While reading one of the many online news reports about the unrest in Ferguson, I saw a photo which particularly caught my eye and heart.
My first thought on seeing this photo was that the Myers - Briggs Type Indicator(R) personality inventory also serves as an arch spanning the distance between a great diversity of people, including complete opposites. I certainly don't mean to imply that if everyone in Ferguson including the protesters took the MBTI(R) tool and learned about their personality preferences, their problems would be solved. The racial problems and violence in Ferguson, like all human problems and attitudes, run much deeper and are much more complicated than can be accounted for by personality type alone. Among the many factors which shape us are culture, race, upbringing, family background, religious beliefs, and education. We should also remember that the MBTI tool deals only with healthy, normal choices. It does not and was never meant to assess mental illness, personality disorders, violence, criminal intent, and other forms of pathology which could arguably be at the root of the situation in Ferguson. It also does not predict behavior and should never be used for that purpose.
So unfortunately, to think that knowledge of personality type could solve Ferguson's problems would be simplistic and unrealistic. Yet I do think that if everyone in Ferguson would take the Indicator and learn about their personality preferences, and just as importantly would be open to learning about those of others, it would help ease the tensions there and promote understanding. Isabel Myers and her mother Katharine Briggs developed the MBTI instrument over 70 years ago with no way to foresee how complicated, difficult and often violent our society would eventually become. Yet they hoped that their new assessment would transcend time and circumstances to become a lasting, powerful tool for peace.
Perhaps if the people of Ferguson and, indeed, the rest of the world as well were familiar with the type concepts explained by the MBTI instrument, we would all be less likely to interpret in a negative light those actions of others which we don't like or understand. Hopefully we would realize that just because others are different from us or have different approaches to the world does not necessarily mean they are bad or wrong. Laws must be obeyed by everyone, regardless of personality type. But when it comes to everyday choices such as how we prefer to energize ourselves, take in information, make decisions, and orient ourselves to the world, more widespread knowledge of type concepts would help us embrace the fact that someone can be very different from us and still be a healthy, normal, worthwhile and interesting person.
Sadly, the visual impression I got that the Gateway Arch in the news photo is connecting the diversity of people in front of it is mostly an optical illusion. At most it only connects them superficially, in their common negative view toward the police department and racial situation in Ferguson. Beyond that, I doubt that many of these people really know or understand each other. If I understand correctly, many of the protesters are in fact from outside St. Louis.
But in contrast to the Gateway Arch I believe the MBTI tool can be a real arch of peace joining those with preferences for ISTJ to those with the opposite preferences for ENFP, and all type preferences in between. I believe it can bind us together through increased knowledge, acceptance and trust of one another and our differences.
I wish all of you a happy holiday season! May we all enjoy a new year replete with peace and joy born of an ever - increasing understanding of ourselves and others under the arch of the MBTI tool.