It’s funny—I really wasn’t expecting the DEVO show to be one of those amazing, life-changing events, but it really was. It was better than Porcupine Tree, better than Toto, better than The Police and even better than Roger Waters. It was just the perfect combination of high-energy theatrics, goofy fun, absurdist humour and still-relevant social commentary that elevated it beyond anything else I’d experienced.

Anyway, I’d characterise the band and its members as being mainly INTP. Off the top of my head, I can’t give any clear argument for this observation, except to note the trademark NTP irreverence. Contrast this with any INTJ’s humour, which seems darker somehow (e.g. David Lynch or Roger Waters). INTPs just don’t seem to take themselves as seriously (though perhaps that’s not the reality).

It’s been expressed to me that INTJs and INTPs are almost indistinguishable. Not so! These two types often come to blows over dominant Ni and Ti butting heads. Ti is exacting in a very rational manner, demanding that nothing be left to chance; Ni, on the other hand, is a vision of piercing clarity that eschews explanation and actively fights against such rationality—this is maddening to INTPs.

Cue Brian Eno’s collaboration with DEVO on their first album. Eno, along with David Byrne, Robert Fripp, David Bowie and Steven Wilson all strike me as INTJs who work well together, but what happens when an Ni/Te producer works with a Ti/Ne band?

According to Wikipedia:

Eno is on record as describing one of Devo’s New York shows in 1979 as “the most exciting live performance I have ever seen”. However, the studio sessions did not proceed on such a positive note, with the band seemingly intent on replicating specific effects and arrangements from their demo recordings stretching back to 1974. Eno found this an obstacle to his famously intuitive and spontaneous way of working in the studio, and described the band as “anal”.

This, to me, perfectly captures the INTP/INTJ split. Indeed, INTPs are infamous for their pedantic nature, insisting on precision in communication—it drives everyone else crazy. On the other hand, the Ni methods employed by Eno (c.f. Bowie’s cut-up random lyric generation) strikes Ti as reckless and haphazard.

So there you go: INTJs and INTPs are like the matter and anti-matter of the art world.

I was considering David Lynch’s type based on his movies. He’s definitely some kind of NT, and his films don’t seem busy enough to be that of an ENTP (what I’m now calling the “kitchen sink effect”), so I was pretty much down to INTP or INTJ. (Really, The Straight Story is so slow that it’s almost inconceivable to consider it the work of an Extravert of any kind.)

Then it occurred to me: his means of completing Mulholland Dr. was the ultimate Ni perspective shift. Basically, he took a 90-minute TV pilot and reinterpreted it as a dream sequence within a larger film. (This is the “spin” of Ni I was referring to earlier.) It’s no wonder he was so well-suited to translating Frank Herbert’s INTJ epic, Dune, to the silver screen.

Whereas Ne catches ideas and associations from the unconscious as they float to the surface of the conscious mind, Ni goes deeper, plunging right into that dark well of dreams and symbols. Have a look at the video below to see what I’m talking about:

Note how Lynch contrasts Ni with Ne — this is very instructive for anyone wishing to grasp an Ni take on the differences between the two functions.