Everyone who knows me knows that I tend to be introverted if not something a bit more. I've always assumed that the other 96% of the population is differest. After all, most people in the USA behave differently than I do in a great many settings.
Just recently, however, I've begun to speculate that perhaps all these apparent differences are mostly just differences of scale. I've often noted how poorly I performed as a second-shift computer operator whereas others are very competent at similar jobs and make themselves indispensible. I've attributed this difference to a difference in our preferred time horizons. Specifically, I'm always thinking over the medium term -- what to me is medium term, something from 6 months to 3 years ahead. A good computer operator is more typically thinking from 15 minutes to 3 hours ahead (at least while they are working).
My representative to Congress wrote to me in response to my message about immigration reform. One point he made in his reply was, "First, we must secure our borders." A lot of people would agree that in terms of immigration that is quite properly placed first -- too many to all be introverts. So I conclude that extroverted people want to put up barriers.
Introverted people are always putting up barriers. From some of us at the extreme side of introversion, much of life is managing barriers to protect ourselves from threatening situations (and, especially, from extroverts). So we introverts know barriers. But what, I wondered, are extroverts doing with barriers?
The difference, I speculate, is a difference of scale. I tend to throw up a barrier about 18 inches from the center of my body; maybe as far out as a meter when I am very relaxed. The barrier my Congressman is talking about is roughly 1500 miles away from the center of my body.
To me, raising a wall on the Mexican border makes no sense at all. I have some good, rational reasons for thinking that, topics for some other essay. In actual reality I know that a part of my mind is simply classifying Texas as being just as far and just as foreign to me -- potentially, I suppose, just as dangerous to me -- as neighboring Mexico; 1500 miles or 1520 miles does not seem significantly different to someone who normally sets a barrier at less than 2 feet.
There's research going on about the nature of altruism which finds the in-group and out-group distinction to be significant to changes in people's behavior. That makes sense. (Isn't that the definition of the in-group? The subset of people toward whom one behaves differently?) My speculation here is that for a more altruistic person the in-group is understood as being larger; the very spiritual Christian finds a unity with all humanity in Christ, indeed with all of creation. One can find similar perspectives in Buddhism and elsewhere. Few people ever live out such ideals in their lives, but many more see such breadth of community as being the ideal.
In other words, might altruistic behavior also be founded in a broadening of scale?
I speculate. My speculation runs rather broadly. I'm uncertain how one would be able to confirm even a narrow hypothesis concerning only introversion, or only immigration policy, or only altruism. My speculation, however, is that they all are founded on the scales of time, geography, and humanity which individuals encompass in their customary thinking.
As with computer operations, in actual reality might there be a need for people who think most easily at different scales?