The following passage is a direct quote (except for my little comments inserted
throughout, of course *grin*) from the book Please Understand Me Character
& Temperament Types by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates - distributed
(ironically enough considering the title of the passage I quoted) by Prometheus
Nemesis Book Company, 1984, p. 47-57.
The Promethean Temperament
To make man more like the gods, Prometheus gave him fire, the symbol of light
and energy. In harnassing light and energy mankind gains control and
understanding of nature. To understand and control nature is to possess
powers, and it is that - the desire for powers - that sets the Promethean apart
from others.
These are the NT's: INTP, ENTP, INTJ, ENTJ. They are rather infrequent, only
about 12 percent of the population or some 24 million people. In school,
before there are selective factors operation, only four in a class of 32 would be
NTs. Of these four, only one would be introverted - an INTP or INTJ. So an
entirely different social environment surrounds the NTs. They must live with
aliens, while the SPs and SJs are continuously surrounded by their own kind.
The teachers and parentsof NTs are more likely than no to be SPs or SJs (about
one family in 16 would have both parents as Ns and only on in a thousand
families would have both NT parents).
Power fascinates the NT. Not power over people, but power over nature. To be
able to understand, control, predict, and explain realities. Not that these are
the four aims of science: control and understanding, prediction and
explanation. Scratch an NT, find a scientist.
These forms of power, however, are but means to an end, the end best
expressed by the word competence. So it is not exactly power that the NT
wants but rather competencies, capabilities, ablities, capacities, skills,
ingenuity - repertoire.
The Promethean NT loves intelligence, which means: doing things well under
varying circumstances. The extreme NT can even be seen as addicted to
acquiring intelligence, hooked on storing up wisdom, just as Aesop's Ant must
store up goodies. Tell the NT that he is a fake, a liar, a cheater, lacking in
responsibility and in spontaneity, and he will reflect on your criticism and reply
that "you may have a point there." Not that he is not perturbed or offended, for
he often wonders and doubt his sense of freedom, responsibility and authority.
But tell him he is foolish, stupid, or incompetent and discover the exact value
he places on your warrant to say so. Only he can judge his capability and he
does so with ruthless self-criticism.
"Wanting to be competent" is not a strong enough expression of the force
behind the NT's quest. He must be competent. There is urgency in his desire;
he can be obsessed by it and feel a compulsion to improve, as if caught in a
force field. The NT's compulsion is similar in its tractor bast to the SP's
compulsion to perform, though different in its object: The SP must act, but has
no interest in improving (though his performance become superb); the NT must
improve, but has no interest in action as such (though he does act, and with
increasing precision and exactitude). In a sense the SP is the NT's mirror
image. For the SP, ability is mere means which sets him free to perform, while
the NT performance is only a means for enabling him to store up his beloved
abilities.
Means Ends
NT Performance Abilities
SP Abilities Performance
(In passing, we might anticipate finding that neither the SJ nor the (as yet)
mysterious NF (<---heheheheh. That would be moi. *grin*) has more than
meager concern and interest in performances and abilities. And we perhaps
can understand both NF and SJ temperaments better if we notice this relative
disinterest. They would seem to have other fish to fry as may well be puzzled
by the militance shown by extreme SPs and NTs; those militant about ability or
performace are just as puzzled by others' indifference.)
The NT is the most self-critical of all the styles. He badgers himself about his
errors, taxes himself with the resolve to improve, and ruthlessly monitors his
own progress. He continually check the pulse of his skills and takes his
conceptual temperature every hour on the hour. He must mater understanding
of all objects and events whether human or extra-human, physical or
metaphysical, in whatever domain he stakes out as his area of competency.
And the more extreme the NT style, the more exacting and stringent the
demand placed by the NT on himself in the acquisition of skill and knowledge.
The NT must be competent in whatever domain of enterprise or inquiry he
chooses; he will settle for nothing less.
In contrast to the should's and ought's of the SJ, the NT has many should
know's and should be-able-to's itemized in massive lists inside his head. He is
inclined always to accumulate more items, never deleting any. He runs a kind
of bureaucracy of excellence, and thus can be a perfectionist, becoming tense
and compulsive in his behaviors when he comes under too much stress.
Constantly alert to his shortcomings, to his failures to reach perfect
competency, he may greet with scorn and amusement the criticism of others
concerning his powers. He may or may not express this reaction, although the
extraverts are more likely to do so, but the NT is very conscious of the credentials of his critic and in what degree they license comment. Allied to this
demand for competency in critics is a recalcitrance on the part of the NT - even
from an early age - to accept without question in the domain of ideas even a
widely accepted authority. The fact that a certain person proclaims something, whatever his or her title, reputation, or credentials, leaves the NT indifferent.
The pronouncement must stand on its own merits, tried in the court of
coherence, verification, and pragmatics. "I understand that Einstein said so,"
comments the NT, "but even the best of us can err." This recalcitrance to
established authorities tends to make an NT, particularly those with extreme
Promethean temperament, seem unusually individualist and even arrogant.
Ever since I was twelve, I had been occupied with the
question of the meaning of human existence...(No doubt
this was intensified by the cowlike drifting of the people
around me.)...I was obsessed by the idea that there must
be a scientific method for investigating the question of
human existence. At fourteen I discovered Shaw's Man
and Superman and realized with a shock that I was not
the first human being to ask the question.
[Colin Wilson, The Outsider. New Your: Dell Pub. Co.,
1956, pp. 289-90.]
NTs often report (to those they trust!) that they are haunted by a sense of
always being on the verge of failure. This time, surely, the necessary degree of
competency will not be produced and failure is at hand. This time acquired
knowledge will be inadequate for this issue. Constant self-doubting is the lot of
the NT. Because of those doubts, the NT, particularly the NTP, may have
difficulty in taking action. He can be so immobilized by self-doubts that is
resolution fades.
Somehow the Promethean never believes that he knows enough, or that he does
what he does well enough. And he adds to this discomfort by escalating his
standards of performance. What may be accepted by him as satisfactory today
may tomorrow be judged only passable. And the more extreme the NT, the
more likely he is to increase his standards of performance to coincide with
unusually good performances which occur now and then. His ordinary
performances are thus viewed as short of the mar, and the NT experiences a
pervasive sense of inadequacy. He intensifies his belief in his inadequacy by
making unyielding demands on himself, taxing himself with constant
improvement, holding a sort of mental stopwatch over himself, recording his
gains and losses. He must be wholly competent in his work and in his play,
and he never gives himself respite from this self-imposed level of excellence.
Watching an NT at "play" is apt to be touching and a little sad when compared
to the SPs abandon. The NT, knowing logically that recreation is necessary for
health, schedules his play, and during the "playtime" taxed himself with
improving his recreational skills. For example, when engaging in a card game,
he must make no mistakes. At the bridge table, others may make mistakes,
but the NT does not allow himself lapses of logic or strategic inaccuracies. In
tennis, each set must be the occasions for the improvement of certain strokes
or the elimination of previously-noted errors. The NT even demands of himself
that he have a good time, since recreation is so defined.
The NT may find himself sending two contradictory message to those he
contacts. The first message is that he expects very little from others, since
clearly they do not know much, nor can they do much well. One way the NT
sends this message is to express subtle surprise when he does find competency
or comprehension in others. The NT often assumes that people cannot
completely comprehend the intricacies of the ideas he discusses and he
somehow transmits this attitude. This is in contrast with the other three
styles, all of whom assume to some degree that people are able to comprehend
their communications.
The second contradictory message the NT sends to those around him is that
they are expected to at least attempt to achieve at the same exacting standard
as the NT imposes on himself. And since neither the NT nor anyone else can
live up to these standards, all are found wanting. The NT thus can be seen as
unduly demanding on those around him - which, in truth, is often the case.
An unfortunate by-product of these two messages sent by the NT is that those
around him come to feel intellectually inadequate. In time, they become
defensive, withdraw, and make fewer and fewer attempts to communicate their
ideas. The NT can thereby become isolated from the intellectual experiences of
others, who withhold their reactions in the fear that they will be labeled
"stupid" in the mind of the NT. The consequences of these transactions, is, of
course, that the NT confirms his perceptions of the trivialities of the minds of
others.
While this arrogance does not endear the NT to the hearts of others, it can
produce documents which have had profound influence on the thinking of
man. For example, Machiavelli demonstrates this stance as he "instructs"
Lorenzo the Magnificent in the art of statesmanship, even though he,
Machiavelli, is a "man of humble and obscure condition":
It is customary for those who wish to gain the favour of a
prince to endeavour to do so by offering him gifts of those
things which they hold most precious, or which they
know him to take especial delight. In this way, princes
are often presented with horses, arms, cloth of gold,
gems, and such-like ornaments worthy of their grandeur.
In my desire, however, to offer to Your Highness some
humble testimony of my devotion, I have been unable to
find among my possessions anything which I hold so dear
or esteem so highly as that knowledge of the deeds of
great men which I have acquired through a long
experience of modern events and a constant study of the
past.
With the utmost diligence I have long pondered and
scrutinized the actions of the great, and now I offer the
results to Your Highness within the compass of a small
volume; and although I deem this work unworthy of Your
Highnesses' acceptance, yet my confidence in your
humanity assures me that you will receive it with favour,
knowing that it is not in my power to offer you a greater
gift than that of enabling you to understand in a very
short time all those things which I have learnt at the cost
of privation and danger in the course of many years.
[Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince. Mentor Classic, New
York: 1952, p. 31.]
In his communications the NT is likely to speak with little or no redundancy.
His communications tend to be terse, compact, and logical. He has a deep
reluctance to state the obvious, restricting his verbal communications because,
he believes, "Of course, everyone knows that..." And, it follows, for the NT, that
if he did state the obvious, his listeners surely would be bored. The NT tends
to place little reliance on nonverbal qualifiers an, at times, is oblivious to
emotional "meta-messages" in others' communications. The NT is inclined to
be precise in his choice of language and hopes that others will be the same,
though he soon leans that they will not. Henry the Eighth's daughter,
Elizabeth the Great, who ruled England so competently for four and one-half
decades, illustrated this characteristic as she replied to the pressures of her
courtiers to declare her matrimonial intentions:
Elizabeth's reply was impressive: "What I shall do hereafter I know not, but I
assure you, I am not at this time otherwise minded than I have declared unto
you." Words could scarcely speak plainer.
[E. Jenkins, Elizabeth the Great. New York: Time Publications, 1958, p. 57.]
Elizabeth offers a fascinating contrast in personality with her antagonist of a
lifetime, Mary Queen of Scots, who lived her life in an NF style. Elizabeth
always was somewhat remote from those around her; Mary drew others close -
even her "jailers" came to love and adore her. Mary's behaviors were conceived
and carried out emotionally. Mary willed the possibility of her becoming Queen
of England and acted on the naivete, never believing that her own son, James,
might refuse to come to her rescue. Elizabeth's reaction was predictable:
logical, ruthless, the necessary action taken with deep regret and sorrow, but
with as little personal involvement as possible in condemning Mary to the
executioner.
Because the NT is so serious about the knowledge he must have to be
competent (and to be seen by others as competent), he does, in fact, frequently
gain outstanding proficiency in his field. The dominance of his power hunger
over his lesser hungers for action, duty, or self-actualization often exerts itself
early in life, usually taking the form of childish curiosity as to how things work,
especially machines. The NT begins his search for explanations as soon as he
has the language for questioning. He is puzzled by the world around him and
is not satisfied with non sequitur answers from his elders. He wants the
answers given to him to "hang together" and to make sense; he can be insistent
in his efforts to gain these data, to the extent of annoying others. Learning for
the NT is a 24-hour preoccupation, and this characteristic exerts itself early,
particularly in the extreme NT. (<-- Which, by this time in the passage, you
should see that Nakago is - a VERY extreme NT. *grin*)
Because of the NT's passion for knowing, he can develop a large repertoire of
competencies by the time he finishes his formal education. His early start and
his persistence enable the NT to excel above the other styles in technology.
And, as the intellectual ability of the NT increases, the tendency to seek the
sciences, mathematics, philosophy, architecture, engineering - indeed,
anything complicated and exacting - also increases. These occupations,
therefore, are heavily populated by NTs.
Perhaps more than any other style, NTs live in their work. For the NT, work is
work and play is work. Condemning an NT to idleness would be the worst sort
of punishment. Work is done not so much to achieve a product or for the
pleasure of action, but for the improvement, perfection, or proof of skill or
knowledge required by the work. The NT does not have the function-lust of the
SP; rather, he has, through his work, a law lust. He ever is searching for the
why's of the universe. He ever attempts, in his Promethean way, to breathe a
fire of understanding into whatever he considers his domain.
NTs usually enjoy developing models, exploring ideas, and building systems.
They, understandable, are drawn to occupations which have to do with the
formation and application of scientific principles. Science, technology,
philosophy, mathematics and logic, design and engineering, research and
development, management, manufacture, criminology, cardiology, securities
analysis - all appeal to NTs. Sales and customer relations work do not hold
such attraction, nor do NTs tend to gravitate toward services such as clerical
work, repair, maintenance, entertainment, or distribution. They can be found
in high frequency in engineering and architecture, in the teaching of
mathematics, sciences, and philosophy. Wherever they are and whatever they
do, the NTs strive (and usually succeed) to perform competently.
And wherever they are and whatever they do, the NTs, especially the NTJs (<---
Nakago. That would be him. *grin*), are compelled to rearrange the
environment either through constructing physical edifices or building
institutional systems (or becoming all-powerful. The usual you know? Hee
hee.) Ayn Rand, master of the NT character, again describes this characteristic
in Howard Roark, her protagonist in The Fountainhead (THIS guy is
soooooooooo Nakago):
He tried to consider it. But he forgot. He was looking at
the granite.
He did not laugh as his eyes stopped in awareness of the
earth around him. His face was like a law of nature - a
thing one could not question, alter, or implore. It had
high cheekbones over gaunt, hollow cheeks; gray eyes,
cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the
mouth of an executioner or a saint.
He looked at the granite. To be cut, he thought, and
made into walls. He looked at a tree. To be split and
made into rafters. He looked at a streak of rush on the
stone and though of iron ore under the ground. To be
melted and to emerge as girders against the sky.
These rocks, he thought, are here for me; waiting for the
drill, the dynamite and my voice; waiting to be split,
ripped, pounded, reborn, waiting for the shape my hands
will give to them.
[Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead. Signet Books, Bobbs-
Merrill Co., New York, 1943, p.15-16.]
The Promethean is likely to listen attentively to new ideas, to accept changes in
procedures and policies without distress, as long as the changes make sense.
He wants to learn about competing ideas and is usually able to give them
consideration with an open mind. The NT has an inquiring attitude and values
the development of will, self-control, and intelligence. He tends to be
straightforward in his dealings with others, although others report often finding
the NT cold, remote, and enigmatic (no...really??? ^.^). Yet if an NT is asked
outright his position on any issue, he is more than likely to state his ideas on
the subject without equivocation.
The NT is vulnerable to the all-work-and-no-play syndrome and can easily
become isolated in an ivory tower of intellectualism, seemingly cut off from the
world other types find as reality. The NT is, at times, the eccentric genius.
Einstein shuffled in the streets of New York in his bedroom slippers and
communicated intelligibly with only a few. Doubtless, Einstein had no regrets
concerning this situation, and fortunately his work has not been lost. There is
always is, however, the danger that the work of NTs will be lost to others
because of this tendency to communicate at levels of abstraction others find
unintelligible.
NTs as a group tend to enjoy playing with words, finding pleasure in exploring
verbal intricacies. (My BROTHER!!!! Okay, so he's not Nakago, but Nakago does
look more like my brother than my brother does and they are both INTJs and I
just had to throw that in because "word wars" and "word games" are very
common in my home between my brother and I.) Convoluted phrases and
paradoxical statements fascinate them. Contemplating Einstein's comment,
"The laws of mathematics, as far as they refer to reality, are not certain, and as
far as they are certain, do not refer to reality," would give delight to the NT, as
does the reading of satire and the savoring of such complicated word
structures as those found in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
NTs tend to focus on the future, regarding the past as something dead and
gone. What matters most is what might be and what might happen next. The
past is useful only as a means of giving direction to the future and for
deciphering the lessons of history, taking heed to the warning that "He who
remains ignorant of history is doomed to repeat it." The NT is never willing to
repeat an error. He is impatient with his initial mistake; to repeat such a
behavior is anathema. (And its a WHOLE lot of fun catching an INTJ in a
repeated mistake and then teasing them about it. *grin* Nothing mean or
vicious mind you... Hee hee. Drives them crazy!) Clearly, if principles were
sufficiently understood, a repetition of errors would be unnecessary! And it is
quite humiliating for an NT to be in the position where others are witness to the
errors he makes in his work, especially errors in logic. (Meaning: If you are
going to be close to an NT so much so that you can identify their "boo boo's"
then you should never tease them in public about it - only tease them where no
on else can see or they will feel really really bad.)
Once an NT masters a technology or theoretical framework he is apt to move
onto other challenges. Having isolated rules which provide order and reason in
his activity, and having mastered the necessary skills, whether it be work or
play, the NT turns his eyes to other challenges; always, however, he expects to
improve in his competency in every subject, new or old.
As the NT speculates about the possible motivations and thoughts of those he
is with, trying to fit his experiences into some system he carries around in his
head, he sometimes misses direct experience. He may be so occupied with
trying to figure out what is happening as it is happening, that he misses living
the event. At times, the NT seems to stand beside instead of in the stream of
life, seeming to watch bemusedly as the river flows by - a little distanced, a
little detached, a little uninvolved. This distancing sometimes causes the NT to
make personal commitments which he later regrets. In particular, the NT
whose "feeling" is not developed can become involved with members of the
opposite sex who might be totally unsuitable as life companions. Forester
catches this tragedy as he describes his famous hero at the alter:
"Repeat after me," said the parson. "I, Horatio, take thee,
Maria Ellen -"
The thought came up in Hornblower's mind that these
where the last few seconds in which he could withdraw
from doing something which he knew to be ill-considered.
Maria was not the right woman to be his wife, even
admitting that he was suitable material for marriage in
any case. (<-- I wonder if Nakago wonders if he is suitable
marriage material and maybe that is why he initially tells
Soi she isn't the one who for him. I still hold to the
opinion that he loved her, but he may have been unsure
of his own choice of who he cared for - was Soi the right
one for him??? - and also he may have assumed he was
not right for her either and that the marriage/relationship
would therefore be illogical: something that NTs wrestle
with. Back to the quote... ^.^) If he had a grain of sense,
he would break off this ceremony even at this last
moment, he would announce that he had changed his
mind, and he would turn away from the alter and the
parson and from Maria, and he would leave the church a
free man. "To have and to hold..." He was still, like an
automaton, repeating the parson's words. And there was
Maria beside him, in the white that so little became her.
She was melting with happiness. She was consumed
with love for him, however misplaced that might be. He
could not, he simply could not, deal her a blow so
cruel..." And thereto I plight thee my troth,: repeated
Hornblower. That settled it, he thought. Those must be
the final deciding words that made the ceremony legally
binding. He had made a promise and now there was no
going back on it. (<-- He can't kill Miaka because he
promised... so what to do?) There was comfort in the odd
thought that he had really been committed from a week
back, when Maria had come into his arms sobbing out
her love for him, and he had been too softhearted to
laugh at her and too - too weak? Too honest? - to take
advantage of her with the intention of betraying her.
From the moment that he had listened to her, from the
moment he had returned her kisses, gently, all these
later result, the bridal dress, this ceremony in the church
of St. Thomas a Becket - and the vague future of cloying
affection - had been inevitable.
[C. S. Forester, Hornblower and the Hotspur. Boston:
Little Brown and Co., 1962, p. 3-4.]
The spirit of the NT is caught in the myth of Prometheus, the Greek God who
created man from clay. Disappointed in his lifeless sculpture, Prometheus
enlisted the help of Minerva. She carried him to heaven where he stole fire
form the wheel of the sun. Prometheus applied the stolen fire to the breast of
man, giving him life. Prometheus paid for his theft by being "nailed hard and
fast in chains beneath the open sky" (Grant, p.200). A greedy vulture tore at
his blackened liver all day, year in and year out. And there was no end to the
pain: every night, while Prometheus hung bound on the cliff, exposed to cruel
frost and freezing winds, his liver grew whole again. Prometheus rescued man
from ignorance, even though he had to rob heaven to do so. He proclaimed the
doctrine of progress for man and secured the gifts of science and technology.
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