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M2 -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

This is the Doctrine’s contribution to Doug’s new bloghop: The M of M. Click here and join the fun.

The prompt, this week is:

AUSTRALIA

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

Stepping back from the chalkboard, white mist descending to the floor in subtle, if not un-appreciated irony, Professor Macnamara turned towards the empty auditorium. A single red light glowed from the camera, placed as the professor’s vanity insisted, in the center and middle of the half-moon of empty seats. Red ‘Exit’ lights beamed their advisory to no one, save the woman on the stage.

“Can anyone tell the class why Ernst Haeckel’s observation is useful to the current threat to mankind?”

Walking towards the sterile cloth-draped banquet table, the reign of monochrome was briefly overthrown as she was bathed in the video prism of a computer-screen full of half-profile thumbnails of her students.

“Yes, Yvette?”

‘It suggests that a novel virus may contain the solution to its eradication in any subsequent mutations.”

“Very good.” A light flickered impatiently around one of the thumbnails; seeing no other request to be heard, Jean reluctantly clicked the ‘Unmute’ on Pierre Hanga-Raruraru.

“But didn’t that strategy prove ineffective in Australia?”

The computer display dimmed as the ‘Class Ending in Three Minutes’ message scrolled over the grid of remote med students.

“Sorry, we’re out of time. Please remember, end of term projects are due next week, upload as ahead of the deadline as possible. The new Quarantine Protocols forbid any attempts to deliver them in person.”

 

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M2 -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

This is the Doctrine’s contribution to Doug‘s new bloghop: The M of M.

(You should go check it out! Totally with instructions and a bunch of writers with mad wordage skills. Yeah, and we’re there as well??!)

This week, availing ourselfs of only 250 words, we are, all of us, invited to write a story involving the following prompt:

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley (often go astray)

“Measure twice and cut once,” the five-year-old boy looked at his father who stood at the fluorescent-lit workbench, held up a ruler. Both had taken refuge in the basement workshop to escape the house above and the emotional discord waiting where the other half of the family rested.

“Plan your work and work your plan,” the boy, now a college professor, stood at front of the freshman engineering class, looked down at his dimly-lit lectern and smiled, “Failure is the bastard son of building without knowing everything about your materials.”

“And this will be the baby’s room,” smiling abstractly, the young man glanced at the girl at his side. A diamond on her left ring finger reflected light intermittently, as she leaned forward over the LED-lit drafting table.

“Don’t you understand? She is everything to me.”

“My father used to always say, Failure to plan is planning to fail.” Pacing through the flickering light of the church, the groom stared at the man charged with holding the ring and the cell phone. The device came to life with a sound, an unnatural sequence of tones; half musical and half incantation, the new century’s soul-less equivalent of a trusted guardian.

“Is that her?!! Is there anything wrong? No, just read it to me!” The best-man complied, in a tone as stilted as the grammar in world of texting instead of speaking:

“I don’t love you. You never asked me if I did. Sorry to ruin your plans for my life.”

 

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M2 Challenge -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

Hey, so there’s this new prompt-write place we’re auditioning for. (Students of the Doctrine will now be raising eyebrows and reaching for real-or-imagined popcorn…. a clark deliberately going to a party?!?! This we gots to see.)

So, we got this message today, in a rarely-used email account:

In less than 250 words write a story inspired by “strange lights in the sky”.

 

The new apex predator confronted life: food to be found; predators to avoid.

The sun dominated the daytime sky with a simple directive: live and prosper. Despite His pride in this first quality of the earth, (‘Let there be Light!’), god grudgingly allow darkness to hold sway with a different agenda: hide and survive.

A stable dichotomy held until the upright hominids faced the inherent quality setting them apart from other living things: a subjective life that rivaled, in potential, their natural skills at running, tool-making and subjecting the weaker members of their kind to capricious will.

When the communal fire died down or a hunter stumbled away from the group, there was no escaping the strange lights in the sky. Like the whispers the spinster-to-be fought to un-hear, the night was not so simple and quite enticing:

‘Who am I, why am I here’

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Monday-Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

The Wakefield Doctrine maintains that everyone and all of us are: a)born with the capacity to perceive the world as having one of three characteristic natures. This ‘nature’ determines the basis upon which the individual forms and develops their personalities and 2) at an early age the individual establishes their residency (or membership (or backdrop)) in one and only one world. Growing up, a predominant aspect of, (the individual’s), style of interacting with the world is, obviously the character of the reality they are in. While one’s predominant worldview is one of the three, the ‘other two’ are not extinguished. They remain as secondary and tertiary aspects, influences and potential, as opposed to fundamental realities.

…man! we’re out of practice! While we recharge the batteries of the forklift that is clearly necessary in order to move words and phrases about this post, what say we go look in the archives for something a little lighter?

[Damn! I think I remember!* And…and! a fringe benefit of remembering the proper state of mind is to not only feel better, but enjoy an increased level of impulsivity. So here it is…. wait, better call them what were on yesterday’s Livestream,  Nick and Denise and Frank and Mimi and Cynthia (in spirit if not in person). A little more of a ‘setup’ is in order. They were on when the topic we’re discussing came up. The others, Tom and Ford and M. and the others hadn’t yet tuned in.

So the question from Nick yesterday was (paraphrasing here): why is it easier to react negatively (to the world) than positively? Well… this morning: we had to check on a house that might have had some issues with the furnace. Not surprisingly there was a sense of suspense as we drove up to the house. Fortunately, everything was fine. As we drove away, in a better mood, it occurred to us there was a choice in how we could feel. The default choice was ‘Relief’. But the better choice was ‘Celebration’. (Spoiler Alert! The surrounding concept and conclusion is beyond the scope of this intro, but we thought you’d want to know…about the universe and such. lol]

…after all is said and done, what’s in a name? the 3 personality types of the Wakefield Doctrine ( 3 labels account for all!!)

Mickey Rourke a clark?1
Prince a clark?
Kristen Stewart a clark?  ( well,  that was kinda easy….just go look at this video)

And what’s with the term ‘clarklike female’?  After all, the Doctrine is gender neutral and you do call (the others) scottian women and rogerian females… why the weird name for the…wait… nah, never mind.

( No! We are not reluctant to answer the question, that is, after all,  how we all learn… well, clarks and rogers in any event.)

The answer, with any luck, will prove to be both simple and obvious

  • a group or multiple scotts results in a pack
  • more than one roger gathering together?  clearly a herd!
  • 2 or 3 or more clark…… results in a… what was the question? (hey they were right here a minute ago!…was there always a floor lamp over there?…wait a minute…

Hopefully that answers the question to everyone’s satisfaction.

scotts are very, very easy to identify…when you see them, chances are they are already watching you! And if you are up for it, take a good look at them, (preferably when their attention is on someone else)  there is no mistaking the gaze, the alertness, they are paying attention. (Go back to the Kristen Stewart video thing above, this time focus on Kelly instead of Kristen)

rogers are not too difficult to spot, given that there are more of them than the other two types ( in any given situation)…besides you cannot help but to run into the roger wherever you happen to be…it is not enough for a roger to gather in a herd…they must find people who are not of the herd in order to get maximum enjoyment from the rogerian experience… now these ‘others’ will be of 2.5 other categories  clarks and scotts  male and female2 and depending on (which) the roger will cause their herd to either interfere with the clarks ( like the old  joke we all loved when we first learned to drive…you know, “Hey want a ride?” just as they reach for the door handle, jump the car ahead… lol now that I remember that it is pretty funny) anyway thats sort of what a rogerand their herd will try to do to a clark…now if it happens to be a scott entering the room  then…er…  think more….  Lunch is served!

clarks are interesting…they have a natural affinity for the company of scotts  and a weakness for the charm of rogers…as to spotting a clark, well that’s another matter, if the clark does not wish to be noticed, then you are plain out of luck! You won’t.. but then again with patience you will see the proof (of the statement about clarks) that they do not want to be the center of attention but will not tolerate being ignored. clarklike females are second only to scotts as being easy to spot… with clarklike non-females** (lol)  it is a little more work, but all you have to do is listen to the conversation going on in the gathering… “we cannot directly know anything is real, but then again it doesn’t matter, because all this is imaginary in the first place…”   ( that sort of thing, along with the sound of scottian laughter and footfalls of the fleeing rogers )

 

* What makes for a dull post instead of a, ‘yeah, that was fun’

  1. Go find the official video of ‘You can leave your hat on’ on the youtube. Watch how Mickey (his character) reacts and relates to Kim’s character. Ain’t no scott and too much humor for a roger (in that context)
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Teusday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “ok, we get it’s all about reprints…but spelling optional?!”

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

Hey, before we get to the reprint. (Which we’re looking forward to, as it has a lesser-seen movie illustration of the personality types of the Wakefield Doctrine. Specifically, a roger and a scott. Forgot how cool this one was. Now… where the hell is the door outa this parenthesisisis?!)

Before we do that…

whew!

Advanced students, (and ambitiously-confident New Readers*), here’s an interesting thing: the misspelled title? It’s because we turned off the spellchek**. We turned off the spellchuck*** because it was autocorrecting improperly. I thought about digging into the WP dashboard and fixing it but, it was easier to turn it off.

…and endure the consequences. (Don’t even ask us about childhood experiences with dentists. It’s exactly like this instance. Except instead of the intimidation of messing with the inner workings of the blog, there were giant needles. And, instead of constant re-typing of common words, there were six-year-old dental nerve endings.)

Where were we?

oh, yeah! Reprint!

Excellent one this Tuesday. Classic scott in Jack and James Spader? Nothing less than poster boy of the Herd it’s ownself.

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

Hunter-Trader-Trapper 1937-06

Alert Reader Denise writes:

“…Doctrine! It has provided me with much insight into rogers. In a nutshell: they will always be the ones to say no. They will do nothing to disturb the boundaries, the lines that frame their world. clarks need to take notice of this. The sooner the better. I leave it in your hands, Clark, to explain to new readership the why. Maybe you need to write the answer in the form of a post.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And since we are talking about rogers**

Our Friend Zoe says to us in a Comment, she says:

“… my new roger is settling in to his new environment a bit too well… coveting my office…I loan my office out readily without reservation, but he made it very clear by saying ” I want that office… when are you leaving?” and has left telltale signs of his usage… I may have a rogerian twist and be a clark at heart… but never piss off my scott.

Sorry. The ‘damage’ is done.

Not to ‘baby-coat’1 our assessment, but you are witnessing a roger challenging your membership in the herd. How is that possible, you ask? The frickin guy got there 20 minutes ago and he thinks that he can include himself in the group? ( you say with not a little emotion). What gives him the right to try that?  If you are in possession of any of these thoughts, I hate to tell ya, but you have just painted yourself a lovely shade of blue2. It is totally ‘too late’.

Not ‘too late’ to make things right, restore the proper balance, achieve an understanding among the players in this little drama…. just ‘too late’ to avoid a ‘conflict’ with the roger in your environment.

If he had perceived you as another roger or a scott he would have:

  • presented his credentials, not to meet your approval but to allow him  to ‘tune himself to the herd’ (you know how the sound of cattle and herds of cows are often presented as a single  ‘MOO’  ?  well, I think our Progenitor roger will attest to the fact that what is heard as a single MOO  is, in fact, comprised as a harmony among the members… your roger probably started with presenting some of his history to everyone he came into contact with…to hear the pitch of his new herd)
  • presented his ‘soft-underbelly’ if he thought you were a scott (at least, a predominant scottian female)… but this observation is moot, because in that particular tango, the woman leads… (at least initially and to the extent that the average person is able to see

So… now you have yourself a roger feeling like he can enhance his standing in the herd by making you appear more and more the Outsider. Remember, a dominance move by a roger, in contrast to that of a scott is never made ‘alone’.  While he may appear to be addressing the matter of use of the office space to you directly, most of his efforts are actually directed to the others in your environment. rogers always work in the context of the group, the herd. It is this ‘contexting’ that rogers will base their strategy on, that and, be on the lookout for (him) invoking referential authority. ( Hey, I know you love your space..I respect that, but we were talking about how, with the practice growing we all need to work together more…”)

All kidding aside. you now have a problem that, interestingly enough, can be seen as a manifestation of the trap that would appear to an inherent aspect of the desire for self-improving oneself. You rightly know that you can ‘over-come’ this person’s attempt to reduce the quality of your personal work environment. But at what price? The Doctrine states that we all retain access to those two worldviews that are not our predominant worldview. In your case, (we hear you say), ‘ a clark with secondary rogerian and tertiary scottian aspects’. but…. but!  here is where the conflict begins to manifest.  (If) you are a clark, then your personal reality is that of the Outsider…which makes perfect sense given your situation. You can access your scottian aspect and inter-act with this roger as would a scott, and as we have already said, if this were a scott-on-roger thing, none of the the above would be happening.  So, you can dominate the roger rather decidedly. But then what?  Will you trade your predominant (clarklike) worldview for a victory in a single circumstance? Or… is there a way to reach an understanding with this person?   unfortunately, the Wakefield Doctrine says ‘no’.

Well, sorta. We’re playing with the words now.  clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel.  So, if you want to reach an understanding, you are out of luck. That is not to say that there is nothing you can do, but it should not be thought of as an understanding.

Lets return to a strategy we have previously offered:  ‘love your roger‘  This is still the preferred strategy, but it will require a bit more….finessing.  Yes, you should ‘love your roger‘,  but that does not mean (as is all too often the case with clarks), you must allow him to do as he wishes. But, to love your roger requires that you relate to him on an emotional basis… more than that!  you must regard him on an emotional basis. We’re using italics here to convey the idea that, if you are able to know him completely on an emotional basis you will be relating to him as a member of the herd. That’s right!  trade that lovely azure coat for a comforting wrap of brown and white spots!

(will continue later today…. )

Wait a minute!! If you haven’t seen it yet,  watch the scott and roger…. everything is right there. (the roger looking to left and right for the herd that is his context, his invoking referential authority, his offering of emotional currency…his love).

 

1) a rogerian expression of sorts… a fascinating characteristic use of language found only in rogers…here,  go to the page on rogers  down towards the bottom

2) a reference to the description of a clark in the context of a group, or perhaps it would be more realistic to say, ‘a clark in contrast to a group’. In any event, the term ‘blue monkey’ is a remnant of grad school days when we learned of, (or came to believe that we learned of), an experiment in which one young monkey was painted, (more likely dyed), blue and returned to his troop. You can imagine the result. In the Wakefield Doctrine we use the blue monkey image several ways, as a symbol of the innate outsider-ness that clarks exhibit when in a social setting, and it is also used to refer to (a) clarks self-sabotaging by make an extra effort to ‘contrast their differences’.

 

* which, finally, here in the world of the Wakefield Doctrine, clarks step up into a leadership role… we’ll until, that is, the Herd begins to re-orientate itself, an amoeba with a million faces, propelled by the inexorable power of curling lips, on a body and then, well, lets hope the clark in question has a sufficiently significant secondary scottian aspect

** take that! you supercilious (don’t think about the root of that word…ewww) nanny sub-routine

*** hah!

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