Spy Styles: The Magnetic Liberator

Do you regularly challenge received wisdom? Do colleagues welcome your alternative takes on challenges? Are friends sometimes surprised by your opinions? If so, you could be a Magnetic Liberator.

My previous two Substacks (here and here) examined the Magnetic Validator. Now meet the Validator’s alter-ego, the Magnetic Liberator.

Other words associated with this category are sceptic, iconoclast, nonconformist, maverick and visionary.

The bearers of this Spy-Profile can form strong emotional bonds but prefer to operate mainly in the mental realm. Rather than validating existing attitudes, they explore their interlocutors’ intellectual reservations about ideological, political or religious matters, without being evangelistic about any specific alternative cause. In this way, they help others to liberate themselves from the constraints of community-thinking or tribalism. They can be threatening, as well as thrilling characters to be around.

A key aspect of the Magnetic Liberator’s profile is that they seek to liberate others for the sake of others, rather than in service of their own needs or ideologies. They are not always successful in persuading interlocutors to abandon their ideologies or alter perspectives. But, when they are, it is because they have identified and worked with doubts that their target already has. Because of this, they tend to earn a significant debt of loyalty from, and can exert meaningful influence over, them.

A limited sample of the preferences, attitudes and habits of the Magnetic Liberator includes:

· A desire to get to know intimately people who are very different to them;

· A capacity for culturally adaptive body-language;

· An interest in languages, with an ear for idiom and nuance;

· A tendency to change dress and appearance frequently;

· No strong attachment to a particular worldview; and

· Readiness to switch loyalties to meet specific goals, while retaining the loyalty of others.

It is useful to reflect on how someone with this Style is likely to behave in common social situations. For example, at a party, a Magnetic Liberator will be drawn to unusual characters, seeking out those who don’t conform to the prevailing social norm. They will engage deeply with such people, drawing them out, the better to understand their view of the world and their place in it. Over the course of an evening, they are unlikely to converse with more than a handful of people and very deeply with only one or two. They are to be found in the kitchen rather than on the dance-floor. Their behaviour might suggest they are seeking a sense of belonging that has long eluded them, accompanied by a fear of predictability.

You may remember my ‘Stranded in the Desert’ test: why would you want a Magnetic Liberator to be with you in the middle of the Sahel, following a car breakdown? My answer is because someone with this Spy-Profile:

· is not daunted by the idea of seeking help from different cultures, even those that may appear hostile;

· is equipped with interpersonal skills to win over people from different cultures;

· will look at the problem from an unusual perspective and identify solutions that others might miss; and

· is likely to be stimulating company while you wait for help.

As always, there are examples of Magnetic Liberators to be found in movies. Perhaps the most striking is John Keating (Robin Williams) in Dead Poets Society (1989). Keating is both threatening (to the school Establishment) and thrilling (to the students, most of whom yearn to be freed from the strait-jacketed thinking imposed on them by their more traditional masters). ‘Just when you think you know something,’ Keating says, ‘you have to look at it another way. Even though it may seem silly and wrong, you must try.’ Almost a perfect summation of the Magnetic Liberator’s worldview (if they can be said to have such a trammelled mindset as a fixed worldview). He encourages his students to reject conformity and resist the ‘great need for acceptance,’ telling them that ‘you must trust that your beliefs are unique, even though others may think them odd or unpopular.’ Of course, his rallying cry has entered our everyday lexicon, such is its power: ‘Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.’

Keating is ultimately undone by the conformists. But not before he has changed the way (most of) his charges think about the world, and won their undying loyalty. His magnetic effect on the boys is illustrated in the powerful closing scene. Having been dismissed, he enters the classroom one final time to collect his belongings, and the students climb on their desks to salute him, with the words ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ As they do so, the authoritarian master who is standing in for Keating runs from desk to desk, vainly yelling at them to get down. It is a moment guaranteed to make the hairs on my arms stand up. You know that those young men will go on to greatness.

Just think how powerful this Style is when wielded by a master spy.

It can be just as powerful in the civilian world. So, you are no doubt impatient to find out if you have the traits of a Magnetic Liberator.

Now is your chance.

You will find twenty quotations below. Read each one carefully and rate it on the following scale. The important thing is not to overthink this exercise. Go with your gut when deciding whether each quotation:

A: Encapsulates perfectly your personal values;

B: Is closely aligned with your personal values;

C: Evokes a neutral response from you;

D: Is at some variance with your personal values; or

E: Is contrary to your worldview.

• 1. "The important thing is not to stop questioning." (Albert Einstein)

• 2. "We are not thinking machines that feel; rather, we are feeling machines that think." (Antonio Damasio)

• 3. "Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it." (Andre Gide)

• 4. "The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of." (Blaise Pascal)

• 5. "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." (Voltaire)

• 6. "Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you." (Roger Ebert)

• 7. "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." (Christopher Hitchens)

• 8. "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." (Albert Einstein)

• 9. "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." (Albert Einstein)

• 10. "Reason is powerless in the expression of love." (Rumi)

• 11. "Scepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy." (Denis Diderot)

• 12. "If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything." (Often attributed to Alexander Hamilton)

• 13. "The mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open." (Frank Zappa)

• 14. "An ideology is not a curse word. It is a map." (Fareed Zakaria)

• 15. "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." (George Bernard Shaw)

• 16. "To live without an ideology is to drift aimlessly on the sea of public opinion." (Unknown)

• 17. “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

• 18. "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

• 19. "An open mind leaves a chance for someone to drop a worthwhile thought in it." (Anonymous)

• 20. "Ideologies aren’t all bad. They give people a framework, a sense of belonging." (President Barack Obama)

To compile your overall score, use the following key.

• For odd numbered quotations, score 5 for A, 4 for B, 3 for C, 2 for D and 1 for E.

• For even numbered quotations, reverse the scale: 1 for A, 2 for B, 3 for C, 4 for D and 5 for E.

This will give you a score somewhere between 20 and 100.

• If your score is in the range 81-100, you have the mindset of a Magnetic Liberator and my guess is that you behave like one. If so, you already know the thrilling power of this Spy Style.

• If in the range 61-80, you share much of the Magnetic Liberator’s attitude. Whether or not you act like one is up to you, but my strong belief is that you would benefit immensely from doing so.

• If 41-60, your case is less clear cut. You tend towards the idea that a sceptical intellect is more important than feelings but there is also a strong streak of empathy in you. You probably have the luxury of being able to choose which Spy Style you would like to develop.

• For those with scores between 21 and 40, it is likely that your predominant Spy Style is Magnetic Validator, or one of the other four that I will be exploring in future Substacks.

• If you scored less than 20, check your arithmetic.

As I said in my Substack on the Magnetic Validator Spy Style, please don’t take all this too seriously. There is nothing scientific about the assessment, which is based on my observations and intuition (a mix of Liberator and Validator approaches, as it happens). Rather, I wanted the test to be a bit of fun that would also get you thinking about your character and how you relate to the world. It is important to remember that our personalities are multidimensional, as well as subject to evolution. And training. On which note, if you have completed the evaluation and concluded that you would like to develop the Magnetic Liberator in you, here are some exercises that you might like to try.

• If you feel strongly about a subject, whether political, professional or personal, take time to write a rebuttal of your instinctive position on it. Then write a rebuttal of the rebuttal. And rebut that. Carry on for as long as it takes to stop feeling strongly about the subject.

• Try to detach specific beliefs from any system of thought. Remove labels from your beliefs. Test their merits independently of others. Should you discover that some positions are not consistent one with another, sit a moment with how that makes you feel.

• Write ten bullet points, summarising your most cherished opinions. Then mark each one with an I for ‘intellectually derived’ and an E for ‘emotionally derived.’ Neither E nor I is necessarily better, but you may be surprised by the results.

• Take a lead from the White Queen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) by trying to believe ‘six impossible things before breakfast.’ It’s easier than it seems, which may get you thinking about what we mean by ‘impossible’ or ‘believe.’

You may, of course, think all of this is a load of tosh. In which case, congratulations on passing the meta-test to find out if you are a Magnetic Liberator. But I hope this discovery won’t prevent you from being intrigued to read my next Substack, which will look at the characteristics of a Magnetic Intriguer.