The Atlantic has an interview with Jonathan Rauch (linked via Tyler Cowen) revisiting his 2003 essay on what it's like to be an introvert in an extrovert's world (hint: introverts aren't "shy," we just find extraneous social interaction draining rather than stimulating). Rausch compares being an introvert to being gay, in terms of the level of social difficulty and the problem of contending with a perception of one's essential nature as being deviant from a norm (as opposed to being considered a minority, say). Then it gets even more interesting:
I do think that there's been, in the last ten years or so, a major economic resurgence for introversion—the "geek" economy. The prototypical geek is really good at thinking, has superb powers of concentration (which tends to be an introvert trait), and works very well independently. They're often pretty awesomely brilliant people, and they're fairly defiant about being geeks. They've turned this word "geek" into a term that's almost romantic in some ways, and through the Silicon economy, they've been massively innovative and economically important. A lot of them are running circles around the extroverts who are selling shoes. So I think part of what's happened lately is that the digital economy is giving introverts a new place in the sun.Being an introvert myself, if not exactly qualified as a geek, I can only see this as a positive development. Though I do not, despite my thirst for a certain measure of revenge, want to see a culture that is introvert-dominant, either. What I think is best, economically, socially and otherwise, is a certain dynamic tension between introversion and extroversion--kind of like having a Republican legislature and a Democratic executive branch, or vise versa. The important thing I see coming out of this isn't about domination, it's about recognition that leadership and entrepreneurialism aren't personality types, but skill sets.
Tags: introversion, introvert, extroversion, extrovert, Rausch, Atlantic
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