The Voice

She is an Advocate.

Latin: Ad- voc -ate  (add by giving voice)

And she has a Voice. What a Voice, to sing with.  To speak out with too.

And she did.

And she has been doing for it more than half of a century.

For Joan Baez, is a Champion Idealist, [also known as an Advocate Idealist]  And she was arrested sometimes for her non-violent protests.

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice. Baez has a distinctive vocal style, with a strong vibrato. Her recordings include many topical songs and material dealing with social issues. [Wikipedia]

In 1963, Joan Baez had difficulty understanding Bob Dylan. She was enamored by Dylan’s poetic lyrics, but was confused by his genius. His lyrics were so poetic and so meaningful to her. But Dylan didn’t seem to care. He was an enigma to her and the rest of her generation.

Baez thought these causes of injustice that Bob Dylan wrote about should be pursued. She had assumed that Dylan was just like herself. She was interested changing the system very much like Mahatma Gandhi — an Idealist like herself.  As a young teenager, she had heard a Martin Luther King’s speech in 1956 and Gandhi’s ideas had had an influence on her ever since Joan heard a lecture in her high school on non-violence by a Gandhi expert Ira Sandperl.  Joan also committed her first act of civil disobedience by refusing to leave her high school during an air-raid drill. Later, she attended Boston College for awhile until she achieved success in singing folk and protest songs at coffee houses in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was soon involved as an activist.

… They [Champions] see life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil, and they want to experience all the meaningful events and fascinating people in the world. The most outgoing of the Idealists, Champions often can’t wait to tell others of their extraordinary experiences. Champions can be tireless in talking with others, like fountains that bubble and splash, spilling over their own words to get it all out. And usually this is not simple storytelling; Champions often speak (or write) in the hope of revealing some truth about human experience, or of motivating others with their powerful convictions. Their strong drive to speak out on issues and events, along with their boundless enthusiasm and natural talent with language, makes them the most vivacious and inspiring of all the types.

Joan has been busy for the last half century, she has been Championing:  civil rights, workers rights; protesting against nuclear war, the Vietnam war;  investigating human rights in Latin America, Vietnam, and Southeast Asia;  drumming up support for countless causes such as: American Indians, Vietnamese boat people, Palestinian refuges, Warsaw Pact countries and their leaders Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa; all the while using her unique singing voice in many concert tours around the world.

Truly as her autobiography has said Joan Baez speaks out and has A Voice To Sing With.

Quote1.pngMy concern has always been for the people who are victimized, unable to speak for themselves and who need outside help.Quote2.png — Joan Baez

5 thoughts on “The Voice”

  1. Dear Sir Keirsey,
    Please allow me to ask a question regarding the Keirsey legacy.
    1) You deem Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr., to be Champion Idealists (ENFP in Myers’ terms) right?
    2) By reading your blog I have seen that you have a colleague of yours successfully persuaded you to change your view of MLK from Idealist Teacher to Idealist Champion. Now if memory serves, you also once thought Mandela to be an Idealist Teacher, is this correct? And if so, what made you change your mind on that?

    1. No, your memory is not correct on Mandela, when I researched him by reading Long Walk to Freedom, I had concluded Champion Idealist. I never made THAT mistake 😉 Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) !!!!! Nobody should make the mistake of not reading Tavris and Aronson’s book.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *