Let's Hear it for the Extrovert!

If you've ever seen The History Boys, then you might have got the impression that at universities like Cambridge what is considered to be 'intellectual' is that which is controversial. Lots of people (including people at Cambridge) think that what we're aiming for is a veritable smorgasbord and pure mania of 'challenging and original' thought, such that a convincingly argued 'Hitler was really a goodie' essay ought to pass for 'cleverness'. There is some truth in this viewpoint,  something which is by the comedian Stewart Lee in a recent interview (which you can read here: https://www.varsity.co.uk/culture/13360). Lee suggests that the one-upmanship culture of debate at places like the Cambridge Union (and it is predominantly if not exclusively *men* who most enjoy this one-up*man*ship style) has contributed to the diminution of politics into an 'intellectual game' whereby 'the combative sport of debate' becomes more important than 'the ethics or the morality' of the issues at hand. Hence the huge risks that recent political figures have taken with the country's future in the hope of easy political gains (Cameron's referendum, May's snap election etc.).

I dislike this obsession with the controversial in academia, because it seems to me that it leads people down the road of fixating on what is maybe a bit canny or a bit playful at the expense of that which is actually correct (Hitler, for the record, was not a goodie). When it comes to history I've always felt that it's more important to be right than it is to be clever; that truly 'clever' writing comes out of careful and extensive reading and thinking about the past, not just 'canny' or playful argumentation; and that, with all due deference to the poststructuralist, 'right' is relative, no truth, no history, yadayadayada school, I am a bastard positivist, and being right is much more fun that being clever, so sue me. 

Seriously, fuck postmodernism. 

But I'm not writing about history today, and since I am writing on a much more speculative and subjective subject than is the past I'll put aside these apprehensions about the controversial to put forward a view which is maybe slightly unfashionable at the moment: namely, 'Let's hear it for the extroverts!' 

Now two caveats before I begin my impassioned defence. The first is that I am pretty downright skeptical of how useful it is to divide people into 'extroverts' and 'introverts'. One popular definition of the two - and the one I'm going to employ here - is that extroverts replenish their energy by being around other people, while introverts replenish their energy by being on their own for a bit. I would wager that the vast majority of people find that they need to do different things at different times to replenish their energy - that sometimes being around people invigorates and that sometimes it's helpful to spend time alone. Many people probably only feel particular ways in particular situations because they have consciously decided to apply the rather crude 'I am an introvert OR an extrovert and there's no in-between' perspective to their own life, erecting a restrictive frame through which they have then narrowly interpreted their subsequent experience. Nice though this caveat is, however, this blog post kind of depends on me treating the dichotomy as at least vaguely relevant, so sorry complexity, it's time for you to go. 

The second caveat is that there are, in fact, lots of reasons why we shouldn't be saying 'Let's hear it for the extrovert!' Part of the point of extroverts is that we ought already to be able to hear them, and this has not always been a good thing. The position of the extrovert as the ideal social type has been unfortunate for generations of shy and introspective men and women who have been forced to be something that they were not by cultures which over-valorized external performance and outward confidence. Historically, 'extroversion' has had a major and deplorable role to play in the structuring of power relations, in that socially marginal groups have often been locked out of it as a function of their oppression; charismatic African-Americans in the age of segregation in America, assertive women both in the past and now (one imagines that male extroverts are more responsible for the culture of 'men interrupting women and speaking more than them in group settings like seminars' than are introverts, though I don't know for sure), and so on. On a third and different level, extroversion as traditionally understood is associated at the extreme with self-obsession and vain performativity; and as the election of Trump or the charisma of Farage has reminded us, charisma can be terrible dangerous.

Bloody extroverts. 

But I wonder whether we are going too far the other way. I searched 'Let's hear it for the extroverts' in google this morning and, unsurprisingly, was met with a bunch of articles with titles along the lines of 'Let's hear it for the quiet'. As online articles go, it is introversion rather than extroversion which receives the most explicit defence. I know this because I consumed this stuff voraciously when I was a teenager, certain in the view that I was in fact an introvert: reserved, inward, and shy around (maybe even a bit afraid of!) other people. But it gradually dawned on me that this just wasn't me. I loved being around other people, but at a laddy all-boy's school I didn't find much opportunity to be around the right sort of people for me; and I wasn't so much an introvert as I was simply lonely. 

I think it's a good thing that extroversion has been displaced from its position as the social idea. But I equally think it would be good if we could separate 'extroversion' a bit more from the negatives with which it is almost invariably associated, like brashness, rudeness and vanity; to construct a 'positive extroversion' which combines a love of social performance with a sense of respect for other people. For starters we should recognize that the fact that someone is an extrovert need not tell us much about the rest of their personality: they might be brash and loud, but they might also be sensitive and caring. Clearly too, there are many different types of extrovert; I consider myself an extrovert, but I hate massive parties and raves, partly because I think they're not really that great for the kind of social interaction that for me is meaningful and not superficial.* Every extrovert and loud person ought to combine their more instinctively social predilection with a respect for those who are more introspective (which sometimes means making room for quieter people to speak); but extroverts should also be proud of their capacity to connect with other people. Incidentally, the introvert who finds too much social interaction to be draining is often remarked upon; but it is just as important to see the lonely extroverts (like my younger teenage self!) who crave human interaction without necessarily being able to get it so easily.*

Alright, I might like SOME parties. 

Anyway, those are just my brief thoughts. As the Cambridge exam system puts it: Discuss.

RJLF

*Although I'm sure it's far more than that for many, many people. That's just my perspective on it.
* I would add to this something which it actually took me a long time to realize, which is that quieter people aren't necessarily nicer! (a la 'shy tories', perhaps?)