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always aims for the absolute. The dishonoring of a young woman, for example, does not remain limited<br />
to the superficial and personal realm, but promptly expands into an ethical problem for all mankind. It<br />
strikes me that in the theater it has always been only this tone and this complex of problems that have<br />
truly interested me. Unless the scene opened out into a matter of political or humanitarian importance, it<br />
would strike me as virtually inconsequential.<br />
An NT does not so much want a drama about just a starship crew having adventures. They want the<br />
philosophical musings, the ethical dilemmas, the commentary on the human condition. And Star<br />
Trek delivers that in spades.<br />
On the other hand, there is another (less kind) explanation for why INTJs love Star Trek: "they have<br />
no life." The conventional wisdom goes, "If Star Trek fans had a real social life in the real world,<br />
they wouldn't be so obsessed with an imaginary universe."<br />
Actually, the real world overrates itself dramatically. I had a moderately successful social life as a<br />
young INTP. I had almost over a hundred Star Trek books, could speak scraps of Klingon, and<br />
sewed my own tribble. I would stare up at the stars and long to go to Starfleet Academy. So why<br />
did I choose to obsess about Star Trek rather than being satisfied with my moderately successful<br />
social life? Shouldn't real life be more than enough for anyone?<br />
A classic short story, The Enchanted Duplicator, provides an explanation. The tale follows the<br />
allegorical journey of Jophan (Joe Fan) as he leaves the realm of the ordinary on a quest to become<br />
a True Fan and publish the perfect fanzine (read here). 181 The opening paragraph describes Jophan's<br />
initial experience in the "real world."<br />
ONCE UPON A TIME in the village of Prosaic in the Country of Mundane there lived a youth called<br />
Jophan. Now this youth was unhappy, because in all the length and breadth of Mundane there was no<br />
other person with whom he could talk as he would like, or who shared the strange longings that from time<br />
to time perplexed his mind and which none of the pleasures offered by Mundane could wholly satisfy.<br />
Each day as Jophan grew nearer to manhood he felt more strongly that life should have more to offer than<br />
had been dreamed of in Mundane, and he took to reading strange books that told of faraway places and<br />
other times. But the People of Prosaic mocked him, saying that the things described in his books could<br />
never come to pass, and that it was as foolish to think of them as to aspire to climb the great mountains<br />
that surrounded the Country of Mundane. ...Jophan believed them, for they seemed older and wiser than<br />
he, and tried to put the strange thoughts out of his mind. But he still read the strange books that told of<br />
faraway places and other times, and in the long evenings of summer he would go away by himself into<br />
the fields and read until nightfall.<br />
Realworlders don't see themselves as living in the Country of Mundane; to them the everyday world<br />
seems interesting and fulfilling. Not so to the INTJ. Somehow, someday, they will escape the<br />
planet. Until then, there's Star Trek.<br />
181 Willis & Shaw, n.d.