0.2 Psychological types  (Page 10/13)

The things an introvert thinks are really inside his or her own head, "it is now merely a mystical thinking and quite unfruitful as thinking that remains bound to objective data". Furthermore, "the extraordinary impoverishment of introverted thinking is compensated by a wealth of unconscious facts . . . a veritable "pandemonium of irrational and magical figures, whose physiognomy will accord with the nature of the function that will supersede the thinking function as the vehicle of life." That quote basically means that introverted thinking is balanced by the wealth of the unconscious mind. This unconsciousness is the vehicle of life, not the thinking of the introvert. Even though the introvert biases information his or her own way, and would tend to see the world the way they want, not the socially acceptable way, their unconsciousness balances that type of thinking because it is so large and powerful. The truth is still in their unconscious mind even though their thinking points to an egocentric attitude.

In these paragraphs Jung describes how the introvert is more concerned with ideas than with people, and is even "cold":

• Just as we might take Darwin as an example of the normal extraverted thinking type, the normal introverted thinking type could be represented by Kant. The one speaks with facts, the other relies on the subjective factor. Darwin ranges over the wide field of objective reality. Kant restricts himself to a critique of knowledge. Cuvier and Nietzche would form an even sharper contrast.
• The introverted thinking type is characterized by the primacy of the kind of thinking I have just described. Like his extraverted counterpart, he is strongly influenced by ideas, though his ideas have their origin not in objective data but in his subjective foundation. He will follow his ideas like the extravert, but in the reverse direction - inwards and not outwards. Intensity is his aim, not extensity. In these fundamental respects he differs quite unmistakably from his extraverted counterpart. What distinguishes the other, namely his intense relation to objects, is almost completely lacking in him as in every introverted type. If the object is a person, this person has a distinct feeling that he matters only in a negative way; in milder cases he is merely conscious of being de trop, but with a more extreme type he feels himself warded off as something definitely disturbing. This negative relation to the object, ranging from indifference to aversion, characterizes every introvert and makes a description of the type exceedingly difficult. Everything about him tends to disappear and get concealed. Hid judgment appears cold, inflexible, arbitrary, and ruthless, because it relates far less to the object than to the subject. One can feel nothing in it that might possibly confer a higher value on the object; it always bypasses the object and leaves one with a feeling of the subject's superiority. He may be polite, amiable, and kind, but one is constantly aware of a certain uneasiness betraying an ulterior motive-the disarming of an opponent, who must at all costs be pacified and placated lest he prove himself a nuisance. In no sense, of course, is he an opponent, but if he is at all sensitive he will feel himself repulsed, and even belittled.