What Adolf Hitler and I have in common

A monklike man appeared at the door one evening when I was at a friendrsquos place He asked to see my thumb applied some ash on it and after some peering told me I was independent rebellious and did not much like my father dictating what I should do in life I didnrsquot like college very much he said and ate dinner in a restaurantAll true I was stunnedLike most baby boomers in their youth I was a sucker for personality tests I mastered the Max Luscher Color Test which describes who you are from the colours you choose I studied palmistry which has certain undocumented uses when scoring points with the opposite sex and I dived deep into astrologyBut of them all the most sensiblesounding professional test has always been the MyersBriggs Type Indicator or MBTI Its appeal lies in its utter simplicity You answer a 93question test made up of AgreeDisagree questionsmdashlike I love people vs I am happiest when by myselfmdashand then receive a fourletter classificationI learned that I was an INFJmdashIntrovertedIntuitiveFeelingJudging Only 237 of the people in the world are INFJs I felt very specialThe letters reflect a simple classification A person can be Introverted I or Extraverted E Sensing S or Intuitive N Thinking T or Feeling F and Judging J or Perceiving P In their permutations these letters yield the 16 personality types of the MBTI typologyAn INFJ I was told was idealistic organised insightful dependable compassionate gentle harmonious and enjoyed intellectual stimulation Sounded exactly like a certain meThe MBTI is the worldrsquos most popular personality test taken by 25 million people every year and used by 8837 of the Fortune 500 companies Itrsquos used in the military industry and universities During World War II it was used to match spies to the covert missions that best suited their MBTI personalitiesThe MyersBriggs Company earns 20 million a year just from people taking their testI became an MBTI groupie I began reading whatever I could about Messrs Myers and BriggsI learned that Katherine Briggs was Isabel Myersrsquo mother That their test was derived from the thinking of the eminent psychologist Carl Jung I started recommending a website called truitycom where you could answer questions and find out your MBTI personality typeI was just 20Half a century later last week I learned that I had been suckered Along with a few million othersItrsquos called the Forer Effect Itrsquos what happens when people read a horoscope and feel that it described them and them alone specifically and accurately Itrsquos why I was fooled by the quack who read the ash on my thumb though his statements would have applied to most any college student To test myself I read several other MBTI descriptionsmdashand by gum they all sounded like me Mr Forer would have been proudBut therersquos more and itrsquos insidious Neither Katherine nor Isabel had ever studied psychology or personality development Katherine was a mother whorsquod aborted three babies and therefore wanted to make the only one who survived Isabel into Wonder Woman She set up what she called the Cosmic Laboratory of Baby Trainingmdashaka living roommdash and programmed her daughter like a laboratory mouse Isabel also happened to be clever and that helped her shine in everything she didOther mothers began coming to learn from Katherine Briggs supermomOne day Katherine read Carl Jungrsquos The Psychology of Types became a fan and started creating her own personality classification system with three pairs of traits She saw this as a sacred art but her daughter recognised it as a money machineIsabelle added a fourth pair of traitsmdashJudgingPerceivingmdashthat had nothing to do with psychology or Jung though much to do with dollars She simplified the test making it easy to answer People loved itRecent articles have exposed the sinister side of MBTI Katherine and Isabel were both eugenicists and strongly believed that some people were superior to others and should receive more attention Eugenics now discredited was popular in Hitlerrsquos Germany and underlies white supremacy Isabel believed that people like truck drivers or indeed anyone with an IQ below 100 did not deserve to be tested because they would be too stupid to express personality preferencesTheir test was so popular with businesses because it helped sort people into neat functional boxes some superior some worthlessFor a while MBTI made me feel special because who doesnrsquot like reading nice things about themselves After all I apparently shared my personality type with Mahatma Gandhi Nelson Mandela Nicole Kidman Lady Diana and Martin Luther KingBut also I learned recently with Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler both INFJsHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper