AS THE EXCESSES OF THE ATTENTION-SEEKERS IN TELEVISIONS' BIG BROTHER HOUSE LEAD TO THE POLICE BEING CALLED, Andrew Billen CALLS FOR AN END TO EXHIBITIONISM AND A RETURN TO THE TRADITIONAL BRITISH VIRTUE OF KEEPING ONESELF TO ONESELF ....

Andrew Billen wrote a cover story about introverts and extroverts for the magazine portion of the June 21 issue of the London Times. I wasn't able to get an online reprint so I have excerpted some of his interesting comments. The article was sent to me by Paul in the UK who visits the IntrovertZCoach site.

POLICE CALLED TO BIG BROTHER BECAUSE OF EXTROVERTS
The article references a reality tv show in England called Big Brother where 12 people are chosen to live together in a house. Things have been getting out of control due to having 12 extreme extroverts chosen for the latest segment. See Police Called in to Big Brother, BBC, June 17, 2004. According to the BBC, "The tension in the house has seen ratings soar, with ... [this latest] show attracting 6.3 million, not far off the 6.7 million who tuned in to see the launch night of the fifth series two weeks ago."

The Wind in the Willows NO MORE
Says Andrews Billen for The Times, "With all vestiges of sociological experiment abandoned this year Channel 4 has not bothered to mix and match personalities. Instead, 12 very loud know-nothings are being cooped up and prodded with stunning rods to keep their egos inflamed. A nation that once admired the virtues of wisdom, urbanity and humility, as represented in Kennth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows by, respectively, Badger, Ratty and Mole, has become entranced by a contest to find the greatest Toad of all."

 
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FINDING PERHAPS THE GREATEST TOAD OF ALL
Billen continues, "Like the owner of Toad Hall, Big Brother's tenants are extroverts. Indeed, as the weeks have passed, their displays have become border-line pathological. The F-word is now the only intensifier in town. The girls use leftover cake icing to frost their exposed areolae. Racism and homophobia as well as libidos earn their hour in the sun."

This sounds like extrovert territory, doesn't it?

 

INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT?
by Dorothy Rowe, author of The Successful Self

1. You are asked to explain why you did something. If you always have an answer -- sensible or not -- you are an introvert. If your response tends to be, "I don't know, I just do things", you are an extrovert. Faced with a problem, introverts tend to think for some time before acting. Extroverts prefer to get started.
2. Your day is planned; something happens to disrupt it. If your reaction is one of anxiety and confusion, you are an introvert. If your first thought is, "How delightful and stimulating", you are an extrovert.
3. Extroverts want everybody to like and approve of them. Introverts want to win approval from a small group of people whose opinions they value.
4. Extroverts want to achieve in order to be liked. Introverts feel that achievement is important for its own sake.
5. Which of the following matters to you more? Your relationship with other people or a sense of personal development, control and organization? The former makes you an extrovert, the latter an introvert.
6. Introverts fear chaos because they feel that they will shatter into pieces, while extroverts fear being abandoned and rejected because they feel that they will disappear, They will look in the mirror and see no one there.

 

Billen cites "the nation's No. 1 introvert and national treasure, [comedian] Alan Bennett as he explains how today's role models are different.

 
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ALAN BENNETT
THE UK'S NATIONAL TREASURE, AN INTROVERT

 

KIDS MUST STAR IN THEIR OWN SITCOMS
"As our role models perform, so must we, even down to the youngest. In the American classroom, shyness, once seen as a synonym for good behaviour and an indicator of intelligence, has been pathologised into social anxiety disorder, an affliction to be treated pharmaceutically. In Britain a schoolscape in which talent competitions modelled on Pop Idol have replaced sports days, each must not only have prizes but emerge, in their heads at least, the stars of their own sitcoms."

He continues, "Introversion, the tendency to direct onr's attention and effort inwards, and extoversion, the reverse, were first defined by Carl Jung, who as an introvert himself tended to favour the former as the more mature of the two personality types. Reliable polling in both the US and UK suggests that the population breaks down roughly 50/50 between the two: extroverts, by the more noise they make, simply seem more populous.

"INTROVERSION IS NOT A CHOICE. IT IS HOW YOU ARE."
"In fact it is probably even harder for the American introvert," Billen explains. He cites an article by Jonathan Rauch that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly last year called Caring for Your Introvert. "Introverts have an active cerebral cortex that cannot cope with overload." he explains. "Going into a noisy pub can be physically painful. Extroverts, on the other hand, have a sluggish cortex and need external stimulation to ratchet it up to an optimum level. It may all come down to how your individual dopamine receptors work. Introversion is not a choice; it is how you are."

DOROTHY ROWE, AUTHOR OF The Successful Self
"... there may be ways for introverts to cope in an increasingly extrovert world," explains Billen. "Dorothy Rowe, the psychologist who for her book The Successful Self spoke to successful representatives of both personality types speaks on the matter with some authority, for she is an introvert who in her twenties learned extrovert conversational tactics from a friend."

 
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BECOMING WISE
Dillen quotes Rowe as saying, 'What I always advocate is that you can become a wise introvert or a wise extrovert. A wise extrovert comes to realize that they do not need to have absolutely everybody in the world liking them, that they can manage as long as the significant people in their world do. What we introverts have to learn is that you cannot get the entire universe under your control. You have to accept that life is a matter of continuous change, go with the flow and make do with the tiny bit of the universe you can organize. And when people accept that wisdom, their behavior changes. Introverts cease to be so obsessional, organizing and needing to achieve something every minute, and extroverts find it easier to spend time on their own."

Billen continues, "And even in popularity contests, extroversion may not be the only way to win. At the end of his National Theatre adaptation of The Wind in the Willows Alan Bennett has Toad admonish Rat for not explaining the benefits of "not showing off, being humble and shy and nice."

Toad says, '... what you didn't say was that this way I get more attention than ever. Everybody loves me! It's wonderful!"

"As the nation's No. 1 introvert and national treasure," concludes Billen, "Alan Bennett should know."

see companion article by Jane Shilling - in the works

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