The Lenore Thomson Exegesis Wiki
George Costanza, a character on Seinfeld.
Inferior extraverted feeling shows up in nearly every episode, but comes out explicitly when his girlfriend asks him rhetorically, "Does everyone have to like you?" George answers, "Yes! Everyone has to like me!" Here we see George's quixotic quest laid plain. He wants to be liked. But always on his terms, never on others'.
Whenever anyone doesn't like or respect George, he views this as a failure of reason in need of correction. The other person must be set straight so they properly appreciate George and see for themselves that he has only been doing right, only for the purest motives of respect for the right order of things. Thus he appeals to introverted thinking. He tries to get people to see what truly makes sense--that they should like him.
This always fails because Fe is not a matter of doing what makes sense, it's a matter of finding a place for yourself in the world of mutual obligations that grow out of what people actually do like. Some people like stuff that other people don't like, and from an Fe perspective, that's all there is to it. You can't argue someone into liking something. From a developed Fe perspective, you form your identity by your choices of whom to side with. You find commonalities where they really exist. You cultivate shared values where there is a foundation for common interest. You expand your sense of value to fit in, you don't demand that people be reasonable as you define reasonable. You genuinely bare your heart to people in a way that they understand without effort. When a dom-Fe type sincerely bares his heart, it automatically comes out in a politically acceptable way, because his heart has genuinely formed to fit his social niche. When dom-Fe types express warmth, they're not faking it. They choose conventional forms of expression simply because they know that these forms convey their true feelings clearly.
There is simply no way to leap directly from a dom-Ti approach to a dom-Fe approach. When your whole value system centers around faithfulness to the causal order of things without regard for whether people like it, genuinely baring your heart means you're going to alienate nearly everyone in your society. If you insist on proving to them that your values are better than theirs (trying to win in the communal-values world by intransigent appeal to Ti), you're also going to alienate nearly everyone you meet.
Lenore Thomson's theory that the secondary function usually leads the way out of ruts like that might go as follows. While George usually uses extraverted intuition to concoct elaborate lies and deceive people ("Art Vandelay", the house in The Hamptons, etc.), always trying to keep the situation under his control, a truly extraverted approach to Ne would lead him to take chances by trying new things to see where they lead. Genuinely leap into the unknown, in other words, by pouncing on opportunities to open up new potential.
This actually happens in the "Opposite George" episode. George observes that his instincts are always wrong. People say "trust your instincts" but his instincts always lead him to say or do the wrong thing. So he gets the idea of doing the exact opposite of his instincts. Thus is born "Opposite George". Whatever George would do instinctively, Opposite George will do the opposite. A gorgeous tall blonde in the diner has looked in his direction. His instinct would be to stay away from her--she's out of his reach. Instead, he walks up to her and says that he's unemployed and lives with his parents. She's interested.
Later that episode, he interviews for a job with the Yankees. The interview is going well. Then George Steinbrenner walks in. George would have tried to suck up to Steinbrenner (inferior Fe, trying to curry favor by announcing commonality of values). Opposite George takes control: he tells off Steinbrenner, criticizing his decisions and accusing him of destroying a once-great organization. Steinbrenner says, "Hire this man."
Thus extraverted intuition--truly diving into the unknown, taking a calculated risk to see where it leads--is actually the solution to George's social problems, not extraverted feeling. George doesn't make a better place for himself in the world by sucking up to people or trying to follow conventional etiquette when his heart is not in it. He finds completely unexpected, unanticipatable opportunities to connect with people by trying bold, outlandish things that play to his strengths--and do not have certain outcomes. Unbeknownst to him, his previous life of curiosity, failure, analysis, even neurosis, has created capacities that he can draw upon when he pounces on an opportunity and takes a risk. Unlike in his previous introverted world, he has consciously accepted that he's not in control, that the social arena is bigger than he is, and he's dealing with it anyway.
Extraverted intuition shows up in nearly every episode in George's attempts to bluff--that is, to tell a lie and keep the lie alive by making up more details.
Art Van de Lay, the architect; working at Van de Lay industries; "Why did I cheat? Because I'm a cheater!" George's lies are attempts to establish a favorable place for himself in the social arena, by using a choice detail or two to suggest a much greater reality in the minds of others. George doesn't say he's well-to-do, he says he has a house in The Hamptons. George doesn't say he's wealthy and upper-middle-class, he says he's an architect. He likes the way people perceive him when he's triggered their imaginations in these ways.
Most relevant of all to Ne is the way that George expands his lies on the fly, inventing new details to fit whatever comes up. For example, when George claimed that he had a house in The Hamptons and got challenged on it, he gradually invented more information to keep the imaginary world alive in the minds of Susan's parents. He pushed the lie all the way to the point that he ended up driving Susan's parents to his non-existent house in The Hamptons and finally had to give up. And then he accused Susan's parents of morally low behavior for letting it go this far when they surely knew all along that he was lying.
Sometimes it leads George to success in unanticipated ways. In one episode, he had claimed to be a marine biologist in order to impress a girl. And then a whale showed up on the beach, unable to breathe. Now he had a choice: give up the lie or add to it. He chose to add. He walked authoritatively to the whale and--extracted a golf ball from its blowhole, saving the animal. Forethought (George's forte) could not have shown him that there was a golf ball there or that he could extract it. There is only one way to discover things like that, and that is to truly dive into the unknown and pounce on opportunities as they come--extraverted perception.
More sophisticated Ne would lead George to be aware that when he lies, he is taking a calculated risk. He can't control what's going to happen, and he'd be wise to bail out rather than try to maintain total control. Hard-line Ti leads him to orchestrate his lies richly--to try to control every detail. George considers himself an artist of the lie. The more elaborate and interesting the lie, the better. George's faithfulness to his lies is as much a perverse form of artistic integrity (see Saints-and-Politicians Exegesis) as a lame way to get approval from others.
Whenever there's danger, George abandons all sense of loyalty and looks after his physical needs. When he thought there was a fire at a child's birthday party, he knocked over women and children to get to the door--when there was still only a hint of smoke. This pathetic form of physical self-protection suggests orientation by tertiary or inferior introverted sensation.
George's particular style of cheapness is another illustration.