Sunday Morning?  Yeah.  The subtitle reference?  Why Twisted Sister, of course!  (And the Author of this Post is: (please choose one) a) a clark  b) a clark c) a clark or d) a clark.)

And the Correct Answer is:  the answer you picked is not important (Correct Answer: C) (Don’t worry, a lot of people get this wrong, mostly choosing A).  What is important about our little Sunday Morning test is,  “Why did you choose the Answer that you did”?  And we all know the answer to that, don’t we?

Having established that Sundays are the ‘slowest’ day of the week here at the Doctrine, we can get into some of the more esoteric aspects of this thing of ours. After all, most of the scottian Readers are off  doin’ stuff, even the rogerian followers are busy doing other things.  Wait a minute…. there’s our  topic!

Rogers and the Herd.

the Progenitor roger is currently doing the ‘solo album’ thing. (You know how after a band forms, they have huge success and sell a ton of records and invariably one of the band members discovers that they need to find a place where they can have more artistic expression/freedom.  Sometimes it is a contentious evolution, i.e. David Byrne and sometimes it is not a bad thing.  This is usually the case when more than one (of the) band members does this thing; Think the Beatles at the end of the ’60s.
Anyway, in our case the roger is off doing the Secessionist Rag.  The raison d’etre for his blog is to create a “collaborative novel”, online, within the blog itself.
(My understanding is that anyone and everyone can visit the blog and contribute to the ‘novel’.  There is a requirement that all entries be in multiple of 50 words but otherwise no limits, no constraints, no guidelines, no directives or direction).  Just write.  An interesting idea and, by early indications, it seems to have some legs.
But…(you knew that was coming, didn’t you?), it is this  un-structuredness, non-directedness that seems to account for the most difficulty, in terms of encouraging participation by Visitors and Readers.  Now, the reason “the Rag”  is interesting to us here at the Wakefield Doctrine is not what people do to contribute to roger’s little project, rather it is what roger thinks he will/can/should get,  in terms of a response from Readers who go there.  How many people will contribute, and why.  Also will the contributions that are offered result in a coherent “novel”.  The jury is still out, way, way too early to conclude anything. But it is an intriguing notion and bound to be instructive to us here at the Doctrine.  Sort of a laboratory of the rogerian “mind”.

What we here at the Wakefield Doctrine are in a position to learn from this (by “we”, of course, mean the clarklike Readers, although I would not overlook some of the more adept and mentally agile scotts (like AKH) or the more open-minded rogers such as Joanne), is simple, “what the hell kind of reality do you people live in?”
But let’s get all basic and review the Doctrine as it describes rogers…

… and rogers feel…
rogers(adv rogerian; pronunciation: ‘roe -jeer -riann’)

The ‘premise of identity’ for a roger is that of group member, similar to those in his group(herd), definitely different from nearly all other not members of the herd she might see, in the world at large.  There is a (self-awareness) of being emotionally capable, perhaps even superior.

The ‘perceptual bias’ exhibited is that the world is an ordered place, filled with similar people all who appear to enjoy the company of others like themselves.  To a roger the world is,  basically good  provided the rules and guides and laws are expressed and conformed to all… hostile.  From the perspective of a roger, especially when in the context of the herd, the roger is never, ever the outsider…

Herds symbolize the point of view that places the value of the group over the value of the individual.  Herds do not have an internal hierarchy and do not evidence a purpose (to benefit individual members), other than survival.  Herds do not organize to attack an enemy or to catch/kill/trap food.

If anything, a herd’s only characteristic as a grouping… The members of the herd are happy simply being in a herd.

Rogers live to be with who they perceive to be, those like themselves.  They accept the existence of others (non-herd members) but only in the most transitory sense.  Individual herd members will be picked off (by scotts) but so long as the herd survives (and they are not the ones being picked off), the roger is content.

…The primary benefit of the herd for a  roger is to know that there are other rogers

So in conversation with roger it becomes apparent that he believes a “collaborative novel” is a possibility, provided there are enough rogers coming to the blog and responding to the invitation to join his herd.  This is as it should be for rogers.  The intriguing question is a two part question:
a) will clarks and scotts be able to intuit the rogerian directive/subscript that is implied in his blogsite experiment
b) why would a roger feel the need to join another herd?

Interesting questions, no?  lol, please do not answer that question in print…I know the answer…but don’t take my word for it, go to this place, Secessionist Rag (beats the hell out of me, ask the roger what it means…).

Lots to ponder, reflect upon, improve your understanding of the Doctrine…but I must say this…I can’t wait to finish this Post and get outside, and I wrote the frickin thing…music…lets have something to get us out of the damn house/office/plant or wherever we might be…

(Coming next week, the Good…the Bad…Decide Right Now!! back to school shopping ads)

Hey, Does James Brown totally spin in his grave everytime this commercial is played or what? damn,  corporate dudes, suck much?