Recently, on a whim, I took an online personality test, one of those puppies based on the standard Briggs-Meyers questionnaire and using the terminology developed by David West Keirsey to put a friendly and metaphoric face on a bunch of acronyms and percentages.
My acronym: ISTJ. My percentages: I am 67% Introverted, 38% Sensing, 50% Thinking, and 78% Judging. Given that ISTJ—67/38/50/78 is one tough cookie of an identifier, Keirsey has given my combination of attributes a descriptive label worthy of H.G. Wells: not only am I a Guardian, but I am of the Inspector sub-class of the Guardian class.
So here I stand, an Inspector Guardian. Keirsey describes me as follows:
Inspectors (as much as ten percent of the general population) are the true guardians of institutions. They are patient with their work and with the procedures within an institution, although not always with the unauthorized behavior of some people in that institution. Responsible to the core, Inspectors like it when people know their duties, follow the guidelines, and operate within the rules. For their part, Inspectors will see to it that goods are examined and schedules are kept, that resources will be up to standards and delivered when and where they are supposed to be. And they would prefer that everyone be this dependable. Inspectors can be hard-nosed about the need for following the rules in the workplace, and do not hesitate to report irregularities to the proper authorities. Because of this they are often misjudged as being hard-hearted, or as having ice in their veins, for people fail to see their good intentions and their vulnerability to criticism. Also, because Inspectors usually make their inspections without much flourish or fanfare, the dedication they bring to their work can go unnoticed and unappreciated.
Another author likens me to several fictional characters—Katharine Hepburn’s role in The African Queen or Sam Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings. That all jibes pretty well with my own estimation. And I can spot myself all over the literary and cinematic map.
The Sorting Hat at Hogwarts would put me into Hufflepuff. I’m Dorothy in the Oz books. I’m Doctor Leonard McCoy on the Starship Enterprise, or Doctor Beverly Crusher in the next generation. I’m Brenda Lee Johnson’s husband, FBI Agent Fritz Howard, on The Closer. I’m Jakob Stern running Oskar Schindler’s enamelware business.
But best of all, I’m Mammy in Gone With the Wind.
Now that isn’t to say that I agree wholeheartedly with everything Keirsey et al. have to say about me, or that any of this changes my overall opinion that psychology is a claptrap pseudo-science on the order of astrology, tarot cards, or divination. It’s all too pat, too clear-cut, too cocksure, too smug. Four overriding human personality types—Artisan, Guardian, Idealist, Rational—each with four sub-classes. For example, Guardians come in four flavors: Inspector, Protector, Provider, and Supervisor. Artisans are Composers, Crafters, Performers, or Promoters. Each of the sixteen possible Type/Subclass combos is resolutely cheery and politically-correct: there isn’t a single Insensitive Clod amongst the bunch. The whole shebang reeks of feel-good-ism and puling new-age puffery.
Nor do I match the recommended career paths for an Inspector Guardian: according to Keirsey.com, "[Inspectors are often found in] business and/or finance in positions such as accountant, insurance underwriter, office manager, or bank examiner. Like the Supervisors, they may find their niche in civil service as a detective or an IRS agent. Professional positions in teaching or medicine and legal and technical occupations are also attractive." I can’t think of anything I would rather less be than an accountant, insurance underwriter, office manager, bank examiner, detective, or IRS agent.
But I’m a teacher down to my toes, and that’s in there—but then again, you find teachers amongst all four main types. The Guardian class description has nothing to say about my being a musician and a writer. To be sure, I go about my musicianly and writerly life very much like a Guardian: my gifts are clearly along the lines of training, protecting, conserving, explaining, and presenting. I’m not interested in writing fiction or composing music, nor does the career of a performer have any interest for me, as I realized many years ago. So I suppose I must give the Keirsey description the benefit of the doubt here; if an Inspector Guardian becomes an artist, he/she will very likely go about it the way I have—i.e., teaching and explaining and guiding rather than performing or creating.
The types also impress me as being inherited, or at least familial. I don’t need a test to realize that my sister, a federal magistrate judge, is a Supervisor Guardian, and that my father is either an Inspector or Protector Guardian. My mother was probably a Champion Idealist ("They are warm and full of energy with their friends. They are likable and at ease with colleagues, and handle their employees or students with great skill. They are good in public and on the telephone, and are so spontaneous and dramatic that others love to be in their company.") and I seem to have absorbed a bit of that as well—although I actively dislike the telephone. I’m pretty sure my Supervisor Guardian sister married a Champion Idealist, so perhaps she recognizes the connection as well.
I have tended to hire my department members exclusively from the Guardian class—not an Artisan in the bunch from what I can tell, although the Artisans are the, well, "artist" types.
The SF Conservatory, where I have hung my hat these three-plus decades, has a faculty made up of mostly Artisans and Guardians. That may be another way of describing the tension between "Studio" (Artisan) and "Classroom" (Guardian) faculty to which I alluded in an article of July 12, 2010, "The Trade School That Went to College". I doubt we have any Rationals on the faculty, although I think I spot a few amongst the staff. However, I would bet my bottom dollar that all of the folks who are, or have been candidates for, the Associate Dean of Student Life are all Counselor Idealists. ("Counselors are both kind and positive in their handling of others; they are great listeners and seem naturally interested in helping people with their personal problems…They are highly private people, with an unusually rich, complicated inner life. Friends or colleagues who have known them for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise.")
Sheesh, this stuff is tempting. But like so much temptation, the attraction comes at a high price. I am reminded of the sound-byte approach to music-making, in which people come up with quick descriptions of a composer’s work (Haydn = light & charming; Debussy = washy; Brahms = stern & thick) and then play everything to that uniform spec, regardless of the actual music itself. It is far too enticing, and far too easy, to pigeonhole a living, breathing human being by one of those oh-so-convenient sixteen labels. I am an Inspector Guardian. You are a Performer Artisan. He is an Architect Rational. Maybe it’s not quite as bad as explaining everything on the basis of astrology ("oh, that’s just the way Virgos are, you know!") but nonetheless the labels are fundamentally superficial, cheap, and demeaning. Hell, you can probably get as good guidance from a fortune cookie.
And at least those fortunes come with something to eat.