[dfoster]

Power, strength, justice, heroism? no, those are just "symptoms"

What is Eight really about? Lust and Vengeance.



Doesn't matter if you're healthy or not, if you're an Eight, you're driven by lust and vengeance deep inside your psyche. You don't really know your Eight-ness until you get in touch with this side of you.

[Wake]

True, sometimes the fixation and passion of the 8 are overlooked a midst the complexity people add to them.

[dfoster]

I think it might be against PerC's best interest to have a sticky telling people what they're really made of, the darkness of their souls :-)

From a operational standpoint, I'd want people to come to my site and discover how 'wonderful' they are. But the descriptions of type Eight have been watered down and sugar coated so much to the point of giving the wrong picture. Why are there people running around bragging about being 8's if they really know what 8's are about? The educational process must have been perverted somehow.

[Swordsman of Mana]

Power, strength, justice, heroism? no, those are just "symptoms"

What is Eight really about? Lust and Vengeance.

Doesn't matter if you're healthy or not, if you're an Eight, you're driven by lust and vengeance deep inside your psyche. You don't really know your Eight-ness until you get in touch with this side of you.

this is a great example of that lust and vengeance you're talking about. granted, not all 8s are ruthless killers like Beatrix Kiddo, but I feel it captures the essence well. this is why I frequently compare them to carnivores.



PS: I disagree that all 8s are vengeful, but I do agree that all 8s are lustful, though the object and scope of this lust can differ depending on the individual, level of stress and perspective. a healthy 8 is still lustful, they just apply that powerful, lustful energy toward a more noble pursuit (or at least toward something beneficial, like being more productive in order to get more out of life)

[Wake]

I think it might be against PerC's best interest to have a sticky telling people what they're really made of, the darkness of their souls :-)

8's are opened about a sense of animalistic-ness about themselves. You're right though, we focus on the outward characteristics of 8's more than discussing the causes of them. That's the beauty of being a type 1. When anyone walks into the type 1 forum they tell us we are resentful nazis, but we consider the standards which are derived from them to be what's great, the problem is that we must impose these on the outside world and that draws people away from us, so we get no idealization to make us similar to 8's.


Off topic:

From a operational standpoint, I'd want people to come to my site and discover how 'wonderful' they are. But the descriptions of type Eight have been watered down and sugar coated so much to the point of giving the wrong picture. Why are there people running around bragging about being 8's if they really know what 8's are about? The educational process must have been perverted somehow.

As a 1 reading about other types I've never thought too much of any type. A type may be better than me in some ways at some things, but I view it as equivalent exchange really. For what they gain they also lose something that I value, therefore, my type is best in the ways I care about. This feeling certainly isn't uncommon, but it's more present in 1's because the sense of self, and ideological values are the strongest of the types.

I only consider other types great for the way that I maybe able work complimentary to them.

[dfoster]

this is a great example of that lust and vengeance you're talking about. granted, not all 8s are ruthless killers like Beatrix Kiddo, but I feel it captures the essence well. this is why I frequently compare them to carnivores.

PS: I disagree that all 8s are vengeful, but I do agree that all 8s are lustful, though the object and scope of this lust can differ depending on the individual, level of stress and perspective. a healthy 8 is still lustful, they just apply that powerful, lustful energy toward a more noble pursuit (or at least toward something beneficial, like being more productive in order to get more out of life)

Then you don't know your enneagram. Claudio Naranjo, the man who brought the Enneagram to modern psychology, the man that most other enneagram writers take after identified the real drive behind Eight's "justice": revenge on the world for wronging the individual at an early age. That is me to a T, the visceral response to "injustice" that 8's have is a response to an old wound. They have been looking for the faceless culprit that screwed up their perfect world. As soon as they see someone doing some "wrong" they attack, not in the sense of "you're unethical" like 1, but "it was you, it was you who's been screwing up my world, now die!" It's very visceral, I used to feel it very strong against any wrong doing like the individual has done it to me although he has never met me. And the offense was against someone else and usually minor. But it doesn't matter, I added up all the sins of the world and put them on his shoulders. Oscar Ichazo, who taught Naranjo the Ennegram named type 8: Ego-Venge. This name is still being used by several Enneagram writers.

About "healthy" and "average" and "unhealthy", I think we should move away from that concept. Riso came up with it but there is no real threshold inside a person that determines that. It's all a continuum. So don't think: "those are just for unhealthy 8's, they're not for me because I'm not unhealthy" Even in my most magnaminous, benevolent, altruistic state, I still feel lust and vengeance in my heart. I just know how to identify them better. They are there, always there.

[Wake]

... real drive behind Eight's "justice": revenge on the world for wronging the individual at an early age. That is me to a T, the visceral response to "injustice" that 8's have is a response to an old wound. They have been looking for the faceless culprit that screwed up their perfect world. As soon as they see someone doing some "wrong" they attack, not in the sense of "you're unethical" like 1, but "it was you, it was you who's been screwing up my world, now die!" It's very visceral, I used to feel it very strong against any wrong doing like the individual has done it to me although he has never met me. And the offense was against someone else and usually minor. But it doesn't matter, I added up all the sins of the world and put them on his shoulders. Oscar Ichazo, who taught Naranjo the Ennegram named type 8: Ego-Venge. This name is still being used by several Enneagram writers.

...

This really speaks to their cognitive error of feeling that they are constantly working against something, almost a hidden force. It also speaks to the hidden complaint that they're fighting for their survival and if they didn't fight back then they would be taken advantage of.

[dfoster]

This really speaks to their cognitive error of feeling that they are constantly working against something, almost a hidden force. It also speaks to the hidden complaint that they're fighting for their survival and if they didn't fight back then they would be taken advantage of.

Yes, that's why they're pissed off all the time, can't relax. It also causes them to run into a lot of obstacles when there should be none. They expect a battle on a trip to 7-11.

[dfoster]

Naranjo, in Character and Neurosis:

Ennea-Type VIII: "Sadistic Character and Lust"
Lust is.. a kinship to indolence... an attempt to compensate for a hidden lack of aliveness.


"Anti social personality disorder"
"phallic narcissistic"
disobedient and defiant
"moral anesthesia"

... guiltlessness, incapacity of object love, impulsivity, emotional shallowness

concealed sadistic characteristics

exploitative orientation

"does not expect to receive things from others as gifts, but to take them away from others by force or cunning"

He describes the most unhealthy 8s as anti-social personalities:
hostile affectivity, assertive self-image, interpersonal vindictiveness, malevolent projection...

"the need for vindictive triumph"

"He is convinced that everyone at the bottom is malevolent and crooked, that friendly gestures are hypocritical... regard everyone with distrust"

He quotes Horney on a "lusty person" (8):

"He is openly arrogant, often rude and offensive, although sometime this is covered with a thin veneer of civil politeness. In subtle and gross ways with or without realizing it, he humiliates others and exploits them. He may use women for the satisfaction of his sexual needs with utter disregard for their feelings....uses people as a means to an end......maintains contacts exclusively on the basis of their serving his needs for triumph....as stepping stones in his career....utter disregard of others' needs...

contemptuous disregard for others...intimidating others into a subdued appeasement...

"This absence of sympathy has many causes, lying in his hostility towards others and in his lacking sympathy for himself. But what contributes most to his callousness toward others is the envy of them. It is a bitter envy --not for this for that particular asset, but pervasive--and stems from his feeling excluded from life in general....
lust may be seen as repressed envy


Now in Naranjo's own description of type 8:

The revenge which is present in ennea-type VIII is a long term one... in response to the pain, humiliation and impotence felt in early childhood.

"a manifestation of vindictive punitiveness"

"power seeking", "putting others down", "disdain and scorn for others"

Their seductiveness, bragging, and arrogant claims are consciously manipulative; they are geared to gaining influence and elevation in the power and dominance hierarchy.

...to compensate for feelings of guilt, shame and worthlessness evoked by his disregard of others the individual has engaged in a process of guilt denial...

... ennea-type VIII character fails to constitute full humanness..

...lust, in its impetuous grasping of the tangible, entails an impoverishment of tender qualities and subtlety which results in a loss of wholeness...this reaching, substituted for being, leaves him forever dissatisfied, craving intensity.

[dfoster]

Eight is the closest thing to an animal


Sandra Maitri in her two books:


(8's lust) Our love for what we desire and fully taking it in - devouring it - are indistinguishable here. Here, we are like a lion stalking our prey... everything and everyone is just food to us....

... Eights have a thick layer of callousness and deadness separating them from contact with their vitality. It is as though their soul has become hardened, desensitized.

His inner powerlessness, helplessness, and vulnerability... are what he considers the core of his weakness... the rest of his life can be seen as an attempt to grapple with this basic sense of culpability and the resulting feeling of guilt...

He imitates essential strength ... the false strength that characterizes the Eight personality type is static, rigid and inflexible... using the same amount of force for everything he does...

...often unaware of the suffering and hurt feelings of others and is inconsiderate, not noticing the effect of his often brusque, blunt, and callous manner upon them.

Denial also makes it appear to him the that the problem is always outside of himself. The enemy is the other, who seems out to get him, wants to humiliate him, is treating him unjustly..

He rebuffs responsibility for how he is treated... and accuses others for his difficulties and believing that the deck is stacked against him.

-----------------------

The blaming part of Eight is a serious one, since the world is at fault for messing with him, he's not responsible for trampling on others to get what he wants. He looks for others for the cause of his problem. Running over one after another looking for the culprit that "stands in his way". If he terminates all of his enemies, the culprit is still there, because it's inside him.