I hope this post is coherent. If not then please cut me some slack, it’s Sunday morning and I literally only woke up 5 minutes ago.
I haven’t even had a coffee yet, I’ve turned the laptop on, opened google reader and the headline of one of Andrew Bolts posts came up first.
Congratulations, Prime Minister whoever
Followed by these ominous words -
Scary, that the winner of the election will be decided on some combination of the Greens’ Adam Bandt, anti-Iraq-war conspiracist and former Greens candidate Andrew Wilkie (if elected) and the three former Nationals-turned-independents – Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott.
Last night I started watching the election results on tv but turned it off, Laurie Oakes and Nicola Roxon are both people I cannot cope with, so to have them both on my tv screen at the same time was unbearable. I spent the evening on facebook, being updated on election news by FB friends, and reading bits and pieces on the web.
During the evening I came across this article.
Unlocking the Secrets of Personality Types – Part 2
Regular readers of this blog might have seen my post on personality types. Here.
For a while now I have been interested in temperament types and have concluded that there must be a link between type and politics. That different types probably want governments to play a role in their lives that is consistent with their type.
For instance what makes some people want a big government that nannies them, controlling every aspect of their lives and others want a small government that butts out of their business and leaves them alone. What makes some people want a government that shows compassion and others want their government to be just and fair.
Firstly I have to say that my conclusions are that of an amateur and obviously every person is different and there is a very real possibility that I am about to insult some people who belong to the Artisan type. I hope not because my eldest son belongs to this group and he is a wonderful, fun, adventurous person. Who luckily, like a lot of Artisans, has no interest in politics. I say luckily because the ones who are this type and do have an interest are often strident in their beliefs, easily led and clueless. Remember I’m generalising. Everyone is different and these observations are based on my own limited experience.
Of the four types, Artisans make up the second largest group. Guardians are the largest. Both Artisans and Guardians are sensors, meaning they have a preference for absorbing data in a concrete, literal fashion. But if that data is broken up into lots of little pieces they are not good at putting the pieces together.
This is from my previous post.
We are Sensing when we:
* Taste food
* Notice a stoplight has changed
* Memorize a speech
* Follow steps in a plan
We are Intuitive when we:
* Come up with a new way of doing things
* Think about future implications for a current action
* Perceive underlying meaning in what people say or do
* See the big picture
Guardians are said to be conservative in their outlook.
Neither Guardians or Artisans are good at seeing the big picture, although the Artisans I have debated with, think they are. They also seem to be in love with tokenism.
This is from the article I referred to in my previous post.
Moreover, look at the words given to describe the various personality types. Most Sensors are the people would you probably want to trust least when it comes to accurate, complete information – and this is majority of the population! Would you rather listen to a Mastermind or a Performer when it comes to world conspiracies? Or how about a Teacher or a Provider?
I’m not saying that Sensors are bad, I’m saying they’re bad at doing things they’re not designed to do. A “Mastermind” shouldn’t be performing or entertaining people, fine, but he should be figuring out who is running the show and why we are where we are as a society.
My type is Rational (NT) (Green card) and I call myself a Conservative Libertarian.
Rationals are the most autonomous of all the temperaments, so as a person who sees red when someone tries to control or manipulate me, it makes sense that my type are likely to be the group that most resents government interference in their lives.
This is from the article I came across last night –
In his groundbreaking book, Please Understand Me, David Keirsey took the 16 Myers-Briggs personality types and reduced them to four “temperament” types. This makes it much less complicated to figure out and understand a person’s type.
The four temperaments are: Intuitive Thinkers (NTs), Intuitive Feelers (NFs), Sensory Judgers (SJs), and Sensory Perceivers (SPs).
The Advocates has put together descriptions of the temperaments on color-coded cards which help people quickly figure out their types. NTs are “Green Cards,” NFs are “Blue Cards,” SJs are “Gold Cards,” and SPs are “Orange Cards.”
What “color” are you?
Here are key words that describe each “color”:
Green Cards (an estimated 12% of the population): Objective, rational, logical, conceptual, curious, competent, scientific, intelligent, knowledgeable, and wise.
Blue Cards (an estimated 12% of the population): Compassionate, caring, warm, communicative, cooperative, romantic, creative, sensitive, and harmonious.
Gold Cards (an estimated 38% of the population): dependable, Responsible, sensible, helpful, hardworking, stable, loyal, organized, practical, punctual, and traditional.
Orange Cards (an estimated 38% of the population): Spontaneous, active, adventuresome, risk-taking, competitive, flexible, cheerful, realistic, charming, skillful, and fun.
The libertarian type
Over the years, observers have noted that most libertarians are Green Cards — a temperament type that makes up only 12% of the population. In fact, in 1987, when David Bergland and Marshall Fritz first introduced the libertarian movement to “temperament types,” their libertarian audience was 98% Green Cards.
Fortunately, it has been my observation that there has been a major shift in the last few years. Recently, when I’ve surveyed groups of libertarians, only about half turn out to be Green Cards!
This is a definite sign that libertarians are reaching out and appealing to other types.
I would love to know what category most supporters of the Australian Green party belong to. I would put money on the majority of them being Artisans and Idealists.
If I am correct then the question is how to reach out to Artisans (orange cards) and Idealists (blue cards) and convince them, in a way that is complementary to their type, to see things our way.
The answer could be here.
In my opinion, each of the four temperament types is naturally attracted to specific political views. Green Cards are naturally attracted to libertarianism. Gold Cards are naturally attracted to conservatism. Blue Cards are naturally attracted to liberalism. And Orange Cards tend to be skeptical about politics.
Interestingly, I think it’s difficult for conservatives to attract anyone but Gold Cards, and it may be hard for liberals to attract other types than Blue Cards. On the other hand — though Green Cards are the “natural” libertarians — libertarianism is attractive to all types
Let me repeat that: Libertarianism is attractive to all types — provided we learn to communicate the ideas in a way that each personality type can understand and appreciate.
Continue reading this article here.