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Fi/Fe and stepping on toes

965 views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  pandamiga 
#1 ·
Hi guys.

I am sorry that I am starting another thread about Fi and Fe. It's an interesting dichotomy for me, and I have a hard time differentiating the two within me.

So here we go!

I am terrible with the academic descriptions of Fi and Fe. I "feel" like I do best whenever I relate it to something sort of general, like stepping on toes. xDD

So let's say I have a group of friends that I just met a few days ago. I don't know too much about them, but I realize that they like to physically harm each other. I notice them poke and punch each other, and I don't think much of it until they start stepping on my toes. At first I am shocked because normal people don't step on other people's toes. Still, I think about what that groups means, and realize these people uphold values/images that I think are acceptable, and I really want to be a part of the group and become one with them. So I continue to let them step on my toes because it maintains the harmony within the group.

Now, let's say someone new comes along. I start chatting with her to try and integrate her into the group by making her feel comfortable around me. As soon as that happens and she starts talking to my friends, I start to punch her and kick her, but I realize that she doesn't like it. She says "it's not good to do that ". I'll get confused as I try to find out why she won't share out customs. I start to feel strange whenever she is in the group because I can't integrate to different value systems.

In this example, I believe that I am the Fe user (what I think I am naturally, but ...maybe not). I write this because this is similar to how I act in everyday situations with people. Now, I know I am supposed to write an example for Fi doms, but I am not sure if I know how to. I really don't understand how Fi works even though it is highly likely that I lead with it.

Still, given this example of how I would act in social situations, do you see this as the dynamic of an Fe or Fi dom/aux? I ask because I do this thing where I can value and individual on their own, but as soon as I think about the social dynamic I belong to I find it hard to integrate the individual and the group together and I have to change some "definitions" or find some other meaning in order to do to feel harmonic in the outside world (where the humans are involved xD)

Thanks for helping ^_^ (and sorry for grammatical/spelling/syntax mistakes!)
 
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#2 ·
This sounds like Fe. Fi would worry about what it wants to do and what is right for itself and define it's own methods of what is good or appropriate for others and stand by them. There's too much external referencing on how one is supposed to "act" and no internal reference of what the subject feels is right. A Fi example would be "I don't kick, punch and step on people because I don't want to and I feel it's harmful to others because I wouldn't want it done to me." That's it really in terms of a pure Fi reaction that is it. Interacting with others, focusing on expectations and doing what is right for the group is Fe. Fi could do those same actions but it comes from an internal drive to do what the subject believes is right internally with less focus on what others want or judging it based on others beliefs. There is a break from the objective in preference for the subjective.
 
#3 ·
What you are describing isn't really Fi or Fe but rather sort of a moral compass. When we talk about Fi/Fe and values what we are really talking about is evaluation. Whether or not you find something good or bad, like or dislike, beautiful/ugly and so on. Good and bad in a moral sense is sort of something else.

Specifically people have ideas of right and wrong, largely the result of their upbringing and conditioning, and perhaps whatever they have learned or incorporated into their personal belief system and we all judge against that to some degree. And that judgment doesn't have to be a feeling judgment, its often a Thinking judgment (for example an appeal to the rule of law). If something gets on your nerves, most likely it is affecting your moral complex or moral center and causing an emotional reaction that your Feeling function then rationalizes as good/bad or like/dislike based on either objective influence or subjective influence. But the feeling itself, or the confusion or the inability to connect may not actually be the result of the Feeling function.

If it was truly the case that Fi types had their own morals, as people often like to claim, then one would expect about half the population to be very morally ambiguous or adhere very strictly to Thinking based morality, like obeying rules or laws. While it may appear that way on the surface, in actuality everyone has feelings and emotions and triggers about these things as well, which indicates that your moral code is not necessarily the result of the Feeling function in and of itself, but rather more complex.

Not wanting to step on someone's toes can deal with any number of things. Social etiquette, which we all have to some degree incorporated into our personas from our conditioning and upbringing and cultural influences. It can also arise from fear or guilt or shame. Perhaps not wanting to appear foolish, or presumptuous or talking out of turn. Perhaps you have been conditioned, as a way of self-defense that jumping in the middle of something messy isn't worth the effort (other people revel in it, but its not necessarily related to Fi/Fe). When you say 'normal people don't step on other's toes' you are basically projecting your own sensibility about how people should properly behave onto the world around you. This list of shoulds and shouldn'ts is probably traced back to the way you were raised and the things you have internalized along the way. So when someone steps on one of the shouldn'ts it produces a negative emotional reaction, which your feeling function then will rationalize as like or dislike.
 
#4 ·
So when someone steps on one of the shouldn'ts it produces a negative emotional reaction, which your feeling function then will rationalize as like or dislike.
I see now how that's not related to feeling functions or moral compasses. But since Fe/Fi can rationalize emotional reactions since it still thinks, then don't Fi/Fe do it differently? How will I, as an Fi user, say "I like it when my friends step on my toes" after I reacted emotionally to the action?"

Or we can ask it this way, I think.

Let's say I am not naturally interested in watching flowers grow all day long, but I meet someone who likes to do so. As I am talking to her, and she blabbers on about flowers, I start to feel like I am interested in what she likes to do almost unconsciously and to her, it looks like I actually like the idea of it because I keep on asking her more and more questions in an excited manner. So by the end of the conversation, she has invited me to go flower-watching with her the next day and I am actually interested in doing so because I start to think "this is actually really cool and peaceful activity".

So is this an example of reacting to something emotionally, and rationalizing why I feel the way I do? Is this related to Fe/Fi?
 
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