The different kinds of personality differ in what they value. Thus they can differ in their preferred mood, in what they put their trust in, in what they long for, in what they continuously seek, in what they prize most, and in what they aspire to. It is in the domain of values that Rationals separate themselves most clearly from the other types, and particularly from the Guardians. Where Guardians value being concerned, Rationals value being calm; where Guardians trust authority, Rationals trust reason; where Guard ians yearn for belonging, Rationals yearn for achievement; where Guardians seek security, Rationals seek knowledge. And the contrast extends to what they prize and what they aspire to, Guardians gratitude and executive power, Rationals deference and wizardry. But NTs are also very different in their values from SPs and NFs, as shown in the following chart:
Value Rationals Artisans Guardians Idealists
Being Trusting Yearning Seeking Prizing Aspiring Calm Reason Achievement Knowledge Deference Wizard Excited Impulse Impact Stimulation Generosity Virtuoso Concerned Authority Belonging Security Gratitude Executive Enthusiastic Intuition Romance Identity Recognition Sage
These differences in values are so extreme that it will serve us to study all six Rational values in some detail, lest we are surprised to find them, say, less generous, less authoritarian, or less enthusiastic than we are. Being Calm
The preferred mood of Rationals, as Galen suggested, is one of calm. This is particularly true in stressful situations, when things around them are in turmoil, as C.S. Forester’s Horatio Homblower discovers in a moment of crisis, after having set fire to the enemy ship which held him captive:
A side pane fell in as they watched, and a rush of flame came through the opening. That store of paint, Hornblower calculated—he was calmer now, with a calm that would astonish him later, when he came to look back on it—must be immediately under the cabin, and blazing fiercely.
Artisans like to be excited, Guardians are likely to get concerned about their responsibilities, and Idealists give their enthusiasm free rein, Rationals prefer to remain calm, cool, and collected. And if they cannot avoid these
emotional states, they will try hard to avoid letting their concern, excitement, or enthusiasm show. SPs, SJs, and NFs are puzzled more by this seeming unflappability in trying circumstances than by any other trait of the NT character. Indeed, because they are reluctant to express emotions or desires, NTs are often criticized for being unfeeling and cold. However, what is taken for indifference is not indifference at all, but the thoughtful, absorbed concentration of the contemplative investigator. Just as effective investiga tors carefully hold their feelings in check and gauge their actions so that they do not disturb their inquiry or contaminate their results, so Rationals are prone to examine and control themselves in the same deliberate manner, being careful to avoid reading their own desires, emotions, and expectations into their observations.
But make no mistake, although they hold back on any intemperate displays, Rationals are not the cold and distant persons they are often made out to be. For one thing they can get quite intense and pressured about matters under their control (and few things will they admit they cannot control), becoming as tight as a bowstring when they think they might be able to solve a problem if they put their mind to it. For another, being closet romantics, their feelings are just as varied and strong as those of other character types, though again, and more than others, Rationals tend to hold them tightly in check.
Trusting Reason
The only thing Rationals trust unconditionally is reason—all else they trust only under certain conditions. Thus they trust their intuition only now and then, their impulses even less often, and they completely distrust titular authority. Of all these only reason, NTs say, is universal and timeless, and only its laws beyond dispute. Thus Rationals take it for granted that “if men would but reason together,” even the most difficult of problems might be solved. When the Rational Thomas Jefferson wrote the charter for the University of Virginia, he insisted that here education “will be based upon the illimitable freedom of the human mind, for here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”
Jefferson’s vision was of a free competition of ideas, unfettered by
convention or tradition, an inquiry limited only by the scope of the human
mind and the laws of reason. In this he was a typical Rational. More than the other temperaments, NTs listen carefully to new ideas as long as they make sense—as long as they are logical. But they have little or no patience for ideas that don’t make sense, and they will not be swayed by any argument that fails to meet their criterion of logical coherence.
Yearning for Achievement
One of the most important things to remember about Rationals, if they are to be understood, is that they yearn for achievement. Some might
The Values o f Rationals 189 suppose that these seemingly calm and contemplative types have no strong desires. But beneath the calm exterior is a gnawing hunger to achieve whatever goals they set for themselves. While NTs prefer to acquire know how, and would like to be ingenious, they must achieve, and their longing is never fully satisfied.
Because their hunger for achievement presses them constantly, Rationals live through their work. For them, work is work and play is work. Con demning an NT to idleness would be the worst sort of punishment. However, Rationals work not so much for the pleasure of action (like the Artisans), nor for the security a job provides (like the Guardians), nor for the joy of helping others (like the Idealists). Rationals work with a single-minded desire to achieve their objectives; indeed, once involved in a project, they tend to be reluctant, if not unable, to limit their commitment of time and energy. Unfortunately, at this point they can be unreasonably demanding of both themselves and others, setting their standards too high and becoming quite tense under stress. No wonder that NTs frequently achieve notable success in their chosen field.
Achievement eats at NTs in this way because it demands of them ever greater knowledge and skill, a challenge they eagerly accept, as Sinclair Lewis explains in Arrowsmith, his novel about a gifted young scientist:
There was no strength,...no knowledge, that Arrowsmith did not covet, when consciousness of it has pierced through the layers of his absorption. If he was but little greedy for possessions, he was hungry for every skill.
Thus, and because of their persistence, Rationals tend over their lifetimes to collect a large repertoire of skilled actions, few of which they employ very extensively. In this they are quite unlike the Artisans, who also become skillful. For the SPs, skills are opportunities for action and have no meaning if they are not used, while for the NTs skills are competencies to be sharpened through practice, then held in reserve until actually needed.
Rationals demand so much achievement from themselves that they often have trouble measuring up to their own standards. NTs typically believe that what they do is not good enough, and are frequently haunted by a sense of teetering on the edge of failure. This time their achievement will not be adequate. This time their skill will not be great enough. This time, in all probability, failure is at hand.
Making matters worse, Rationals tend to ratchet up their standards of achievement, setting the bar at the level of their greatest success, so that anything less than their best is judged as mediocre. The hard-won triumph becomes the new standard of what is merely acceptable, and ordinary achievements are now viewed as falling short of the mark. NTs never give themselves a break from this escalating level of achievement, and so constant self-doubt and a niggling sense of impending failure are their lot.
Seeking Knowledge
While Artisans go in search of stimulation, Guardians security, and Idealists identity, Rationals are on the lookout for knowledge. Some of them are so relentless in their search, that (like their benefactor, Prometheus) they would steal knowledge even from the gods. Francis Bacon declared at the beginning of the 17th century that knowledge is power, and advised that nature be “put to the rack,” so that her secrets could be extracted by scientific experimentation. In doing so he established the Rational method of scientific investigation which has prevailed in the West for 400 years.
The Rationals’ search for knowledge has two objectives: they must know how to as well as know about. To know about is to comprehend the necessary and sufficient conditions under which events occur. To know how to is to comprehend the operational capabilities and limits of technol ogies—the possibilities and constraints of their tools, be they cutters, car bines, or computers. By knowing about and knowing how to, Rationals increase their capability to predict and to control events.
Knowledge for Rationals is never merely speculative. When NTs ask “why?” they are really asking “how?” or even “how to?” To ask why the sky is blue, why water is wet, why a lever has power, is not to ask for the meaning or significance of these things (something that greatly concerns their abstract cousins, the Idealists). The Rationals’ questions are about why things take the form they do, about how things work—and thus about definition and description of structure and function. As his biographer James Gleick notes, Nobel prize winning physicist Richard Feynman had no use for what he called the philosopher’s “soft” questions:
Feynman’s reinvention of quantum mechanics did not so much explain how the world was, or why it was that way, as tell how to confront the world. It was not knowledge of or knowledge about. It was knowledge how to....There were other kinds of scientific knowledge, but pragmatic knowledge was Feynman’s specialty. For him knowledge did not describe; it acted and accomplished.
Such a quest for pragmatic knowledge arises early for Rationals, as soon as they have the language for inquiring, and seems fueled by an insatiable curiosity. But since they are likely to pose their question as a “why?” they will often be unsatisfied with the answer they receive, for they are actually interested in “how?” not “why?” And since they can be insistent in their questioning, they often dismay their parents and teachers, who don’t understand what they are really asking. Further, NTs want to be given a rationale in the answers they receive, something most parents and teachers have difficulty giving them.
As Rationals grow up, their pursuit of knowledge leads them to grapple with an ever-widening range of complex problems. Whether the problem is one of engineering machines or of coordinating operations, Rationals consider problems of central importance, and they will persist in their