It has been said "there are two types of people - those who divide people into groups and those who don't". I guess I will be of the former group in this post, as I will be talking about two groups of people: "thinkers" and "feelers". Before I say which type I think I am, I want to define my terms. I believe that all people think (to varying degrees) and all have feelings. For all people, thinking and feeling both affect our motives and decisions. Nobody on earth is Mr. Spock, and nobody is completely without reason. Nonetheless, most people lean one way or the other. I therefore will use the following definitions: A "thinker" is one whose emotions are subject to his reason in decision making, and a "feeler" is one who ultimately makes decisions based on emotions and who uses their intellect to back up their decisions.
Now I want to make it clear that a "feeler" is not necessarily anti-intellectual. On the contrary, a feeler can be very intellectual and able to not only be very articulate but also very persuasive through intellectual argument. Also, a "thinker" is not someone who is unable to see the emotional side of an argument. A thinker has emotions just as strong as a feeler's. The difference between the two is where the center of will sits in the balance. It is sort
of the vantage point where the person sits and looks out at the world. For a feeler, the intellect is something 'over there', a tool to be used, and for a thinker, the emotions are something 'over there' that you have to wade through and try to keep a straight line through intellectual effort.
So, which am I? I am a frustrated "thinker". I don't think of myself as "intellectual" or "smarter than thou", but I realize that I definitely am sitting on the thinker side of the fence looking over at my emotions when considering decisions and questions. Am I unemotional? On the contrary, my emotions are often overwhelming and I have had to develop my particular way of thinking to even function. Unlike many of my fellow guys, I think that I am really "in touch with my feelings". I like many "chick flicks" (unless they are totally stupid) and can get teary-eyed over a good commercial on tv. In general, though, I see a lot of my emotions as stupid and counterproductive to living a real life. Why "frustrated"? Because I seem to exist in a world of mostly "feelers". Frankly, they make me crazy!
Feelers are frustrating to a thinker because they speak a different language. It is pretty predictable how a feeler will react and believe in any situation, but for a thinker they are frustrating because now matter how much you discuss things with them, it will generally not change their minds. I imagine that the reverse is true - a feeler will expound arguments and persuasive language to a thinker and have no effect, even though the conclusions seem self-evident and all the other feelers in the room have been convinced. A thinker who cannot change the mind of a feeler will generally think of the feeler as illogical or even stupid. A feeler who cannot convince a thinker to change his mind, will often label the thinker as heartless, or even a "bad person".
How does this work out in real life? Well, let's look at politics as an example. I believe that liberalism is more the domain of feelers, while either can be a conservative. For instance, a feeler looks at homelessness and says "we have to do something!!!" It does not really matter whether the solution has ever been shown to work - the worst possible thing is to not do something. A conservative might cite historical precedent, economics, etc., but in the end, the argument for a liberal is "are you a good person or a bad person", and a bad person is defined as "someone who demonstrates they don't care by not voting to redistribute wealth so that nobody suffers". Down that path lies economic ruin or communism (with hundreds or thousands of times more suffering) but that does not matter. I want to quickly point out that plenty of feelers are conservative also, tied in mostly with moral issues and feelings of traditionalism. Emotions are necessary to inform decisions involving people, but if they dominate, they almost always lead to ruin (IMHO).
Experience tell us that there is a division of the sexes in the preponderance of thinkers and feelers. Women are generally in better touch with their feelings than men and seem to be able to freely mix the emotional and logical in a way that drives many men crazy. Science backs this up - I have read that during embryonic development the appearance of testosterone in the development of the male human being causes some amount of destruction in the corpus collosum - the link between the right and left brain. The more damage done, the more the emotions and reason can operate independently. (More on the implications of this later). I personally think that this is only generally true. I have known many female "thinkers" (including my wife) and many male "feelers". It is interesting that a male "feeler" is generally considered "womanish" by most people, or at least "in touch with his feminine side".
Next post: is there a place for both thinkers and feelers?
