On White Declatimity and More

This definition may already have become tiresome to some, but it is nevertheless quite precise, and therefore we will repeat it here once again: white declatimity is nothing other than so-called parochial altruism. That is, a person’s willingness to sacrifice their personal interests and resources for the survival of the community to which they belong - in its struggle against other, hostile communities.

Thus, from the perspective of Di, social space is structured as follows:

1. There are clear, permanent, and difficult-to-cross boundaries between groups - so that it is very difficult or practically impossible for an outsider, a representative of another group, to become “one of us” (the community will not accept them), while, conversely, it is very difficult for a representative of one’s own group to become an “outsider” (the community will not let them go);
2. The personal boundaries of individual people, by contrast, are completely blurred - to the point that individual consciousness makes no distinction between its own interests and the interests of other members of its tribe. Only under such conditions does altruism become possible - as the voluntary sacrifice by an individual of their resources, time, and sometimes even life for the survival and well-being of the social structure of the group as a whole.

As a result, Di essentially denies the existence of independent personalities in the surrounding world, and recognizes only the existence of closed and stable social groups that raise their members within a particular collective tradition.

The foundations of this tradition invariably become:

1. Xenophobia - instilling fear of the outside world and the outsiders living within it
2. Cultivating in the individual from childhood a sense of personal inadequacy without the support of the group’s authorities (elders, parents, chiefs, cult leaders, etc.).
3. Harsh initiation rites, strict rituals, initiation into certain group secrets, etc. - any forms of activity that unite those members of the community who have undergone them and continue to undergo them regularly.

Acting together, these factors prevent the very desire to leave the community, or even the desire to separate oneself in thought, suppressing critical thinking.

For an individual raised in a Di environment, fear of expulsion from the community is natural. However, this should not be understood as fear of being physically expelled and dying because of an inability to obtain food and defend oneself against predators alone, etc. In precisely this sense, Di, on the contrary, often displays considerable independence, since it is initially raised in the spirit that no one will help you in the outside world, and if you find yourself there as a scout on a mission, you will have to do everything yourself. Survivalists, hermit monks, and wandering holy fools - these are far more often possessors of strong rather than weak Di. No, what is meant is fear of losing the blessing of the elders, fear of being cursed and excommunicated from the church, etc. - which, for an individual who has no alternative forms of self-identification, means losing the very meaning of existence, literally spiritual death, suppresses their will to live, and induces a state of stupor (described among certain indigenous peoples), which may ultimately lead to physical death.

The more isolated the community is initially in real space and in the space of meanings, the easier it is overall for its leaders to develop strong Di in its members, which is why isolationism, both cultural and territorial, always goes hand in hand with parochial altruism.

And now we should note one important point.

The establishment of clear boundaries (of any kind - personal or collective) in socionics is primarily the responsibility of the Se function.

Ne, with its constant interest in the new, by contrast, erodes all boundaries - both personal and collective. After all, the new, by definition, is what lies beyond your boundaries, and therefore, by letting novelty into yourself, you thereby increase the permeability of your boundaries and equalize your internal informational background with the informational background of the surrounding environment.

Di and Qi find themselves here in a “strange” position, combining these two extremes within themselves, but strictly separating their application depending on the type of boundary. Di strengthens collective boundaries, but erodes personal ones. Qi - the reverse.

Since personal boundaries are more often formed through constant contact and interaction with other people, their formation is more often the responsibility of ethics. Collective boundaries, by contrast, are more often determined by objective factors of the external world, that is, those with which interaction occurs along the line of logic. In the case of Di, this leads to its clear division into two components that are perhaps only weakly connected to one another.

The Beta component of Di is formed in conjunction with the Ti and Se functions, and is responsible for harsh militarized competition with foreigners and adherents of other faiths - with everyone who is located on the other side of group boundaries. The Delta component, meanwhile, is formed through the alliance of Di with Fi and Ne, and proves responsible for the altruistic component of this function - for the willingness to “give away one’s last shirt” for one’s neighbor.

These two components actually have very little in common with one another - perhaps less than in the case of the other three questim-declatim functions. Why?

Obviously, this is primarily due to the fact that the socion is asymmetrical, and is “stretched” more strongly in the direction separating Beta practical types from Delta humanitarian types than in other similar directions - the actual functionality of these types differs as greatly as possible. Figuratively speaking, those who maim and those who heal are usually completely different people. Only in a number of specific cases, when an educational function is combined with a punitive one (prisons, correctional boarding schools for troubled adolescents, psychiatric hospitals), can this functionality be combined. And places of this kind are perhaps the main points of attraction for strong Di in the modern world (which has moved away from tribal social organization).

The rigid connection of Di to traditional values may also play a role - after all, these values, among other things, strictly prescribe that all members of society observe sex-based functional roles (man - warrior, woman - mother, educator of children, and keeper of the hearth). Thus, the fact that Di functionally divides very clearly into two parts may be a consequence of precisely this - Beta Di is traditionally male, while Delta Di is traditionally female, and based on the very essence of Di they must not mix, otherwise, [from an aristocratic position - author’s note, 07.2026] chaos will ensue and society as a whole will weaken.

Finally, let us voice a number of assumptions that may shed light on the old question: why Beta is in practice a much more aristocratic quadra than Delta.

It is likely that the presence of rigid boundaries anywhere is in itself a far more important factor than their absence anywhere in explaining what exactly stands before us and what we are dealing with. Collectivism is impossible when there are literally no collective boundaries, and individualism - when there is no individual with personal boundaries as such.

That is, the Se-valuing quadras prove far more polarized here - the aggressive collectivism of the second quadra collides with the principled individualism of the third, and this conflict between the group and the personal is what primarily generates all social upheavals, leading first to the emergence of totalitarian regimes that create collective common funds, and then to their collapse under the pressure of the elites’ desire to redistribute these common funds for their own personal benefit.

Delta Fi altruism, by contrast, arising in relation to one’s neighbor, contributes to the general humanization of morals, after which, easily and naturally, following Ne’s tendency to spread broadly and far, it develops into altruism toward those who are distant and foreign as well (now regarding them as neighbors and as one’s own). Delta is therefore largely devoid of radical manifestations of Di.

However, if Ne is generally indifferent to all boundaries, why does this not work symmetrically with Qi in its Alpha variant, why is Alpha Qi no weaker, and in some of its manifestations (primarily those associated with intellectual nonconformity), even stronger than Gamma Qi?

Here we can also propose two explanations.

1. Questim-declatim functions in general are more about the interaction between the individual and the group. The individual always exists, while the group exists only where there is intolerance toward adherents of other faiths. Intolerance toward adherents of other faiths is primarily governed by the Merry trait - therefore, questim-declatim functions should generally work better for the Merry quadras.

And this is confirmed by statistical data! The Serious irrational types, who are the most apathetically indifferent toward other people’s views and toward all forms of group solidarity, fit the model of questim-declatim functions extremely poorly, essentially falling out of this model entirely. But in the dyads of Merry rational types, oriented toward constructing a unified language of concepts and a unified model of the world, related types (LII and LSI, ESE and EIE) reveal the differences between their questim-declatim functions with maximum contrast.

2. However, the matter may possibly lie partly in something else as well, namely - in the very nature of Ne. If Ne in Delta, in its striving into the distance, begins its journey from those who are close, and only then spreads to those who are distant, then in Alpha, Ne, due to its connection with long-range Ti, is initially fixed on the global, and then moves toward increasingly global scales, never returning in its explorations to the individual themselves with their personal problems in a specific environment.

From the comments:

Socionic Navigator: Drobyshevsky on Di.
Regarding proselytism (the involvement of adherents of other faiths in one’s own community) - we believe this is an important function of strong Ne when it cooperates with Aristocracy. Here EII creates a humanistic image of the cult that is attractive to the average person, while IEE directly creates the social circle in which conversion takes place (this social circle is located at the interface between the cult and the external environment, somewhat, though in a controlled manner, blurring this interface, while the governing core is usually formed by Beta types with non-valued Ne)