Interviews -- Susan Harris-Gamard

Susan's interview is unlisted but is embedded below with permission:

In addition, here is another older typing video answering the same questions which I found interesting.

Unfortunately this video is lost - 2020


Susan tells us a great deal and shows us very little. Most of my observations of Susan have to do with her words and not with her demeanor at all:

• Has somewhat limited emotionality. Chuckles a lot, has limited voice modulation.
• Constantly describes herself as assiduous, driven, motivated, "always working", busy, but also as indecisive, poor at getting what she wants and accomplishing things, etc. These contradictions in terms are a common theme in Susan's self-descriptions.
• Very focused on career. Yet has a scattered approach to her own education. Describes herself as obsessed with her own self-directed work; quit stable job as a hospital technician because the work was not sufficiently self-directed.
• Highly organized, structured lifestyle. This organization comes across clearly in Susan's speech. Even in the second video linked where less preparation was done (presumably intentionally), there were little notes made to remember things.
• Describes preferring to work alone.
• Describes herself as sensitive, passionate, chameleon, patient, and accommodating. Yet also "sees other people as objects," and describes herself as simultaneously private and individualistic.
• Describes missing the "energy" of city cafes.
• Occasionally uses sappy, emotional language ("I love my mom")

In addition, here are two extended quotes, from the end of the first and second videos, respectively.

I am not that hopeful anymore to be honest. The only thing I am seeing these days is too much power in too few hands, corruption, dishonesty, people not speaking out enough, people too willing to follow the trends, the crowd, others' ideas. This I find to be the most dangerous. Maybe it is because everything is too open these days, so now we see it with the internet and everything. But really it just depresses me the state that society is in. I'm tired of the sheep mentality; people don't realize that they are being manipulated and controlled by the media and pop culture; people not willing to hear and to listen to what is not being said. I feel that many people are sleeping even when they are in fact speaking out on issues, they don't realize that issues are brought to the forefront that don't actually matter in the wider scope of things. People in power [unintelligible] the media and information generation and dissemination, and no piece of information should ever be trusted at face value. There is always a motive behind everything. I would just like to just go around and wake everyone up out of their trance. I'm hoping that maybe by being a writer and/or educator I might play some sort of a role in this, so I do see a of glimmer of hope; I always see a glimmer of hope that I could play a role in making that a little bit.

I am hot and cold with friends. A lot of times, some people want to get really close to me, and I'm more of when I'm with friends I want to do something, I want to have fun. I don't want to sit and have intimate conversations, if I'm going to have a conversation it's going to be an intellectual conversation, and some people don't enjoy those, they would rather talk about their relationships and things like that and just I will talk, I will listen, but I would rather talk about things that are important that can be changed, something important in the world, and my husband and I do a lot of talking like that, and that's what really keeps us together, keeps us a good couple, because we share that.

[...]

My ideal place is somewhere where I can be honest, I can be open, and I trust everyone. People are not afraid to put things on the table; to argue, to really get down to agreement and understanding each other. I have trouble when people refuse to agree and refuse to see things from another person's perspective. [The place that makes me feel insecure], I figured it out, for me it is when someone is judgmental. And I grew up with a very judgmental father who judged everyone, who was very racially judgmental, everything was a judgment, and it was very stressful for me, made me who I am I know that, but it's one environment I can't be in and if I find myself anywhere like that I will either lash out or I will leave.

[...]

I think for me it was a combination of my dad and the fact that I've never been someone who fits in. So I've always been subject to people's negative judgments of me, that I am different, that I can't conform, that I don't think like everybody else, that I don't act like everybody else and I refuse to act like everybody else to fit in, so when I hear a judgment it brings up all these bad past experience of mine, of the judging eye on me all the time, my clothes, my dress. I was always a little different, always rebellious, always, I liked to make a statement in everything, whether my appearance, how I act, what I say, I want to get things out and get them out in the open, and if someone comes along and blasts me with a judgment, I'm like "Okay so what am I supposed to do with that?" They're not giving me a chance to interact and get a dialogue going, and that's problematic for me. When people put up a wall, you know you need that dialogue to keep going, you need to create harmony and get people to work together, because if we don't work together, we can't do anything, we can't do anything as individuals, we have to do things as a group, as humans, as people who have common interests, common needs, this common drive to survive and be happy and love each other. It comes right down to that.

These quotes are without a doubt cherry-picked portions of her videos, and I recommend watching the full videos. However broadly I do not feel that they are taken out of context.

Of course, themes from these quotes include more contradictory ideas: while describing herself as individualistic and highly oriented only towards her own work, Susan also describes here this highly collectivistic imagery, with a preference for freely expressive (nonjudgmental) environments in which she can "make a statement" and express herself without restriction.

And additionally, she speaks about the importance of being present, of detecting "hidden motivations" in the way people act, and of "waking people up" from the sheep mentality and of discussing weighty subjects of societal importance and which can be changed and improved.



I am caught between two types to describe these observations of Susan: LIE and EIE. Of these, I think EIE is more likely, but LIE is not necessarily a bad typing (and especially Susan's enigmatic self-presentation and perhaps lack of awareness of what is inside her leaves some ambiguity in how to interpret the observations).

Susan's use of extroverted ethics is not overt in her behavior. She is not overly emotional, does not talk a great deal about her emotions or about situations involving other people. Instead she talks a lot more about her career and career history. However, in my opinion her use of extroverted logic is not particularly overt either -- she is an extremely structured, organized person who is very focused on career topics but does not overly emphasize her productive work in doing so (at several points in the first video, the interviewer emphasizes her organization as reflecting a "need for efficiency" for her, to which she assents, but this is not generally reflected in her own words).

Although it is not at all unreasonable for LIEs, an Fi suggestive type, to be "sensitive" as Susan describes and also as unable to see what is inside themselves or how they relate to others. But some of Susan's other descriptions, such as needing to preserve harmony among people, seem a bit out of place for LIEs who have the harsh judgment of gamma types.

By contrast in some of the extended quotes picked out, the Fe+Ni attitudes of the beta quadra seem to stand out quite a bit more clearly. It is telling that Susan sees other people as having the "sheep mentality" and who are "blind to the unstated motivations of others" and that "no information should ever be taken at face value." At face value (no pun intended), this is clearly opposed to the attitude of Te dominant types who value unadulterated information from trustworthy sources.

Moreover the attitudes of rebelliousness, of needing to express oneself in environments of nonjudgment, the collectivistic mentality of people working together, and of "hope" for the future world which, while being emotionally blackened in some ways, can be changed via supra-worldly alterations, are all characteristic of the beta quadra.


From Susan's comments, what is most clear is that she should be an Se-valuing extrovert. The most obvious qualities of Susan are her ambition, drive, and organized lifestyle. Another somewhat present quality is her somewhat "scattered" character, of doing and keeping track of many things vocationally and describing herself as a chameleon that behaves in many contradictory ways. This often underlies a somewhat limited capacity to introspect and notice what is inside herself (a problem which all of the Se-valuing extroverts -- who collectively lack Ti, Fi, and Ni -- can have, as well as some other extroverts such as ESEs).

But beyond the assessment of an Se-valuing extrovert it is somewhat difficult for me to make clear distinctions, about whether Te or Fe is valued -- my certainty of my typing of Susan as EIE compared to especially LIE is probably lower than all of the other interviews I have yet analyzed. To be more confident of my typing I would like to see more clear expressions of emotionality, or know Susan more fully to understand the specific way in which her emotionality is translated into focusing on her career. But based on the evidence and interviews available, I would assess that Fe dominants (who can be quite oriented towards their careers) is the most likely of these suggestions and that many of Susan's comments about collectivism, free expression, and the importance of detecting hidden motivations would be quite odd for gamma extroverts.





(The interviewer mentions that Susan's self-typing is ILI. To me this typing seems highly unrealistic for Susan. To be brief -- as this blog is intended to be didactic and I think most readers will not find very didactic an exposition of possibilities that seem clearly wrong -- I agree with the interviewer's reasons for disagreeing with this typing; ILIs are extremely less driven and organized than Susan appears to be.)

Ayn Rand

You see my main interest and purpose both in literature and in philosophy is to provide an image of an ideal man. A specific, concrete image of what man can be and ought to be.

Regarding Ayn Rand, expat had this to say on a facebook comment on World Socionics Society on May 7:

I've already mentioned Ayn Rand - I don't think she was a LSI, I think she was a LIE. Among other things, her personal life was messed up in Fi areas, although she longed for Fi closeness. Anyway I can write a lot about her as I've read a lot by her and about her. But no, I don't see myself as an "objectivist" But note that she very consistently said that her main goal in fiction was to describe "the ideal man" - not the ideal society or the ideal system or the ideal philosophy. That's it for now.

I previously looked into this typing several years ago and I understand the idea of the LIE typing much better than I did when I last thought about this typing years ago. I might even be convinced by it at some point later.

I am moderately willing to see Rand as LIE but not convinced. I have a number of objections to this typing, which I will try to outline here.

Ayn Rand's personal life and relationships were indeed "very messed up in Fi areas." Indeed in Rand's personal life she fell quickly and hard for men, vastly messing up her relationships and ultimately showing great jealousy, unrealistic expectations and a great lack of emotional awareness (which also pervades into her philosophical views). A few videos about Ayn Rand's personal life, particularly centered around her relationship with Nathaniel Branden, an extramarital lover with whom Rand had an affair between 1954 and 1957 and who has written and talked quite a lot about Rand (as has his ex-wife Barbara):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2LJY6LrHGQ
http://vimeo.com/38724174 (has many parts about Ayn Rand but also quite a bit of disorganized other stuff about politics in the 1990s largely having to do with Alan Greenspan, a disciple of Rand's. Some of the more important quotes are reproduced below)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gqk0tdncek

She was attempting to portray an affair between [herself and Nathaniel Branden] as totally rationally justified. She said that it was nobody's business and we were sworn to absolute secrecy, but she said that since they were such unusual people and it was inevitable that they feel what they felt, that there could be no objection to an affair. I also felt, I was very aware of how little Ayn Rand had from the outside, from other people.

[...]

[After Nathaniel Branden fell in love with another younger woman] she then launched into a tirade against him that was so shocking, accusing him of utter irrationality, of betraying objectivism, betraying her, it went on and on indefinitely, and it ended with her saying if he had an ounce of morality left, he would be impotent for the next ten years, and then slapped him across the face three times and said "Get out."

-- Barbara Branden, first wife of Nathaniel Branden

The way that I have always interpreted Ayn Rand's somewhat chaotic personal life is the same as I have interpreted her philosophy as a true excess of rigidity in viewpoint and character, and with concomitant failure to recognize her own emotions which caused her to lash out aggressively and irrationally. I viewed the "tantrums" and jealousy of her personal life as characteristic of LSIs with Se values and suggestive Fe. I might be able to reconcile it as LIE with Se and suggestive Fi instead which is not how I thought of it -- although I think that in LIEs compared to LSIs there is more propensity to introspect and acknowledge one's emotional impulses (and how they mislead them) than Rand ever showed in her life, and that LIEs tend to be more subtle and standoffish in their emotionality and less outwardly explosive.

With respect to philosophy, Rand saw herself as a champion of reason and truth, but had no awareness of emotions nor the importance of emotional guidance. Instead she described that altruism was irrational and unacceptable for agents ("heroes") following rationalism and reason. In her words, altruism was defined as taking other people's happiness to be more important than the happiness of the self, but also it is clear that she thought that most people who failed to pursue their own goals had no value or virtue (to put it another way, she could not conceive of the potential value of others).






Just as Rand's philosophy can be seen as a reflection of her unfailing stubbornness and unfailing dedication to emotional repression, so too can her reaction to critical appraisal of her work which in the public sphere was largely negative. Barbara Branden has some interesting comments in the last video linked above about how Rand became disillusioned, stubborn, and rejecting primarily after her work was not heralded by, in Branden's words, "even one" of her peers as a groundbreaking achievement, and like Freud fell into a habit of constantly excommunicating people from her social circle (although of course Freud enjoyed much more success and recognition while he was alive). I think that this is part of a repressive attitude that Ti dominants who become completely consumed with their work sometimes have (I think Freud is LII who I will post about at some later time. I might be able to see IEI though, it is a mystery to me why the discussion around Freud has historically centered around EIE and ILE instead).

It is also not true as expat says that Ayn Rand described the "ideal man" rather than the ideal society. Well, to be precise maybe it is true to some extent in her fiction which I have not actually read, but in Ayn Rand's words (as in the youtube documentary "Ayn Rand in her own words" and also in her interview with Mike Wallace) she is very precise about the composition and character of her ideal society, which is one of rational self-interest in which there exists a minimal state with no breadth into society beyond law enforcement and in which transactions between individuals predominate (and my understanding not having read these books is that they depict at least many facets of these societies as well as the "ideal man"). She is not however clear at all on how to implement such a government or what moral contract would compel such a government to fulfill their end of the bargain; instead this society lives in an idealistic world with little thought to its implementation. These views are all very similar to the ideal world thought of by libertarians today, which I see as a Ti-focused domain (as is much of theoretical economics): the logical pattern of how transactions would occur and what are the basic principles and human rights that must be enforced in such a society taken to their logical extremes, with no or thought to implementation and practical problems (and consider individuals like Ron Paul and probably also Rand Paul, Jan Helfeld, etc, Ti dominants in my view).

Power didn't interest her and money didn't interest her; that may shock a lot of people, but she lived like a most [ascetic], otherworldly person, she lived very very modestly, she had no interest in material acquisition, she had no interest in material luxury, she lived personally a very spiritually existence, very much a life of the mind. And she probably wouldn't have had a very good opinion of people who were overly interested in material acquisition. What she really admired were people who were interested in creative work. She thought and I would say that what exists is this world and this life, and one should honor it and do the best with it, and not endure suffering passively on the assumption that at some time in some other dimension, or some other life, then you will be happy. But if that you honor your own life, if you want happiness and a place to fight for, that is here on Earth.

--Nathaniel Branden

I can understand why one would look at Ayn Rand's comments about America as a place which she passionately loved for its commitment to the individual, and towards her philosophy of individualism and individual accomplishment, and see these things as like LIEs. But she also seems to be influenced and moved by symbolism in various ways, being moved at a young age by film and its depiction of tall buildings in New York as well as strong, independent men.

But I think it is easier to accept that Ayn Rand could have been an LSI who happened to be very moved by individualism, and whose career objectives were the establishment of a lifestyle and philosophy that was basically the natural logical extension -- to the extreme -- of these principles. Who was opposed to the contributions of emotional guidance in guiding one's judgments and especially vehemently opposed to the idea that people could have value (or "potential") that was not explicitly realized in their behavior, essentially delta good faith judgment.


If you disagree with my comments or observations, I encourage you to comment.