Friedrich Schiller, Image via Wikipedia
It is commonly suggested that Man can be characterised as either an Introvert or an Extrovert. The validity of making such a distinction rests on the potential utility such taxonomy may bring; I am not interested in abstruse cataloguing without meaningful purpose. Does the attempt to divide Man into two broad groups help us understand him and the challenges he faces? Will it make him happy?
Carl Jung, drawing partly on Friedrich Schiller’s fertile correspondence with Goethe, suggested that the conscious mind of the introvert is driven largely by his ego (his internal sense of self) while his sense of “relatedness” (affective/emotional responses) to objects in the external world is diminished. The extrovert, by contrast, is captivated by the world and his relationship to it, and the ego becomes secondary to this. Thus, “the extrovert discovers himself in the fluctuating and the changeable; the introvert in the constant”. Affectivity is “positively painful” to the introvert, while for the extrovert “it must on no account be missed”.
There is no better statement of this difference in approach to the world than that expressed when Schiller, the archetypal introvert, wrote to extroverted Goethe: “You have a kingdom to rule, and I only a somewhat numerous family of ideas which I would like to expand into a little universe”.
The introvert feels driven to externalise all the ideas he possesses within his mind, and make them manifest in the outside world. The extrovert yearns to internalise the world and consume it utterly. At their extremes, therefore, both the introvert and extrovert are autocrats, ruthlessly desiring absolute complete control, and unable to settle for nothing less.
A crucial point is that these drives and responses are functions of the conscious mind; they are how we overtly interpret in the world. But our opposite, inferior, nature can be found in the relatively submerged subconscious mind. So the extrovert finds harmony not just when emotionally exposed to a changing and vibrant external world ecology, but when he can come to intellectual terms with the impact and meaning of those emotions upon him. And the introvert waxes lyrical when he feels the emotional pleasure of appreciating an elegant rational system.
It is when the conscious drive moves in the same direction as the subconscious that this true pleasure results. Unfortunately, many of the systems in which we function do not encourage this dual approach to life. Schiller noted this, Jung remarked that it was worse by his time, and I may be bold enough to suggest that the situation has deteriorated further since. Jung said, “the differentiated function procures the possibility of a collective existence, but not that satisfaction and joie de vivre which the development of individual values alone can give”. Or, the need to earn money means that people gravitate to the roles and professions they are superficially productive at; the jobs that make the most use of their introverted or extraverted nature. They do these jobs to the practical satisfaction of their superiors, but not to the satisfaction of their inner self which demands more than this, and so they are unhappy.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, being a crisper wordsmith than I, phrased it thus: “You must choose between making a Man or a Citizen; you cannot make both at once”.
If both conscious and subconscious drives exists, both must be satisfied for our minds to be at peace. The challenge is therefore to find ways of living that allow for the exploration of this dual, yet intertwined, nature of our psyche. Schiller proposed that “creative play” or “wise play” (such as that involved in appreciating or making Art, or Beauty) would enable this. Both the extrovert and the introvert can express their inferior, subsconscious, selves through this process. Indeed, Jung postulated that this process is a conduit to expressing an inner symbolic representation of our true (whole) self.
The trouble is that to be wise when playing suggests the requirement of insight into what the end-point of our play should be. And that is a very circular argument as it is the creative play itself that is supposed to align our conscious and subconscious minds in this fashion. It is suggestive of an iterative process of incrementally improving wisdom and insight, whereby the act of play opens new avenues of thought, which in turn suggest new types of play, and so on.
It is worth pausing here to note that most people are not yet ready to even begin to play wisely. So Jung warns: “for them seriousness must occupy the middle place instead of play”; they must first think about their rational and emotional natures and the tension between them, before they are ready to use creativity to begin to meld the different parts together. This again reinforces the value of insight, and encourages self-reflection.
But if one is ready, the potential reward is individuation and self-actualisation. True individuality results from the ability to both be, and be separate from, the two opposing functions of our conscious and unconscious minds. Interaction between individuals would only occur when creative play was the aim of the meeting.
Is this achievable?
I suggest not in this lifetime! To be so fully cognisant and accepting of ourselves may theoretically be possible, but suggests to me such a differentiation from humanity as to be divinity.
But think of this: Man is the only beast to even contemplate such heights. We have the gall to wish to strive beyond ourselves, to fulfil our ultimate potential, to become god-like. The only collective community that would satisfy us would be the liberty of Mount Olympus. That is the truly remarkable thing about our species, and why typology and psychology are not mere taxonomy, but tools we can use to understand our potential.
It is this hope within us that fires our creativity. Eternal happiness may be the ultimate reward for all that effort, but for now, it is enough to know that splendid things will result from just the creative potential.
