Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers ).
You know how we said that the New Year ( now the current Year) was going to be a time of organizing the information presented here, so that even the newest of New Readers will totally understand the Doctrine and be able to get a benefit from it, right the hell from the start? Well, this organization thing is tougher than I imagined. The problem is not that we don’t know the Doctrine and how it works and how to use it. The problem/difficulty/challenge lies in the ‘how-to-explain-it-so-that-everyone-and-anyone-gets-it’, aspect of our presentation.
And you know whose fault that is, don’t you?
That’s right! It’s your fault!1 (Just a little editorial levity to offset the dreaded ‘you’re out here in the vast white space of an un-written Post)
Here at the Wakefield Doctrine, the primary writing guidelines have always been to:
- have a good time
- write about what I know
- impart or convey or induce or whatever the hell is required to allow the Reader to come away from this Post glad that they spent the time to read it
New Reader be advised. These Posts are meant more as conversations on the subject of the the Wakefield Doctrine.2
The Wakefield Doctrine is a way of looking at behavior. Of people. That we know. (…or don’t know).
The Wakefield Doctrine affords us a perspective on the ‘why’ of a person’s behavior, a feature that is missing in most of the mainstream personality theories. The reason this insight is possible is found within the core tenet of the Doctrine, which is as follows:
All people are born with a predilection to perceive reality as three distinct, characteristic (yet related) worlds. These worlds have rules and assumptions and understandings just like you would expect. What the Doctrine says is that you can live in any of these three worlds but for reasons not yet understood, we settle on one (of these worlds) by age of 5 or 6 and this becomes our worldview. We become clarks or scotts or rogers. We say this because we see behavior as being reasonable reactions and responses to life, provided we understand the reality the person is reacting to. A clark is a clark because they exist in a world in which they are the outsider, a scott behaves like he/she does because they are living their life in a world based on the predator/prey model and a person who we call a roger is sociable and intelligent and petty and ‘precisely inventive’ because they have (chosen) to live in a world as constructed using the underlying assumptions of the herd mentality.
This might seem confusing at first. I’m sort of explaining it backwards. The way the Doctrine came to be was a result of serendipitous observation of a friend 3 and the inspired insight that his behavior, characteristic responses ( in other words, his personality) made more sense if the worldview that he was seeing was somehow different from mine. For those of us here at the Wakefield Doctrine, all behavior is easily understood provided you can see the world through the (other) person’s eyes. The description of the three personality types will help make the leap to the idea of the three world views. It sounds more difficult than it actually is. Oh yeah! One important detail: all of us have the capability to experience the world as the other two do. I am a clark, but I have within a rogerian (and) a scottian aspect. When you start learning about the Wakefield Doctrine, you will find yourself saying, “What the hell! Most of the time I am sure I must be a clark but then I see what is clearly a rogerian response.” All perfectly normal, it is proof in a sense that we retain the view of the world that ‘the other two’ personality types maintain. Just keep exploring and learning the characteristics of each of the three types, the one that you are will be the one that keeps popping back up.
So lets consider this the core premise of the Wakefield Doctrine. The world you are acting in is based on rules and assumptions that shape your options (in behavior, reactions, as we said above about scott, you response to the world comprises your personality type).
Remember that this is a reality of predominance, the world that you exist in as a clark or a scott or a roger is what it is because of a pre-dominance. You never lose the capacity to see the other two worlds. (In fact, it is critical that you never forget that, because that is where we will find the most productive, useful and all-around cool uses of the this thing of ours, in terms of self-development and change and such.)
Good start on the Year. Lets all give ourselves a pat on our respective backs for a good session (…I said, pat, scott….pat! ) lol
We’ll do some more later in the week.
Guest Call out for this week’s Video Friday!! Anyone want to come ‘on the air’ let us know. It’s fun! Ask anyone who has done it! ( Such as Molly or Ms. AKH or DS#1 or even the progenitor roger!) As a matter of fact, if you go there and ask them (at their blogs) for a Wakefield Doctrine hat (for your damn head) we damn well will send you one!
1) Superscript Lesson Number 1: when it comes to being inclined to want to assign blame for problems and difficulties, you are always safe going with a roger
2) the ‘we’ around here consists of a number of exceptional people referred to by various titles, Progenitors, DownSprings and Friends of the Doctrine (FOTD) and they are all people like you (New Reader). They came into contact with the Wakefield Doctrine and they found it: interesting, amusing, useful, fuckin incredibly insightful and fun and they have stayed on and contribute to the body of knowledge that we now have.
3) here read this actually when you get there,go right to the bottom of the Page, that is the story of the first encounter with a Progenitor