#WellActually issue 02 - Myers-Briggs edition

This issue of #WellActually doesn't focus on an Internet article, it focuses on the subject of the article. I have to switch it up on you now and then to keep you on your toes.

You should probably read this before we begin. It's an article about how the Myers-Briggs test is total and utter bullshit. It is so because it is based off of what I can only assume were the results of a long, relaxing day of Carl Jung smoking the finest marijuana he could find. Carl, who frequently hooked up with Freud in the early, heady, drug-fueled days of psychology, was influential in laying the groundwork for psychology. He and Freud had many, many great and interesting ideas that no one takes seriously anymore. The Id, the Ego, the Super-ego, the universal subconscious, the archetype; these are all crazy ideas that sound cool, but are completely unscientific. I believe in them because 1. it's fun and 2. if you really dig deep into their theories, you know, really roll around in them, you can see the possible truths that lie within. This is fine, this is America and we are all allowed to believe in anything we want. That's what Abraham Lincoln fought that Bear on the top of Mt. Rushmore for (note: I have an incomplete understanding of American History.) Freud and Jung's teachings are to me what Astrology is to others; they make sense in respect to how I view reality, both consensual and personal. Does this make it true? Of course not. Does this greatly influence what I'd tell someone who is going through psychological turmoil? Of course not. But as a psych nerd it's still fun to think about.

Which brings me to the reason I've gathered you all here; the Myers-BriggsTest. It's incredibly popular, and you see people everywhere using its results to define themselves. People often ask if I've taken it or what letters I am, and I have nothing to tell them. I also judge the hell out of them, but that's to be expected. I thought I'd never taken the test because I'm lazy and it's a long damn test but in reading the article above I realized that I've had nagging doubts about the test from when I first heard about it that I never put into words. I went to school for Psychology (twice) and as hard as I apparently tried not to, I did learn some things. As an undergrad at Rutgers I had several professors repeatedly beat me about the head with lectures on what is and is not science. I had to take several classes about quantitative methods, statistics and other utterly horrifying numerical crap. The upside to all of this is I now have a very highly tuned and sensitive bullshit detector. The MB Test sets it off on all levels.

Also, I'm a Sagittarius

The first thing that bothered me was the unnerving lack of statistical data backing up the tests results. Nothing about validity or reliability, no research method, none of that. I thought the thing was a BuzzFeed internet quiz along the same lines as “Which Horsemen of the Apocalypse is Your Mother-in-Law (mine is Plague.) I didn't know it was a thing that people were basing important life decisions on. I was shocked (Shocked!) to learn that corporations are using this test to weed out prospective employees. It's neither reliable in that it does not give the same results with repeated testings, nor is it valid. The number one problem with any self-report test is that we as humans are unwilling and unable to report negatively about ourselves. It's called the Social Desirability Bias and it colors all self reports to some degree. At times people will give more accurate answers under the protection of anonymity, but even then there is no guarantee of transparency. Humans operate under a number of cognitive biases that color how we see ourselves and the world around us. In psychology it is recognized that, whether by design or self-delusion, we are horrible at giving accurate representations of ourselves and equally terrible at accepting representations of ourselves that don't match what we want to believe. That creates Cognitive Dissonance, and we hate dissonance. So right there the MB Test is fucked up, and everything that springs from it thereafter is similarly fucked up.

Why do people believe in this test so much with absolutely no evidence to back it up? Because the people who take this test WANT it to be true. As the article points out, there are no negative outcomes to this test. Look at the comments on the MB Test link I put above; everyone is happy with their results. As a bonus the site shows them which famous people share their type. Everyone likes to be told they have something in common with a famous person they have nothing in common with. Who wants to take a statistically sound personality test that may tell you that you're an antisocial narcissist with sadomasochistic tendencies and a vicious Hentai addiction (this doesn't exist yet, so calm your fears Hentai lovers.) We are far more likely to take a test that tells us that we are what we want to be, which is exactly what the MB Test is; it excels at telling us what we want to hear. Like pop psychologists, talk show doctors, fortune tellers and astrologists, there is plenty of wiggle room in the conclusions these tests make to make us feel better about the decisions we make and the personality traits we display. Not only does having a test tell you that you're an introvert (for example) excuse you from trying harder to interact in social situations, but it also gives you a sense of belonging. Belonging is a basic human need, right after Physiological Needs and Safety (See Maslow's Hierarchy of needs for more details.) If you want to become rich and famous, find a new way to tell people that they belong to a misunderstood group, and that all of their problems are related to being a part of this misunderstood group. Bonus points if you can also make people feel like they are victimized and oppressed by belonging to this group. If you can find a way to make straight White males not seem like the most privileged group in America, you can retire and sleep on a bed made of solid gold helicopters, which is the embodiment of the American Dream.

I'm an Introvert

If you know me you know that I hold Life Coaches and the like in pretty low esteem. As a person who is drowning in student debt in order to give people professional advice, I don't have time for people who one day decide that they're fucking great at fixing people. That would be like me deciding that I'm great at spinal surgery and taking a knife to someone's spinal cord. The results would be just as damaging. That being said, I really can't be mad at people who figured out how to charge exorbitant amounts of money to tell a bunch of high strung executives how to “relax” and be more productive. 

Life Coaches are an extension of the “Everybody Wins” mindset that has taken over child rearing practices. I'm not a “spare the rod spoil the child” type, but I do believe that people need to experience e real disappointment and defeat in order to become stronger individuals. Always being told you're good enough, you're smart enough, and people like you creates a society where everyone feels entitled to more than they've worked for. This is why all of us think our opinions are valid when in reality 90% of people who believe strongly in something need to keep their opinions to their self. They're human Rorschach tests, becoming what the viewer wants to see but not actually providing real direction or intent. It's therapy for those who really don't have problems; what we call First World problems. You never see people in the hood employing life coaches, and not just because of the exorbitant prices they charge for their services. A life coach has no answers for institutionalized racism and inter-generational poverty. No, these people excel at selling people what they want to hear. The Myers-Briggs Test is a personality assessment form of the Life Coach. Pretty, but ultimately meaningless.

As well.

People are putting faith in a test that it's creator said was basically spitballing some new ideas. Briggs and Myers were basically life coaches who hooked up with an HR Manager to make a predictive test with none of the tools one would need to create a predictive test. The results change according to what mood you're in. Pseudoscience is the greatest way to describe this test; sounds good enough to be science so people run with it. Also you can take it on your lunch break at work. 

Pseudoscience works well because it has great promotion by people who have an air of authority. Real science is promoted by people who are so bad at interacting with the general populace that they became scientists. It's fine to take this test and tell everyone the results as if they're the truth; people do it with astrology all the time, and it's more or less harmless. It may be a good way of explaining yourself to others, which is also fine. When people use this test to make employment or relationship decisions, that's when the crazy hits the fan. There are plenty of more reliable ways to create order out of the chaos of human behavior. 

The White Man's (New) Burden

     By now you have probably heard about Anthony Cumia, of “Opie and Anthony” fame. He had a run-in with a woman on the streets of New York that lead to him losing his job on Sirius XM. He states that he was taking pictures of public areas (streets and buildings) and that this woman happened in front of his camera. He says that she attacked him, for no reason of course, and then went on Twitter to call her a “cunt” and a “savage.”

To be sure, supporters of the “Opie and Anthony” show did not use such kind language to describe the woman, who is Black. None of their listeners have in any way expressed sentiments that Cumia did anything inappropriate. This should not be surprising as the show's White, male, 18-34 year old audience has never been known to be sensitive to women or minorities. In this essay I refer to White males as if they are a homogenous entity, but really I think the guys who get it will know who I am speaking of and will recognize whether I am talking about them or not.

Full disclosure; I never liked “Opie and Anthony.” I've never even listened to the show. But I knew the type of people who did listen to the show, and that was all I really needed to know. I have found that you can learn more about a person, group, or institution from the people who support it than from the thing itself. The people who I knew liked that show were overwhelmingly male, White, and sort of, if not outright, racist. Nothing about that demographic made me think “that's a show I need to listen to!”

To be fair, many guests that have been on the show are comedians who I appreciate and am a fan of, most notable Lewis Black, Rich Vos, Patton Oswalt and Patrice O' Neal, the only non-white regular guest the show has ever had. I always thought Jim Norton was a raging racist but, to be honest, it was 90% because of his appearance. He looks like an extra from “American History X.” I watched one of his comedy specials out of curiosity, and much to my surprise I found him to be very funny and not at all racist, at least not in that special. So my method of judging people may not 100% accurate, but most of the time it works. It's anecdotal evidence, not DNA testing. Those of you who know me know that my superpower is Hypocrisy. In my defense the show also has a very good relationship with Donald Trump, who has been vigorously defending Donald Sterling. So, there's that.

The most striking aspect of this event is how victimized Cumia himself feels. Cumia, Trump,  and people like them have felt for many years now, oh let's say since President Obama was elected, that their rights to “Free Speech” have been tread on. They feel that society has become too “sensitive” and “politically correct.” They believe that we as a people have become soft and can't take a joke. White men in positions of power are enraged that they cannot get away with saying whatever they want to say. To those men I say, in the words of John Mayer, welcome to the real world. One thing that straight White males have to understand is you do not get to be the Victim and Privileged. Whether you know (or like) it or not, Western society is set up to benefit the straight White male, and as long as that is true that demographic will never be viewed as a sympathetic victim. Not fair? Probably. But again, welcome to the reality that the rest of us have existed in for centuries.

I'm a Black male. Black men have not been able to just say whatever we have wanted since we  first met Europeans centuries ago. We have never had much of any type of freedom where Europeans and Americans have been concerned. White men have never had to fear any repercussions to what they say in public unless it was against The Church, but that is a story for another day. European and American men have long believed in the “White Man's Burden”, their right and duty to save and educate the savage heathens and Brown peoples of the Earth. It is now 2014 and White men have a new burden, the burden of Responsibility. This is the burden of having to face the people they speak against or insult, the burden of having to Think before they Act, a burden that all the rest of us have had to deal with for centuries. It is a burden that few White men are prepared to shoulder. Many, many men still have not realized that they have been put in this position, and you can tell by the genuine surprise with which White men receive the news that people are angry at what they have said, and that they are being punished for their words.

Where shall we begin... how about Mel Gibson? He's like the Jay-Z of offensive rants. He has gone off against gays and lesbians, women in general, and then his infamous statement about “a pack of n*ggers.” I never knew that the proper term for a group of n*ggers was a pack. I should thank him for the education. Speaking of “the N word”, Michael Richards. Enough said. Remember Don Imus? He had no idea that women would object to being referred to as nappy headed hoes.” Because that's something that the rest of us regularly say to women we don't know. Eminem throws around the word “fag” like he gets paid for it. There's Donald Sterling, who is still honestly confused as to what he has done wrong in his life (let's go with discriminatory housing practices for that one.). And then we come back to Cumia who, according to comedian Penn Jillette should be compared to Martin Luther King Jr for not using his gun on the unarmed woman who attacked him. He basically said on his podcast “Penn's Sunday School” that a White man not shooting an unarmed Black women should have earned Cumia a Nobel Prize. No Penn, there's no award for that. Not only are we supposed to forgive Cumia, we should applaud him for his restraint. Oh. OK.

Penn also said that he's never seen any evidence that Cumia is racist. This line always kills me. I tell everybody I know that Boston is the most racist city in the Northeast, and inevitably a White person will say “Really? I never noticed.” OF COURSE you didn't notice, you're not the one they are racist against! Penn concludes by saying that the “free market” will decide if Cumia's firing was justified or not, and I believe it already has. The market has spoken, which is why he was fired. It makes better business sense to appease the great majority of people who would spend their time influencing advertisers to drop their support of the show than to keep Cumia and the small but vocal audience he brings in.

The problem that most of these men have is their lack of exposure to people different from them. To Cumia, he was attacked for no reason by a women from a culture that, he believes, has a violence problem (all of these views are available in his twitter feed.) It would never occur to him that as a woman she has experienced a lifetime of street harassment and would be justifiably suspicious and angry of a man taking pictures of her on the street. He would never think that it would not occur to a Black woman to call the police on such a man, because what are the chances that NYPD would take her side in a disagreement with a White man? He would never think that after, well, all of American history a Black women would be less than inclined to give a White man the benefit of the doubt.

And that is the main point that White men in this day and age need to understand; you don't get the benefit of the doubt. Like the rest of us, you as a White male are laboring under the sins of your fathers. No matter what it will be assumed that you are racist, misogynist, homophobic, etc. until proven otherwise. It may suck but the White male in this society has the burden (there's that word again) of proof when it comes to not being seen as a dick. It is almost irrelevant what Cumia's intentions were because of the way it looked. The same way Black men would have to be very cognizant of how they approached White women in the streets for fear of lynching, that's how cognizant you have to be about how you come off. You will never face the level of repercussions for your behavior as many other Americans have had to face, but now there are consequences to your actions. A novel concept I know, but one that you will have to deal with.

There are many White men who get this, and know that there is a level of self-restraint that has to be exercised when expressing one's feelings in public. Some of you reading this may be thinking “what's the point of trying to be sensitive to race and gender if everyone is just going to think I'm a jerk anyway?” Some of you still don't get it. Some of you may be angry and upset by what I'm saying, and feel unduly attacked. To those of you who don't get it, I will say this; every time I encounter White people in any setting I am self-conscious about about being the best example of a Black man I can be so that I don't reinforce stereotypes about My gender and My race. That is a burden I did not ask for, it is one I was born into and you know what? It's exhausting. It is exhausting to have to constantly monitor yourself because your appearance and demeanor may get you rejected, fired, or in some cases killed. It is exhausting. Ask any Indian or Arab person what it's like to be assumed to be a terrorist. Ask any woman what it's like to have to make sure that she doesn't do anything to “invite” men to harass or attack her. Ask any Black woman what it's like to have to measure their words so that they are not viewed as being “angry.” I bet each and every one of them will tell you it's god-damned exhausting. That's the burden the rest of us have been carrying since before we can remember. And now, it is yours as well.