T.E. Lawrence

Opening note: I am going to type "T.E. Lawrence" from David Lean's timeless masterpiece "Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)", using Classic Jung typology. This analysis is based on Chapter X of Carl Jung's Psychological Types. As per my analysis, he comes closest to description of an INFP personality type (leading with Fi-Ne). People often stereotype INFPs as cry babies or sensitive souls, and enquiry without consideration of visible orientation leads to huge mistypes as in case of T.E. Lawrence. Fi (dominant function): Introverted feeling (Fi) is a function that orients around the subjective values, while dominant function is the most trusted and consciously distinguished function. This is very evident in case of Lawrence who leads with Fi. His orientation remains around values and affinity, while being centered around how he subjectively views them. And there are various examples in the movie regarding it. For example, when Gasim is lost in desert while Lawrence and Army were moving towards Aqaba, despite group insisting their allegiance to religious belief of destiny, Lawrence goes back leaving everyone behind to save Gasim because he considered it correct. Another example would be of him being protective of Daud and his friend who were considered outcast by other Arabs. Then throughout his journey while fighting and leading Arabic army on behalf of Prince Feisal, it becomes his personal mission to bring freedom to Arabic people, because he judges it to be morally correct than logically efficient option. And by the end, he refuses to be involved in whole resistance movement because he sees more value in jobs he calls "normal"/"regular". Ne (auxiliary function): Extroverted intuition (Ne) is a function that orients around the objective unconscious images, while auxiliary function is slightly less differentiated function than dominant one which instead of replacing dominant function, supports it. That matches to Lawrence's personality profile too. His values were refined and aided by the objective patterns he perceived throughout the journey. For example, it has been shown multiple times how he complains about the Arabic mindset where instead of standing united, Arabs keep fighting among themselves for their groups, while Turks stay strong and untouched. Starting from Sharif to Auda, he saw something in common. How collective values and beliefs others hold create a big picture of Arab which is divided within itself. Some of the values he noticed are notably the heated hate among Hariths and Howitaths, Prince Feisal being very heavily influenced by Islamic scriptures, and then ultimately perceiving the latent pattern it created altogether - a divided Arabia without central leadership or unity. Knowing all this, his sense of values, or his subjective values strengthens further to provide him a motive to fight for - which was uniting Arab and bringing freedom to its people from the Ottoman rule. Si (tertiary function): Introverted sensing (Si) is a function that orients around subjective sensation, while tertiary function is a less distinguished function than auxiliary which might appear in bursts without interfering in general conscious flow of dominant or auxiliary function. That's why it appears more subtly in Lawrence than being very obvious. Initially while he gets orders to assess Prince Feisal while being simultaneously being warned about the lethal heat of Arabian desert while moving from Cairo, he dismisses the concern. Introverted sensation is concerned with internal bodily sensations that objects produce. In this case, he rejects it initially while being excited with the adventure desert might bring. But later in the movie after the mental toll from the war, post-traumatic stress disorder, and injuries, he starts descending from being adventurous to being comfortable from a "normal" job than serving longer in the army as an officer. This shows an inconsistent but somewhat distinguished preference for considering subjective sensations. Te (inferior function): Extroverted thinking (Te) is a function that orients around objective logic, while inferior function is least differentiated function which is repressed (subconsciously suppressed) and remains polluted from the unconscious elements of mind. Now here one thing to easily misunderstand is that Lawrence might be a strong Te user for being an excellent strategist and quick thinker. Jung warned multiple times about confusing abilities with orientation. We can draw difference between where Lawrence uses Te as an ability and where it shows up as a suppressed orientation. Example of Te usage as an ability would be his great sense of organizing external world, specially when it comes to planning military assaults and required equipment. But there is a twist when we see it in a Jungian lens. Being an inferior function, Lawrence doesn't conform to objective logic and its inferred truths. He becomes so much obsessed with his ideals and mission of bringing freedom to Arab (Fi), he dismisses the practical aspects of the whole campaign. For example, if considering the previous example of when Gasim was lost, Sherif Ali pointed out logistical cost of running a thirsty camel back several miles while most efficient option might to drive forward, while Lawrence still pursues to find and save Gasim, successfully doing so too. Counter-arguments against ISFP (Fi-Se): ISFP is very easy to confuse Lawrence with as both INFP and ISFP share the same dominant Fi. But ISFP has auxiliary Se, which being an objective sensation function it aids the dominant Fi. And then we have to assume Lawrence's influence for his subjective values being drawn from actuality of sensory objects than the objective pattern or image (Ne). Lawrence wasn't influenced by objective sensory aspects of his experience, but by what possibility emerged out of it, the big picture whole resistance drew. Lawrence instead remains very less affected by any sensory concern until it becomes too much by the end of the movie. Counter-arguments against INFJ (Ni-Fe): It is the most common mistype for Lawrence. And usual reasons people provide for it is that he moves very strongly towards a vision of free Arab. But having a vision itself isn't Ni, because vision is basically a goal. And Lawrence's goal throughout was to bring freedom to Arab, but because he considered them righteous from his personal moral believes. Just having a long-term goal doesn't mean Ni. Because then questions rise like what is considered long-term? A day? A month? A year? Or whole life? Ni is concerned with the subjective images an object draws to psyche, often symbolic in nature. There were no hint for such an orientation of Lawrence, dismissing INFJ and INTJ as a type. Counter-arguments against ENFJ (Fe-Ni): This is again another common typing for T.E. Lawrence. Reason given are his ability to manipulate emotional atmosphere, like manipulating Auda to fight for Ottoman treasure masked as "prestige" to protect his ego. Or even Prince Feisal himself by injecting the Quran verses Lawrence remembered to impress him. But dominant function is about orientation, not instrumental use of a function. Throughout as explained before, Lawrence orientation remains around subjective values, not around objective values which he often went against. And when emotional atmosphere is attempted to be conquered, its for strategic reasons than mere orientation.