School of Neoclassical Socionics

Superego block

Fe accepting->Si producing

When an LIE enters a new social environment, the first thing they do is collect as much information about the emotive expressions of the people involved. Before they feel comfortable within the group, they fall back on an established set of emotional outputs that are non-controversial, standard, and do not attract attention. This means smiling, going “hey, how’s it going?”, putting on the persona of someone laid back and positive. 

If everyone around the LIE is relaxed, socializing, joking, and generally having a good time, they have to be delicate in their approach. A tension then arises where the LIE wants to join in on the fun and pleasantries, but can’t find an adequate “in” that will allow them to “walk” into the atmosphere in a way that is non-imposing. To an LIE, a group’s emotional atmosphere is like a game of Jenga, where the LIE’s move has to be seamless and unassuming.

After exiting a conversation with someone, the LIE may ruminate on every little detail of what had happened: every facial expression their interlocular had made, every time they may have raised their voice too loud, every time they may have said something that was not perfectly in line with what was considered normal and unassuming in that specific context. 

When telling a joke, LIEs usually like to keep it dry. If people notice that they were trying to tell a joke and it bombed, this is a catastrophe, so what they do instead is make a statement that might be funny, but without any semblance of effort in the delivery. That way, if the joke bombs, it’s not a big deal because the LIE can pass it off as a snide remark. If it lands, the LIE gets all the praise and glory. Either way, they risk nothing.

Sometimes, the LIE likes to put on a coat of nonchalance so there appears to be no risk in their social investment. They may position themselves “above” the emotional atmosphere, as low-risk observer of others. This is the best possible position for them to occupy, because then the responsibility to be funny and pleasant is taken away from them, usually offloaded to their superego type (ESE), who has no problem messing with the emotional atmosphere. The ESE has a naturally infectious enthusiasm and selfish individualism for the emotions they express, so victory or failure in this sphere means less to them–it is simply who they are, not who they need to be. 

In their Si vulnerable placement, LIEs typically do not like seeming like a prude or like someone who lacks experience with the finer things in life. Yet in this realm, they become their own worst enemy, since “trying to relax” is inherently contradictory. It turns leisure into a performance. An example of this in literature comes in the form of Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who would throw extravagant parties, gain all the social admiration, and then would retreat with a few close friends into his private quarters. If the LIE tries too hard to have fun, other people notice and it takes all the fun away. If the LIE tries too little, they kill the mood and become a party pooper. 

It is very uncomfortable for the LIE to reveal their taste in anything. The LIE does not want to be seen as someone with mainstream tastes, because that would mean that they are boring. At the same time, things outside the mainstream could be seen as weird and too experimental. It is a lose-lose situation for them, so they may simply defer to the other person’s tastes, or defer to “well, the reviews say this is really good.”

LIEs usually also take their health and environment very seriously. They are very serious about eating right, sleeping the right amount, and staying in shape. Criticism of their health could cause misunderstandings, hurt, and confusion. This is usually the main source of their neurotic tendencies, if they have any. LIEs tend to be very aware of the possibility of disease at any moment and may take lots of measures to protect themselves. They may worry that their health is deteriorating even if they are doing just fine.

LIEs may dedicate themselves to daily routines around health, including exercises, supplements, skincare, and so on, but they may also struggle to be consistent. This is because the superego takes in all information and considers it equally, so if the LIE is taking care of themselves one way and they suddenly receive information that another way might be better, they could spiral into doubt about their own ability to take care of themselves and just give up entirely. LIEs prefer to direct themselves in this field and usually just need an example from someone who is less overwhelmed than they are by all the plethora of contradictory ideas about health.

Ego block

Te accepting->Ni producing

On the confident, individualistic ego block, the LIE absorbs information about real-world activity (Te) and extracts directional meaning from it (Ni). It is important to understand that because the ego block is self-serving, the LIE is not necessarily making broad claims about how the future will objectively unfold. Instead, what they are typically doing is “making” a future or a meaning, forming a narrative that brings order to the LIE’s movement through time, a vector that makes their activity make sense beyond mere social obligation.

The LIE does not like to work if they do not have something to work for. Individuals of this type may spend lots of time in their youth collecting vast amounts of information about history, politics, economics, and philosophy in order to develop what they believe to be a worthy orientation of their actions. They will scrutinize, cross-reference, search for patterns…anything to eliminate all the possible life paths. They may find a path, follow it for a while, then contradictions will accumulate, and they will find some other purpose to follow. They can do this seemingly on a whim. Without a personal orientation, the LIE can appear lazy, scatter-brained, pessimistic, and generally distant from their image as ardent workers and strategists.

As soon as the LIE finds a pre-destination to commit themselves to, their entire attitude changes. They become assertive, driven, and tireless in their work. Reality narrows to the chosen path. Everything “clicks” and their life’s path cannot be unseen. These moments of clarity can be addicting, however, and the LIE is prone to boredom and switching paths even if the current mission is perfectly adequate. This is partly why their dual (ESI) is so important, because they place an unconscious pressure on the LIE to be consistent with the purpose of their actions.

When the LIE’s attention is drawn too much to adapting to the external world through the potential blocks, the information from the superego section becomes prominent: being popular, being funny, being someone that can relax and have fun, but being consistently self-conscious and unassertive. Information from the superid becomes prominent as well, which we will get to later. 

When the LIE’s psyche is too focused on the kinetic blocks, however, the result in the ego is over-efficiency, impatience with others, rudeness, fantasies of villainy, moral bankruptcy, a decline in health, withdrawing from others, over-idealism, and a general sense of superiority because of their divine mission. They’ll start to believe a delusion that they can exist as individuals without love, they’ll ignore their emotions entirely and become overly-logical, as relational and emotional information becomes irrelevant to their trajectory. Means become subordinate to ends and people become objects of utility.

Information is required from both the potential blocks, which limit the psyche, and the kinetic blocks, which produce something society needs from the psyche.

LIEs tend to dread the idea that they could waste large periods of their life doing something that leads nowhere. Every present action should be part of a future payoff, or else it was all pointless. Time is like a sum of cash handed to you when you are born, and if you spend it all on that which is meaningless, there is no path to redemption. 

LIEs usually hate cyclical patterns where nothing progresses. For example, debates about topics that rarely get resolved start off as interesting controversies, but quickly become chores where the same exact talking points are rehashed over and over again. In conflicts, the LIE may pressure others into an imperfect compromise, just to knock things out of stagnation and push them forward. 

Superid (Fi accepting->Se producing):

The superid of the LIE can be summed up as “the search for an ethical legitimacy to one’s use of presence and force in the world.” Without clear ethical valuation, the LIE’s strength becomes ambiguous and the justification for their use of will becomes muddy.

Fi is the accepting half-phase of the first signal system in this type, and without adequate information in this realm, the producing function (Se) begins to operate in an unstable, inconsistent and erratic manner. The LIE will begin to try to show themselves off, use force on others, or accumulate resources simply for the sake of self-enrichment.

The ESI’s ego is adept at stating explicitly who deserves what and why, which is what drives the LIE to assert themselves against bad people and act kindly towards good people. The  LIE’s use of force becomes more selective, justified, targeted, without fear of being in the wrong. Without this signal, the LIE may assign moral meaning incorrectly and use aggression erratically. With dualization, the LIE’s accumulation of resources may also be redirected away from selfish motives to a desire to take care of loved ones.

The LIE’s yearning for relational signals through their accepting Fi function typically manifests in purposeful insensitivity or boundary-crossing in order to provoke people. When someone has the courage to stand up to the LIE’s behavior and call them out, the LIE may feel a sense of relief, as there is finally a strong relational signal in their environment. They will likely listen carefully to what their interlocutor has to say, ask clarifying questions, apologize, and move on like nothing happened.

LIEs usually can forgive almost any slight as long as it was apologized for, and they believe this same standard applies to their behavior. After all, how can you blame someone for being wrong if they genuinely thought they were right? This is also where the ESI comes in to give the LIE information on who to forgive and who to cut off for good. 

The LIE loves ethical philosophy. Questions about moral frameworks, what “good” means, debates about the morality of controversial topics are a particular point of interest, as the LIE spends their life figuring out what good and bad really even mean in the first place. The LIE can spend hours of free time delving into concepts like utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, religious frameworks, all to add to their database of ethical calculations. Technically speaking, this is related to their information flow from the superid to the id, which has accepting Ti, but Fi is involved in this process regardless. Without external feedback from a real person, all of these options for goodness can remain unsorted or uncommitted to. This is why it isn’t enough for the LIE to read the Bible–they have to physically go to church and interact with the community. They cannot merely watch YouTube videos on utilitarianism–they need a real relational connection that provides the pressure they need to act on their principles. Ethical philosophies provide the LIE with possibilities, but only real relationships provide certainty and commitment.

Id (Ti accepting->Ne producing):

On the id block, the LIE practices observing systems and developing subconscious archetypes and character judgements based on people’s placements within certain logical interrelations: subcultures, income levels, university attendance, and so on. When used poorly, the LIE can recklessly overgeneralize people’s groups, reducing them to rigid categories, and acting dismissively towards others based on a small amount of information. 

To the LIE, clusters of people are treated as internally consistent packages of characteristics. Unlike the Fi->Ne id of the EIE, this impulsive judgement is less based on the types of individuals that inhabit society, and more based on the types of systems that those individuals inhabit.

In many ways, this forms the basis of the LIE’s sense of humor. They often like edgy, generalizing humor that pokes fun at entire groups of people. For example, “crypto buyers aren’t unemployed, they’re just between delusions.” In this case, “crypto buyers” is not referring to individuals specifically, but to a broad category of interrelations that form a system. LIEs are rarely aware of these categories they make, however, and find humor in such statements because they bring to light something that they had only believed subconsciously.

The practical utility of this block is that it allows LIEs to avoid structures where there may be characteristics that are not worth the trouble to deal with. The LIE’s id rapidly compresses patterns and quickly gives them a prediction of what comes bundled with something. For example, an LIE may avoid working in an industry they consider having a toxic culture. They may instinctively avoid neighborhoods where there is likely to be a lot of crime. In school, they may avoid certain cliques because they find them annoying. Behavior is predicted without needing the same experiences over and over. 

Additionally, the LIE likes to attain positions of status in order to demonstrate their innate capacities. Getting a promotion at work or getting into a good university generally means that there is something about you that makes you special, and LIEs love to show off this specialness to society. They love to show off their accomplishments and receive looks of admiration from others. Positions of importance boost the LIE’s sense of self-worth and self-evaluation. For this reason, they can be very competitive.