Activisty Zeal

[BrainVessel]

I'm not an emotional person. I'm a stereotypical INTP in most areas. I don't even blink when someone's telling a proclaimed "tear-jerking" story and I'm hardly ever capable of empathy even when I try to force myself to feel it.

But I'm a huge activist.
I care about people. Maybe not their trivial matters, but I do care a lot about people.
Racism, sexism, ageism, world hunger, violence, environmentalism, people not given freedom of education/religion/to seek happiness... I care deeply for these problems that widely oppress our world and would cut my heart out and give it to these causes.
To be honest, 50% of the time I'm a compassionate friendly and slightly shy person who wants to show people better ways to live and the other 50% I'm a sarcastic asshole.
But
I believe the latter to merely be frustration that I have not found myself able to be the first. I'm a deeply kind person, but I have little idea how to go about being so. This frustration produces counter-productive douchebaggery as if by somehow abrasively asserting my "superiority" over others they will then listen to me and I will be enabled to help them.
I'm an f'ing imbecile.



But basically, I came to ask:
Am I alone in this as an INTP?

 

[Pyropyro]

Sounds like an Fe rearing its idealistic head. It's always in a kind of tension with our Ti.

I think Archie and the other more MBTI knowledgeable folks here can explain it better.

 

[Object]

I'd be an activist but I hate what they have become, I hate how ill informed people can be and at the same time so very passionate about a cause, and the real problem is, it doesn't matter what cause - They just want some sort of meaning.

I think you would be different to the average activist though.

The most care I have for people comes from personal relationships.

Racism and Sexism, I have a lot of opinions about. I think if a black man can be proud of having black skin, his history etc. I as a white person can be proud of my ancestry, my ancestors conquered the world. I also think racial profiling isn't a bad thing if there is a dramatic difference between race and actions.

There are people who would think what I just said is racist.

Sexism is just a weird, scary topic. We're biologically different and we have our advantages and disadvantages over gender - However I think it's so slight that it doesn't really matter in terms of ability except in certain situations.

Also, calling someone a racist or a sexist is so overdone and misused that It doesn't even pack a punch anymore.

 

[BrainVessel]

I'd be an activist but I hate what they have become, I hate how ill informed people can be and at the same time so very passionate about a cause, and the real problem is, it doesn't matter what cause - They just want some sort of meaning.

There are a lot of self-proclaimed activists out there who are in it to look opinionated. Those people are not activists, they're insecure. This produces poorly thought through opinions and stupid causes.
I don't think we should shirk away from a title simply because it is misrepresented.

Racism and Sexism, I have a lot of opinions about. I think if a black man can be proud of having black skin, his history etc. I as a white person can be proud of my ancestry, my ancestors conquered the world. I also think racial profiling isn't a bad thing if there is a dramatic difference between race and actions.

There are people who would think what I just said is racist.

Because it was. "I also don't think that making an assumption about someone because of the actions of a minority of their race isn't a bad thing." That's exactly what racism is. Making assumptions because of race.
There really isn't disproportionate crime levels racially, but since blacks began at a lower class and inherited nothing they are more likely to be in poverty, therefore more likely to steal/have lower educations and therefore be less logically and morally grounded. They aren't set up for success like most whites are, making everything more complicated.

Instead of focusing on the other things regarding institutional racism of a country and culture founded in black slavery you focus on how you cannot claim pride for your ancestry without being perceived poorly by some? Yes, you should be able to be proud of your ancestry(though frankly I see no point in pride in it, it wasn't your achievement, and a lot of it was despicable. The end doesn't justify the means.) but this really isn't the point.

When it comes to racism and sexism the white heterosexual men are complaining "What about the white heterosexual men?" Which is not the freaking point. You shouldn't be against racism or sexism for yourself. The emancipation from racial and sexual prejudice should not be relative to how you benefit. That would be like Lincoln standing up and saying "But what about the aristocrats?!" when slavery was questioned.

Sexism is just a weird, scary topic. We're biologically different and we have our advantages and disadvantages over gender - However I think it's so slight that it doesn't really matter in terms of ability except in certain situations.

Also, calling someone a racist or a sexist is so overdone and misused that It doesn't even pack a punch anymore.

It's not a weird or scary topic. You either believe that women should be able to make their own decisions or you don't. You believe that men are uncontrollable barbaric brutes or you don't. You believe that women have value outside of sexuality and maternity or you don't. Not weird or scary. Simple.
Exactly. Gender rarely affects one's abilities enough for it to hold significance. The majority of people do not understand this because they tie peoples identities so closely to their gender and standard gender roles and that is why sexism.

Wide misrepresentation of a word doesn't negate from the validity of it. Culture is soaked in prejudice of all kinds and it either oppresses or grants undeserved privileges and it escapes me how few people see it. The root of my frustrations.

 

[BrainVessel]

Sounds like an Fe rearing its idealistic head. It's always in a kind of tension with our Ti.

I think Archie and the other more MBTI knowledgeable folks here can explain it better.

*sets a beautiful cake with piped writing "Please explain me a thing, O' Architect" in thread*

 

[computerhxr]

I think that I can relate. I have always cared for others without really feeling anything towards them. I have always been an underground activist. I make waves and changes without having having anyone realize that I was involved.

There's a lot of obviously stupid stuff that happens in the world, and too many ignorant idiots that perpetuate it. It's funny how people ignored me when I told them about issues, and now that it's popular culture they tell me about it like I don't know.

I'm probably a little bit extreme because I care about the physical makeup of planets because I think that it's important for DNA development. Also, I care about atoms and the universes inside of them. Not much that you can do about it though so I have to be realistic. People don't think that plants can think or feel, but Darwin wrote a book about plant life and mentions intelligence. I'm not sure what can be done or what parts actually matter, but some things are obvious and humans should be responsible enough to make things better instead of worse.

You're not alone, and you got to do what you feel makes the most sense. We can't allow people to destroy everything in their path out of greed and ignorance. At the same time, we have limited power for change so you have to have some balance in life.

I applaud you for having a conscious that can tell you the difference between right and wrong. Kudos!

 

[computerhxr]

I also think racial profiling isn't a bad thing if there is a dramatic difference between race and actions.

Racial profiling is racist. You can have opinions about people based on race, that is culture. There is a huge difference.

 

[nanook]

Empathy is a complex spiritual quality and is in no way guaranteed to ship with a feeling function, wherever in the stack this function will be installed.

My empathy is also damaged/intimidated and i might be F dominant (although doubts about that have been creeping onto me again, lately).

I believe Patrick Stewart is a Te>Fi type.

Fi does not like to manipulate feelings towards alternating outcome, even though it's highly self-moderating according to it's own generic natural un-manipulatable laws.


What is considered to be mandatory empathic behaviour (be "caring") in culture is in deed just Fe behavior, which is also not the same as true empathy. Fe tends to tell a story about how things will get better or how they are just way worse than they should be and someone ought to be blamed (offering distraction) or it's simply descriptive about the feeling, to demonstrate that it's feeling with you, but still implies indirect idealistic comparison for instance: omg, that must be so horrible, i can hardly imagine. to which Fi might reply: okay, please stop patronising me (or similar), besides you don't know what will come and things might not become better and i will have to make my peace with it, so leave me alone with the drama theme.

True empathy is curiosity about emotions.

"Wow, so you have six months to live, how does that affect you?"

However applying true empathy to someone other than yourself is more complicated, because what is curiosity to you is a challenge for the other person to become aware of their own emotions and Fi has too much respect for privacy (or specifically for the possible need to suppress emotions, sometimes) to bother other people with such invasive challenges.

I imagine even more so, when Te is strong, but i'm not sure, perhaps it's the opposite and the Te user would simply be more frank about his curiosity and less respecting of emotional privacy.

"so i have six months to live"

"okay"

"okay? what, are you like dexter or something?"

"fuck cultural programming i'm out'a here"

*goes and becomes an activist, advocating the deconditioning of society from the influence of stupid memes*

 

[nanook]

INTP activist has deconstructed all divisive political agendas.

Spoiler

http://youtu.be/RjprKQFRudM

 

[BrainVessel]

Empathy is a complex spiritual quality and is in no way guaranteed to ship with a feeling function, wherever in the stack this function will be installed.

My empathy is also damaged/intimidated and i might be F dominant (although doubts about that have been creeping onto me again, lately).

I believe Patrick Stewart is a Te>Fi type.

Fi does not like to manipulate feelings towards alternating outcome, even though it's highly self-moderating according to it's own generic natural un-manipulatable laws.


What is considered to be mandatory empathic behaviour (be "caring") in culture is in deed just Fe behavior, which is also not the same as true empathy. Fe tends to tell a story about how things will get better or how they are just way worse than they should be and someone ought to be blamed (offering distraction) or it's simply descriptive about the feeling, to demonstrate that it's feeling with you, but still implies indirect idealistic comparison for instance: omg, that must be so horrible, i can hardly imagine. to which Fi might reply: okay, please stop patronising me (or similar), besides you don't know what will come and things might not become better and i will have to make my peace with it, so leave me alone with the drama theme.

True empathy is curiosity about emotions.

"Wow, so you have six months to live, how does that affect you?"

However applying true empathy to someone other than yourself is more complicated, because what is curiosity to you is a challenge for the other person to become aware of their own emotions and Fi has too much respect for privacy (or specifically for the possible need to suppress emotions, sometimes) to bother other people with such invasive challenges.

I imagine even more so, when Te is strong, but i'm not sure, perhaps it's the opposite and the Te user would simply be more frank about his curiosity and less respecting of emotional privacy.

"so i have six months to live"

"okay"

"okay? what, are you like dexter or something?"

"fuck cultural programming i'm out'a here"

*goes and becomes an activist, advocating the deconditioning of society from the influence of stupid memes*

I'll need a while to internalize that but thank you. That made a lot of sense.