Mentors Philosophize: On the Special Fate of the EIE

"Mentors" philosophize. 
On the special fate of ethical-intuitive extrovert.

V. V. Gulenko , 26. 12. 1994, Kiev.

1. Everyone carries his cross.  

It is much easier to explain to the uninitiated that there is a typological framework of the person, if we start from the social level of the manifestation of a person, and not from the psychological one. Many researchers, unfortunately, do not take into account or specifically ignore the fact that normalization of a person at short psychological distances, where people’s subjective affections of people act with all their might, is unconvincing. The typological approach in the macrosocium is more justified: after all, the existence of stable social groups of people and the traditions and behavior that hold these groups together can only be denied by cranks.

The whole society consists of separate layers, hierarchically ordered according to their attitude to property, power, profession, age and other objective parameters. These patterns are tracked by sociology - a science with a well-developed apparatus of empirical research, but lacking a convincing typology. If experimental science failed to translate all the wealth of the factual material collected by it into the form of a generally accepted fixed classification of objects under study, then it ceased its ascending development and simply stagnates.

In type analysis, we just managed to grasp typical patterns of social behavior of people. These stereotypes got their names, which convey the basic meaning of each of the 16 types of activities in the macrosocium: “inspector” controls legality, “politician” maneuvers between opposite classes of society, “humanist” gives samples of individual education, etc. Socionics of pseudonyms for the purposes of social technologies is not just incorrect, but also causes direct development of socionics as a science. Let the current lag of socionic education in Ukraine and the CIS countries remain on the conscience of apologists for such short-sighted thinking.

So, each sociotype has its own social mission, assigned to it by the very logic of social development. And no one will fulfill this mission for him, even with the greatest desire. No one can replace “analytics” in bringing scientific knowledge into a coherent system, “criticism” in examining theories and projects, “marshal” in offensive actions in battle, etc. Social life is therefore a simultaneous deployment of sixteen basic strategies united by some mechanism synchronization - an integral type of society.

The set of sixteen basic strategies should be divided into four areas, namely: 1) production and management, 2) socially proper, 3) cultural and humanitarian, and 4) scientific research. In each of these areas, there is a progressive development of the corresponding systems from the most unstable to the most stable. What sociotypes trigger the dynamics of the main spheres of society and in this sense are primary?

I believe that the evolution of social structures begins with the signs of "extraversion" and "dynamics." Extraverted types spend more energy than they accumulate and are therefore relevant only in the first half of the life of any system, and systems of a dynamic type are unbalanced-hung formations by definition, which also makes their functioning effective only in the intervals between stable states.

Hence the conclusion: in the production and management sphere, the first stage of development is the structure of the FEL (PS), in the social sphere - ESE (ES), in the environment of logical sciences - LIE (PT) and in the humanitarian sphere - EE (ET). As a fundamentally new technical system cannot fail to have a “managerial” one, i.e., a logical-sensory extraversion, so a newly formed informal group of people will at first have all the signs of an “enthusiast,” that is, an ethical-sensory extrovert type .

According to the same law, any emerging branch of scientific knowledge, which is in the stage of experimentation and accumulation of facts around some paradox, is necessarily organized into an “entrepreneurial”, that is, a logical-intuitive extraverted structure, and a moralizing, spiritual, ideological doctrine must be revolutionized through ethical-intuitive extraverted type, otherwise his chances of long-term existence are close to zero.

2. Why do you need "mentoring"?   

Half of all social types are sensory formations that perform a material, substantive role in the life of society. Marx called at one time social groups providing the economic foundation of social formations as a basis, and one cannot but agree with this. Remember the colorful character from F. Dostoevsky's novel “The Idiot” - the merchant Rogozhin, who, no doubt, along with his fellows, firmly held the economic life of the then Russia in his hands. His social type is Marshal (FL). You can find a gallery of different in character, financial position, habits, but identical in their “cool” marshal’s merchants ’store, to A. N. Ostrovsky, a talented everyday writer of the Russian third estate of the last century.

A completely different era is raging around us, but the type of a modern, prosperous businessman who deals with resale and who knows how to pokut with no less passion remains the same. I know this well for the practice of socionic consulting of business firms in Ukraine and Russia. The marshals as confidently set the tone in the economic basis of the current society, as they did a hundred years ago.

The other half of the characters of social life are intuitive, on which the whole “superstructure” of society rests - its spiritual and intellectual life. Materialistic philosophy considers the superstructure culture as a derivative of the material and economic. But it is not. Both structures of society are equal: the material living conditions of people are under the influence of its customs, ideology, science and culture. The action of one of them on the other is always compensated by the opposition of the latter according to the law of equivalence.

In countries such as Russia, the spiritual sphere enjoyed and enjoys special honors. Its carriers in society are ethical-intuitive and intuitive-ethical types of people (installation on humanitarian activities). Let us determine which of these four opens up a chain of spiritual teachings.

The type to be sought must be extraverted in order to spread the new doctrine in breadth, dynamic - speed, drawn by its emotions to the chosen goal, as well as rational - firmly adhering to their convictions and not abandoning them, even under the fear of punishment.Only one of the humanitarian types meets the criteria - ethical-intuitive extrovert, or Mentor.

The role of the Mentor is the ideologue of society. This mission was once called "the mouthpiece of the era." Its essence boils down to preaching by means of literature, art, faith, rituals, finally, patterns of behavior of a completely new perception of the world. Moreover, the new is understood dialectically - as well as the old forgotten, as the next turn of the development spiral, towering over the previous one.

The very same spiral of development is a sequence of 16 sociotypes that form its links. A mentor is able to express through himself a system of views of any type, including, of course, his own, extracting a thought pattern to the surface corresponding to an era. He seems to draw from the collective unconscious, which is nothing but the fifth dimension of the communicative space [3].

Mentor copes well with this task due to innate artistry and credence. Meaningfully, he can feel like any other type and deeply believe in the chosenness of his path. This type gives rise to self-confident personalities; therefore, reproaches for illogicality, bias, touch it a little. Thanks to his ability to reason rationally, i.e. consistently, as if deducing one position from another, he will convince many people that he is right.

A gross mistake, in my opinion, is made by those socionics who derive the sociotype of the writer from the content of his works. A writer in life and a system of views reflected in his works are very few phenomena dependent on each other. Most of the famous writers are “mentors,” although the ideas they preach semantically (in content) may be diametrically opposed and correspond to any sociotypes they like.

And one more essential remark. Social and psychological plans of communication are also not subject to the law of strict compliance. That is, a humanitarian type does not necessarily realize itself in culture or art, and not every Mentor, even if he is in the humanitarian environment, seeks to fulfill his mentoring mission. The combination of both plans is only probabilistic in nature.

One example. Mentors of the "electronic" era are often simply obsessed with computing. However, they are not interested in technical or logical-programmer aspects of it, but in the fact that computer programs make it possible to create a special, that is, imaginary reality and feel themselves almost god. Even without being aware of the substitution of concepts by them, insisting on the purely logical reasons for their hobbies, they turn modern technology into a very subjective tool to the sophistication of the art of self-expression.

Thus, part of the mentors, consciously or under the “logical” roof, still nevertheless gropes for their social order and fills the cell of communicative space allocated for this category of people. So there are bright types or whole natures, as they are called in literary criticism. However, for some reason, another part of people with a natural type cannot fit into the typological niche of society reserved for them and leads a migratory lifestyle, fluctuating between different sociotypic groups.

These migratingtypes, in my opinion, it makes sense to consider as a separate section of the typology. You will recognize them by the difficulty of normalization within the same type in diagnostics, as well as by such behavioral characteristics as the preference of two or more stable teams of dissimilar communicative orientation in equal measure, which leads to their constant transitions from one of these groups to the other. Migratory types have vague Jung signs and represent nothing more than carriers of intertype interactions - the connecting elements of social groups. They obey the laws of relative (relational, introverted) socionics. These are people-relations, not people-types. Classical socionics is not aware of this phenomenon, but it exists. Moreover, it comes to the fore when it comes to patterns of changing one typical group with another.

Relationship types are not monostructures; they sort of envelop bright, well-defined sociotypes from different sides, connecting them with the outside world, or, conversely, isolating them from it. It took me this theoretical digression so that the reader, turning to the personal practice of communication, would not confuse the migrants with the classical mentors who are aware of themselves in the type that this article is devoted to.

3. Different Mentor subtypes in philosophy.

A philosophical approach to life in the broadest sense of this concept — from serious philosophy to primitive cleverness — is an integral typological feature of mentors. This unites them with the sociotype Critic, which is often the cause of the erroneous diagnosis of philosophers by socionics-amateurs. I would like to demonstrate mentoring peculiarities in philosophy on the example of one Russian and one foreign philosopher of this sociotype.

3.1. Vl. Solovyov - Mentor ethical subtype.   

All Russian religious philosophy of the 19-20th centuries. It is nothing more than spiritual guidance, or the preaching of ethical values ​​by the forces of bright thinkers who have passed the path of suffering. And a gallery of spirit mentors opens with the personality of Vladimir Solovyov (1853 - 1900).

As a socionics, I will be interested not in the content of the theories of this philosopher, but in their form and, of course, his way of life. I will take information about Solovyov-man from A. Losev’s remarkable book “Vladimir Solovyov and His Time” [1].

The first, which indicates the mentoring type Vl. Solovyov is his incessant throwing from one extreme to another. It is well known that a Mentor is the most controversial type of person who needs a strong cold-blooded balancing act, especially if he belongs to the ethical subtype. It is to this variant of ethical-intuitive extrovert that the thinker belonged.

Because of the strong emotional dynamics, it is difficult for the Mentor to rationally justify his choice, so he often makes mistakes and chooses at first the exact opposite of what he really needs for a harmonious state. The future apologist of divine wisdom - Sophia, Vl. In the last years of the gymnasium and the first years of the university, Solovyov "was read out by the then vulgar materialists and even stopped going to church, and once, after arguing with his comrades, he even threw icons out of the window of his room."

Here is how he writes about the inconsistency of nature Vl. Solovyov A. Losev:

“Classics and romance, realism and utopianism, inspiration and speculative depth were united in Vl. Solovyov from early childhood. ” Interestingly, because of the contradictory combination of extremes and exaggerated craving for freedom, mentors often reject socionic typology. They consider themselves to be unique, do not fit into any framework of personalities and sometimes strive to eliminate the shocked extremes of their behavior established stereotypes.

Here is the episode narrated by A. Amphitheatrov: “Solovyov surprised us. I talked yesterday. Uma - the chamber. The glitter is incredible. Himself - the apostle apostle. The face is inspired, the eyes shine. Charmed us all. But ... he argued, suppose that two and two are four. Proved. They believed in him as in themselves. And suddenly - as if something had snapped it. He became sullen, mocking, his eyes were dull, angry - "Do you know, - he says, - after all, twice two is not four, but five?"

The breadth of interests of the Mentor often develops into omnivorous, the desire to dump everything in one pile, ignoring logic. So, Vl. Solovyov was fond of materialism, idealism, and Eastern religions — everything he could find unusual in his time. He dreamed about the merger of Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The phenomenon of the same order - E. Blavatsky’s attempts to create a synthesis of science and religion, the so-called theosophy. Many mentors, unfortunately, blindly identify faith and knowledge.

Another characteristic feature of the Mentors is their inflexible maximalism, pride, often bordering on arrogance, which leads them to isolation and alienation from people who for some reason do not always want to listen to them. Care in inner contemplation is the result of this bias in the development of the mentor’s personality. So was Vl. Solovyov - pensive, silent, difficult contact with people. However, at times he was inspired, and he became expansive and eloquent.

Extraversion and the dynamism of his personality, which form a linearly energetic temperament, can be traced to the restlessness of Vl. Solovyov, the frequent change of his place of residence, the thirst for new impressions and such a purely extroverted character trait as incontinence, the inability to curb the impulses of his rebellious soul.

And finally, the attitude of Vl. Is very characteristic of the ethical subtype of the Mentor. Solovyov to money. Business logic, which is directly responsible for the use of financial resources by type, no matter how it obeys its will. An emotionally spoken speaker and preacher, the Mentor's ethical subtype is completely impractical in commercial activities. Here is what Vl. Solovyov EI Trubetskoy: “It is not surprising that in everyday relations everyone could bypass and deceive him. First of all, he was robbed and exploited from all sides. Receiving good earnings from his literary works, he remained forever penniless, and sometimes even almost without a dress. ”

3. 2. G. Hegel - Mentor of an intuitive subtype.   

The second philosopher-mentor, whom I want to describe typologically, is Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. However, this version of the Mentor is an initial one, characterized by a shift of typological accents from emotionality to intuition and logic.

Hegel's mental intuition served him as the main tool for creating a dialectical doctrine. What Hegel called dialectical logic is, in fact, no longer logic (the informational aspect L), but the intuition of time (the informational aspect T). It is the function T that catches contradictions in the outside world — the harbinger of future changes [4].

A characteristic feature of the intuitive Mentors is a firm conviction that they are very logical in their conceptions, although this, of course, is not so. This is evidenced, for example, by the logically very poorly substantiated “Preliminary thesis of the dissertation on the orbits of the planets” - Hegel's pre-dissertation work. Only the first thesis is of interest now, but it was received, again, not in a logical, but in a purely intuitive way. Here is its wording: “contradiction is the criterion of truth, the absence of contradiction is the criterion of delusion”. Hegel actually replaced statics with dynamics: L _ T. On the contrary, he lost the completeness of the structural logic L. Stable structures are always even: the thesis in them is counterbalanced by the antithesis, and the synthesis is antisynthesis. Therefore, the Hegelian triad is logically incomplete - there is no fourth component in it.

The logic of the intuitive Mentor is undoubtedly stronger than the logic of the Ethical Mentor, but still remains speculative and voluntaristic. Therefore, as a scientist, this type of people is good only in the humanities, where logical fullness and objectivity are valued much lower than the beauty of mind-building. Here is what A.Gulyga writes about the logic of the philosopher in the book of the series ЗZL [2] devoted to him: “The Hegelian philosophy of nature leaves a dual impression: it also presents the achievements of experienced knowledge and the fruits of its own thoughts, where ingenious guesses are mixed with leisurely inventions” . Strongly developed intuition makes a person detached from a concrete life, thoughtful and living in a special, invented reality. That was Hegel. In confirmation, I will give one more paragraph from the book of A. Gulygi: “They told, for example, as if Professor Hegel once thought so much that he stood in one place all day and all night. And another time he walked in the rain, lost in his thoughts, leaving his shoe in the mud, but did not notice this and continued to walk in one stocking. ”

Somewhat embarrassed by the lack of lecturing skills by Hegel, weak artistry, which is not typical of the Mentor. Students even called him "wooden Hegel." Such stiffness often happens in the intuitive variant of the social type Critic. But one has only to get acquainted with the memoirs of his contemporaries about his arrogance, intolerance to other points of view, uncompromising, as soon as doubts disappear: a tantalizing, typical mentoring maximalism, reaching fanaticism, is emerging.

Rosencrantz writes about Hegel: “Clashes happened sometimes even with friends. In relation to the one who completely contradicted him, he held on like granite. Only in moments of the best mood could he be persuaded to meet with this person. He possessed a great power of anger and rage: if he hated, he gave himself up entirely to this feeling. And when I started to scold someone, I just became terrible. ”

And the last difference between the mentor and the intuitive ethical. As much as the latter is careless in handling money, so is the first one that is scrupulous in financial calculations. Hegel had the patience to paint his family’s income and expenses carefully, day after day. This could have been explained by traditional German zeal if not for the striking contrast with the intuitively resolved states into which this philosopher fell.

Conclusion   

So, the special role of the sociotype Mentor in the spiritual history of mankind lies in its ability to reflect the main contradictions of its era and lay the foundations of the new worldview, which dialectically replaces the old ideas.

A mentor is one of the four extra rationals, which are the starting points of the evolution of various systems of society. Mentors dominated and will dominate the culture, art and humanities by virtue of their perseverance, faithfulness, breadth of interests and dynamic perception of the world in all its contradictions.

Attempts of some socionics to find in high art and literature representatives of all sociotypes in approximately equal proportions are completely unjustified. Typological “justice”, unfortunately, remains no more than a high-flown phrase that unknowingly uses socionic interpreters of literature. In the lists of prominent people, extroverts will always occupy the most part, and among the talents of the humanitarian profile are representatives of the sociotype Mentor.

It is to this sociotype that the great Russian writers - the preachers of the spirituality of A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, F. Dostoevsky, I. Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, A. Blok, A. Akhmatov and many others should be attributed. The modern mentor A. I. Solzhenitsyn sent his instructions from abroad, and now - directly from the TV screen. And again the same pathos, the same ideological intransigence and the desire to "wake the hearts of people."

It is only surprising that, by instructing people on the path of goodness, the Mentors themselves led a far from righteous way of life, were distinguished by pride and arrogance, and did not know how to get along with each other humanely. However, this only once again confirms their belonging to a humanitarian group of types — the least organized, the most individualistic, insisting on making an exception for a person — not classifying it.

Literature

1. Losev A.F. Vladimir Solovyov and his time. - M .: Progress, 1990.
2. Gulyga A.V. Hegel. M .: Young Guard, 1970.
3. Gulenko V.V. Mystery of the fifth dimension. From the experience of socionic diagnostics using the interview method - Kiev, 01/24/1994 // SM & TL, 1997, № 2.
4. Gulenko V.V. Disappear to appear again. The functional state of the individual - Kiev, 06/14/1993 // SM & CP, 1995, № 3.