Perhaps it's my perception of them, as an Alpha type... Perhaps it's because they are the unknowable shadow of my psychology Perhaps it's the way they are connected so linearly to the human experience...
But something evocative emerges from them, Something dark, raw, unfiltered, unapologetic, deadpan, free...
And the archetype is embodied more clearly in them.
Something which may be of note is a trend Iβve observed, at least in modern American culture, among female Gamma types to embody a certain stereotype; a femme fatale which is strongly feminist, independent, sensually expressive and emotionally aloof or unreachable. In its conservative form, the stereotype shows itself in avant garde attire and in thin, long-haired artsy hipsters who create emotional, monochrome artwork on tumblr or other mediums. In a more extreme art form of the stereotype, they embody the dominatrix with deep red lipstick, pale skin, long black hair, sharply plucked and pointed eyebrows, and a sassy character.
I can't see this in myself pretty much at all (except for being deadpan and emotionally aloof at times, sure) but I do know what you mean. From my own experience this seems to be more common in FiSe's, TeNi's and possibly SeFi's. Even though I'm in the gamma quadra myself, I don't like this archetype a whole lot and even less people who very much embody it which is mainly because of the sassiness and the exaggerated and nagging political correctness that can emerge from it. The Fi part of it is what annoys me the most. Actually, I've generally found myself being able to be the most annoyed with other gammas, more so than any other types, and I think that says quite a bit about my own unresolved issues with Se and (mainly) Fi.. But even if I "resolved" them, I don't think I would ever be this type of gamma.
elly - Ty for your input! Very telling. It does seem like maybe your relationship with these 'iconic' gammas is the relationship types typically have to their polarity. The 'epitome' of FiSe/SeFi would be the most unpalatable to you as an NiTe, just as the most 'traditional' FeSi/SiFe's can grate me to the bone.
Yet it's because of these shared functions that I sometimes feel such friction. I have this "you're doing it wrong" sort of sensation when Fe and Si are used dogmatically rather than diplomatically/empirically. I know what they're doing and how they're doing it, and I see the distortion of priorities clearly - making it all that more repelling.
With gammas, however, they feel entirely foreign (psychologically) - a curiosity. I don't even know how to relate to them or what to think.
About the pictures of the gammas that you presented, I would be a little careful. I am convinced that we could find that kind of picture for many different female stars of any cognitive type, because that's the way the female figure is represented by the mainstream media (starting in the 70s with a culmination nowadays): aggressive (passively as well), turned on, sexually provoking, with a desiring gaze and an alluring pose. Maybe with the gamma types there is a tendency to represent them in a more dark sort of way, but I think it's just the modality with which women are usually represented.
I would add: almost all women are represented this way in today's society. This is a personal judgment, but I would like to say that there is a fine line between sexual liberation and oversexualization, between sexual empowerment and condescending sexualization.
Said this, I think there is a videogame (which unfortunately I haven't played, as I don't posses a ps4) that seems to have a "gamma" type of aestethics, I personally find it really beautiful:
And this is only a part of it...
Anyway, I think it would be good to make a sort of "artwork" section, were everyone posts pictures that they find resonating with themselves.
Ah yes, thanks for adding that Heron. I should have emphasized that this is my own personal sensation; certainly bias. I'm sorry if it comes off as offensive. I don't mean it to be at all definitive or indicative of type.. I know a diversity of types embody the sensual femme fatale, but something in my unconscious highlights this archetype for me far more often with gammas. I guess I'm trying to figure out what it really means about me. c.c
Hmm, somehow I feel that if we made a collage of, say, Delta femme fatales there would still be an overall different vibe to them.
Auburn oh well, I don't think that it came out offensive at all! I personally didn't understand clearly what you were trying to address with the post, but ultimately I was arriving to what you're saying know. It's not the "femme-fatale" thing itself (as any type would and would not be so), but it's the overall vibe of the quadrant that is paired with that. I think that this thing of the vibe and overall energy of the types and quadrants is interesting and could be studied further, I personally noticed some "trends" with Se-Ni musicians and Si-Ne musicians. That's why I think that letting users post art and music that they feel connection with would be probably really revelatory (even if I think that there are other elements that enter in the picture, and here I say again: enneagramzz! )
In my personal experience, anyway, I can say that my art as a child could have been easily mistaken for "gamma" art. I remember that, after watching Braveheart with my family (i was 4 probably), I drew the scene of the mutilation of William Wallace as I imagined it. It wasn't shown, but I actually drew Wallace's head decapitated and his womb torn apart, with the blood in the table of execution. For some reasons, when I was a children I had a certain attraction for dark and semi-violent imagery, even if I despised violence itself and I was a pacific children (that used to bite people in the first years of his life, but still, I was pacific ). I also remember that my family was surprised when, after I saw some footage (where nothing was really evident, but some of the wounds were visible) from Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, when I was 9 I made 3 paintings of Jesus: one when he was tortured, one when he carried the cross, and another when he was crucified, and I had shown the scene in a very crude manner, I even remember that my family was at the same time stunned and terrified with the final product, I don't know if these paintings still exist, I hope so, I would like to see them again.
For some reasons, before I became an adolescent, I had a sort of "mystical" streak, and I think that those paintings were a direct consequence. I would engage in long theological conversation with my family and priests about the origin and reason of good and evil, about the true nature of the devil and the afterworld (I believed firmly that hell did not exists, and could not exists, as god was only eternal love and compassion, and that Satan simply denied this beauty). I even remember that in kindergarten, when the teachers asked the class what we wanted to be as adults, I used to reply "I want to be a saint!", more specifically Filippo of Cagliari da montequadrato (square mountain), as I was a fan of Pio of Pietrelcina di monterotondo (round mountain).
But again: I never liked violence, and I never liked graphic imagery, but for some reasons when the violence shows something deep about human nature, or it's aesthetically pleasing and carries a symbology that justifies and gives a deeper meaning to its presence, I tend to "enjoy" it (for lack of a better term).
I think what Erifrail is trying to express is quite impossible to put into words without making it sound confusing and, err... wrong - as any word choice will make it twisted by nature. The subjective/personal impressions that arise in a given psique derived from a quadra or type are not much more than subjetive personal impressions but they can hold some hidden truth and other venues of expression are required in my opinion, for its refirenement and to make it palatable and accepted. Maybe there's a shadow/unexploredshadeofanima-notyetintegrated projection going on - I don't know really - maybe shadow parts of his psique are being projected onto gammas for being ct his main metamap to map people and this is not really a gamma thing, but just shadow aspects of an specific person, with an specific personality (beyond CT) that happens to seem to him that belong to the opposite quadrant. I at least can see the same vibe and persona (a kind of a raw Aphrodite full embodiment) in some shades of female betas and deltas (especially TeSi in deltas), (more rarely in female alphas overall - but maybe in other quadrants (not gamma) this 'aspect', 'archetype' is less glued to the person, it is less fixed, like... a persona or aspect that comes and go more easily, whereas in a certain shade of gammas that might be more fixed regardless of the place they are (just hypothetizing) - Some gammas (like elly) and others quadrants (like me) fail to see the point of trying to be seductive and raw at any given moment. Aphodite would understand what non-aphrodites don't because her life purpose was to make love and full stop (didn't she do it with the whole Olimpus... ) and people just don't understand her (according to the myth) and people really don't xD. For instance, I've always got the strong feeling that Kate Bush gets flirty with every young man she was interviewed. I used to know a teenager FiSe that would try to test her 'seductive' power with most men, and was quite unconscious of that - and of course she was rejected by every woman in her circle. She was the typical Aphrodite, and very non-intellectual, she emitted a vibe that she was unable to think. But yes, we can't ever generalize that. It is just a shade of gammas. Not every gamma is like that - at all.
I think things were going super fine with the artworks made by gammas, until the pictures part arrived. It seems heron, elly and I can't really capture completely the thread (people from 3 different quadrants, which is interesting).
Please, Auburn , take this lightly, as honest feedbacks from people that like you (I don't want to see you running the risk of publishing that).
Last Edit: Dec 15, 2015 21:54:23 GMT -5 by Deleted
I think the suggestion Heron gave is great. People using images to express themselves and their quadrant and type. That can be very revelatory. K. Fauvre made excellent discoveries by asking people (who knew their types in the enneagram) to cut images from magazines that they connected with and send them to her. The exploration of the artwork is a good venue too. (like, the part of the drawings made by gammas (FiSe's?) is cool to explore. I personally don't connect to those artworks at all and certainly would never make anything with that aeshtetics.
Maybe there's a shadow/unexploredshadeofanima-notyetintegrated projection going on - I don't know really - maybe shadow parts of his psique are being projected onto gammas for being ct his main metamap to map people and this is not really a gamma thing, but just shadow aspects of an specific person, with an specific personality (beyond CT) that happens to seem to him that belong to the opposite quadrant.
What are these shadow parts you're referring to, @morsecode ?
Maybe there's a shadow/unexploredshadeofanima-notyetintegrated projection going on - I don't know really - maybe shadow parts of his psique are being projected onto gammas for being ct his main metamap to map people and this is not really a gamma thing, but just shadow aspects of an specific person, with an specific personality (beyond CT) that happens to seem to him that belong to the opposite quadrant.
What are these shadow parts you're referring to, @morsecode ?
The shadow thing is a concept by Jung.
Last Edit: Dec 15, 2015 22:25:40 GMT -5 by Deleted
Thinking about this more, it does seem like the anima and the gamma quadrant are entwined for me specifically due to their polarization in my psyche. I am neither female nor have any of their functions, so in theory it is the (fictional?) person most opposite to my psychology. That and as a logic-lead type, the FiSe and SeFi are triply polarized. They are probably seen as 'shadow' entities; dark, elusive, confusing.
I kinda wish I hadn't made this thread; I knew it may not be well received and i might have spared myself some discomfort. But I was compelled to because irrationality, darkness, mysticism and biases are things we all have. I dunno, I guess I don't mind seeing them or expressing them myself so long as the context is known.
It'd be curious to see what irrational or semi-conscious notions others have. But how do we find a balance between diplomacy (i.e. "that's not true of __ types, don't say that") and full expression? If we try too hard to deny ourselves our own biases, it's harder to resolve them... *at a loss*