Tonal -the Wakefield Doctrine- (and today, we include a substitute re-print Post… yeah the block quote part) | the Wakefield Doctrine Tonal -the Wakefield Doctrine- (and today, we include a substitute re-print Post… yeah the block quote part) | the Wakefield Doctrine

Tonal -the Wakefield Doctrine- (and today, we include a substitute re-print Post… yeah the block quote part)

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Jamie Katy and Nora

Really cool thing with the Doctrine yesterday. I was discussing with Phyllis, (a roger), a certain thing that a clark I know does, that makes me cringe. What this person does, when there is something that they do not understand how to do, is make a statement such as, ‘hey! I don’t know what I’m doing, you have to help’. Hearing this statement makes me crazy because I can understand how, from the perspective of a clark, the person making it actually thinks that it is a positive, disarming and appealing way to get the help that they feel they need.  In large part because the worldview of clarks is a reality of ‘knowing things’; we are constantly understanding and learning things, endlessly curious, we’ve never met a new fact that we haven’t found interesting and, as a result, we do not have any insecurity about our intelligence. Sure, we know people who are smarter, we don’t always understand how to do things, but the ability to know stuff? we got that down.
In any event, I knew that in some situations, it’s not a good idea to make a statement like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’, especially in the context of work/professional life. So I related to Phyllis an actual case  where this particular clark made this statement to a roger. Phyllis’s response was total and immediate, ‘Saying that to a roger is the same as saying that you don’t respect them.‘  …and she meant the roger, not the clark!

I know about rogers and I know clarks. I asked Phyllis, ‘Well, how should this clark have said that?‘ ‘They should go to the roger and ask their opinion on the matter,  what (the roger) felt, given the circumstances, that the best way to proceed would be’ was her un-hesitating response. It made sense. Not something that would occur to me, but once I thought about it in the context of the Wakefield Doctrine, it makes perfect sense: when we interact with rogers, we become, however temporarily, members of that person’s Herd. Herd Members do not state that they don’t know how to do something. If they are lacking information, they will solicit another (Herd Member’s) opinion on how they would proceed, but would never publicly state a lack of understanding. Why?  because only a non-Herd Member would ever need to do that.

OK… that’s a lot to put out there, especially as I was planning on a reprint Post. (Bonus: later that very day, I was speaking to a scottian associate, already familiar with the Doctrine,  who told me about having a difficult time with a roger. I related this story and they said that ” I get it! that makes perfect sense! … I would never in a million years consider doing that, but it makes sense.”  ….damn! Do you think I felt good?  you betcha).

…ok here’s the Reprint  substitute Reprint1:

 

Welcome*

…we know now ( if you read yesterday’s Post, you know now ) the relationship between rogers and scotts is a very… intimate pairing. While it’s easy to mistake the roger’s role as ‘victim’ to the scott’s predation, we know that this is totally not the case. ( New Readers!  Go and listen to DownSpring Phyllis in Episode 13 of Video Friday this does an exceptional job of explaining the rogerian worldview), rather it is obvious that there is very much a symbiotic relationship binding1 your rogers and scotts.  The Wakefield Doctrine is gender neutral, however, it is often where gender is the central feature, that we can see the relationship between these two personality types in highest contrast. We all know a couple** where the guy is a roger and the girl is a scott. He is always pretty and she is always sexy. He is socially adept and she is socially aggressive. It’s when these two are observed tant qu’ensemble,  do we see the interplay of each personality type.  With a roger/scott couple,  it is the scott who is quick with the jokes about (the roger), ” oh yeah,  you should have seen roger on our honeymoon! he was so nervous”  (this kind of comment actually serves two purposes: a) make fun of the roger for the amusement of the surrounding group and 2)  bait to entice any rogers listening to the story). The roger, in this situation, laughs comfortably and watches the reaction of the female members of their ‘audience’.  Think:  Bill and Hillary Clinton  or  (for you older Readers), Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton   …hell, lets throw in  Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston!  In any event, you will find ‘this couple’  in most social gatherings where attendance of ‘couples’ is appropriate. It needs to be said that this type of relationship ( roger/scott) is by no means exclusive to ‘couples’ in the romantic sense; anywhere there are people interacting, you will find the dynamic described here.  And, as Phyllis points out in her Video interview, the roger is not truly the passive partner. (From the rogerian perspective), the seemingly passive one is ‘leading from behind’  and reining in the scott, particularly in the public/social situations that we are using to illustrate the two personality types.

While the roger-scott relationship is relatively easy ( if not kind of…racy… dynamic… “ewww, I can’t believe she said that“…) to understand, what of the roger-clark relationship?

The roger-clark relationship is much more stable, less wildly dynamic than is the roger-scott relationship. As the ‘active’ partner in a roger-scott relationship is usually the scott, the roger plays the more active role in the roger-clark couple. This is attributable more to the patience of the clark than (to) the aggressiveness of the roger.  Lets just say that in the ‘natural’ relationship between rogers and clarks

rogers are to clarks as:

  • a diploma is to an education
  • (the) record to the needle
  • the ocean to the tide
  • Thanksgiving is to Christmas

(As with yesterday’s Post, here is where we will relate an anecdote to serve as an illustration of some part of this Post.  So I was talking to the Progenitor roger just the other day, the conversation was great fun, ranging an incredible variety of topics. This is as much evidence of the rogerian skill at story-telling, as it is proof of a clarks ability to adapt to nearly any situation.  In any event, roger and I were talking and the topic came around to either:  a)dinner, b)body weight or c) both a & b, at which point,  roger made the statement, ” of course, you would be eating tuna casserole…” Now this statement should not mean anything to you (the Reader) however, what makes it so atypical of rogers is that at one time in the past (say …20 years ago) I was on a tuna casserole diet. Great meal, tuna…noodles…good hot or cold…perfect food! Being a clark, I could (and did) eat tuna casserole for every meal. The point of this story is that roger mentioned this…menu choice, as if it were (still) true. What is remarkable about the sentence that he made was not that it was no longer true, rather that he made the statement with such certainty and conviction that, for a second, I could almost smell tuna casserole. rogers do that, they maintain a (certain) worldview that they have decided is accurate, the passage of time (in this case, 20 years) has zero effect on how true the roger will hold their statement to be… This capability is at heart of the rogerian need to: preserve, to maintain tradition, to support their view of the world as lasting and consistent. This is perhaps the  reason that rogers are such effective story-tellers…they may be mailing up a tale, but when they tell it, it is ‘true’. The listener feels this (rogerian) conviction that the story is true,  simply because (the roger) remembers it as ‘true’)

  • musical technique is to creativity
  • machine operator is to a Teacher

Well that wraps up Chapter II.

1) lol…ask a scott

the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers  c. April 2013

** we mean it about gender neutral…the term ‘couple’ is not limited to simple heterosexual pairs… can include any relationship, sexual and/or friendship-based

1) which is, in and of itself a one-time reprint, it’s own damn self… jeez

Share

clarkscottroger About clarkscottroger
Well, what exactly do you want to know? Whether I am a clark or a scott or roger? If you have to ask, then you need to keep reading the Posts for two reasons: a)to get a clear enough understanding to be able to make the determination of which type I am and 2) to realize that by definition I am all three.* *which is true for you as well, all three...but mostly one

Comments

  1. valj2750 says:

    I’m coming right back, after I go to the gym, to comment.

    • clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:

      hurry!
      ..no! don’t hurry

      (hey readers!! time to vote!!
      Hurry?
      Don’t Hurry?
      What the hell is he talking about and where is “recipes from your grandmothers secret stash .com”?!

  2. valj2750 says:

    Back, Frist. Frist before and frist comment I’m making for the day (except for Frist). So there’s this Roger in my life, (with a strong Scottian aspect), who always asks my Clark for her opinion, because Clarks know a lot about things. But she never opts for my opinion. What’s going on there? Plus I have another little scenario. I’m remembering a party I had at my new house with some neighborhood acquaintances. There was a guy, a member of the Volunteer Fire Department, (rogers right?-rule follower?) As we took the tour, he commented on how I should have this or this or this instead of that. I thought it was unsolicited advice and it annoyed me. This same person wore earplugs at a wedding recently because he thought the music was too loud. So Clark, what is your opinion? (Must be my Rogers talking)?

    • clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:

      I do want to hear from any Readers (especially as to the ‘why’ of the actions and reactions)… but to your core question? 2 words: such a roger!

      more (much) more to follow!

    • clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:

      btw good ‘get’ on the firefighter angle (while there certainly clarks and scotts in that line of work, the culture, the expression …how it manifests is very very rogerian… to wit: the brotherhood of firefighters is clearly a herd, heavily steeped in tradition, and teamwork…their mission is to protect things (as opposed to people, lol) preserve what is, and yes they will carry people out of burning buildings… they are as frequently portrayed getting kittens out of trees and spending an excessive amount of time cooking for each other…lol

  3. TOTALLY see it: Bill and Hillary Clinton – HAHAHAA. Ahem…anyways. um, that’s very interesting about the roger-scott dynamic. I personally, as a clark, try to be honest (sometimes to my utter detriment) and perhaps there HAVE been situations where I’ve said that and…it was awful. I said that a couple years ago when I went to a training and I hadn’t been “trained” and they “put me in charge of a group” – I acknowledged that I hadn’t had much training and that I probably didn’t know what I was doing. This is precisely why – I’ve figured out – the roger of the group strong-armed me and totally walked all over me. I was so mad…I didn’t let him have it, though. :P
    As for clark-clark relationships…my best friend from college is a clark – we still talk. We drive each other crazy sometimes, but…she’s more of a clark roger and I’m more of a clark scott – we really did click. But hubby and I? OMG…we’re the recipe for “no social life unless we literally plan to attend something.” Unless we proactively schedule something to do, we’ll park ourselves in the den, me doing my thing and him doing his thing…and we’ll do this night after night after night…LOL

    • clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:

      yeah… I am (slowly) beginning to be able to view the world with these other perspectives ‘actively’ in mind. (Which may, hopefully, represent a development of my tertiary rogerian aspect). I take encouragement in how quickly I was able to understand what Phyllis said (the view from the Herd)… so, (in your example)… it would have been interesting how it would have gone, had you not flashed your lovely blue skin* at the rogers!
      I may have to provoke these Comments into a Post… good thoughts/observations and such

      * lol…. sorry, New Readers? this is a reference to a expression we use in relation to clarks (in general) and clarks and rogers (in particular)… ‘to be a blue monkey’ refers to unabashedly being the Outsider when dealing with rogers… (there’s more to it than that (isn’t there always?)) but that’s the expression.

  4. Jen Kehl says:

    I’m here again. I like to read. And since I am of a Clarkian nature, I am premitted to observe, correct?

    • clarkscottroger clarkscottroger says:

      absolutisimuss

      (your statement…and my response… contain all that one (should) need to know about life and reality… (the Doctrine) would have: your nature is that of the Outsider, (an) aspect of this, how you relate yourself to the world around, has observing as part of it… it is ‘beyond questioning’… what normal people might say, ‘she is very confident in her right to be an observer… would that we clarks were able to extend this ‘assumption’ to other aspects of our life…)
      ya know?