Once upon a time, in a land not very far from Clark’s house… there were three atypical college friends who engaged in many of the atypical activities of their day. They went to school; they played guitars at ear-splitting volumes in dorm rooms, and sneered derisively at those who objected; one drank too, too much; one not at all, but subsisted on Oreos and Coke. One became a Baptist with a capital ” B”. They played in rock bands, worked all sorts of jobs, one got married way too soon. They all wrestled with the Issues Of Their Day, with varying degrees of resolve and/or success.  And in spite of all the atypical ups and downs, they managed to form a very unique bond. And , to their surprise, the bond has lasted much longer than any one of them might have thought. Longer than some marriages, jobs, bands, or Baptist dogma. And after many hours of conversation about just about everything turned into years and decades of same, there came to be what was, and is now, referred to as … the Wakefield Doctrine. (from the post: the Wakefield Doctrine (a pre-history)

The Wakefield Doctrine is, of course, about people. You, me and those people over there. The strength of the Doctrine lies in it’s basic tenet: people perceive the world in one of three characteristic ways, as a clark or a scott or a roger. Further, the way people act, their  style of responding to life’s situations is equally characteristic.

This is true for male and for female. It is not a matter of there are female clarks or female scotts or female rogers.

There are rogerian women, scottian females and clarklike girls.

Much of the writing (on these pages) has tended to the male perspective; attribute that to the male bias of the current culture. But the fact remains that a scottian female will perceive the world as a predator on the look-out for prey and for (stronger) predators. The rogerian female will seek to organise and enforce the rules (that they themselves establish), be it in the PTA or the neighborhood watch gatherings. And the clarklike girl will be creative and wear very strange shoes.

There is no escaping the effect of the culturally established views of men and women. Rather than being a hindrance, it offers us an opportunity to take something everyone knows and see how the Wakefield Doctrine demonstrates its central premise, that the way we all behave is based on our (characteristic) assumptions and perceptions.

(Now if you are real patient, I will try and get that other writer to do something pleasant and re-assuring in this space.)

“roger, oh roger, if you would come and help our readers relax a bit. They seem to be experiencing a little pedantic overload.”