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Sunday 30 July 2017

Elizabeth II (SLI): Personality Type Analysis

Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II (born Elizabeth Alexandra Mary of the royal house of Windsor) is the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and as Head of the Commonwealth, is Queen of a further 12 countries. At 91 years of age, she is currently the oldest monarch in the world and holds the record for Britain's oldest ever, as well as being the longest-reigning at over 65 years on the throne.

She was born in Mayfair, London in 1926, during the reign of her grandfather, King George V (SEI). As the eldest of two daughters to the second son of the King, it was never expected that she would one day be crowned Queen. Everything changed in 1936, due to the sudden and unprecedented abdication of her childless uncle, King Edward VIII (IEI) in order to marry his American divorcee lover, Wallis Simpson (EIE). Duty fell on her father, Prince Albert, Duke of York to sit the throne and he was crowned King George VI (EII), taking his father's regnal name. From then, the young Princess Elizabeth, fondly known as 'Lilibet' by those who knew her, was carefully prepared to rule as the heir presumptive, receiving private tuition in constitutional history and learning French.

As a child, Princess Elizabeth was educated largely at home by her governess Marion Crawford, who later published a biography on The Little Princesses in 1950. Here, her natural love of dogs and horses that would persist to this day, were first described, as well as her orderliness and responsibility, which stood in stark contrast to her more impulsive and exuberant younger sister, Princess Margaret (SEE), who would later become the Duchess of Cornwall.

"...when it was time to return to their home in London, Lilibet carefully put away all the blankets and linen, covered the miniature furniture in dust sheets and wrapped up the silver in newspaper — ‘to prevent it getting  tarnished’, she told me.

She wasn’t quite six, but clearly loved order. After dinner every night, both she and Margaret — then a little fat child — would hold out their hands and their father would give them each a spoonful of old-fashioned barley sugar.

Margaret pushed the whole lot into her mouth. Lilibet, however, carefully sorted hers out on the table, and then ate it very daintily. She also kept all her belongings immaculately tidy — but there’d come a time later when she became almost too methodical and neat. Indeed, I grew quite anxious about her.

During the course of each night, she’d hop out of bed several times just to make sure her shoes were quite straight on the floor and her clothes arranged just so.

It was only when Margaret did a hilarious imitation of her sister’s bedtime rituals that Lilibet finally stopped performing them."

From this early stage, we can see a particular fixation on the physical minutiae of her daily life, feeling the need to make sure that everything is 'just right', even to excess. This makes sense for a type with S in a very pronounced position, albeit in a very structured way that suggests a great deal of L too.

At the age of 18, during World War II, Princess Elizabeth was eager to help with the war effort and became the only female member of the royal family to ever serve in the armed forces. She volunteered to work with the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service (WATS), training as a driver and mechanic. This unprecedented example of a British princess imploring the King that she be allowed to participate in practical work like anyone else is notable. Furthermore, the nature of the work was especially technical and required one to 'get one's hands dirty' with cars and other machinery. She did well enough to be promoted five months later to honorary junior commander. This suggests someone, first of all, willing to put aside the airs of hierarchy to work alongside regular people in a useful role. Second, it suggests that Elizabeth had a degree of confidence and competence with learning how to handle practical, mechanical tasks. Already, this mildly suggests strong, valued P, especially blocked with S.

At 21, Princess Elizabeth became engaged to her second cousin once removed, Prince Philip (ILI) of Greece and Denmark, an exile in the United Kingdom who would later renounce his foreign titles to become Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Prince consort. They were married in 1947. It is notable that Elizabeth decided to marry Prince Philip purely out of personal love and affection, despite him being a poor match in terms of his family background. The Duke of Edinburgh was not merely foreign-born, but all his sisters had married noblemen with Nazi links. Furthermore, he had nothing in the way of financial standing. While the King's advisers and Princess Elizabeth's own mother, Queen Elizabeth (ESE) opposed the union, the otherwise sensible and well-behaved Princess Elizabeth insisted on proceeding with the marriage. This suggests that despite being highly dutiful, Elizabeth felt it most important to marry the individual person right for her, regardless of family or fortune. This suggests the valuing of R over more E and L-related matters, such as status and public approval, as well as a certain firmness in its use.

In the years immediately following her marriage to the Duke of Edinburgh, which included the birth of two children, Charles, Prince of Wales (LII) and Anne, Princess Royal (LIE), she had the opportunity to lead a mostly 'normal' married life, although with Prince Philip being given second-in-command of the Malta-based HMS Chequers in 1949, they had to live intermittently abroad, leaving the children at home. It is thought that this period was one of the happiest of her life. This points to someone attracted to normality, rather than the pressures of royal duty, and if given free reign, would have been happy as a commoner.

It was while on holiday in Kenya with her husband in February 1952 that Elizabeth was alerted to the death of the King from lung cancer. Princess Elizabeth was crowned 'Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II' in June 1953. Unlike her father, who was born Albert, it did not occur to her to choose a regnal name different to that of her birth. When asked if she wanted to stay 'Elizabeth', she responded "of course!". This suggests, not just a preference for continuing with her birth name, rather than inventing a new persona, but also the absence of thought to the idea of ever doing so. That could mean that matters of E are not usually considered.

The name of greater consequence was that of the royal house. As a woman, precedent was that Her Majesty's descendents would belong to the house of her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, changing from Windsor to Mountbatten. Unprecedentedly, her grandmother, Queen Mary (LSI) and the Prime Minister at the time, Sir Winston Churchill (SLE), opposed this position, arguing that the royal house remain with Windsor. Both of these opponents possessed strong personalities, and there is no information on how much the new Queen Elizabeth II resisted their wills, whether she folded unwillingly or did not care enough to protest. Either way, Her Majesty accepted their demands and declared on the 9th April 1952 that Windsor would remain the name of the royal house. What is clear is that this greatly distressed her husband, who notably declared "I am nothing but a bloody amoeba. I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children". The Queen's attempt to address her husband's disappointment was to grant him new duties and privileges, including full control over the household and more publicly, the position of organising her coronation. Eight years later, after the death of her grandmother and Churchill's retirement, the Queen would concede to Prince Philip, allowing all their male-line descendants without royal titles to take the name Mountbatten-Windsor.

During the year-long preparations for her coronation, and soon after the death of her grandmother, Queen Mary, the Queen was asked by her sister, Princess Margaret for permission to marry Peter Townsend, the Comptroller for her mother's household. He was a divorcé, over 16 years her senior, with two sons from a previous marriage. The Royal Marriages Act of 1772 required members of the royal family to seek permission of the monarch before marrying. Although the Queen was sympathetic towards her sister, senior politicians opposed the match, and it was known that the Church of England would not permit remarriage after divorce. Marrying outside the Church would have required Princess Margaret to renounce her right of succession to the throne. Her Majesty's approach to this solution was a delaying tactic, saying to her sister "Under the circumstances, it isn't unreasonable for me to ask you to wait a year." The Queen's intentions were thought to be to try and discourage her sister from pursuing the marriage, while trying to minimise any harshness or cruelty with her. She believed that, given time, her sister's affection would 'peter out'. However, the Government was more impatient, wanting to get rid of him. While the Queen rejected her private secretary's advice to send him away and opted to transfer him to her household instead, Churchill eventually arranged for him to be sent to Brussels on post. It would not be one, but three years before he could return.

Letters released in 2004 reveal that by 1955, with the replacement of Churchill with Anthony Eden (ESI) as Prime Minister, the Queen had been willing to draw up a plan to allow Princess Margaret to marry Townsend in exchange for giving up her right to succession, with Eden saying "Her Majesty would not wish to stand in the way of her sister's happiness." However, Margaret released a statement three days later, saying that she had decided not to proceed with the marriage.

What the incidents with her husband's name and her sister's marriage suggest about Her Majesty is someone who is cautious, sympathetic and averse to conflict, while also more open-minded to other people's points of view. Although not wanting to stand in the way of those close to her, the Queen prioritises not rocking the boat with her Government or other authority figures, while trying to harmonise her relationships in the wake of her decisions, appreciating their viewpoint and attempting to respect it in deed where able. It is worth noting that in both cases, Her Majesty was willing to make concessions to her husband and sister, but waited until after the strongest sources of opposition were gone before reaching a compromise. This points to valued instead of F and R instead of L, although with a sufficient degree of awareness in all four, understanding the balance of power but choosing to minimise disruption, and keenly understanding the importance of duties and traditions, while at the same time, trying to minimise the pain of individuals close to her where she can. It is also likely that the Queen did not fully consider how much her declaration in 1952 would hurt her husband, suggesting a certain oversight in her use of R.

Her coronation, over a year after her accession to the throne, was the first in British history to be televised, which met opposition from Churchill as well as the Elizabeth The Queen Mother and numerous royal courtiers, believing the ceremony to be a private, sacred matter. The Queen herself was uncomfortable about the idea, being notoriously camera shy. She had previously resisted having cameras film her wedding to the Duke of Edinburgh. Nevertheless, Prince Philip, whom she had given the position of arranging the coronation (possibly out of a desire to make amends for not allowing him to pass on his name), believed that the coronation should be televised as means of modernising the monarchy. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) also thought this would be a good idea, and made the issue a matter of public discourse in the newspapers. Having been informed that the public was strongly in favour of being able to see the coronation for the first time, the Queen changed her mind, saying that "all subjects should have the opportunity of seeing it". However, she only allowed it on the condition that the camera take no close shots. From this, we see the beginning of an ongoing struggle for Her Majesty, someone who had always been ill-suited to publicity and being in the view of a large audience, but who felt motivated by a duty to do the right thing for her subjects.

It is notable that Her Majesty always felt a strong desire to follow the dutiful example of her father, who had given up a relatively private life to fill in for his abdicated brother. While the vivacious Princess Margaret was known as her father's "joy", Princess Elizabeth strove to be her father's "pride". This preoccupation with duty as an extension of her paternal relationship has been a consistent motivator over 63 years and once again, suggests that R is in a pronounced position as a motivator. At the same time, it is clear that the Queen's motivations were not out of an E-focused desire to reach out to the public.

The information we have so far is enough to provide a good sense of the Queen's values; someone who pays much more attention to the individual merits of the people they interact with, rather than their position in a rigid social hierarchy or their public reputation, who is attracted to a 'normal', private life and thinks nothing of engaging in un-glamorous, practical tasks deemed 'beneath' her rank and station if it provides some assistance, and approaches her formal duties as a means of emulating and respecting a person of deep love and admiration to her. The Queen tends to side with tradition as part of her embrace of duty, but this does not stop her from making concessions for the happiness of people she is close to. In rare footage, where Her Majesty reflects on the many letters she receives from subjects seeking her help, this emphasis on the personal connection is very apparent:

"I've always had rather a sort of feeling that letters are rather personal to oneself, you know, because people write them thinking that I'm going to open them and read them. I don't open all of them obviously because I don't have time to do that. But it does certainly give me... an idea of what is worrying people and what actually they feel I could do to help, and there are occasions when I can help. I can pass things on to the right authorities or I can even in some cases write to various organisations who will look into it. But I've always had this feeling that letters are written to ME and I like to see what people want to write to me. I think in a way one feels that there is a sort of "the buck stops here", so to speak , that I'm the one. I had a letter this morning about something. He said 'I've been going round and round and round in circles, but you are the only person who can stop the circle and YOU would be able to fix it.' I thought that was rather nice."

This manner of emphasising the personal characteristics of interpersonal communication, e.g. the relationship and expectations between two people, and readily describing how one personally feels about it, is normal for a type with R in a pronounced, valued position. Overall, this and the way Her Majesty prioritises personal relationships in decision-making is very consistent with an Integrity-Seeking set of values.

We can also see, from the Queen's decisions in moments of family crisis, a desire to avoid conflict, even going so far as to side with the more demanding, authoritative party while they are alive or in power, but to soften her position on those suffering from the decision once the source of demands is out of the picture. This can be seen in her granting the right of male, non-royal descendants to use her husband's family name, as well as eventually saying she will not prevent her sister from marrying Townsend. In each case, despite being the head of state, Her Majesty found herself as the intermediary, trying to balance different points of view, rather than a wilful party imposing her own will. This largely shows a monarch with little interest in utilising F, whether through force of personality, or with her constitutional powers.

Similarly, the previous footage, shows how Her Majesty conceptualises and approaches her role as Queen of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Realms:

"It was all a very sudden kind of taking on and making the best job you can. It's a question of maturing into something that one's got used to doing and accepting the fact that here you are and it's your fate, because I think continuity is very important. It is a job for life. 

Most people have a job and then they go home and in this existence, the job and the life go on together because you can't really divide it up. The boxes and the communications just keep on coming and of course the modern communications, they come even quicker. Luckily I'm a quick reader so, I get through a lot of reading in quite a short time, though I do rather begrudge some of the hours that I have to do this instead of being outdoors."

What this quote demonstrates is someone inclined to accept the Crown as something that happened to her, and to focus on adjusting and making the best out of the situation. At the same time, it is clear that, despite feeling a duty to do a good job as monarch, the Queen is much more satisfied "outdoors", engaging in pleasurable past times like looking after her horses, or else, being involved in charitable causes. Elizabeth gives no impression of someone who relishes in her considerable power as head of state. When taken alongside Her Majesty's approach to managing disputes, which show someone who clearly desires to smooth things over and make concessions, it becomes quite clear that S is much more valued than F, making it apparent that Her Majesty has World-Accepting values.

The combination of Integrity-Seeking and World-Accepting values means that Queen Elizabeth II is a likely Delta type. Furthermore, it is not hard to see that, with S and R being the most pronounced of the valued elements, Her Majesty must be a Delta Integrator, i.e. either EII or SLI. In a nutshell, Elizabeth II is primarily motivated by a sense of harmony and ease in her relationships with others.

The Queen's reign has seen the gradual transformation of the British Empire into a Commonwealth of Nations. Although she remains Head of State for most of these nations, the change in name to 'Commonwealth', a name used to describe England after the execution of King Charles I (LII) and the takeover by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell (LSI), is telling in reflecting a further reduction of the British monarch's influence to that of an effective figurehead. The monarch used to wield considerable powers, with monarchs before the 17th Century being able to veto bills passing into law, enjoy diplomatic immunity around the world, commandeer any ship, declare war without consultation, control the entire British military, arrest people and seize their property. While these powers still exist in theory, no monarch in recent times has had the de facto power to attempt any of these without risking the United Kingdom becoming a republic. Despite this, up to 2011, the Queen still had the power to dissolve governments and call an election at will. While effective power has ebbed from the Crown since its peak in the 16th century, monarchs with a greater emphasis on F put up more of a resistance, e.g. James II (ESI) creating a standing army and reasserting power through the judiciary, or else, made greater use of the powers allowed to them, e.g. Charles II (EIE), George III (ESI) and William IV (ESE) dismissing governments, and Victoria (ESI) exercising a great deal of private influence over policy. The only known attempt by Her Majesty to exercise her power over Parliament was once where she prevented discussion of a bill to give Parliament the ability to conduct military action in Iraq, but only did so with the advice of her government. This largely follows the approach of her father, King George VI in keeping out of politics and government entirely, suggesting a F that is used as minimally as possible, that is either F4 or F7.

Despite this, video footage of the Queen shows someone rather more capable of being asserting herself on the one-to-one. As seen in one incident when the Her Majesty was supposed to wear the full regalia of the Order of the Garter, a highly flamboyant and impractical outfit, where she said "I'm not changing anything. I've done enough dressing like this, thankyou very much." and her own insistence that her grandson, Prince William, on his wedding day, wear the ceremonial tunic of an Irish guard's officer, rather than his preference for the Irish guard's frock coat. It became very clear to him that "you do not mess with your grandmother, and what she says goes".  What we see here is that although being one of the most laissez-faire monarchs in history, in regards to power and influence, the Queen is able to get highly assertive over particularly S-related matters, having to do more with aesthetic minutiae than anything else. This suggests F7 supporting S1, rather than F4 failing to support S6.

The main element of the Queen's activities as a figurehead is regularly meeting with people from a range of professions, including civil servants, volunteers, government officials, philanthropists, award-winners and celebrities. While the duties of administration in the palace, of appearing positively in front of the cameras and the general pomp and circumstance can be draining for her, Her Majesty seems to genuinely enjoy holding more private audiences with people in a variety of careers and getting to find out more of what they do. Although usually rather restrained and on her guard in public, she is often described as being rather more 'chatty' in these meetings, seeming to use them to satisfy a genuine curiosity about what people do. This is notable for someone whose personal passions can be counted as the breeding and care of her dogs and racing horses. It is perhaps a sign of someone who, despite the great regularity of her own life, is attracted to hearing the perspectives of other people, suggesting a weak, but valued I5.

The Queen's reign has not only been the longest in British history, but has perhaps also been very stable, with Her Majesty never having had to see off a conquering force or an attempt on her life. Nevertheless, she has faced challenges in regards to her popularity as a monarch, knowing that losing the approval of her people could one day mean the removal of the monarchy. The time her popularity reached its nadir soon after the death of her daughter-in-law, Diana, Princess of Wales (IEI), someone whose natural touch with the people regularly upstaged Her Majesty's more distant, less exciting figure. This highly popular person's death in a car crash, years after divorcing the Prince of Wales, brought collective expectation on the Queen to show emotion publicly for her loss. Her Majesty's approach was ill-suited to this requirement, deciding instead to withdraw from the public to the care of her bereaved grandchildren, holding a church service where no mention was made of the death. This caused public outrage, suggesting she had completely misread the nation's mood.

At the advice of her Government, the Queen resolved to speak directly to the people on national television, which although certainly helped to repair the damage, showed clearly how Her Majesty is not someone capable of publicly reaching out in an emotional display, and at her best, could only resort to sincere statements about the positive qualities of her late daughter-in-law's character. This shows, more than anything else, a complete blindness to the need for emotional affect, which best fits E4 with R6.

Although the Queen is not known for giving interviews where she gives her own opinions to the camera, the documentary of her being painted by Rolf Harris (it is an example of how rare it is to find video footage of a proper conversation between Her Majesty and someone else, that I am forced to use her discourse with a now convicted abuser of young women) provides a unique opportunity to see Her Majesty in conversation and the sorts of things she tends to focus on. It becomes clear rather early on that she is very inclined to 'small talk', discussing the bad weather and moving on to the biting habits of her dogs, of which she is very fond. While Rolf is a clear E-ego type, and naturally communicates emotively, the Queen is brief and matter-of-fact, both communicating factual information, rather than much of an emotional nature, while occasionally asking Rolf questions about how he does his work and inquiring into his stories. A good example can be seen with her response to this story he told:

Rolf Harris: "A couple of weeks ago I was down in Wales at a function and one of the people involved in organising it said "Did you know there's a painting by your grand-dad out in the main hall upstairs?" and I said "No". So he took me upstairs and there is a painting by my grandfather of your grandfather, George V reviewing the troops in the 14/18 war, in the trenches, and it sent off shivers down the back of my spine."

Her Majesty: "You didn't know it was there?"

The Queen in conversation demonstrates a precise and detailed knowledge of specific things, from the origins of her broach to the painting techniques of previous people to have painted her. She is also someone who incorporates an understated, dry humour in conversation. For instance:

Rolf Harris: "Are portraits a terrible chore?"

Her Majesty: "No, not really. It's quite nice. Usually one just sits and people can't get at you because they know you're busy doing nothing." 

These observations come together to suggest a person who is naturally proficient in matters of factual information and is more comfortable handling conversation of this kind, but at the same time, someone who is far more relatable in one-to-one conversation than in public. That suggests strong P for a Delta Integrator, i.e. P2.

To conclude, the Queen is someone who shows all the signs of Delta values, with particular emphasis on S and R, suggesting a Delta Integrator. Between the options of EII and SLI, it is apparent that the Queen is confident in matters of P, while being more reliant on the stories of other people for I, suggesting P2 and I5, with S1 and R6. At the same time, while she has limited, but successful use of F7, her greatest challenge as a monarch is obviously E4. The presence of L can also be seen as something unvalued when compared to R, but which is very much present in how she uses her S and how she defaults to conventional duty when her values are not conflict, suggesting the background effect of L8. This makes SLI by far the most likely typing for Her Majesty.

Sources: While I focused on real-life sources for analysing the Queen, including her Wikipedia page and the different links provided further up, I should add that the Netflix Series, The Crown is a remarkably insightful portrayal of the young Queen, Prince Philip and several others and would strongly recommend that people see its first season.

To learn more about SLI, click here.

If you are confused by our use of Socionics shorthand, click here.

Saturday 8 July 2017

Louis XIV of France (LSI): Personality Type Analysis

Louis XIV, sometimes called "the Sun King" and "Louis the Great", reigned as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715 at the age of 76. He was the third French king of the House of Bourbon, ascending the throne when he was 4 upon the death of his father, King Louis XIII (IEI). His reign was the zenith of France as the leading European power politically, militarily and culturally. Louis XIV re-invented the French monarchy as a manifestation and celebration of the absolute power of the king; he was regarded by his contemporaries, as he is still today, as the archetype of the absolute monarch. His personal tastes in art, architecture, etiquette and even landscaping had a huge impact among his contemporaries which is felt still today.

Louis XIII, supported by his prime minister Cardinal Richelieu (LSI), had already greatly increased the authority of the monarchy; however, the death of both men in quick succession led to a weaker government, during Louis XIV's minority, under his mother Queen Anne and Richelieu's successor, Cardinal Mazarin. They broadly continued the previous reign's policies but their unpopularity, heavy-handedness and perceived lower legitimacy led to a series of revolts and civil wars collectively known as the Fronde; the most serious of them led by many nobles, including Louis XIII's brother, Gaston d'Orleans. The Fronde revolts were kept at bay by the Queen and Mazarin until Louis XIV's coronation at the age of 16, formally signalling the end of the Regency and essentially draining the will of the nobles towards revolt. Nevertheless Louis kept Cardinal Mazarin as chief minister until his death in 1660, when Louis was 22. The king immediately announced that from now on he would not have a prime minister - which had been the norm for four decades - and that he would govern himself: as he put it, "I request and order you to seal no orders except by my command . . . I order you not to sign anything, not even a passport . . . without my command". Even if later he allowed his minister a little more independence, it remains true that for the next five decades Louis made all major government decisions and nothing was decided against his will.

After this announcement, Louis still moved carefully to get rid of the most powerful left-over from Mazarin's cabinet, Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances (i.e. finance minister). Fouquet had managed to make himself almost independent of Mazarin's authority and his control over the state finances was total. He also built up a vast personal fortune and network of supporters, and he advertised his power and wealth by building the magnificent palace of Vaux-le-Vicomte. The king considered him too powerful and potentially too dangerous to be merely sacked; so he carefully first let Fouquet feel secure that he had the king's esteem, and then quickly had him arrested, when he least expected, by the chief musketeer, d'Artagnan. Fouquet was tried and found guilty of embezzlement, and sentenced to banishment. Louis 'commuted' the sentence to life imprisonment. Fouquet died in prison some 19 years after his arrest. To this day, his trial is the subject of French scholarly analysis as an example of an unfair, highly politicised trial for trumped-up charges.

The above already points to Louis XIV as an individual, not only with great focus on F, but also with a seemingly subtle, masterful approach to it. In isolation, Louis' merciless destruction of Nicolas Fouquet could be interpreted as either personal vindictiveness in destroying someone whom he considered irredeemable - pointing to R blocked with F, that is the Gamma quadra - or as the ruthless elimination of a powerful minister in a way as to signal to the whole nation that the king was all-powerful, establishing his authority, which would point to F blocked with L, that is the Beta quadra.

Having gotten rid of Fouquet, Louis appointed as ministers men whom he could trust and who owed their positions to him, such as Jean-Baptiste Colbert as finance minister. Colbert overhauled the taxation system, greatly increasing revenues and rescuing the state from near bankruptcy, and introduced measures to encourage manufacture and trade, greatly improving infrastructure, aiming at a positive trade balance. While Colbert had to have the king's support in all his actions, Louis XIV was not very concerned with economic policies as such, seeing the increased economic and financial strength as a means to enhance the power of the monarchy and of the French state. Accordingly, Louis soon started spending immense sums on building the huge palace complex at Versailles (at a cost of perhaps 10% of the annual budget, over many years), and on an aggressive foreign policy, with a succession of wars, all of which drained the state's finances, especially the last one, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). So the net result of Louis XIV's reign was that at his death he left a national debt five times higher than he had found it, and ten times higher than Colbert had left when he died three decades earlier.

Louis XIV spent over half of the period of his personal rule at war. All his five major wars had, generally speaking, the aims of expanding France's borders, or attacking external enemies (like the Dutch Republic), or installing on foreign thrones monarchs friendly to France. All his wars were aggressive ones started by him, even if arguably with some justification. They were broadly successful - one of Louis XIV's legacies was an enlarged French territory, with frontiers starting to resemble today's - but at huge cost to the population and economy of France, which was even more bankrupt when he died than when he took the reigns of government.

As for his palace at Versailles - which was built despite Colbert's exasperation with the cost - Louis' reasons for building it were manifold. First, he regarded the palace in Paris (the Louvre) as vulnerable to riots and revolts (as per his experience of the Fronde), and he seemed to have had an obvious dislike for the place. Second, he intended the palace to be a visible, giant advertisement of the power, wealth and glory of the monarchy (interestingly he was inspired by Fouquet's own Vaux-le-Vicomte palace). Third, and perhaps most importantly, he intended for the whole of the French nobility to make Versailles their main, if not only, residence. Louis XIV's power as king was still counterbalanced to some extent by the estates and regional legal powers of the nobility, which still made them possible sources of revolts. By keeping all the nobles either at Versailles, or on the battlefield in periods of war, the king kept them under his eye and under his control.

The above summarises (a bit simplistically) the main policies and priorities of Louis XIV as king: to increase the power and territorial extent of France, to increase the power and prestige of the monarchy, and to reduce the independence and power of the nobility in relation to the king. Although those could be seen as obvious aims for a king, that is not necessarily so and Louis was personally the author of all the specific policies. It can be argued therefore that more than just his position as king, they point to Louis's own personal psychology. confirming an intense focus on F. Louis' personal project of using a vast luxury palace as a visible advertisement of the power and prestige of the monarchy (which is F+E), and his dismissal of P concerns when pursuing F goals, point to E rather than P as a valued function, so Beta is his quadra.

In Versailles, Louis designed and implemented a rigid system of etiquette, which he followed daily and expected the courtiers to follow. It included a fixed routine for when he would get out of bed, go to mass, have his meals, see his ministers, have some brief private time with his family, then go to bed - the Duke of Saint-Simon, an eyewitness, said in his memoirs that it was possible to know exactly what the king was doing, no matter how far you were from Versailles, just by looking at a watch. It also included a rigid, perhaps petty, hierarchical order of etiquette in the sense of which ranks in the nobility were allowed to be present at the king's most intimate moments and on what kind of armchair they could sit while in the king's presence. It is revealing that Louis subjected not only others but himself to this regimented lifestyle (his two successors, Louis XV (ILI) and Louis XVI (LII) "escaped" from that routine often). This liking for a rigid structure for his daily routine, as well as for the social positions of those around him, point to L and F as valued and strong functions.

The Duke of Saint-Simon left some interesting observations:
His mind was occupied with small things rather than with great, and he delighted in all sorts of petty details, such as the dress and drill of his soldiers, and it was just the same with regard to his building operations, his household, and even his cookery. He always thought he could teach something of their own craft even to the most skilful professional men, and they, for their part, used to listen gratefully to lessons which they had long ago learnt by heart. He imagined that all this showed his indefatigable industry; in reality, it was a great waste of time, and his Ministers turned it to good account for their own purposes, as soon as they had learnt the art of managing him, they kept his attention engaged with a mass of details, while they contrived to get their own way in more important matters.
Although the Duke was not necessarily a neutral witness, if there is some truth to this portrait, it points to a person with an apparent focus on S, and even S+P, making the S4 of EIEs very unlikely and suggesting LSI or SLE among Beta types.

Louis expected the nobles to spend most of their time in Versailles; he did not mind so much if they also spent time in their own estates, but considered it an affront if they preferred to stay in Paris instead. The moment that the king decided a noble was guilty of that, he would regard him essentially as persona non grata and ignore the man's existence, saying "I do not know who he is" or "I never see him here". The moment that happened, the man was condemned to irreversible social oblivion. This ruthlessness in dealing with individuals who broke his rules - perhaps unwittingly in some cases - points again to R in a weaker and less valued function than L. Also, Louis officially allowed anyone to approach him with requests when he was walking in the garden, but his almost invariable answer was "I will think about it" - suggesting that being so accessible was again one of the rules he imposed on himself rather than deeply felt.  However, according to Saint-Simon, when someone managed to get a private audience with the king, regardless of rank, then Louis was inclined to be "kind-hearted and just", and it was permissible to contradict or even interrupt the king, as long as a posture of reverence was maintained, with Louis then even making exceptions to his rules. This willingness to make exceptions for individuals who did manage to speak to him on a more personal basis suggests some concern for R, and seems most like R3.

Finally, the Duke of Saint-Simon has this to say about Louis's greatest weakness:
His Ministers, generals, mistresses, and courtiers soon found out his weak point, namely, his love of hearing his own praises. There was nothing he liked so much as flattery, or, to put it more plainly, adulation; the coarser and clumsier it was, the more he relished it. That was the only way to approach him; if he ever took a liking to a man it was invariably due to some lucky stroke of flattery in the first instance, and to indefatigable perseverance in the same line afterwards. His Ministers owed much of their influence to their frequent opportunities for burning incense before him...

Not only does this confirm the E valuing of Louis XIV, but it also points most clearly to E5.

All the evidence points very clearly to Louis XIV as a Beta, with focus on F, L and a craving for E the most obvious and consistent traits, but also with some inclination to drift towards focusing on S. That would point to LSI or SLE as possible types, but it is difficult to imagine a SLE who would voluntarily submit himself, over decades, to Louis's repetitive around-the-clock regimented lifestyle, that pointing more to the energy levels of an Integrator type and to having L as more important than F. L1, F2, R3, E5 and S8 fit very well what is known of Louis XIV, making him a likely LSI.

To learn more about LSI, click here.

If you are confused by our use of Socionics shorthand, click here.

Sources: besides the French Wikipedia, my mental image of Louis XIV was first shaped by Will and Ariel Durant's The Age of Louis XIV. Excerpts of the memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon are available online, like here. A description of the king's boring routine is  here.  The excellent French television series Secrets d'histoire has several episodes on Louis XIV in YouTube.

Saturday 1 July 2017

Hendrik Verwoerd (LSI): Personality Type Analysis

Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd was a South African psychologist, university professor, newspaper editor and politician who served as South Africa's 6th Prime Minister from 1958 until his murder in 1966. He is often called the "Architect of Apartheid" and was the politician chiefly responsible for the creation of the Republic of South Africa in 1961. It was during his government that Nelson Mandela (EIE), along with others, was sentenced to prison for sabotage until his release in 1990.

Verwoerd was born in the Netherlands in 1901; his parents emigrated to South Africa when he was about two years old. At first, he attended primary school in Cape Town, then in his teens accompanied his parents when they moved again, to Bulawayo (in what was then Rhodesia) and then back to South Africa, in the then province of the Orange Free State. He was an outstanding student and got the highest marks for English literature in the whole of Rhodesia, and the highest score in the Orange Free State in his exams for attending university. He went to the prestigious University of Stellenbosch near Cape Town where he graduated in psychology with a doctorate. Offered a scholarship for a post-doctorate in Oxford, and another for studies in several universities in Germany, he chose the latter. When he returned to South Africa, his academic record assured him a position in Stellenbosch where he became a tenured professor of sociology in 1934.

Those were the years of the Great Depression, and Verwoerd started getting involved academically, and then more actively, with the "poor-whites" social problem, that is, the massive unemployment and poverty among unskilled whites, which affected essentially Afrikaners (i.e. Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the original Dutch settlers of the 17th century) as they had been largely economically ruined by the Boer Wars one generation earlier. Then (if not much earlier) that Dutch-born, polyglot academic identified himself fully with the Afrikaner population, culturally and politically, and with the growing notion of Afrikaner nationalism. That essentially saw the Afrikaners as being caught between economic, political and cultural domination by the generally wealthier white population of British descent, and the competition for low-skilled jobs by the increasing migration of black natives (i.e. Xhosas, Zulus, etc.) from their rural areas into urban centres. Starting from his work as an academic, Verwoerd gradually shifted his focus to politics, until he was offered the position of editor-in-chief of a new Afrikaans newspaper based in Johannesburg, Die Transvaler, sponsored by the National Party (NP) as part of their efforts to increase their political presence in the Transvaal province against the ruling United Party of Prime Minister Barry Hertzog. With no previous experience in journalism, Verwoerd resigned his prestigious, tenured position as a Stellenbosch professor to move to Johannesburg and start a new career as newspaper editor in 1937. His editorial policy was to promote relentlessly the ideas, at that time, of Afrikaner nationalism: that South Africa had to cease being an independent British Dominion (like Canada, Australia, etc) and become a republic that would prioritise the interests of the Afrikaner population. His writings included frequent complaints against what he saw as the excessive domination of the South African economy, not only by English-speakers, but also by Jews, and he opposed the decision of then Prime Minister Jan Smuts to join the Allies in WWII. Nevertheless, Verwoerd always said that he was more anti-British Empire than pro-Nazi Germany. During that time, he was also relatively unconcerned with issues relating to native black South Africans.

The above already makes a few things clear about Verwoerd. First, his background, as a highly-educated, foreign-born, urbane academic who spoke several languages and had studied abroad and achieved an enviable position at Stellenbosch, was not one to obviously make him a fierce Afrikaner nationalist. That his beliefs were deep and sincere is obvious, I suggest, by the fact that he resigned his tenured professorship to become the editor of a new newspaper that might well fail (his father told him he was nuts in doing that). That points to a man not only with a need for some sense of mission that overrules personal comfort and career security, but even more so to a man with a deep need for, and identification with, a sense of collective identity. That already points to Beta as Verwoerd's likely quadra.

Under Verwoerd, Die Transvaler was successful, and the period of WWII and its immediate aftermath saw a rapidly increasing migration, due to economic factors, of the native black population from their original rural areas into the larger urban centres, such as Johannesburg, and the mining areas. That migration quickly changed the previously mostly white cities, with most of the new inhabitants living in informal housing. As in colonial Africa generally, that kind of uncontrolled migration of the local native black population into cities was not really allowed under the segregationist laws, but the Smuts government lacked the will, or the inclination, to do much about it, considering that migration inevitable. The NP used that issue to mobilise their campaign and so in the (mostly whites-only) elections of 1948 it narrowly defeated Smuts' United Party, forming the new government. The NP would remain in power uninterrupted until 1994. The new prime minister, D.F. Malan, Verwoerd's political patron who had brought him to Die Transvaler, now brought Verwoerd into his cabinet, having him appointed as a Senator and as Minister of Native Affairs.

The Malan government introduced its policy of apartheid, an Afrikaans word meaning "separateness". Until then, South Africa had more or less typical colonial segregationist laws (not unlike the "Jim Crow" laws in the US), but those were sort of ad hoc and as mentioned, were starting to crumble in the Smuts government. Malan's government ruthlessly reinforced the existing segregationist laws and introduced new ones, but again sort of ad hoc, without much of a consistent ideology or system except that of promoting the basskap (supremacy) over the black natives, and of the Afrikaners over English-speakers. Malan was also less concerned than Verwoerd about the issue of making South Africa a republic, which he feared would unnecessarily alienate part of his electorate.

As Minister of Native Affairs, Verwoerd remained as determined a republican as before, but that was not his immediate concern in his new position. He devoted his energies to arriving at what he saw as a consistent system and ideology of apartheid, starting from what was to remain his basic premise: the interests of the Afrikaner nation came before anything else. His conclusion went as follows: the only logical way to forever prevent native black South Africans from eventually overwhelming the white, and specifically the Afrikaner, population politically was to forever deny them any possibility for a legal basis for political rights (which a small minority of them did possess, in the Cape Province) and of legal residence in the "white" regions. That necessarily meant denying them any legal claim for citizenship in South Africa, and the most consistent way of arguing that was to state that they were actually citizens of other countries. That led Verwoerd to devise a policy of converting the historical areas inhabited by the different native nations - Xhosas, Zulus, Sothos, etc. - first into "autonomous", "self-governing" "homelands" that would eventually become independent states (not unlike Lesotho and Swaziland are today). When that happened - so went his argument - white South Africans would likewise be foreigners in those new states and full political, economic and physical separation would follow. Any integration of the black population outside those "states" was to be stopped and reversed.

Verwoerd spent his ten years as Minister of Native Affairs developing, promoting and getting political support for his scheme, which is often described as "grand apartheid" to differentiate it from "petty apartheid", that is, the daily "Jim Crow" kind of segregation and discrimination. Verwoerd's ultimate goal was total racial separation, that is, eventually all of the black population would reside in those future homelands or states. As however by this time only some ~40% lived in those areas, and economic factors, such as the increasing industrialisation of the country, were rapidly decreasing that percentage, Verwoerd devised incentives to encourage, or force if necessary, industries to move to areas bordering those "homelands", so that the migration would be diminished and eventually reversed. He predicted confidently - on which basis is not known - that the migration would revert, from the cities to the homelands, in 1978. That kind of confident vision of the future, of a political goal, within the context of what he saw as a consistent set of policies, confirms the Beta values of T and L.

Verwoerd's development of this, what he saw as an internally consistent system, allowed him to defend it tirelessly in lengthy, repetitive speeches where he always came back to the basic argument that that was the only way to go and that there was no alternative if the Afrikaner nation was to survive. The two prime ministers he worked for - Malan and later Hans Strijdom - were not so concerned with internally consistent policies, Strijdom saying bluntly that he was only interested in basskap and not in economic development of homelands. But after Strijdom's death from cancer in 1958, Hendrik Verwoerd was elected the new leader of the NP and therefore the new Prime Minister of South Africa.

As prime minister, Verwoerd could now devote his energies to his decades-long goal: he held a referendum on the status of South Africa, with a small majority of the (white) electorate choosing the option of South Africa ceasing to be a Dominion, with the Queen as nominal head of state, and becoming the Republic of South Africa. Having achieved this, Verwoerd made conciliatory gestures towards the not-so-happy English-speaking population: they had ceased to be his main "adversary", he was now much more concerned with the political issue of the black population and the development of his grand apartheid homelands scheme. His concept of the black population as being theoretically "foreign guest workers" led to the introduction of personal passes that had to be carried by them at all times. This led to political protests, including the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960, where 69 people were shot by the police. Some black political activists like Nelson Mandela - who in the Smuts years had sensed that things would gradually get better - lost all hope and went underground, eventually being arrested or fleeing into exile. South Africa's economy boomed during the Verwoerd years, making him politically supreme and neutralising all opposition, until he was stabbed to death by a deranged messenger during a session in Parliament in 1966 (even though the obvious assumption would be that his murder was political, no one has ever questioned that the man was insane; he died in prison in 1999 when Thabo Mbeki was president).

Looking closely at Verwoerd as a person: by all accounts, he was an autocratic boss who took all major decisions himself, whether as newspaper editor, minister, or prime minister - members of his staff at Die Transvaler said that he ran the paper as a "benevolent despotism". That was made more palatable by him working very long hours himself. As was already made clear, he felt the need to be completely consistent in his arguments and policies so that he could tirelessly defend them. That need for complete consistency made him sometimes look absurd: as a republican, he decided in 1947 that his newspaper would give no coverage at all to King George VI's (EII) visit. That led to the ridiculous situation where the paper would report traffic jams caused by the royal visit but not their cause. This points to a huge focus on L as well as F, and weak E (as he did not realise this would make him look silly even among his own staff). Generally, Verwoerd's approach of having a very basic set of political beliefs and then ruthlessly using force to defend them to what he saw as their logical conclusion already points to a Beta with L and F as ego functions, that is LSI or SLE.

As a politician, Verwoerd could never really display a common touch when talking to individuals (unlike his predecessors Malan and Strijdom, who were more conventional politicians), always seeming like an aloof, intellectually arrogant university professor who gave long speeches based on the assumption that he was right and everyone else was wrong. At best, he could make a somewhat benign "grandfatherly" impression as in this video and show patient politeness when listening to complaints - except when the person was an open political adversary, such as Helen Suzman, the only MP fully opposed to apartheid, whom he would treat with contempt. This points again to weak E.

Verwoerd understood that the implementation of his grand apartheid policies implied the economic development of the homelands, even if by force. He was however not that concerned with, or was even dismissive of, the overall costs and effects on the economy of South Africa as a whole, remarking that even if that made the country poorer, that was a price they had to pay. The mining magnate Harry Oppenheimer observed, "when you have a man prepared to slow down his nation's welfare on account of political theories, then you are dealing with an impractical fanatic". Verwoerd's response would be that his way was the only way. This points to awareness of P but one that is overruled by L.

Finally, as a minor personal detail: although not obviously fitting the overall picture of Verwoerd as a ruthlessly ideological politician and former tenured professor of sociology, his favourite hobbies were carpentry and similar manual work, having designed and partly built himself his holiday home, which shows that S was what he liked to focus on when relaxing.

A Beta whose main focus is L with an obviously strong focus on F, who intentionally ignores P and who has low focus on E (especially for a politician); also a man with a very rigid, yet certain, one-track vision of the future of his country and of his personal mission, pointing to valued but not very strong T.  L1, F2, P7, T6 , E5 and S8 all fit Hendrik Verwoerd perfectly, pointing to LSI as his Socionics type.

To learn more about LSI, click here.

If you are confused by our use of Socionics shorthand, click here.

Sources:  Besides a general knowledge of South African history, the source was Henry Kenney's biography, Verwoerd: Architect of Apartheid