Caution. Introversion Ahead.

Earlier this month, a friend shared a link to Psychology Today’s article, “Revenge of the Introvert.” I found the article interesting and affirming, but, speaking as an introvert, I couldn’t spot the “revenge” part; seems like we introverts are still swimming upstream in the American culture.

Utne Reader’s recap of the introversion topic, which linked to the “Revenge” article, was both more disturbing and more entertaining. The disturbing: Utne pointed to a blog post on the Psychology Today website that reported that the American Psychiatric Association is “considering a proposal to include introversion in the next edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5).” If I’m not mistaken, that means the APA considers introversion an illness, a disorder. And the World Health Organization does, too. Hmmm. For some reason, I’m feeling a stronger call to “revenge”–surely just a symptom of my disorder.

And Utne also reminds us of a brilliant essay by fellow introvert Jonathan Rauch, published in The Atlantic in 2003. Rauch doesn’t exact revenge, either, in “Caring for Your Introvert,” but he does at least make an introvert like me feel valued: “If we introverts ran the world, it would no doubt be a calmer, saner, more peaceful sort of place. As Coolidge [one of too few introvert presidents] is supposed to have said, ‘Don’t you know that four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still?’”

–Lois Maassen