Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
Today’s Post is a little different. Rather than lecture on how the Wakefield Doctrine is the best way for you to understand why the people in your life act the way that they do, we have decided to ask DownSpring glenn to talk to us. This should allow Readers to hear the Doctrine being discussed as it is understood by one of the group of people who are the foundation of this blog. (If we were to have a Lesson of the Day, it would have said, simply enough, ‘look at the different view of this blog being espoused by glenn’. At some points he seems to be at odds with everything this blog has offered over the past 12 months, but then you realise nothing could be further from the truth. glenn is simply illustrating the scottian view of the best way to present the Wakefield Doctrine, and thereby demonstrating how the scottian view varies from the clarklike and the rogerian perspective.’)
A little stem winding1and then we’ll bring out glenn.
A DownSpring of the original group, glenn has the distinction of having been an integral part of the post-classical development of the Wakefield Doctrine. Like a modern day Dr. Watson2, riding shotgun on the ‘trips to Wakefield’; that glenn was the impetus that prompted the creation of this blog is all the references the gentleman needs.
Clark: So 2010 is over, dude. what are “the high points” of the last year of the things we have written and done from, at least from your scottian perspective?
Glenn: Anything that was funny. All the comical stuff. And I liked that we got all these other people involved now.Clark: Would you care to elaborate on that rather over-arching assertion? (Examples…)
Glenn: The funniest thing you wrote all year was that time you tried to channel me. It was all “fuck this” and “fuck that”. I laughed out loud at that.Clark: Now what would you say are the low points? I need you to be specific to the effect, (of what is getting written), on the group of Progenitors and DownSprings here. We know your thoughts on ‘shaking ’em up’, gettin their attention etc…later for that….we need you to talk about negative effects on the people we know are here…including our putative Readers…btw I notice that Studley don’t come around no mo.
Glenn: The low points? Easy—censoring a fucking genius like me. You didn’t do it often. You NEVER needed to do it. I know we disagree about this. But good stuff was lost. Too bad about Studley. He stuck around until the censoring started. Not saying it was causal—just time related.Clark: So for 2010 overall what is your assessment…not so much from a ‘style influence’ but the increasing understanding of the Doctrine and from that, the implied utility of it.(you need that translated)?
Glenn: The Wakefield Doctrine sells itself. The blog set-up however seems to discourage and confuse new readers. You try to give an abbreviated explanation with every post. Not sure what the solution is.Clark: Truth be told, you are as well-versed on the Doctrine as anyone and you have the perspective of a professional in the counseling field, or sport…you know, industry. You also were the catalyst to naming this the Wakefield Doctrine, you remember the the conversation that lead to this thing? (about this not sounding serious enough for the real world)?
Glenn: I do remember that discussion. And many others before it in which I would encourage you to write a book, or a journal article. The blog was a perfect alternative—and it is now turning into a community. A weird one, a fun one, but it IS a clark at the helm. The blog mixes in some very appealing humor and lightness with some quite serious thought on the doctrine. The question then is what do YOU want? I like it as it is—an entertaining, light-hearted, fun place to visit. But that necessarily requires us to sacrifice some of the seriousness and gravity of a true psychological construct. The blog as it is will never lead to “serious” acceptance of the doctrine by scientists, researchers, etc.. It is not “evidence-based.” It is “intuition-based”. But, fuck all that science shit anyway. This is “folk science”. It is to formal science as folk music is to formal music. It is accessible. It is not obscure. The blog has some “jargon”, but the spirit of the blog is actually inviting readers to learn the jargon. Scientific writing actually ends up screening out lay people. It is intended to be undemocratic and not inclusive. If you don’t know the jargon—get the fuck out!Clark: Are we getting any closer? If the decision were made to take the Doctrine, have it printed professionally and go out on the road to whoever the fuck you sell new modalities to nowadays…(not counting academia) You know counselor conventions.
Glenn: See, I’m not sure that’s a reasonable thing to pursue. At least, not along the “timeline” we’re in now. The WD is an entertainment concept now. Not a scientific or therapeutic one. And I think that’s fine. To pursue being taken seriously in the therapeutic community, you’d have to do research, testing, etc… All very dreary boring stuff—for what? To get some roger professors to like us? Fuck that. Let’s make it the best entertainment concept we can—and also include some therapeutic and real world applicability—without all that boring scientific discipline.Clark: Hey what do the hospitality suites at counselor conventions look like? There gots to be guys selling services to people like the folks you work for…how do they pitch whatever they sell?
Glenn: Brochures. Pamphlets. Usually staffed by clinicians at the facility being advertised. I’d advise staying away from such contexts and continuing to use the web—in all of its’ various channels, to push the message.Clark: Heard you are a fan of the Secessionist Rag…what do you like the most about it? Hate the most?
Glenn: I like roger’s writing style. I like the mundane shit he writes about. He writes well about music,.Clark: Anything you want to talk about that we have not covered and that you have not addressed in Comments?
Glenn: I guess nothing I haven’t said before. Beware of The Lenny Bruce Syndrome. At the end of his career, he was so consumed with his legal cases, he stopped being funny. He thought his legal cases, and the principles involved mattered to people. They didn’t. They bored people. He got booed off of stages because he wasn’t funny anymore. So my message is—enjoy the blog. Make it fun. Keep it fun. Be serious from to time, but never stop being interesting, amusing, fun, and accessible. Aiight mutha fucka?
The Wakefield Doctrine is, quite simply, the most useful of tools for anyone interested in understanding the behavior of others. Simple in concept, easy to learn, this Doctrine will have you saying, “man, why did I never realise that all they were after was attention“? or “she has a need to belong to a group and the whole religious thing was just her way of believing that the universe followed rules and that being a good person meant following those rules” or even “I am not different, I do not have to hide in plain sight, the world has a place even for me. Just knowing how those real people think and feel is the missing piece of the puzzle.”
Lets thank glenn for the time he gave to add to this thing of ours. I was thinking of going on and on and maybe include a contest or perhaps a vote on ‘should glenn do this or do that’ but that would be stupid. glenn has expressed his views directly and honestly, as he must, being a scott. And we appreciate having him be a part of this here blog here. So, lets just get some music and get on with the day….and DON’T FORGET! You will see rogers out there today, and then you will see scotts and, if you are still in any condition to do so, you can spot the clarks, before they scurry back into the undergrowth. Remember what you see today, don’t bother telling your friends, just come back here and tell us in a Comment what you think.
1) stem-wind·ing adj. 1. Wound by turning an expanded crown on the stem. 2. Of, relating to, or characterized by rousing oration
2) Watson is described as a crack shot and an excellent doctor and surgeon. Highly intelligent, if lacking in Holmes’s insight, he serves as a perfect foil for Holmes: the ordinary man against the brilliant, emotionally-detached analytical machine. Conan Doyle paired two characters, different in their function and yet each useful for his purposes.
Watson is well aware of both the limits of his abilities and Holmes’s reliance on him:
| “ | Holmes was a man of habits… and I had become one of them… a comrade… upon whose nerve he could place some reliance… a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him… If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance.” – The Adventure of the Creeping Man (Wikipedia, of course!) |
About clarkscottroger
It is said one should “go out on top”. You have done this thing.(going out of this year)
…as opposed to ‘over the top’?
Nice post. Glenn’s assessment is spot-on. ” Folk science” describes it really well. It can and could be “serious”, but works much better if people learn to improvise with it. Both thumbs way up!!
Was that Reverend Horton Heat? He is superb. He sometimes is a guest singer with Los Straitjackets. That Glenn guy so right about everything. Galaxy 500. Fucking cool!
By the way…I’ve now been censored by another blog. Kind of proud of it. Rennaisance Ronin. He had a post about the TSA gropings at the airports–very much against it, like most intelligent people. I seconded his opinion and added some information about Michael Chertoff getting millions as an investor in the conmpany that makes the naked see-through machines–and how that company spent millions greasing congress–and how we could therefore expect no help from those whores. Then I added a little imagined scene. It went like this:
TSA worker: Well Mrs. Jones, you SAY it’s a tampon, but we have to be sure. So I’ll just reach in here and make su….Why are you crying? Don’t you want to be safe?
Ronin thought some of his more (What? Civilized?) sensitive or female readers would be offended. He thanked me for the comment and asked me to remove the reference to a female hygiene product.. He was very civil and nice about it. So, I did. I changed the tampon to a colostomy bag. The comment remains unpublished. I believe the scene above is not only funny—it also makes a valid and relevant point–in a way that a simple statement agreeing with Ronin cannot. It catches peoples’ attention. It might even offend or anger some people. But writing and publishing the scene as written is FAR LESS offensive than the everyday real-life humiliations travelers endure at airports. How can one censor the fictional scene when the reality that exists right now is far more disgusting and reprehensible? The fact that the scene is lurid, disgusting, and offensive only reflects the reality. It is not gratuitous. Nothing wrong in my book, by the way, with gratuitous offensiveness. But THIS was not. Anyway–no hard feelings against Ronin. But when a scott got something to say, he say the fucking thing–without frills and euphemisms. I could not respect myself any other way. Out, yo!
OK – “over the top” but only in the most positive way:)
You elicit the question (for the benefit of others): can a clark ever “turn off” the instantaneous cerebral calisthenics that is the search for the “right/correct” interpretation? (Which of course Is a gargantuan mirror for clarks) Brings to mind a line from a Last Poets song – “wake up, n…..or we all through”.
Your point is more poignant than you may realize, glenn. Not only do I not disagree with your characterization of the state of the world, I fully support your right to comment on them.
I have always reserved the right to say (and do) anything that I can get away with and am willing to pay the price (of).
While we will always have disagreement on individual taste, I fear you are encountering the Realpolitik of the blogosphere, i.e. that it is not the readers (of Ronin’s blog) that are important, it is Ronin. The simple fact of life is that Ronin has the huge number of Readers that he does entirely because of his ‘judgementalism on content”.
I recall us talking once (on a trip to Wakefield, of course) about a situation where someone got offended by something another person did at some social function. I recall (that) discussion started with “Fuck those people for being judgemental, that kid had every right to say what he did”, but by the time the argument ended, I recall both of us agreeing that “… the judgemental person also has every right to criticize the kid”.
What was clouding the ‘analysis’ of that particular interaction was, in fact, the quality judgements, not the content of (the statements) of either party (Offendor or Offendee).
Much shorter way of saying all thi is, ‘whats good for the goose, is good for the gander’…..motherfucker
…agree with the roger (agreeing with glenn)…this can never be scientific, because: a) it is not scientific and 2) because all that those science(academe)-types could do with this thing is take the fun out of it.
So put me down in the “screw the focus groups, statistical sampling, chi aquare wearing, goddamn scientists and bring on the damn Tee shirts”!! column.
guess this proves a reason for Gretsch guitars…the only fricking thing big enough for the 8 pound cast iron Bigsby…
Happy New Year everyone!
To all clarks remember this: “a clark without fear is a clark to be feared”
Amen to that!
Happy Happy everybody!