Penn Jillette

Penn Jillette is an interesting person. For nearly forty years he has run a magic show with Raymond Teller. Penn is notable for being the talking half of this duo, and of the two is really the larger public voice for the act.

Penn is a gracious person. One of the primary visible sets of youtube videos I used to describe Penn as "gracious" is the TV show Fool Us, which aired in Britain. In that show, Penn and Teller watch as amateur magicians perform tricks, once, and try to figure out how it is done. We can see that while both Penn and Teller are mechanically skilled, Teller is a bit "brainier" and Penn, being the speaking part of the two, has developed a grace in talking and formally dealing with the amateurs, even when their tricks were really bad and so on.

(Fool Us is not so socionically relevant -- I recommend to watch just a couple of clips on youtube -- but it is interesting. Also, unfortunately, a lot of the Fool Us clips have been removed, but there are still many to get a sense of the show).

Nonetheless to say that Penn is a "gracious" person in general is inaccurate. If you watch him in interviews, or in his magic act in other ways, he engages in a lot of slapstick, grotesque, off-the-cuff comedy replete with blow-job jokes and so on. Indeed the Penn and Teller act is renowned for, in addition to its mechanical skill in performing magic, its humor and attempt to portray shock value (you can see this in various magic clips between the two of them).


And then, more interestingly, if you watch more interviews, you will quickly come to Penn's views on politics, including things like religion (Penn is an outspoken atheist). In this arena we see another side of Penn as well -- there is a very pronounced, exacting morality which Penn articulates in his views and in all his actions, to go along with his slapstick sense of comedy.

I think the interview with Penn and Teller at the James Randi society (embedded above), perhaps long, points out all of these features and goes on while Penn describes in great detail, and shows very clearly most of these qualities, but the most interesting one is the preciseness of Penn's morality (which also informs his political views and broadly controls the way he interprets the world around him).

Penn's morality, from his words, seems to be centered around respecting individuals and reasoning with them earnestly and in such a way that respects their right to their own individuality. He is distressed by collectivism (both in his politics and in his morality) precisely because of its incompatibility with his preference to see people as individuals, and most of all seems to dislike deception, an unwillingness to play with others' emotions.

There are two typings I could interpret for Penn Jillette - LIE and SEE. Of these, I strongly prefer LIE. In my opinion, Penn has a very clear expression of the gamma theme of independence -- in his intellect, he has a requirement to see all people as individuals with distinct motivations, and perhaps a difficulty in conceptualizing individuals in any way other than as independent entities, or accepting worlds where others argue that this is true. The exacting morality, and the belief that one has "solved" moral conundrums -- and a corresponding stubbornness and skepticism when dealing with anyone who disagrees -- is a reflection of the independence of all individuals and in my opinion is characteristic of gamma NT and especially of LIEs (for instance, compare Penn's behavior to the precision of the moral compass of Sam Harris, a scientist who is most well known for his outspoken atheism).

Penn's harsh judgment is much less pronounced -- which suggests a gamma extrovert rather than a gamma introvert. In fact, the comments about "I have a higher tolerance for bullshit than just about anyone" might suggest something other than harsh judgment, but I think in a subtle way it actually is harsh judgment -- merely, independence predominates and harsh judgment is not often above the surface. But still we should see it clearly -- as in Penn's contempt for much of what is satirized on the skeptical TV show "Bullshit."

Teller might be ILI, I am not as sure.