others have been tested and permitted to come closer, they discover that people of this subtype have a deep capacity for friendship and commitment. There is also an endearing element in their desire to be accepted by others, and even if they are sometimes socially clumsy, others cannot help but be touched by their eagerness to reach out to people.

However, average persons of this subtype generally have problems with relationships. The Six-wing provides good organizational abilities and an endearing personal quality, but also adds to the Five’s anxiety and fearfulness. They do not seem to know what to do with their feelings, much less how to express them directly. Hence we find an insensitivity to their own feelings and emotional needs, as well as to the feelings and emotional needs of others. They have little awareness about how they communicate themselves to others. (They are the classic intellectual nerd, the socially inept oddball.) Average Fives with a Six-wing can become extremely preoccupied, theoretical, and absent-minded. They are totally wrapped up with intellectual pursuits and live completely in their minds, immersing themselves in their work to the exclusion of everything else. When interpersonal conflicts arise, average Fives with a Six-wing avoid resolving problems by burying themselves even more deeply in their intellectual work, and by employing passive-aggressive techniques, putting off people and problems rather than dealing with them directly. They can be rebellious and argumentative for no apparent reason, although something may have touched off unconscious emotional associations. Fives with a Six-wing tend to cling more tenaciously to their views and theories (reductionism) and to antagonize people who disagree with them, whereas Fives with a Four-wing tend to reject all meaning (nihilism) and to disturb the certainty of people who seem secure.

Unhealthy people of this subtype tend to be suspicious of people and to have counterphobic, contentious, and volatile reactions to others. They are extremely fearful of intimacy of any sort and can be highly unstable, with paranoid tendencies. Unconsciously seeking rescue, they also fearfully reject and antagonize their supporters. The isolation and mental distortion we see in unhealthy Fives are reinforced by the Six-wing’s paranoia, inferiority feelings, and conviction of being persecuted. Neurotic Fives with a Six-wing ultimately become extremely phobic, projecting dangers everywhere while retreating from all social interaction. They may lash out at imagined enemies, sometimes with lethal results. Psychotic breaks and madness are possible.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

Taking an overall view of the Five, we can see that there has been a struggle between various pairs of polar opposites: between thinking and doing, between a fascination with the world and a fear of the world, between identification with others and rejection of them, between love and hate. This process of attraction to and repulsion from the environment as a whole began with their ambivalence toward their parents. But unfortunately, what happens is that Fives gradually become so obsessed with defending themselves from potential threats from the environment—that is, from whatever they see as harmful and dangerous—that they also exclude the good. Eventually, there is nothing in the world with which Fives can identify, nothing true or valuable in which they can believe. The final result is total nihilism: there is nothing left to which they can attach themselves.

Like every other personality type which becomes gripped in the downward spiral of neurosis, Fives bring about the very thing they most fear: that they are helpless, useless, and incompetent. The irony is that they have become helpless and incompetent because they have rejected attachment to everything. And by intensifying their involvement with their mental processes, instead of finding security or power, Fives have brought about their own insecurity and powerlessness.

It is a tragic end. If there is something perverse and dark—even demonic—about Fives, it is that to protect themselves they have relentlessly repulsed the world and other human beings. What then is left? Only a fascination with—and a terrifying attraction to—the darkness.

[s7groupinc-blog]

Adam Radly Bob Bates: Meritocracy doesn’t exist, and believing it does is bad for you

https://www.fastcompany.com/40510522/meritocracy-doesnt-exist-and-believing-it-does-is-bad-for-you?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life–money, power, jobs, university admission–should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the “even playing field” upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually and morally, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which one’s social position is determined by the lottery of birth. Under meritocracy, wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events. Most people don’t just think the world should be run meritocratically, they think it is meritocratic. In the U.K., 84% of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either “essential” or “very important” when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69% of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill. Respondents in both countries believe that external factors, such as luck and coming from a wealthy family, are much less important. While these ideas are most pronounced in these two countries, they are popular across the globe.

Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called “grit,” depend a great deal on one’s genetic endowments and upbringing.This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates’s stellar rise as Microsoft’s founder, as well as to Frank’s own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best. According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.

In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Meritocracy is not only wrong; it’s bad.The “ultimatum game” is an experiment, common in psychological labs, in which one player (the proposer) is given a sum of money and told to propose a division between him and another player (the responder), who may accept the offer or reject it. If the responder rejects the offer, neither player gets anything. The experiment has been replicated thousands of times, and usually the proposer offers a relatively even split. If the amount to be shared is $100, most offers fall between $40-$50. One variation on this game shows that believing one is more skilled leads to more selfish behavior. In research at Beijing Normal University, participants played a fake game of skill before making offers in the ultimatum game. Players who were (falsely) led to believe they had “won” claimed more for themselves than those who did not play the skill game. Other studies confirm this finding. The economists Aldo Rustichini at the University of Minnesota and Alexander Vostroknutov at Maastricht University in the Netherlands found that subjects who first engaged in a game of skill were much less likely to support the redistribution of prizes than those who engaged in games of chance. Just having the idea of skill in mind makes people more tolerant of unequal outcomes. While this was found to be true of all participants, the effect was much more pronounced among the “winners.” By contrast, research on gratitude indicates that remembering the role of luck increases generosity. Frank cites a study in which simply asking subjects to recall the external factors (luck, help from others) that had contributed to their successes in life made them much more likely to give to charity than those who were asked to remember the internal factors (effort, skill). Perhaps more disturbing, simply holding meritocracy as a value seems to promote discriminatory behavior. The management scholar Emilio Castilla at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the sociologist Stephen Benard at Indiana University studied attempts to implement meritocratic practices, such as performance-based compensation in private companies. They found that, in companies that explicitly held meritocracy as a core value, managers assigned greater rewards to male employees over female employees with identical performance evaluations. This preference disappeared where meritocracy was not explicitly adopted as a value.

This is surprising because impartiality is the core of meritocracy’s moral appeal. The “even playing field” is intended to avoid unfair inequalities based on gender, race, and the like. Yet Castilla and Benard found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate. They suggest that this “paradox of meritocracy” occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides. Satisfied that they are just, they become less inclined to examine their own behavior for signs of prejudice.Meritocracy is a false and not very salutary belief. As with any ideology, part of its draw is that it justifies the status quo, explaining why people belong where they happen to be in the social order. It is a well-established psychological principle that people prefer to believe that the world is just. However, in addition to legitimation, meritocracy also offers flattery. Where success is determined by merit, each win can be viewed as a reflection of one’s own virtue and worth. Meritocracy is the most self-congratulatory of distribution principles. Its ideological alchemy transmutes property into praise, material inequality into personal superiority. It licenses the rich and powerful to view themselves as productive geniuses. While this effect is most spectacular among the elite, nearly any accomplishment can be viewed through meritocratic eyes. Graduating from high school, artistic success, or simply having money can all be seen as evidence of talent and effort. By the same token, worldly failures becomes signs of personal defects, providing a reason why those at the bottom of the social hierarchy deserve to remain there. This is why debates over the extent to which particular individuals are “self-made” and over the effects of various forms of “privilege” can get so hot-tempered. These arguments are not just about who gets to have what; it’s about how much “credit” people can take for what they have, about what their successes allow them to believe about their inner qualities. That is why, under the assumption of meritocracy, the very notion that personal success is the result of “luck” can be insulting. To acknowledge the influence of external factors seems to downplay or deny the existence of individual merit. Despite the moral assurance and personal flattery that meritocracy offers to the successful, it ought to be abandoned both as a belief about how the world works and as a general social ideal. It’s false, and believing in it encourages selfishness, discrimination, and indifference to the plight of the unfortunate. Clifton Mark writes about political theory, psychology, and other lifestyle-related topics. He lives in Toronto.      Radly Bates affiliates: S7 Group Radly Bates Index Radly Bates Consulting Radly Bates Capital Radly Bates Associates Radly Bates Digital Radly Bates Valuations Follow us on social: https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates. https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations https://issuu.com/s7loans Read the full article

[radlybatesconsulting-blog]

Adam Radly Bob Bates: Meritocracy doesn’t exist, and believing it does is bad for you

https://www.fastcompany.com/40510522/meritocracy-doesnt-exist-and-believing-it-does-is-bad-for-you?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life–money, power, jobs, university admission–should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the “even playing field” upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually and morally, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which one’s social position is determined by the lottery of birth. Under meritocracy, wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events. Most people don’t just think the world should be run meritocratically, they think it is meritocratic. In the U.K., 84% of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either “essential” or “very important” when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69% of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill. Respondents in both countries believe that external factors, such as luck and coming from a wealthy family, are much less important. While these ideas are most pronounced in these two countries, they are popular across the globe.

Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called “grit,” depend a great deal on one’s genetic endowments and upbringing.This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates’s stellar rise as Microsoft’s founder, as well as to Frank’s own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best. According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.

In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Meritocracy is not only wrong; it’s bad.The “ultimatum game” is an experiment, common in psychological labs, in which one player (the proposer) is given a sum of money and told to propose a division between him and another player (the responder), who may accept the offer or reject it. If the responder rejects the offer, neither player gets anything. The experiment has been replicated thousands of times, and usually the proposer offers a relatively even split. If the amount to be shared is $100, most offers fall between $40-$50. One variation on this game shows that believing one is more skilled leads to more selfish behavior. In research at Beijing Normal University, participants played a fake game of skill before making offers in the ultimatum game. Players who were (falsely) led to believe they had “won” claimed more for themselves than those who did not play the skill game. Other studies confirm this finding. The economists Aldo Rustichini at the University of Minnesota and Alexander Vostroknutov at Maastricht University in the Netherlands found that subjects who first engaged in a game of skill were much less likely to support the redistribution of prizes than those who engaged in games of chance. Just having the idea of skill in mind makes people more tolerant of unequal outcomes. While this was found to be true of all participants, the effect was much more pronounced among the “winners.” By contrast, research on gratitude indicates that remembering the role of luck increases generosity. Frank cites a study in which simply asking subjects to recall the external factors (luck, help from others) that had contributed to their successes in life made them much more likely to give to charity than those who were asked to remember the internal factors (effort, skill). Perhaps more disturbing, simply holding meritocracy as a value seems to promote discriminatory behavior. The management scholar Emilio Castilla at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the sociologist Stephen Benard at Indiana University studied attempts to implement meritocratic practices, such as performance-based compensation in private companies. They found that, in companies that explicitly held meritocracy as a core value, managers assigned greater rewards to male employees over female employees with identical performance evaluations. This preference disappeared where meritocracy was not explicitly adopted as a value.

This is surprising because impartiality is the core of meritocracy’s moral appeal. The “even playing field” is intended to avoid unfair inequalities based on gender, race, and the like. Yet Castilla and Benard found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate. They suggest that this “paradox of meritocracy” occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides. Satisfied that they are just, they become less inclined to examine their own behavior for signs of prejudice.Meritocracy is a false and not very salutary belief. As with any ideology, part of its draw is that it justifies the status quo, explaining why people belong where they happen to be in the social order. It is a well-established psychological principle that people prefer to believe that the world is just. However, in addition to legitimation, meritocracy also offers flattery. Where success is determined by merit, each win can be viewed as a reflection of one’s own virtue and worth. Meritocracy is the most self-congratulatory of distribution principles. Its ideological alchemy transmutes property into praise, material inequality into personal superiority. It licenses the rich and powerful to view themselves as productive geniuses. While this effect is most spectacular among the elite, nearly any accomplishment can be viewed through meritocratic eyes. Graduating from high school, artistic success, or simply having money can all be seen as evidence of talent and effort. By the same token, worldly failures becomes signs of personal defects, providing a reason why those at the bottom of the social hierarchy deserve to remain there. This is why debates over the extent to which particular individuals are “self-made” and over the effects of various forms of “privilege” can get so hot-tempered. These arguments are not just about who gets to have what; it’s about how much “credit” people can take for what they have, about what their successes allow them to believe about their inner qualities. That is why, under the assumption of meritocracy, the very notion that personal success is the result of “luck” can be insulting. To acknowledge the influence of external factors seems to downplay or deny the existence of individual merit. Despite the moral assurance and personal flattery that meritocracy offers to the successful, it ought to be abandoned both as a belief about how the world works and as a general social ideal. It’s false, and believing in it encourages selfishness, discrimination, and indifference to the plight of the unfortunate. Clifton Mark writes about political theory, psychology, and other lifestyle-related topics. He lives in Toronto.      Radly Bates affiliates: S7 Group Radly Bates Index Radly Bates Consulting Radly Bates Capital Radly Bates Associates Radly Bates Digital Radly Bates Valuations Follow us on social: https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates. https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations https://issuu.com/s7loans Read the full article

[radleybatesdigital-blog]

Adam Radly Bob Bates: Meritocracy doesn’t exist, and believing it does is bad for you

https://www.fastcompany.com/40510522/meritocracy-doesnt-exist-and-believing-it-does-is-bad-for-you?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life–money, power, jobs, university admission–should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the “even playing field” upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually and morally, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which one’s social position is determined by the lottery of birth. Under meritocracy, wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events. Most people don’t just think the world should be run meritocratically, they think it is meritocratic. In the U.K., 84% of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either “essential” or “very important” when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69% of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill. Respondents in both countries believe that external factors, such as luck and coming from a wealthy family, are much less important. While these ideas are most pronounced in these two countries, they are popular across the globe.

Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called “grit,” depend a great deal on one’s genetic endowments and upbringing.This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates’s stellar rise as Microsoft’s founder, as well as to Frank’s own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best. According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.

In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Meritocracy is not only wrong; it’s bad.The “ultimatum game” is an experiment, common in psychological labs, in which one player (the proposer) is given a sum of money and told to propose a division between him and another player (the responder), who may accept the offer or reject it. If the responder rejects the offer, neither player gets anything. The experiment has been replicated thousands of times, and usually the proposer offers a relatively even split. If the amount to be shared is $100, most offers fall between $40-$50. One variation on this game shows that believing one is more skilled leads to more selfish behavior. In research at Beijing Normal University, participants played a fake game of skill before making offers in the ultimatum game. Players who were (falsely) led to believe they had “won” claimed more for themselves than those who did not play the skill game. Other studies confirm this finding. The economists Aldo Rustichini at the University of Minnesota and Alexander Vostroknutov at Maastricht University in the Netherlands found that subjects who first engaged in a game of skill were much less likely to support the redistribution of prizes than those who engaged in games of chance. Just having the idea of skill in mind makes people more tolerant of unequal outcomes. While this was found to be true of all participants, the effect was much more pronounced among the “winners.” By contrast, research on gratitude indicates that remembering the role of luck increases generosity. Frank cites a study in which simply asking subjects to recall the external factors (luck, help from others) that had contributed to their successes in life made them much more likely to give to charity than those who were asked to remember the internal factors (effort, skill). Perhaps more disturbing, simply holding meritocracy as a value seems to promote discriminatory behavior. The management scholar Emilio Castilla at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the sociologist Stephen Benard at Indiana University studied attempts to implement meritocratic practices, such as performance-based compensation in private companies. They found that, in companies that explicitly held meritocracy as a core value, managers assigned greater rewards to male employees over female employees with identical performance evaluations. This preference disappeared where meritocracy was not explicitly adopted as a value.

This is surprising because impartiality is the core of meritocracy’s moral appeal. The “even playing field” is intended to avoid unfair inequalities based on gender, race, and the like. Yet Castilla and Benard found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate. They suggest that this “paradox of meritocracy” occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides. Satisfied that they are just, they become less inclined to examine their own behavior for signs of prejudice.Meritocracy is a false and not very salutary belief. As with any ideology, part of its draw is that it justifies the status quo, explaining why people belong where they happen to be in the social order. It is a well-established psychological principle that people prefer to believe that the world is just. However, in addition to legitimation, meritocracy also offers flattery. Where success is determined by merit, each win can be viewed as a reflection of one’s own virtue and worth. Meritocracy is the most self-congratulatory of distribution principles. Its ideological alchemy transmutes property into praise, material inequality into personal superiority. It licenses the rich and powerful to view themselves as productive geniuses. While this effect is most spectacular among the elite, nearly any accomplishment can be viewed through meritocratic eyes. Graduating from high school, artistic success, or simply having money can all be seen as evidence of talent and effort. By the same token, worldly failures becomes signs of personal defects, providing a reason why those at the bottom of the social hierarchy deserve to remain there. This is why debates over the extent to which particular individuals are “self-made” and over the effects of various forms of “privilege” can get so hot-tempered. These arguments are not just about who gets to have what; it’s about how much “credit” people can take for what they have, about what their successes allow them to believe about their inner qualities. That is why, under the assumption of meritocracy, the very notion that personal success is the result of “luck” can be insulting. To acknowledge the influence of external factors seems to downplay or deny the existence of individual merit. Despite the moral assurance and personal flattery that meritocracy offers to the successful, it ought to be abandoned both as a belief about how the world works and as a general social ideal. It’s false, and believing in it encourages selfishness, discrimination, and indifference to the plight of the unfortunate. Clifton Mark writes about political theory, psychology, and other lifestyle-related topics. He lives in Toronto.      Radly Bates affiliates: S7 Group Radly Bates Index Radly Bates Consulting Radly Bates Capital Radly Bates Associates Radly Bates Digital Radly Bates Valuations Follow us on social: https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates. https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations https://issuu.com/s7loans Read the full article

[radlybatesassociates-blog]

Adam Radly Bob Bates: Meritocracy doesn’t exist, and believing it does is bad for you

https://www.fastcompany.com/40510522/meritocracy-doesnt-exist-and-believing-it-does-is-bad-for-you?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life–money, power, jobs, university admission–should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the “even playing field” upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually and morally, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which one’s social position is determined by the lottery of birth. Under meritocracy, wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events. Most people don’t just think the world should be run meritocratically, they think it is meritocratic. In the U.K., 84% of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either “essential” or “very important” when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69% of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill. Respondents in both countries believe that external factors, such as luck and coming from a wealthy family, are much less important. While these ideas are most pronounced in these two countries, they are popular across the globe.

Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called “grit,” depend a great deal on one’s genetic endowments and upbringing.This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates’s stellar rise as Microsoft’s founder, as well as to Frank’s own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best. According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.

In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Meritocracy is not only wrong; it’s bad.The “ultimatum game” is an experiment, common in psychological labs, in which one player (the proposer) is given a sum of money and told to propose a division between him and another player (the responder), who may accept the offer or reject it. If the responder rejects the offer, neither player gets anything. The experiment has been replicated thousands of times, and usually the proposer offers a relatively even split. If the amount to be shared is $100, most offers fall between $40-$50. One variation on this game shows that believing one is more skilled leads to more selfish behavior. In research at Beijing Normal University, participants played a fake game of skill before making offers in the ultimatum game. Players who were (falsely) led to believe they had “won” claimed more for themselves than those who did not play the skill game. Other studies confirm this finding. The economists Aldo Rustichini at the University of Minnesota and Alexander Vostroknutov at Maastricht University in the Netherlands found that subjects who first engaged in a game of skill were much less likely to support the redistribution of prizes than those who engaged in games of chance. Just having the idea of skill in mind makes people more tolerant of unequal outcomes. While this was found to be true of all participants, the effect was much more pronounced among the “winners.” By contrast, research on gratitude indicates that remembering the role of luck increases generosity. Frank cites a study in which simply asking subjects to recall the external factors (luck, help from others) that had contributed to their successes in life made them much more likely to give to charity than those who were asked to remember the internal factors (effort, skill). Perhaps more disturbing, simply holding meritocracy as a value seems to promote discriminatory behavior. The management scholar Emilio Castilla at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the sociologist Stephen Benard at Indiana University studied attempts to implement meritocratic practices, such as performance-based compensation in private companies. They found that, in companies that explicitly held meritocracy as a core value, managers assigned greater rewards to male employees over female employees with identical performance evaluations. This preference disappeared where meritocracy was not explicitly adopted as a value.

This is surprising because impartiality is the core of meritocracy’s moral appeal. The “even playing field” is intended to avoid unfair inequalities based on gender, race, and the like. Yet Castilla and Benard found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate. They suggest that this “paradox of meritocracy” occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides. Satisfied that they are just, they become less inclined to examine their own behavior for signs of prejudice.Meritocracy is a false and not very salutary belief. As with any ideology, part of its draw is that it justifies the status quo, explaining why people belong where they happen to be in the social order. It is a well-established psychological principle that people prefer to believe that the world is just. However, in addition to legitimation, meritocracy also offers flattery. Where success is determined by merit, each win can be viewed as a reflection of one’s own virtue and worth. Meritocracy is the most self-congratulatory of distribution principles. Its ideological alchemy transmutes property into praise, material inequality into personal superiority. It licenses the rich and powerful to view themselves as productive geniuses. While this effect is most spectacular among the elite, nearly any accomplishment can be viewed through meritocratic eyes. Graduating from high school, artistic success, or simply having money can all be seen as evidence of talent and effort. By the same token, worldly failures becomes signs of personal defects, providing a reason why those at the bottom of the social hierarchy deserve to remain there. This is why debates over the extent to which particular individuals are “self-made” and over the effects of various forms of “privilege” can get so hot-tempered. These arguments are not just about who gets to have what; it’s about how much “credit” people can take for what they have, about what their successes allow them to believe about their inner qualities. That is why, under the assumption of meritocracy, the very notion that personal success is the result of “luck” can be insulting. To acknowledge the influence of external factors seems to downplay or deny the existence of individual merit. Despite the moral assurance and personal flattery that meritocracy offers to the successful, it ought to be abandoned both as a belief about how the world works and as a general social ideal. It’s false, and believing in it encourages selfishness, discrimination, and indifference to the plight of the unfortunate. Clifton Mark writes about political theory, psychology, and other lifestyle-related topics. He lives in Toronto.      Radly Bates affiliates: S7 Group Radly Bates Index Radly Bates Consulting Radly Bates Capital Radly Bates Associates Radly Bates Digital Radly Bates Valuations Follow us on social: https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates. https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations https://issuu.com/s7loans Read the full article

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Adam Radly Bob Bates: Meritocracy doesn’t exist, and believing it does is bad for you

https://www.fastcompany.com/40510522/meritocracy-doesnt-exist-and-believing-it-does-is-bad-for-you?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life–money, power, jobs, university admission–should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the “even playing field” upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually and morally, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which one’s social position is determined by the lottery of birth. Under meritocracy, wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events. Most people don’t just think the world should be run meritocratically, they think it is meritocratic. In the U.K., 84% of respondents to the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey stated that hard work is either “essential” or “very important” when it comes to getting ahead, and in 2016 the Brookings Institute found that 69% of Americans believe that people are rewarded for intelligence and skill. Respondents in both countries believe that external factors, such as luck and coming from a wealthy family, are much less important. While these ideas are most pronounced in these two countries, they are popular across the globe.

Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and the capacity for determined effort, sometimes called “grit,” depend a great deal on one’s genetic endowments and upbringing.This is to say nothing of the fortuitous circumstances that figure into every success story. In his book Success and Luck, the U.S. economist Robert Frank recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to Bill Gates’s stellar rise as Microsoft’s founder, as well as to Frank’s own success as an academic. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the industry and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best. According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.

In addition to being false, a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that believing in meritocracy makes people more selfish, less self-critical, and even more prone to acting in discriminatory ways. Meritocracy is not only wrong; it’s bad.The “ultimatum game” is an experiment, common in psychological labs, in which one player (the proposer) is given a sum of money and told to propose a division between him and another player (the responder), who may accept the offer or reject it. If the responder rejects the offer, neither player gets anything. The experiment has been replicated thousands of times, and usually the proposer offers a relatively even split. If the amount to be shared is $100, most offers fall between $40-$50. One variation on this game shows that believing one is more skilled leads to more selfish behavior. In research at Beijing Normal University, participants played a fake game of skill before making offers in the ultimatum game. Players who were (falsely) led to believe they had “won” claimed more for themselves than those who did not play the skill game. Other studies confirm this finding. The economists Aldo Rustichini at the University of Minnesota and Alexander Vostroknutov at Maastricht University in the Netherlands found that subjects who first engaged in a game of skill were much less likely to support the redistribution of prizes than those who engaged in games of chance. Just having the idea of skill in mind makes people more tolerant of unequal outcomes. While this was found to be true of all participants, the effect was much more pronounced among the “winners.” By contrast, research on gratitude indicates that remembering the role of luck increases generosity. Frank cites a study in which simply asking subjects to recall the external factors (luck, help from others) that had contributed to their successes in life made them much more likely to give to charity than those who were asked to remember the internal factors (effort, skill). Perhaps more disturbing, simply holding meritocracy as a value seems to promote discriminatory behavior. The management scholar Emilio Castilla at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the sociologist Stephen Benard at Indiana University studied attempts to implement meritocratic practices, such as performance-based compensation in private companies. They found that, in companies that explicitly held meritocracy as a core value, managers assigned greater rewards to male employees over female employees with identical performance evaluations. This preference disappeared where meritocracy was not explicitly adopted as a value.

This is surprising because impartiality is the core of meritocracy’s moral appeal. The “even playing field” is intended to avoid unfair inequalities based on gender, race, and the like. Yet Castilla and Benard found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy leads to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate. They suggest that this “paradox of meritocracy” occurs because explicitly adopting meritocracy as a value convinces subjects of their own moral bona fides. Satisfied that they are just, they become less inclined to examine their own behavior for signs of prejudice.Meritocracy is a false and not very salutary belief. As with any ideology, part of its draw is that it justifies the status quo, explaining why people belong where they happen to be in the social order. It is a well-established psychological principle that people prefer to believe that the world is just. However, in addition to legitimation, meritocracy also offers flattery. Where success is determined by merit, each win can be viewed as a reflection of one’s own virtue and worth. Meritocracy is the most self-congratulatory of distribution principles. Its ideological alchemy transmutes property into praise, material inequality into personal superiority. It licenses the rich and powerful to view themselves as productive geniuses. While this effect is most spectacular among the elite, nearly any accomplishment can be viewed through meritocratic eyes. Graduating from high school, artistic success, or simply having money can all be seen as evidence of talent and effort. By the same token, worldly failures becomes signs of personal defects, providing a reason why those at the bottom of the social hierarchy deserve to remain there. This is why debates over the extent to which particular individuals are “self-made” and over the effects of various forms of “privilege” can get so hot-tempered. These arguments are not just about who gets to have what; it’s about how much “credit” people can take for what they have, about what their successes allow them to believe about their inner qualities. That is why, under the assumption of meritocracy, the very notion that personal success is the result of “luck” can be insulting. To acknowledge the influence of external factors seems to downplay or deny the existence of individual merit. Despite the moral assurance and personal flattery that meritocracy offers to the successful, it ought to be abandoned both as a belief about how the world works and as a general social ideal. It’s false, and believing in it encourages selfishness, discrimination, and indifference to the plight of the unfortunate. Clifton Mark writes about political theory, psychology, and other lifestyle-related topics. He lives in Toronto.      Radly Bates affiliates: S7 Group Radly Bates Index Radly Bates Consulting Radly Bates Capital Radly Bates Associates Radly Bates Digital Radly Bates Valuations Follow us on social: https://issuu.com/radlybatesconsulting https://issuu.com/radlybatescapital https://issuu.com/radlybatesdigital https://issuu.com/radlybatesassociates. https://issuu.com/radlybatesvaluations https://issuu.com/s7loans Read the full article