Chiang Kai-shek (LSI): Personality Type Analysis

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), also known as Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese revolutionary, general, and President of the Republic of China from 1927 until his defeat at the hands of Mao Zedong (EIE) in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, after which he and his government fled to the island of Taiwan, which he ruled until his death in 1975. First taking part as a military leader in the Xinhai revolution against the Qing dynasty in 1911 led by Sun Yat-sen, Chiang rose through the ranks of the nationalist party, called the Kuomintang, and eventually became commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army. In this leading role, Chiang led the Northern Expedition to reclaim the vast majority of China which was controlled by warlords, and with his rule over China established, he presided over the Nanjing Decade, which was a period of unprecedented economic growth from 1927-1937. This was followed by the Japanese invasion of 1937, triggering the Second Sino-Japanese War, which had a very mixed legacy, with continued appeasement of Japan, brutal human rights abuses, rampant corruption within the military and bureaucracy, as well as many poor military decisions. In Taiwan, Chiang ruled as military dictator through martial law and oversaw both rapid economic growth and continued human rights abuses. To his supporters, Chiang was a visionary leader and staunch patriot who did what was necessary to defend China from its external and internal enemies. To his (more numerous) detractors, he was an incompetent and corrupt dictator over a kleptocratic regime who bungled his way through several wars and lost the mainland to the communists, despite having had a decisive advantage.

Central to Chiang’s personal and public life was a need to meet his very high standards. In his personal life, Chiang was primarily influenced by his neo-Confucian values and education, with a strong focus on discipline, duty, and self-improvement (which primarily took the form of self-criticism). In pursuit of these ideals, Chiang was an extreme perfectionist, or at least attempted to be one. Though often failing to live up to his ideals, Chiang would engage in endless self-criticism in his diary, constantly trying to align with his image of perfection and his values. These were practices that Chiang began at an early age and would continue for the rest of his life.

Politically, Chiang was staunchly ideological and legalistic. First and foremost in his political philosophy were always a set of core principles to be followed. While Chiang’s vision was mostly inspired by another revolutionary, Sun Yat-sen (a topic which I will cover later), Chiang’s pursuit of this vision always followed a set of core principles, specifically nationalism, rights of the people (often translated as democracy), and people’s livelihoods (sometimes translated as ‘socialism’). While these principles were initially outlined by Sun Yat-Sen, they remained vague enough to placate everyone who needed to be placated (including right-wing nationalists and left-wing communists) until Chiang devoted himself to his clearer interpretation of these principles, which would be augmented by Chiang’s personal neo-Confucian and later Christian views, principles which Chiang would attempt to instill in China and Taiwan for the rest of his life. So important were these principles that when Chiang Kai-shek was in charge of the Whampoa Military Academy where the officers that would take part in the Northern Expedition studied, military tactics made up only one quarter of all lessons, while political instruction based primarily on the three principles of the people (and instilling a Bushido code) made up the other three quarters of the lessons. Beyond his ideological approach to politics and military instruction, Chiang was a very strict leader, valuing obedience and ideological purity above all else, for example, withholding supplies from military commanders in World War 2 whom he judged to be disloyal and harboring communist sympathies.

Chiang was extremely willing and able to forcefully implement his values. As a revolutionary, he was a very decisive and skilled commander. In his leadership of the Kuomintang, he was far more decisive than Sun Yat-sen, for example choosing to push forward with the Northern Expedition that Sun had been hesitating on starting. Unlike Sun, who relinquished power in 1911 to Yuan Shikai, Chiang never willingly relinquished power except for one resignation in 1927 in which he knew he would be asked to come back (and he was asked to come back a few months later). As President in both China and later Taiwan, he maintained a dictatorship where most power was centralized in his hands (though warlords who willingly submitted to his rule were allowed to maintain their territory with high degrees of autonomy) and dissent was strictly punished. Examples can be seen all throughout Chiang’s rule but notable examples include the 2/28 incident in Taiwan, the 1927 purge of communists from the Kuomintang, and his crackdown and intimidation of wealthy capitalists.

Chiang also excelled at political power-struggles. Understanding how to use his leverage to win, Chiang emerged successful from power struggles against Wang Jingwei in 1927, and against various generals and reformers in Taiwan, not to mention his ability to gain American support for relatively minor concessions throughout World War 2 and during diplomatic crises with the Communist mainland while in Taiwan.

Chiang’s constant focus on obedience to principles, his desire for principled perfection in his personal life and his adherence and enforcement of strict ideological principles in military and political matters were the core of his personality. While Sun Yat-sen was an inspirational revolutionary leader, he faced constant setbacks and failures. After overthrowing the Qing dynasty, Sun Yat-Sen was unable to prevent China from falling under Yuan Shikai’s dictatorship and later splintering among warlords. It was Chiang who brought the strict legalism, enforcement, and decisiveness to the Kuomintang necessary to, at least on paper, reunify China and see through the revolution to the end. This clearly suggests strong and valued L+F, with L taking precedence and F used in a supporting role, best fitting L1 and F2.

Though Chiang Kai-Shek was certainly decisive in his leadership, he also had the ability to be patient, wait for better opportunities and take time to set up a more favorable scenario. Examples of this can be seen in his decisions to appease Japan during their pre-1937 attempts at expansion into China, such as not fighting against their invasion of Manchuria. In Taiwan, Chiang’s goal was to create a model society that would show what China could be capable of and thus raise support for a Kuomintang counter-attack against the Communist mainland or in some other way result in the mainland becoming more aligned with (or under the control of) the Kuomintang. This would seem to suggest some capability in Chiang’s use of T, however, it would be difficult to characterize his use of T as strong or an aspect given a lot of focus. Chiang Kai-shek would prove to be unreasonably stubborn in his long term plans, one example being his continued attempts to crush the Communist rebellion and appease Japan’s expansionist desires while doing so, a course he pursued throughout the 1930s against all internal opposition, which eventually led a patriotic warlord, Zhang Xueliang, to kidnap Chiang and force him to forge an alliance with the Communists. Chiang’s stubbornness and lack of foresight would come up again in failed strategies against Japan (such as the decision to stake his best German-trained divisions against Japan in the hopeless battle for Shanghai) and his decision to stake most of his army in a battle for Manchuria against the Communists. One bad decision is normal for everyone. A few bad decisions can be explained in other ways, however frequent poor decisions related to extreme stubbornness and lack of foresight show that despite a seemingly adequate capability in T, it was still clearly a weak spot.

Despite this weakness, along with his valuing of F, Chiang Kai-Shek can also be shown strongly valuing T. Chiang at all times sought to align his actions with a long-term plan for China’s (later Taiwan’s) political development. He agreed with Sun Yat-sen’s vision of a unified, democratic, modernized China that could defend itself with foreign imperialism and aligned with Sun’s plan for how this would be achieved. Specifically, this followed a three-step plan, starting with military unification, then “political tutelage”, which was a period of authoritarian rule during which citizens were supposed to be taught their rights and how to engage in politics, and ending with a transition to constitutional democratic governance. It should be noted that this process for long-term transition to an independent democratic China was laid out by Sun, not Chiang. Chiang simply followed the path Sun laid out, starting with the Northern Expedition (which Sun remained indecisive on and kept putting off until his death), then political tutelage during the Nanjing decade. It should also be noted that political tutelage, i.e. authoritarian rule, never ended on Taiwan until after Chiang’s death. A charitable interpretation of this would be that Chiang lacked confidence in how events would play out if he made the final transition to democratic government, believing that he alone knew what was best and that others could not rule the country as well as he could, and a lack of confidence in his ability to indirectly influence events, indicating a greater confidence in L, F, and to a certain extent P than in T. A less charitable interpretation would be that Chiang simply desired to remain in power despite his stated views, in which the point that he lacked confidence in indirect influence remains true, indicating he was still more confident in F than T. However charitably you choose to interpret this, the conclusion is still the same: Chiang was more confident in L and F than he was in T. Chiang Kai-shek’s inconsistent ability to plan ahead, his inheriting a long-term vision from someone else much more confident in T, and greater confidence in F over T put together makes T6 very obvious. The unreasonable stubbornness and resistance to the advice of others to pursue alternate paths is characteristic of I4.

Linked with Chiang Kai-shek’s long-term vision was something of a messiah complex. Chiang was himself very emotionally invested in his T based ideals, believing his destiny to be synonymous with China’s destiny, as was seen in his diary. Chiang was quite private about these feelings, only writing about them in his diary, but nonetheless it was still present and formed a large part of his psychology. It is clear that Chiang valued E with T, however E was still a clear weakness of his. Chiang had an exceedingly unappealing personality. Words consistently used to describe him include "harsh", "cantankerous", "abrasive", "aloof", and worse. Beyond being thoroughly unlikeable personally, Chiang was also out of touch with the views of ordinary citizens, most notably with his allowance of widespread corruption within the military and the Kuomintang, and while the Kuomintang and army did function well enough to get by despite the rampant corruption, Chiang was utterly oblivious to how this corruption negatively affected his image in both the United States (whose support he desperately needed in the civil war against Mao) and his image among average Chinese citizens, most of whom were peasants. Mao, on the other hand, had a very strong understanding of image-management and a very appealing personality, and it was due to these skills of his that many Chinese peasants flocked to his banner and Kuomintang soldiers defected en masse to join the Communists. It is clear that Chiang valued E yet was oblivious to how to manage aspects related to E, making E5 most fitting.

Despite his unlikeable personality, Chiang Kai-shek was still capable of maintaining decent personal relations with others, though not consistently or with any apparent nuance. For example, he faced serious personal difficulties with the American overseer of the Chinese war effort, General Joseph Stilwell, whose arrogance, condescension, and ambition caused him to frequently clash with Chiang. For his part, Stilwell was offended by Chiang’s arrogance, stubbornness, and strictness. Nonetheless Chiang could make personal concessions and overtures to placate Stilwell’s ambition. Chiang was also able to get along with other leaders on a personal basis, such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt (SEE), or Mahatma Gandhi (IEI) whom Chiang met with personally to convince him to avoid sabotaging the British war effort, not to mention his ability to inspire personal loyalty in some of his warlord allies such that even when his ally Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang in 1936 to force him to form a united front against Japan with the Communist rebels, Zhang had no plans to harm Chiang and in fact pledged his loyalty to Chiang while imprisoning him. Still, back in Nanjing, Chiang took the opportunity while Zhang was with him to arrest him, and Zhang would remain under house arrest until Chiang’s death in 1975.

However, Chiang Kai-shek still faced difficulties with regard to personal relationships, with his relationship with Stilwell repairing then breaking down consistently. While sometimes making exceptions for close relationships, he could at other times be very ruthless, for example, in a rather notable example of Chiang’s rare vindictiveness, just before fleeing to Taiwan as the Communists were winning the mainland, Chiang went back to the wartime capital Chongqing and suddenly executed several military officers who were imprisoned in 1936 for their role in the aforementioned kidnapping (though Zhang Xueliang himself was transported to Taiwan where he remained under house arrest). What this all shows is a serviceable capability in R, but with no real value or nuance. As seen in his ability to appeal to others on an interpersonal level (though not emotionally), his handling of those military officers, his relationship with Zhang Xueliang, and in his indecisiveness regarding his relationship with Stilwell, Chiang Kai-shek was someone with enough understanding of the importance of personal loyalty and other R related aspects, with a good ability to inspire personal loyalty in others. However, this was without confidence or skill and always subservient to his ideological values, that is, subservient to L, with only rare moments of personal vindictiveness. These are traits most consistent with R3.

Chiang Kai-shek’s management of China is notable for its success in spite of the numerous problems facing the country at the time. Between the unification of China following the Northern Expedition in 1928 and Japan’s invasion of China in 1937, under Chiang’s leadership, China went through the Nanjing decade, named after the capital city Nanjing. The Nanjing decade, while marred by its human rights abuses and authoritarianism, was nonetheless a period of unprecedented economic growth. Despite the Communist rebellion at the time, excessive corruption (which Chiang allowed as it did not cause too much inefficiency to deal with, and Chiang believed he had more pressing concerns) and frequent clashes with (and concessions to) Japan, China remained stable and successful. After fleeing to Taiwan, Chiang's goal was to position Taiwan as a model alternative to the Communist mainland, primarily through economic success, which he managed extremely skilfully. Taiwan’s economic success exceeded the success of the Nanjing decade, due to the combination of Chiang’s skilful management and generous economic aid from the United States. The Nanjing decade ended with Japan’s invasion, but even after the war against Japan devolved into a stalemate across a massive frontline and despite Japan’s blockade (and capture) of Chinese ports, Chiang still maintained China’s domestic economy well, with inflation kept to a minimum and daily life continuing as usual for those living far away from the front. Rampant inflation would not take hold over China until after the Communist victory in the battle for Manchuria in 1948.

Chiang Kai-shek however, was always motivated by something other than proper management and economic success. Chiang’s motivations were always ideological, and Chiang would willingly neglect pragmatic management if they interfered with these. For example, during battles against Japan late in the war Chiang, withheld important supplies from generals he believed to be disloyal or have Communist sympathies. Another example would be how Chiang focused far more on ideological education than military tactics in the Whampoa military academy. Yet another example was in Chiang allowing officials loyal to him to engage in massive corruption, only cracking down on corruption after setting himself up in Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek clearly had a very strong use of P, but still not valued above his ideological views, and when faced with a choice between P and L, Chiang always chose L, a dismissive attitude consistent with P7.

And lastly, in Chiang Kai-shek’s private life, he led a very calm and regimented existence. He woke up early, went to bed early, ate well, and took good care of himself, suffering few health issues until he was in his 70s. This stands in stark contrast to Chiang’s wife, Soong Mayling (EIE), who suffered frequent health issues (including mental health and physical health) and often sought treatment in American hospitals for her ailments. Chiang put great emphasis on taking care of himself physically, though primarily for the purposes of keeping himself capable of taking on the political and military challenges he faced. His pleasant lifestyle and healthy habits were not for the sake of his own enjoyment. Beyond this, Chiang Kai-shek was also frequently focused on minute details as a military leader, known for his frequent micromanagement. We can clearly see from this that Chiang Kai-Shek focused extensively on S but didn’t see it as having inherent value, which is very consistent with S8.

With L1, F2, R3, I4, E5, T6, P7, and S8, Chiang Kai-shek is a clear example of an LSI.

To learn more about LSI, click here.

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

Sources

My primary source is Jay Taylor’s biography The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China.

Ken Combs - Diagnostic Report (LSI)

After a diagnostic interview, an analysis of Ken’s answers suggests the 8 IM Elements may best be assigned to the functions of Model A in the following order, making his best fit type the ‘Logical Sensory Integrator’ or ‘LSI’.

Leading Function - Laws (L1)

One of the most dominant themes to come out when interviewing Ken was his pursuit of logical clarity, even over the meanings of particular words used during the interview process, finding ‘value’ to be “kind of a difficult word”. Similarly, on multiple occasions, Ken would be dissatisfied with an answer he had given, saying that he felt it was “too vague” and needed a better way of being described. In this way, we can see that Ken feels it is important that information, both when acquired by him and when presented to others, should be clearly defined and explained, reducing any ambiguity in the scope of their interpretation, while allowing himself and the interlocutor to understand the matter with definitional precision. To do this, he attempts to break down and lay out the information presented to him in a way that is “consistent”, formulating it into “some kind of structure” with reasons to support their placement. Furthermore, it seems that Ken has “confidence and assurance” in a role where he could spend the day presenting his structured understanding to other people in a way that provides them some benefit. This all suggests that rigorous sense-making is a process in which Ken is confident, readily takes ownership of with others and feels to be a necessity, regularly and continuously trying to bring clarity to his understanding of the phenomena around him. This would best fit the Leading function.

Creative Function - Force (F2)

In differentiating the meanings of different words and concepts, Ken looks for “some kind of concrete action or appearance” and feels that the sensory world brings him a “sense of gnosis”, i.e. personal knowledge. Working as a bartender’s assistant, Ken occasionally takes on the role of bouncer and, assuming that he has the authority to do so from more senior colleagues, Ken will be able to make “quick decisions” and act with volition, preventing drunk people from driving and being prepared to turf out the disorderly, if need be. In these ways, Ken shows a capability and an orientation towards concrete information and the use of Force, although in each case, it is subordinated to his understanding of Laws. He will not act forcefully in his role unless he has the backing from the co-workers he is “supposed to be representing when applying this force”, while his turning to concrete appearance is a means by which he can better differentiate between concepts in his head. Ken feels most confident when he is able to enter what he calls a “physical flow”, where what he has to do is “narrow[ed]” by an understanding that he is “doing the right thing”, allowing him to push through obstacles with a “forward tilt”. One desire of Ken’s is to narrow his path of action amidst a series of potentially deadly consequences, such as someday taking up motorcycling and doing backflips, where false moves are not an option. In practise for Ken, achieving this flow can mean pushing the limits of how much he is able to carry in his role as a bartender, taking the maximum number of glasses and risking letting them fall. From this, it is clear that Ken sees himself at his best when conducting purposeful action and places himself in situations where he is able to act more decisively. At the same time, his success in these areas is subordinate to his pursuit of complete clarity in any situation, and frequently becomes the medium through which his logical clarity is realised. This makes the application of Force capable and valued, but cautious and subordinate to Laws, and as such, is a prime candidate for the Creative function.

Role Function - Relations (R3)

Ken frequently struggled with terms when they were of a personal, ethical nature, such as “friends” and “values”, seeing these as needing careful definition. At least in terms of defining what a ‘friend’ is, Ken relied on a slightly stilted paradigm, where he is yet to find anyone who qualifies. Such a person would need to have a “vested interest” in his bodily and psychological health, who would “take a bullet” for him, while provoking a mutual need for action in him. Due to this high bar, Ken privately reserves the word ‘acquaintance’ for everyone else. Similarly, for values, which Ken defines as “something occurring psychologically”, he struggles to find a clear example of relying on them, much preferring to do that which he identifies more impersonally as a “moral standard”. What we see from this is that Ken’s use of Relations is rather weak and frequently curtailed by his stronger, more dominant pursuit of Laws. At the same time, he seems to recognise this area of focus with some degree of seriousness, rather than treating it as a complete blind spot. As such, it makes a good candidate for the Role function.

Vulnerable Function - Ideas (I4)

Ken participates in a limited number of hobbies, and any new ones he may consider taking on, such as motorbiking, have a clear sensory quality to them. Although spending a lot of time trying to be reflective and carefully reaching an understanding of phenomena around him, there was no sign of Ken seeking out new ways of thinking or unusual interests to explore. Furthermore, when asked questions that push for speculation, Ken came up short, saying for instance that in 10 years’ time he would like to be “hopefully not dead. I might end up somewhere, I might end up somewhere totally different.” What we see here is a weakness in Ideas. At the same time, from other answers we can see a deliberateness from Ken in reducing the scope of possibility, rather than increasing it, with Ken seeking clarity through the nullification of any ambiguity in his understanding of words, trying to root out any vagueness. Similarly, his way of achieving the desired ‘flow’ is to put himself in situations where there is no viable course of action other than the ‘right’ action. From these points of data, we can reasonably infer that Ken is not only very weak in Ideas, but actively works against it in his psyche, making it a good candidate for the Vulnerable function.

Suggestive Function - Emotions (E5)

It is notable that, throughout the interview, Ken spoke in a deadpan, almost monotonous voice, with content that, despite being clear to read and understand when written down, did not easily direct attention and guide interest when being spoken. It suggests that Ken lacks an innate ability to present or express himself in a way that is tailored for impact and grabs attention. At the same time, we see a desire in Ken to be part of a circle of people where there is some emotive interaction, enjoying activities like Dungeons and Dragons which carry a “communal element” and where people collaborate on stories that “play around with certain emotions”. It is clear though that Ken does not see himself as the driver of such community and does not like having to “herd or corral”, instead preferring to facilitate so that this can be achieved by others. At the same time, rather than putting himself in the centre of any community, Ken remains sort of a lone figure, “disappear[ing] for months on end and just com[ing] back”. The evidence of this suggests that Ken appreciates environments rich with emotional expression and enjoys communal belonging but is very weak at expressing Emotions himself. He has difficulty acting to maintain that belonging in the group for an extended period of time, preferring others to galvanise the collective towards an activity. The best function to describe such use of Emotions would be the Suggestive function.

Mobilising Function - Time (T6)

As well as the pursuit of logical clarity, a second key motivator for Ken seems to be the pursuit of greater reflection and the divination of the images and “ruminations” that flash from his subconscious, with Ken spending a lot of time paying attention to what is going on in his head and trying to “scribble” down what comes to him, with seemingly quite elaborate pictures being created. He likes to keep these drawings pinned on his wall. Some visions may seem more complex and even feel quite real, like Ken imagining he was having a conversation with Carl Jung about Sam Harris, only to realise that was impossible because the former died a few years before the latter was born. However, it does not seem that reflection is a point of confidence and success for Ken, but rather, a place where he is still learning to find his feet. It can sometimes feel like a “TV being flipped rapidly between stations… not always being clear where the daydreams are going” and his inability with Ideas makes him unable to navigate this “fractal” lack of “linear[ity]”. At other times, he may feel trapped in a “loop” of the past, thinking over and over what he may have done wrong without finding something new from this reflection. Additionally, reconsidering nostalgic counterfactuals of past events can be a source of great satisfaction. Ken’s reasoning for traversing this seemingly perilous, internal landscape of quagmires and disorientation, but also some reward, is the pursuit of something that “resonates with [him[ internally… being able to put it out there and communicate it and making something meaningful for someone else.” Without that sense of meaning, Ken feels that communicating to others will be little more than “making sounds” and “a voice crying in the wilderness”. We can see from this that Ken regularly takes risks with Time as a point of personal development, in a way that ultimately can serve satisfaction to his desire for greater expression of Emotions. This idea of a bold and valued, but weak, risky and ultimately developing function, that operates in service of his Suggestive function, would best fit the Mobilising function.

Ignoring Function - Pragmatism (P7)

Ken is largely focused on creating conceptual clarity and deriving meaning from his insights to better communicate the clarity of his understanding. As such, there is little in the way of motivation for something more practical or working on improving his skills in areas that would bring about some financial or useful merit. However, he does show some awareness of practical needs. For instance, he jokingly remarks that a good reason he shouldn’t start a church anytime soon is that he would need to first work out what the doctrine is. At the same time, although giving no sign of being motivated by efficiency of process, he does derive enjoyment from finding ‘flow’ in his actions when forcing himself to act in reckless physical circumstances, which does suggest a capable understanding of Pragmatism and how things work in setting up situations for this to happen. This understanding of Pragmatism, combined with it being used minimally in the service of more motivating functions, best suits the Ignoring function.

Demonstrative Function - Senses (S8)

Although mostly inexpressive, Ken’s demeanour also radiates the calm collectedness of someone with a stable energy level and confidence in their immediate physical surroundings. Although he likes to create situations of high-stakes intensity, Ken is quite comfortable in physical jobs that are “repetitive and logistical, allowing [him] to achieve something technically, with flow of physical energy”. Ken’s physical interests can be just as easy-going as intense, from a desire to go motorbiking to hiking, and he has a relaxed approach to those which are less dangerous, where he tends to “wing it” in terms of preparation, being happy to find a different activity should the weather be bad. In a way, the achievement of flow for Ken is the perfect synergy of both Force-oriented action, and a harmony and oneness with the physical moment, with Ken

“get[ting] to be an animal for a while, all the human concerns drop[ping] away”. With his deep, mental wanderings, Ken will also throw in physical language, noting the “conceptually aesthetic” nature of those insights he wants to “scribble” down. Furthermore, when Ken is most likely to grow irritated, it will be over experiences of physical or emotional “discomfort”, such as people getting in his space, yelling or disrupting his sleep. He describes a period of hypersensitivity in his sleep where “there are pins and needles in [his] skin, where the act of breathing seems offensive.” In such situations, Ken can choose to “suffer”, but may otherwise “fidget” with the air conditioner and change his blankets. What we see from all this is someone who has a very strong orientation towards Senses, where an awareness of the physical stimuli in his immediate surroundings holds a particular sway, but where there is nonetheless an absence of it being spoken of as a motivator for action, but instead more of a hygiene factor that he is sensitive to and has to sort out. Furthermore, in creating flow, Senses plays a key role in tandem with Force, balancing harmony with intensity. Such a powerful, ever-present, nuanced but ultimately unmotivating nature for Senses can best be described by the Demonstrative function.

If you would like a diagnostic interview, please email worldsocionics@hotmail.com.

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.

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 

Maxim Gorky (LSI): Personality Type Analysis

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, primarily known by the pseudonym 'Maxim Gorky', was a Russian and Soviet writer famous for his founding of the socialist realism literary method and political activism during the time of the Russian Empire. Maxim Gorky was known for his active participation in the Marxist social-democratic movement and his public opposition towards the Tsarist regime. His most famous literary works have strongly impacted Russian culture and have remarkably contributed very passionate insights within the field of short stories, poetry and memoirs that described the lives of people in the lowest strata and on the margins of society. He associated with fellow great writers of the time, like Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov and greatly admired their works and contributions the the literary community at the time.

In his pursuit of socialist realism, Maxim Gorky regularly emphasized the principles and rules that needed to be formed in order to implement the ideological vision of Soviet Russia. Maxim wrote about political machinations in accordance to fixed categories and explicitly favored specific perspectives over other political viewpoints in how the world should be structured. His work had a strong connection towards the correctness of ideological clarity and conceptualized a rule-based framework that had application in law, justice and social order. Maxim found that his observations about socialism were absolute truths and he confidently expressed his views with certainty and absolution that he put forward into the social community around him. Interestingly enough, he expressed his intellectual and political perspectives apathetically without much conviction and these concepts were very static and rigid, without pertaining to any sort of ambiguity. Additionally, Maxim was highly focused on the functionality of realistic systems, he knew exactly what information could be integrated into his ideology and what information held no relevance or meaning to that particular ideology. The following advocates solid evidence for an individual with strong and valued L1.

Maxim Gorky portrayed the bitterness of oppressed individuals through his writing and exploited the people of Russia. Reoccurring themes within his work demonstrated a proud defiance against the perceived "organized" and "respectable" society. Maxim deconstructed these illusions of dysfunctional government systems in order to elaborate on the rules and guidelines to build one anew that was in favor of the collective, instead of the aristocratic. Maxim Gorky fearlessly criticized and confronted the Tsarist regime and committed himself so strongly to his socialist ideologies that it eventually led him to be arrested many times along with forcing other revolutionaries to act just as proactive and restless as he was. Consequently, he was still very committed to his revolutionary ideologies and acted assertively towards pointing out the flaws in political systems and dismantling the arguments of the opposing party. Maxim's desire to impact and influence the world with highly complex ideological systems with sheer conviction supports the idea of Beta values with very disciplined and intimidating F2.

Maxim Gorky strongly favored environments of free expression where every individual is given a voice and a chance to express their deepest personal concerns. Despite his advocation of these communities - to which others responded quite positively to - Maxim was generally seen as very quiet and reserved in the public eye. Maxim's stern lifestyle was quite noticeable as he became very absorbed into his work and sometimes neglected the need to develop friendships and forming connections with others. However, he was much more internally passionate and connected much more deeply with the few individuals that shared the same ideologies and adopted the same set of principles. On the subject of Maxim's work, he often found strong elements of humanity and individual dignity in even the most brutalized and demoralized of individuals. His sympathy for the underdog made him known as a powerful spokesman for the illiterate masses, their current sufferings and dreams of a better life. Although his clear valuing of E is apparent, he lacked the natural and persuasiveness to motivate others, becoming more intensively focused on logical strictness. This social consciousness and motivation to unify people without the ability or the means to do so makes a solid case for E5.

In later years, Maxim lived in isolation on Capri island not only to separate himself from the public, but also set time aside to cultivate the meaningful "God-Building" concept that was designed to replace organized religion. This deeply internal philosophy sought to recapture the power of myth for the social-democratic revolution and to create a religious atheism that placed collective humanity where God was imbued with passion, wonderment, moral certainty. Along with Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky was very interested and passionate about the discovery of a higher sense of purpose and a singular vision of the world. It's very clear between the contrast between the two individuals that Leo Tolstoy wrote about the justice of independence and one's individual self-determination, while Maxim Gorky wrote about elaborating on principled worldviews and drawing conscious attention towards a long-term vision in how the world should be. He became a follower of these writers who sought to cultivate their passions into writing, even in absence of a political agenda or cause. In addition, he also had an irreversible belief that he knew exactly what was going to happen in his life and oriented himself towards the vision of what the future might look like. Maxim sternly carried out his actions through this outlook on by limiting himself to a singular path in life, while ignoring meaningless obligations with his family and venturing on his own in search of anagogical clarity through esoteric messages that reflected an idealistic society free of aristocratic rule. Maxim regularly emphasized on the concrete implementation of idealistic societies that favored the collective, yet was unable to adequately communicate the esoteric and involve himself into humanitarian studies suggests bold and weak T6.

Thus far what has been mentioned about Maxim Gorky clearly points towards L1, F2, E5, and T6. In conclusion, I believe Maxim Gorky is a classic representative of the LSI type of information metabolism.

To learn more about LSI, click here.

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

Otto I (LSI): Personality Type Analysis

Otto I, known colloquially through the epiphet Otto the Great, was originally the Duke of Saxony and King of Germany in 936 and considered by some historians to have been the 1st Holy Roman Emperor, reigning from 962 to 973. He is known well for sustaining the efforts of his father Henry the Fowler in unifying all German tribes into a single state under the monarchy. By doing this, he had greatly expanded on the powers of the king, leading him to take on large reforms, such as the transformation of the Roman Catholic Church and its clergy to be under monarchical control. Throughout his reign as King of Germany, he had dealt with Hungarian invasions in the Battle of Lechfeld in 955, successfully putting an end to these invasions and thus became highly respected by the Christian world as a result. After conquering the Kingdom of Italy in 961, the territories he owned flourished under the Ottonian dynasty as patrons to art and architecture. During this period, he was eventually crowned as Holy Roman Emperor by Pope John the XII, ruling for 11 years until his death on May 973.

To gain more insight on what Otto's socionics type is, it would be best to look at his life before his coronation as German King and Holy Roman Emperor. Of his four siblings, Otto I was considered the most courageous and fearless of his kin and was appointed as a military commander when he became an adult. His contemporaries compared his tremendous physical strength to that of a lion, learning all the art of war tactics very quickly in his youth. As military commander, his first military victory resulted after campaigning Slavic Invasions of the Germanic Kingdom in 929, resulting in the ensured protection of his father's kingdom and arranged marriage for Otto to improve relations with Anglo-Saxon England. Once Otto was married to Edith of England in 930, Otto continued his efforts of watching over the German army as a cautious administrator who understood how to keep his troops in line and the importance of adequately using his position as royal authority to his advantage. This already points to strong and valued F, likely as in the Ego Block.

Six years after Otto's marriage, his father Henry died on July 936 and he assumed the throne as the next in line on August 936. The new Duke of Bavaria, Eberhard quickly came into conflict with Otto, greatly opposing the sovereignty of the German king over Bavaria, Eberhard disregarded the peace treaty already in place and decided to rebel against the king. In two graceful and swift military campaigns in 938, Otto exiled Eberhard after his defeat, stripped him of his titles and ensured that his actions would be met with equal and necessary punishment. Even after this victory, Eberhard was already plotting another rebellion in his exile and gained the support of Otto's brother Henry to claim the throne for himself. After hearing about this, Otto exiled his own brother and began to ally with supporters like Hugh the Great to track down the rebellion. Unfortunately, the armed forces could not track down the leaders of the rebellion, despite the first few victories that Otto had against the rebels. Archbishop Frederick even intervened and wanted to mediate peace between belligerents, but Otto ignored this qualm for peace, allied with the Duchy of Swabia and Alsace to eliminate the rebellion entirely and kill Eberhard. After claiming yet another victory for Germany, he divided the Duchy of Franconia into smaller counties that were more manageable from an administrative perspective. What can be said about the evidence available, is that Otto the I was very much an omnicompetent ruler who had great political awareness in what they did in terms of war, maintaining their power, and administration. His focus between his reign in 941 and 951 was on restructuring the government and consolidating his power; increasing centralisation in the monarchy. This approach indicates stronger L blocked with F, rather than R, which would result in the L1+F2 rigidity of the rules he created and the flexibility of using force when L let him down.

Otto had dealt with previous issues right before restructuring governmental powers, for instance, Louis IV had asserted himself yet a second time to rule Lorraine independently in 940, which was based on his claim to be Duke of Lorraine due to his marriage to Gerberga of Saxony, Otto's sister. Otto thought this claim to be unworthy of his attention and instead appointed his brother Henry as Duke of Lorraine, not because he personally trusted him as family, but because he thought he was could perform the job of managing a Duchy better than Louis IV. Hugh was to perform an act of submission to Louis IV, and in return Louis IV was to waive any claims to Lorraine. This pattern of mediating conflicts that he thought would ruin the royal marriage and effort to repair relations with France. Burgundy, Bohemia and the Byzantine empire does show that Otto cared enough about R to use it for his own reasons, but didn't really care much for Henry or Gerberge as individuals and seldom got to know them personally outside of political relations. This points to weak and unvalued R, though not completely distended as R4, making R3 the most likely possibility.

However, during his rule as Holy Roman Emperor, Otto frequently encountered complications that threatened his position has emperor and dealt with these situations in a peculiar way. To clarify, Pope John XII eventually turned against Otto because of his increasing political power, so he arranged to have his ownership of the papacy revoked. Otto immediately realized this and quickly imposed the rule that no pope could be elected without the emperor's approval.  This proclamation opened an era of German domination of the papacy and resulted in Otto to remain as head of the Christian community for the rest of his reign.

To gain a better understanding surrounding his ability in R, it would be best to look at those who personally knew him. However, since accounts of such people are very limited, the The Catholic Encyclopedia described him fluently as:

"His contemporaries compared his tremendous physical strength to that of a lion. He was a Saxon through and through. In his youth he had learned all the arts of the profession of arms. Though subject to violent fits of temper, and conscious of his power and genius, he prayed devoutly as a child. A shrewd calculator, always convincing and always toiling, he correctly estimated the importance of diplomatic negotiations. He was a keen observer and possessed a fine knowledge of human nature which always enabled him to select the proper persons for important offices in the government." - Kampers, Franz. "Otto I, the Great."

From that, moving onto Otto's coronation as Holy Roman Emperor would further bring more insight as to what type Otto I would be. With Clarity-Seeking and World-Rejecting values, that already puts Otto the Great squarely in the Beta quadra. Later in life, the new Holy Roman Emperor of the Ottonian dynasty had put forth projects or a "limited renaissance" as it's often called in history.

Otto I's Imperial coronation had a massive effect on German culture and arts, in that it created a renewed faith in the Holy Roman Empire and reformed the Catholic church. This immediately resulted in a period of profound development in "Ottonian art" as they called it, or art by the court to confirm his Holy and Imperial lineage through associations with Constantine the Great (EIE) and Justinian I (EIE). Otto I relished in this atmosphere and felt great admiration towards the people who respected him in this way and allowed the arts to thrive in a way that best fit the vision of the future kingdom. The truth is that Otto I didn't participate in these arts, it was created for him to appreciate, which he did. From what the information available suggests, is that there wasn't much E at all coming from Otto himself, but he greatly appreciated the efforts of German artists to paint an image for him as this magnanimous emperor, which fits weak and valued E5. In addition, later in life, Otto became more interested in more artistic and architectural projects that gave him a chance to improve the aesthetic value of the Empire, with great emphasis on the organization of such projects and to take part in leisure only when his duties were fulfilled. This would be a unusual for a Beta type like the EIE or SLE with S as a vulnerable or ignoring function, Otto's approach to this would seem to fit a type with quite strong S, likely that of the LSI's S8 rather than the IEI's S3.

Otto's general focus is on the present moment, yet persistently carrying on with his own mission of continuing what his father started for the glory and future prosperity of the Holy Roman Empire does suggest T6. His T was considerably weaker compared to what he was like later in life, in his youth, his campaigns relied on more direct tactics rather than much forethought or strategic planning (Whether it was luck or his own shrewdness on the battlefield is left up to debate).

The overall evidence thus far points to LSI as the most likely type for Otto I, with arguments addressing L1, F2, R3, E5, T6 and S8. A magnanimous, yet paranoid emperor who stuck to his "vision" of how the empire should be, managed the state well and centralized power to the monarchy to carry out these projects.

To learn more about LSI, click here

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