Talk:Democratic and aristocratic

I notice that the way the wiki has been constructed, the casual reader will definitely get the impression that Reinin dichotomies are as "cast in stone" in classical socionics as other bits -- shall we include a disclaimer to that effec in each of them? Expat 06:01, 15 July 2007 (CDT)

I agree. They should somehow be divided into "Jungian" and "Reinin" dichotomies. I think it's somewhat misleading to have all the dichotomies on the same template. --Admin 06:36, 15 July 2007 (CDT)

It's easier if we convern the present template into the Reinin one, and create another one for the Jungian ones. Expat 06:53, 15 July 2007 (CDT)

Typical characteristics

I have to admit, I don't understand even half of what's written there :-) --Admin 07:10, 15 July 2007 (CDT)

In what I wrote, or the original Russian version? Expat 14:07, 15 July 2007 (BST)

I don't know which is which. I mean what's written in this section of the page. --Admin 14:19, 15 July 2007 (BST)

:-( I wrote them, based on my understanding of that the tranlations of the definitions are trying to say. If you don't understand it, obviously I haven't done a good job. Perhaps you can elaborate? Expat 14:21, 15 July 2007 (BST)

Sorry, Expat! :) Some of the characteristics I can't understand (the way they're written), and in general I can't identify with any of the points in either list. Also, I don't see how these characteristics are related to the functional basis of the dichotomy. --Admin 14:39, 15 July 2007 (BST)

Funny, to me they make sense, and I have an instinctive understanding of how they relate to the functional basis. Am I into Ti-Ni mode? Expat 16:12, 15 July 2007 (BST)

We'll have to get others' opinions. I often can't understand things at all if I don't have some kind of personal connection to the information, so I might not be completely objective. --Admin 16:37, 15 July 2007 (BST)

Well, to me it was always clear that Aristocracy meant automatically assuming that people are member of groups. Examples are -- employees in big corporations who are instinctively wary of employees of "rival" departments, despite not knowing (or even if knowing) anything about their personal qualities; the same applying to people working for competitors (I mean at a "gut" level); an inclination to talk in terms of phrases like "we are the best" or "the champions" etc; and people who automatically think of "factions" within companies. this kind of thing. Expat 22:32, 15 July 2007 (BST)

On a second thought, the "factions" thing is the Beta kind of Aristocracy. What I have observed in Deltas is a different kind, but I have more difficulty putting it into writing - and I think it is indeed Deltas who will have the biggest difficulty (if that's the word) identifying to it, so it makes sense. Delta Aristocracy is actually exactly what you seem to be doing, Rick -- building up a group (the socionist community in the west) towards doing a good purpose, and you'll identify its members by that quality (the socionists), but it's totally non-exclusive, you want everyone to join. That is Delta Aristocracy. Expat 07:59, 16 July 2007 (BST)

A sort of a bump -- did you see that, Rick? Does it make sense to you? Expat 11:41, 17 July 2007 (BST)

Yeah, you're first description ("rival departments") sounds quite foreign to Deltas. As for the second description, that sounds more Alpha, actually. Deltas are wary of impersonal categories to begin with. For instance, it's not socionists I care about at all (I don't really identify with that category myself), but smart socionists. And I don't want everyone to join -- just the smart ones:) So there's actually more concern with certain personal qualities (smartness and objective thinking) that make effective communication possible, rather than simply "enlarging the community of socionists," which is a goal I don't identify with, because who cares about serving a category? Serving people -- yes; serving discovery -- yes; serving productivity -- yes. Serving socionics -- are you kidding??

Maybe that is where the aristocratism is hidden -- in the fact that "assets" (in this case people) are to be added only if they belong to a certain category? Beta aristocracy would want to make everything belong to that category in the first place, while Delta aristocracy is expressed more as a rejection of what does not belong to a category. This, at least, makes sense functionally, which is good. --Admin 11:57, 17 July 2007 (BST)

Actually, I think this idea is getting somewhere... (Admin 11:58, 17 July 2007 (BST))

I think it is :-) and I think what you said makes sense. I think perhaps the greatest distinction might be the goals, Beta's will be Se-Ni related and the group is held together by Fe; Delta's are Ne-Si related and the group is held together by Fi. Expat 12:24, 17 July 2007 (BST)

The next problem is that we've only covered 1/4 of what aristocracy is (the effect of the Se+Ti block --> in Delta's case as a criteria of avoidance, and in Beta's as a criteria of inclusion, or something like that). What about the rest? --Admin 12:31, 17 July 2007 (BST)

as I once argued, if you have Ti-Se blocked, you will reach logical structures from your observations, including of people; so if all the Scots that you happen to meet eventually get drunk, it makes logical sense to assume, next time you meet a Scot, "he will get drunk". It also makes sense in a "caveman" way, to identify your enemies before they have a chance to attack you. What prevents this reasoning is if you have Se blocked with Fi, because then you reach your conclusions from observations of individuals. Expat 12:37, 17 July 2007 (BST)

Work

Well, what kind of work are we talking about? Expat 22:19, 17 July 2007 (BST)

Maybe I'm being picky... The notice probably applies to the theory as a whole, since Russian descriptions I've seen weren't better. I don't see the functional basis of much of the descriptions (how it all ties together). I can see two possible ways to approach the dichotomy functionally: one is to think in terms of "intuition is blocked with logic," etc., and the other is to think in terms of " is blocked with in both of these quadras, but as a positive value in one quadra and as a negative value in the other." Maybe input from other people here would help. --Admin 22:44, 17 July 2007 (BST)

Well as I said, I find it natural to understand in terms of Se +Ti blocked, both for Beta and Delta, where that would also account for the differences we discussed -- however, if Augusta and Reinin did not elaborate much, how can we? We can only make some suggestions. The characteristics I listed are those from translations; they can be improved but at the end of the day I think we are explaning here what is it that people mean with this dichotomy when they talk about it, not necessarily to solve all theoretical holes Expat 22:56, 17 July 2007 (BST)

(That was a quadra value moment :-) ) The theoretical holes bother me... --Admin 23:07, 17 July 2007 (BST)

Well I can fill the hole in my own way, but I have to point out that it's not "official" as far as I know. Something interesting, Betas and Gammas are usually those who do think of "society" as collective, which is why these two quadras are usually in political activism etc. Expat 10:37, 18 July 2007 (BST)

I agree that we should put a prominent disclaimer on these Reinin pages saying that information in both Russian and English is limited and vague, and that we have approached the dichotomies from a functional standpoint to see what might be said about them, or something like that, and that our descriptions may be somewhat hypothetical, etc. --Admin 11:06, 18 July 2007 (BST)

Ok. One question, though -- to which extent did Augusta and Reinin validate their proposed dichotomies with observations of people? Or did they never mention that? Expat 11:26, 18 July 2007 (BST)

Some of the dichotomies emerged as the result of observation, namely questim/declatim and positivist/negativist, and static/dynamic had been a behind-the-scenes dichotomy for a while (because some IM elements were static and dynamic to begin with). I believe the whole theory appeared after these first few dichotomies were noticed and described. --Admin 11:39, 18 July 2007 (BST)