Old man shouts at cloud
The language of "introverted" and "extroverted" has bothered me for quite some time now and I still don't think I can properly elucidate exactly how yet. However, I do have some thoughts that I've been struggling with putting into form. This is over the dichotomy of the words.
I think that we, in a Western, Christianized, Anglo-European world, have an ingrained and unavoidable culturo-semantic interest in binaries. I have no idea if it's generalizable to broader human experience or not. But we like to put things into either/or (or more rarely this-and-that) binaries. The most foundational is good/bad."
Many of them are derived from our perception of nature, most fundamentally male-female. Even in elements of the natural world that don't necessarily apply to our primate sex characteristics, we still feel compelled to label things as "male" or "female." In reptiles and other animals that can change their sex, we still assign them genders even though their genders are fluid. In flowers we call the pollen-producing parts "male" and the pollen-receiving parts "female." So that binary is not only encoded based around an anthropocentric model, but also implies projective or receptive, or active and passive parts--essentialism in function.
But we have other binaries that we encode the world around us with as well. The chief one from religion is "above/below" or "heaven/earth" or, as Mircea Eliade famously declared "sacred/profane." This is obvious in excepting religious concepts from discussion of mundane. We have concepts as "consecrated ground" that has to be preserved or unpolluted. And broader concepts of what qualifies as religious pollution or "dirt" in general. That is essentialism as well. We encode parts of the body as "dirty" or "clean" as well, along these lines. And we have strict rules for how those elements can or can't interact. And these get further convoluted when mixed with other dichotomies that assign value based around the foundational good/bad value. We can show male chests on television because those are good chests, clean chests. We can't show female chests on tv because those are bad, dirty.
But what I'm trying to get at is that not only is essentialism a gross understatement of the actual complexity of things in the world, but that because of the either/or valuation that is implicit in a lot of essentialized binaries, that complexity is misrepresented or altogether hidden in order to create an evaluation of a concept. We love to describe things in binaries. We feel elation when we can boil a concept down into "this" and "that."
So it makes me crazy to have to describe myself, or others, in terms of one of these binaries, since they just don't succeed in their descriptive role. With very few exceptions I think there are very few people who can be entirely contained within being described as an "introvert" or an "extrovert." For most people this is incredibly situational, and depends not only on vagaries like mood (and mood itself depends on sleep patterns, weather, thousands of other less easily quantifiable criteria), but on how one is expected to perform socially. In a group of well-established friends, an introverted person can be very expressive. In a conference presentation, the most extroverted person can suddenly find themselves completely lost for words. Everybody knows this; it is a stupid statement to make because of how obvious it is. But it illustrates the fundamental failure of that dichotomy. No one is always shy, no one is always sociable. And even the established theory on the subject approaches this, by describing it not as a dichotomy but a continuum, albeit an exclusive continuum. To be low on one is to be high on the other. And I really don't think that's necessarily true.
At least to me, the element that is much more instructive, if one is possessed to insist on establishing a binary descriptor, is not only assessment of one's social performance, but also an assessment of one's social intent. I've been thinking about this in terms especially of certain individuals that I know who if you were forced to choose to label them either "introverted" or "extroverted" you could, but it wouldn't seem correct. I myself have often labeled myself as a "gregarious introvert" because I am very shy around strangers, but very not shy around friends, and genuinely enjoy the activity of being out-in-the-world and "people watching." If I was to be completely alone I think I would be miserable, but I also prefer to be able to have controls over sorts of social situations I am within and have very strict criteria for my "comfort zone."
So the new dichotomy I am proposing as a supplement to these well-established labels, and this is where I'm still very shaky and haven't thought it adequately through, are "introspect" and "extrospect." And I am using the word "introspect" to be more literal to its root words, but less literal to its established meaning. So maybe I need to think of better words. The ways I am using them functionally are "inwardly interested" and "inwardly diminishing." One of the prime reasons why I am uncomfortable in public situations is that I am obsessed and terrified of external judgment. I am worried about other people's opinions of me and I agonize over things I said or did that could be interpreted in ambiguous or negative ways. And given that, I would describe myself as being extrospected; I am looking outwardly at the world to act as a mirror to reflect my value back upon me, since I don't have much of a capacity to innately generate self-value. Introspected is the opposite. People who do possess an ability to inherently and innately determine self-value, so they do not require external validation. This could be the entire range of egoism to egotism, but the operative point is that they feel the same way regardless of how they are perceived.
So you can have someone who is an introspected introvert, who likes to be alone fundamentally because they're already interested in what they do for themselves and with themselves, and don't have a lot of time for worrying or thinking about other people. Some of these people may be classical "loners," but some of these people may even come off as being egotistical or narcissistic since they're just fundamentally not interested in thinking about how what they say or do is going to affect other people in their lives. Some of these people may even be charismatic because of their disinterest, and may even take up highly performative social roles like activist or actor, where they can conceal themselves and indulge themselves at the same time. On the opposite end of the spectrum you can have an extrospected extrovert who are people who are extremely social and sociable specifically because they require external validation. At its most negative, this can come off as being histrionic or desperate, or even as a different kind of narcissism.
But anyway, I'd identify myself as being an extrospected introvert, since I am very concerned with how other people are going to perceive anything I do and that affects what I actually do. So while it does code my behavior as "avoidant" I still actually am interested in external assessment, and reassurance that my choices are the correct ones. Or (hopefully gentle) chastisement if they aren't. Which gives me a particular "aim-to-please" dimension that an introspected introvert would not possess.
So yeah, as far as critiquing a duality by proposing a more complex duality, I think the social theory requires some additional work. But it is very instructive to me in terms of how to interact with others if I am able to assess them based on this two-axis approach, rather than envisioning it on a simple continuum. There are absolutely shortcomings of this approach as well, as many people would likely be able to point out gray areas even along these axes. Thoughts?