Sorry for the length…please throw in your 2 cents - any insight would be appreciated
I appreciate that you're trying out an idea. There are points in it which have great merit. I'll endeavour to clarify which elements are accurate.
What follows is a transcription of the first couple of pages of the last chapter (11) of the book “Compass of the Soul Archetypal Guides to a Fuller Life” by John Giannini.
(Aside: I've left a review for the book on Amazon…I think there are two in total which doesn't speak to the books quality but it’s length. Having said that…if you haven’t checked it out I would encourage you to do so. The book is epic in scope and way beyond that which I want to address here…if you’re a student of type I would encourage you to pick up a copy and settle down for a fascinating read…anyway I digress…)
It was a bit of a revelation to me to understand that (by type) we feel most at odds with those who are attitudinally opposite of what we are dominantly but with the same function. So with INTP (Introverted Thinking)…we take most (organic?) offense around those who employ Extroverted Thinking dominantly.
WTF?
When it comes to INTJs, those who are attitudinally opposite of what they are dominantly but with the same function, are Ne-doms, ENTPs and ENFPs. INTJs routinely say they get on fantastically with ENTPs in a workplace setting or discussion. INTJ males also say they get on fantastically with female ENFPs in relationships, and is their #1 choice for a parter in a relationship. In the case of INTJs, they get on with their attitudinal opposite better than most other types, and maybe even better than any other type.
Epic fail.
While – as Giannini describes it – the American Shadow is said to be characterized by the (en masse) ESTJ Shadow – The Goal Orientated Extrovert Thinking Materialist – this is not the individual type…but the psyche of the country en mass
The subject has become especially important to me of late (now in my mid-forties and well along in my midlife crisis) as I've been most keenly aware of contending with such a ‘shadow’ especially in the realm of work/career. And if I were to be truthful, feel that I've always been ‘at odds’ with something at work…in every environment I've worked in.
It's extremely clear to me that both American INTPs and American INTJs routinely report that they are extremely uncomfortable in their experiences with life in America, whether it be in work, or socially. That much, I would say is accurate.
The following is a summary of things that I've seen in the workplace, in several industries, and was analysed very well, by a management science report on the modern workplace in different countries over the last 100 years. I've just applied it to MBTI here.
1) The American/Western Business Model, which is the dominant model in Westernised countries, has evolved over the last few centuries, into its present-day model. Basically, businesses thrived, thanks to the Industrial Revolution, and free commerce, i.e. what is often referred to as Free Market Capitalism. However, the drive for greater profits, meant that companies are always looking to increase profits, any way they can. Sometimes, one can expand one's market, or expand into new markets. But expansion into new markets is risky, and often doesn't come off, and when it comes to existing markets, one has to compete with companies that are often just as capable as yours, and that results in there only being a limited amount that one can reasonably expand. As a consequence, cost-cutting has become one of the most effective and efficient methods that Western companies have employed to increase profits.
One of the more successful methods of cost-cutting that Western companies employed, was to outsource the elements of their jobs that required specialised skills, to machines and computers, or to specialist companies, so that a wider number of people could also do the job, making current employees more expendable, as then one could drop wages, with the threat that if they refuse to accept the pay cuts, they could simply be replaced with someone else. Another sucessful method was reducing employees, by outsourcing as much of their work as possible, to either immigrants or workers in foreign countries who would work harder and for longer hours for the same or lower page, or to machines and computers.
Making people expendable, means that it doesn't matter who you're dealing with, because companies are then relying on a lot of employees, each with a low skill set. As they are all doing similar jobs that anyone in the company could do, the result is that you treat them as a group. So you interview them as a group. You train them as a group. You instruct them as a group. You supervise them as a group. That way, you need a lot less interviewers and a lot less interviews, and a lot less trainers and a lot less training, and a lot less supervisors and a lot less supervision.
Even if you're in research, the old adage "2 heads are better than one" applies. Science is now much more reliant on extroverted collaboration than it used to.
Thus, our workplaces have become very extroverted. You don't get your own office anymore, where you can work alone. You're in one of those open-plan offices, where everyone can see what you're doing.
2) The second issue, is that if your work depends on developing novel intuitive solutions that not everyone would think of, then you've got a specialised skill, and you become a problem. They can't fire you, because if they do, the whole project comes to a grinding halt. So you can keep demanding better and better pay, better and better perks, and, if you feel that it would help your situation by getting more employees on board, you can rouse the regular employees to strike for better pay, because being a smart intuitive, you can persuade the majority of the employees who just go along with whatever they've heard that makes most sense to them, when it's in their interest, and more money and better working conditions are in their interest.
So companies want to get rid of those bottlenecks and powderkegs for starting strikes. To do that, they have to automate your work, so it's as conventional as possible, so that anyone can be trained to do it, thus making you expendable. They want to get rid of intuitives in general.
Then they'll keep a few intuitives for solving problems where no conventional problems currently exist. But they want you under their thumb, so you can't ask for a lot of money. To do that, they have to ensure that most lines of work are made inaccessible/uncomfortable to you, leading intuitives to find they only have a very few jobs they can use their intuition in, and so there is a high supply of intuitives, but low demand for intuitives in the workplace, and again, companies can lower the rates they pay intuitives.
3) Once jobs are expendable, they can keep pushing you to do more and more, which works for Js who focus on getting things done, and pushes Perceivers out, which leaves lots of Perceivers all vying for the same few jobs that companies want someone to take their time on. Again, the laws of supply and demand dictate that with lots more perceivers than perceiving jobs, they can lower wages with percieving jobs yet again.
4) A T-mentality is preferable with real-life and theoretical jobs that lean towards manipulating the physical. An F-mentality is preferable with real-life and theoretical jobs that lean towards manipulating the emotional.
This economic culture doesn't really care what type you are. They just want to ensure that most workplaces are run to accommodate an ESxJ mentality, and if you're in a T-ish industry, an ESTJ mentality.
They still want INTPs around for research and development. But they want to ensure that there are more INTPs than INTP-ish jobs, so that they get you to compete, so they can get the best, and push those they employ in such roles, to take lower wages, and work longer and harder.
Your notions are thus very well founded. They just have very little to do with American culture, and a lot to do with the evolution of American corporate culture, which America has spread very successfully to the rest of the Western world. Now that America is bringing its values to countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rest of the Middle East, and China seems to be following suit as well, it probably won't be too long before you'll have nowhere to escape from it.
I've attributed this felt ‘sense’ to many things along the way…including just a lack of appreciation (recognition?) I felt (rightly or wrongly) I deserved…wanting to belong…feeling like I’m on the ‘outside’. But I acknowledge now that it’s a way of thinking…of governance of (say) a corporation that I've been actually afraid (for reasons of not wanting to appear as a non-conformist) of admitting to myself.
And I was wondering if anyone else has had the same intuitions; a sense that you are contending with…a ‘way’ the world conducts (?) Itself…runs itself that you feel at odds with (in) accommodating. Now (obviously) we all can – especially in this forum – find common ground on such a broad subject. But I mean specifically in work life – career?
As an INTP…how do you negotiate with (if felt) the sense of contention of being at odds with the very institution that provides (by means of its stability?) for your financial well-being? I’m not a communist…and I believe in free market capitalism…but I've never been (or been able to relate) to Gordon Gecko mentality that seems to run most corporations. But here is the mystery…I've never worked in finance and so – would presume to never have to concern myself with such things. But I do seem to ‘encounter’…run into that attitude (?) wherever I’m employed - does this make sense? Maybe I want to know how to hide? Wow that’s depressing to admit…in that I’m not self-employed and seemed destined to have to contend with this ‘splinter’ in my mind for the foreseeable future…sigh…
I got pushed and pushed in IT, until I had a nervous breakdown in 2001. I had thought that said something about me, until I read 3 separate news articles in successive years, about others here who were in IT, who were put under such pressure by their employers, that they committed suicide.
After that, I realised that I could not afford to put myself in another similar situation. So I now choose my jobs by who I am working for, and how they treat me, and how understanding they are of me, and how much they express they value my contributions.
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Why is everything that American intellectuals say necessarily related to their being Americans, and not just intellectuals? The intellectuals at hand could have simply known only of the problem as it exists in the United States and not wanted to overstate their claim lest they be derided as--to use your words--treating an American problem as a global phenomenon.
Because your words show if you're doing that or not.
E.G. When a British intellectual criticises healthcare systems, but only knows about the healthcare systems in his country, then he criticises the NHS and/or BUPA, not "healthcare", and his arguments relate to those things that specifically apply to the NHS and/or BUPA, not arguments against healthcare systems in general. When an American intellectual criticises healthcare systems, but only knows about the healthcare systems in his country, then he criticises Obamacare and/or HMOs, not "healthcare", and his arguments relate to those things that specifically apply to Obamacare and/or HMOs, not arguments against healthcare systems in general.
You aussies are undetectable: I thought that you were an American.
