Orientation Idealists Artisans Guardians Rationals
Present Future Past Place Time Altruistic Credulous Mystical Pathways Tomorrow Hedonistic Optimistic Cynical Here Now Stoical Pessimistic Fatalistic Gateways Yesterday Pragmatic Skeptical Relativistic Intersections Intervals Here it is claimed that Idealists are altruistic about the present, credulous about the future, mystical about the past, their natural place is on the pathways to understanding and their natural time is tomorrow. How different the other temperaments in the way they view these things. So let us look closely at these five dimensions of orientation so that we will not be surprised when our Idealist friends, in their devotion to altruism, for instance, prove to be less hedonistic, or less stoical, or less pragmatic than we are.
Altruistic in Looking Around
All of us have a point of view, a way of construing what we see around us—our perspective on the here and now. Our temperament dictates what sort of perspective we develop and hold to. The Artisan perspective is hedonistic, the Guardian stoical, the Rational pragmatic, all so different from the altruistic perspective of the Idealist. Altruism is the belief that it’s bad to be self-serving and good to be other-serving, or put another way, that our greatest happiness comes in selflessly giving to others, even when this involves self-sacrifice. This is by far the most metaphysical of the four
The Orientation of Idealists 133 worldviews, and the ever-skeptical Rationals will sometimes doubt the Idealists’ motives, reasoning that if the payoff for altruism is self-satisfaction, then, paradoxically, Idealists are being selfish when giving to others, and altruism is only the illusion that one is acting selflessly. Idealists, however, are quite comfortable with paradoxes, and quite sincere in reaching for this goal of sacrificing for others, as Mark Twain, a notoriously skeptical Ratio nal, came to appreciate about Joan of Arc, the altruistic Maid of Orleans whose life fascinated him:
What could have put those strange ideas in her head?...Grieving and brooding over the woes of France had weakened that strong mind, and filled it with fantastic phantoms—yes, that must be it.
But I watched her, and tested her, and it was not so. Her eye was clear and sane, her ways were natural, her speech direct and to the point. No, there was nothing the matter with her mind; it was still the soundest in the village and the best. She went on thinking for others, planning for others, sacrificing herself for others, just as always before. She went on ministering to her sick and to her poor, and still stood ready to give the wayfarer her bed and content herself with the floor. There was a secret somewhere, but madness was not the key to it.
Few Idealists are as saintly in their altruism as Joan of Arc, of course, but even ordinary NFs often dedicate their lives to helping others. Idealists see potential good in everyone, and they will gladly give of themselves to cultivate that potential, to help others grow and develop. This is why teaching and the ministry attract NFs, but also why missionary work can call to them, as does community volunteer work and the Peace Corps.
But altruism also serves another, more coveted purpose for Idealists: self-actualization. To put others first is the best way for NFs to rid themselves of selfishness or egocentricity, which they see as the great stumbling block to self-actualization. Thus, NFs believe that as they let go of selfishness they get a clearer and clearer picture of who they really are—a glimpse of their true nature, unfettered by worldly fears and desires. And the clearer the picture becomes, the closer they come to the spiritual essence they believe is inside them. As Gandhi explains it:
If I found myself entirely absorbed in the service of the community, the reason behind it was my desire for self-actualization. I had made the religion of service my own, as I felt that god could be realized only through service.
Credulous in Looking Ahead
Idealists are credulous. They believe in things easily and without re serve—exactly the opposite of their skeptical cousins the Rationals. NFs are really quite innocent in their credulism. They see good everywhere, and in everyone, as if believing that goodness is real and permanent in the
world, and thus they are quick to join causes and to go on missions, especially if they believe personally in the leaders of the movement. After pledging themselves to some individual or group, NFs are the most loyal of all the types, and will often use their enthusiasm to win followers and to advance the cause. NFs may even exhibit an unusually passionate devotion to a cause, or to a cult, though more to the persons involved than to the principles espoused. And in extreme cases they can lose their perspective and come to have what Pierre Janet called a “fixed idea” about their beliefs, clinging to them rigidly, unmoved and unmovable by any appeal to reason or experience.
However, while Idealists can get caught up in a movement, they do not stay involved for very long if it fails to have deep, lasting significance, with some hope of bettering the conditions of people in the world. For example, when the Flower Power movement of the 1960s was centered in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, it was chiefly populated by SPs, but it was joined by many NFs who watched the SPs living in the moment, spontaneously, and who wanted to experience this freedom themselves. But they could neither be unconscious of self nor give up their concern for the future, so the movement held them only for a brief time and they left, disenchanted. As fast as the NFs moved into the communes, they moved out to search elsewhere for self-actualization and ways to express their unique identities. So, while Idealists are apt to be passionate in pursuit of their beliefs, they can also appear to be intellectual and emotional butterflies, flitting from idea to idea, from person to person, or from cause to cause, dilettantes in their pursuit of meaning and authenticity.
Mystical in Looking Back
Unlike the Rationals, who tend to rationalize their misfortunes and setbacks, seeing them as neutral events relative to one’s individual point- of-view, Idealists are more metaphysical in their explanations, and will usually take one of two enigmatic attitudes when trying to come to terms with life’s difficulties.
Some Idealists believe that accidents are mystifying and inexplica ble—that bad things simply happen, and cannot be accounted for by any rational means. These NFs are content to live with a mysterious sense of causation, bravely accepting that the whys and wherefores cannot be known or communicated, even though such an attitude can make them appear at best naive, and at worst in denial, as if hiding their head in the sand.
Other Idealists attribute the cause of unhappy events to some power above themselves, not so much to the influence of bad Luck or Divine will (as do, respectively, the SPs and SJs), but to more esoteric, mystical causes. The dogma of the traditional religions concerning the source of evil—Orig inal Sin in Christianity, the Angel of Death in Judaism, or Karma in Hinduism and Buddhism—satisfy many Idealists. But they will also search for causes in occult religions and cabalistic writings, and in various arcane,
The Orientation of Idealists 135 metaphysical systems, theosophy, astrology, Swedenborgianism, anthro- posophy, transcendentalism, spiritualism, and the like. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Carl Jung remembers that even as a teenager he was fascinated by this question of causation—“What were the reasons for suffering, im perfection, and evil?” he asked—and dissatisfied both by Christian teaching and Western rationalism, he sought for answers in the occult world of myth, Eastern religion, and parapsychology:
If such [parapsychological] phenomena occur at all, the rationalistic picture of the universe is invalid, because incomplete. Then the possibility of an other-valued reality behind the phenomenal world becomes an inescapable problem, and we must face the fact that our world, with its time, space, and causality, relates to another order of things lying behind or beneath it, in which neither ‘here and there’ nor ‘earlier and later’ are of importance.
The Place is the Pathway
If Artisans like to be in the middle of the action, Guardians at the gateways of exit and entrance, and Rationals at the crossroads mapping coordinates, then Idealists are most comfortable on the pathways that lead them on the search for the meaning of existence, that take them on the journey to some higher stage of personal development. The notion of the spiritual odyssey, the crusade, the pilgrimage, or the quest, is deeply satis fying to Idealists, and is perhaps their favorite metaphor for their experience of life. In Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote sings of his glorious quest “to follow that star” of ideal honor and virtue, “no matter how hopeless, no matter how far.” And in Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art o f Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values, a young philosopher imagines his spirit of inquiry roaming through the “high country of the mind” in pursuit of an elusive wisdom:
Many trails through these high ranges have been made and forgotten since the beginning of time....Even within a single civilization old trails are constantly closed and new ones open up....Phaedrus wandered through this high country, aimlessly at first, following every path, every trail where someone had been before, seeing occasionally with small hindsights that he was apparently making some progress, but seeing nothing ahead of him that told him which way to go.
The Time is Tomorrow
The Idealist is future-oriented and focused on what might be, rather than what is. To the NF, whatever is is never quite sufficient—indeed, it is unendurable to think that the here-and-now, the SP place and time, is all there is in life. Listen as early women’s suffrage advocate Susan B. Anthony imagines the future of American women, and really of all humanity:
The woman of the future will far surpass her of the present, even as the man of the future will surpass him of today. The ages are progressive, and I look for a far higher manhood and womanhood than we have now....I look for the day...when women all over this country will have equal property rights, equal business rights, and equal political rights; when the only criterion of excellence or position shall be the ability, honor, and character of the individual.
The Idealists’ interest in the future also has a mystical aspect to it. The NFs’ fantasies, as well as their favorite stories, are often excursions into the world of oracular powers, prophetic sensibilia, omens, fortune telling, Tarot cards, and the like, all of which help the NFs to create in their imaginations a magical world, a world of signs and portents, and a world pregnant with possibilities. Idealists believe that life is rich with potentials waiting to be realized, filled with meanings calling out to be understood. The Idealist is drawn to exploring these potentials and uncovering those meanings, to divining the true nature and significance of things.