bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1993) — Summer 1993 // Été 1993, pp. 19–20
by Dr. Christine Hantel-Fraser, University
of Toronto Press, 1993, 357 pp. $45.00.
“What made you want to join the foreign service?” Few members of any such service have not been asked this question in the course of their career. Most Canadian foreign-service employees first encounter it during their entrance interview. Many of them come prepared with a response: “I want to serve my country!” Examination officers express weariness with this all-too-common reply. This sort of purportedly selfless motivation, they insist, usually disguises a host of other reasons. They favour candidates who admit honestly to slightly more selfish motives.
Why do people want to embrace a life that is permanently in transition? “Classification does not explain the individual psyche” — the Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung could have had foreign-service employees in mind when he made this statement in his book Psychological Types. Members of few professions seem to defy classification into types quite as much as foreign-service employees. And yet, when it comes to one particular aspect of their personality, namely, the reasons behind their choice of career, a large majority of them (by no means all) provide data that point to three key components of what amounts inevitably to a tangled mass of contributing factors for such a decision: 1 / childhood fantasies or childhood experiences involving foreign countries and cultures; 2 / acquisition or professional skills required by the foreign service; whether originally intended for the service or not; and 3 / desire for satisfaction of specific social needs.
Vocational choices are generally influenced by a large number of considerations, such as family history, social and economic background, education, training opportunities in the community, and peer pressure. A close look at individual foreign-service employees reveals more subtle shadings. As recent research suggests, heredity can play an important, if not decisive role in the career decision-making process. Whether as a result of genetic predisposition, family tradition, or a combination of both, an extraordinarily large number of public foreign-service employees have parents and grandparents who were public servants, and a strikingly large number have grandparents who were missionaries. Professional and amateur world travellers are equally well represented among the immediate ancestors of foreign-service personnel.
A remarkable percentage of foreign-service members also mention environmental factors as the basis of their career choice. In many interviews, foreign-service members indicated that the attitude a family and its social environment maintain towards the world beyond the immediate community – in particular, towards foreign countries and cultures — imposes on a child three distinct types of relationships with the outside world. These types can be represented by three creatures noted for their relationship with the world around them: 1 / the oyster, locked in a shell, clinging to a rock, immobile and unaware of its relationship with its environment; 2 / the owl, open-eyed and generally watchful, moderately mobile, and reputedly wise and aware of itself in relation to its surroundings; and 3 / the migratory bird, by definition a world traveller, simultaneously having a bird’s-eye view of its environment and a down-to-earth familiarity with feeding-and nesting-grounds wherever it roams.
Foreign-service members of all ages and occupational groups pointed out that their growing awareness during childhood and youth of one of these attitudes in their family and social surroundings strongly influenced their decision to throw their lot in with the foreign service. Stories they tell about their childhood allow for the classification of a majority of foreign-service personnel into these three basic types.
[Dr. Hantel-Fraser then goes on to describe three main groups of personality types who choose the Foreign Service as a way of life and a profession.
First, there is the OYSTER. This personality type comes from a relatively self-contained and secure background but has a desire to break out of the protective shell that is, at best, experienced as narrow and confining and, at worst, as suffocating.
The second personality type is the OWL. The desire of the owl type is to explore a world that is known to exist and is deeply yearned for, but that is always somewhat out of reach. This individual possesses a limitless curiosity and has a lifelong fascination with foreign peoples, customs, and cultures.
The third type is the MIGRATORY BIRD. This personality type has already experienced a peripatetic lifestyle and has acquired a liking for it. The owl, therefore, wishes to continue a migratory lifestyle instilled in childhood
According to the author, these vastly different motivations all lead to the doors of External Affairs. Her analysis of the three personality types suggests that the oyster may experience trouble living and working in a strange and often hostile environment. Initially, they tend to find it extremely difficult to cope with foreign cultures and usually go through periods of considerable strain before they manage to glide through uncharted waters, especially when hardship posts conspire against them. When this occurs, the oyster has to be rescued and brought back to the safety of a familiar environment. A variation on the oyster type is the individual who eagerly ventures out into the great promising unknown, but over time grows increasingly intolerant of foreign cultures.
From these three main groups, the author describes three sub-groups of personality types who join the Department. They are distinguished by their dominant values, interests and skills.
First, there is the PUBLIC SERVANT. Many of these individuals come from families who have a tradition of public service over several generations. She claims that they prefer the secure public service to the uncertain world of private business. At External Affairs, service to the public is mitigated through assignments overseas every few years, job security and a regular income.
The second personality type she designates the INTERNATIONALIST- COSMOPOLITAN. These individuals seek to satisfy their interests in international relations through employment in the Foreign Service. These people want to work where they believe that “things are happening” and they seek to make a contribution to the “solution” of international problems.
The author distinguishes a third personality type, the ANTHROPOLOGIST-LINGUIST. By joining the Foreign Service, this group is able to satisfy its interest in studying foreign languages and cultures, an endeavour many of them had probably started at school or at university.
Whereas the Oyster, Owl and Migratory Bird are exclusive categories and do not involve cross-overs, the boundaries between Internationalist-Cosmopolitan and Anthropologist-Linguist are fluid, and nothing prevents those belonging to either group from fitting into the Public Servant category as well. Many employees do, in fact, belong to two, and a good number fit into all three categories.
This sub-group can be further refined by adding a clearly discernible secondary subset: the JOINER; the STATUS-SEEKER; and the ESCAPIST. These personality types are readily defined by the names assigned to them and revolve around their expectations of Foreign Service that influences their decision to join External Affairs.
Her thesis for assigning these nine personality types is that most people in search of a profession are looking for more than a job and a salary. Consciously, but primarily unconsciously, they yearn for satisfaction of higher social needs, such as belonging to a group, self-esteem, esteem for an employer, esteem from an employer, and recognition and fulfilment of human potential.
The author claims that the Foreign Service is well-known for maintaining a close-knit community, even beyond national boundaries, as much as for the prestige attached to membership in this international brotherhood. It also offers, through global mobility, a unique opportunity every few years for its employees to put a physical distance between themselves and their life situation. Quite a number of employees, all of them eager for new beginnings, see this chance simply to get away from everyone and everything, as a particularly desirable aspect of Foreign Service life. Many have also been strongly motivated by deep-rooted social needs in the choice of Foreign Service.
In this third group of personality types, the author cites emotional problems as a potential minefield.]
Psychological excess baggage can bring down anyone and will be especially dangerous during the turbulence that inevitably accompanies this kind of life.
Not everyone seeking a foreign-service career in order to escape the ill effects of an unhappy childhood; difficulties with parents, friends, or lovers; or any other lingering conflict comes out of the crisis…. Unresolved, such problems tend, like hurricanes, to gather momentum and fury as they cross oceans and continents, and eventually catch up with their victims.
Not many members of the rotational foreign-service team fall into the category of Escapist. But those who do carry the potential for a major disturbance that all too often develops into a disaster. Every year, foreign-service members have to be emergency evacuated for a number of reasons, including severe psychological problems related to unresolved inner conflicts.
A number of foreign-service members cheerfully ascribe their career choice to some degree of escapism. But the conflicts they cited and their ease in discussing the issues indicated that theirs amounted to harmless cases, nothing in comparison with the small number of those afflicted with “Foreign Legion Syndrome,” as one senior member of the service called the phenomenon after having fought an exhausting battle with an obvious escapist among his staff.
The vast majority of foreign-service members fit into the Joiner category. Some of the Status Seeker and Escapist can perhaps be found in more individuals than is immediately apparent. But pure Status Seekers and Escapists are rare. The distinction among these categories points at predominant, but not exclusive personal needs foreign-service members hope to satisfy through an international career.
Why do young men and women want to embrace a life permanently in transition? Classification does not explain the individual psyche. But the three basic groups of clearly discernible motivations and the more detailed nine subgroups might offer one answer to the question of why the foreign service exercises such a powerful pull on such a large number and variety of people.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1993) — Summer 1993 // Été 1993, pp. 19–20. Read the rest of this issue →
