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

(DownSpring) Molly said something on last Saturday Night’s Drive that has stuck with me this far into the week. The conversation had found itself, somehow, on the topic of the Wakefield Doctrine book Project, and when I started to give an update of the progress I have made, I found myself hesitating. This reluctance immediately became the focus of the conversation. I offered that my hesitation was an expression of clarklike modesty, but that did not quite ring true. I offered that it is a quality of the clarklike worldview to avoid the appearance of willful self-promotion or self-aggrandization, saying that I find myself uncomfortable with the topic. Molly offered that clarks will, as a rule, avoid making pronouncements of goals and/ambitions (primarily) to avoid future disappointment. The scotts in the car could not, of course, identify with that attitude, but concurred with the observation of how it plays in the world of a clark.

(Yes, I know! you scotts and the rogers out there are saying,  “My god! where the hell is that phone number, I cannot miss calling in next Saturday night at 8 pm EDT”* )

How does this tie in with the Monkey’s Paw Effect? Once again, we must look to the Representative from the Large Square State in the Western US, and the context in this instance is ‘the Facebook’. Molly posted one of those ‘sayings things’… not sure what they call it over there, one puts up a photo or a saying or something and people stop and read it and comment on… (sort of like a blog, except there people actually do take the time to write a Comment). In any event, what she put up on ‘her Wall’ was the saying,  “Be careful what you wish for — you just might get it.”
Now this is a saying that totally resonates with clarks. My Comment (in return) included a reference to the famous story “The Monkey’s Paw” (W.W. Jacobs) but more with the emphasis on what is called the Monkey’s Paw Effect. Which, as we all know, is the result of the tendency of people to proclaim a desire for the seemingly un-attainable, without a proper consideration of the ultimate cost of satisfying their desire.

The Wakefield Doctrine  holds that all three personality types may suffer the consequences of (the) Monkey’s Paw Effect, but in markedly different ways, and as is often the case,  it is the context of one’s encountering the Monkey’s Paw Effect that is most telling. An unattainable yet irresistible desire:

• for a clark it might be something that would dispel the distance between themselves and the world, to become famous or rich or desirable
• for a scott it might be something that is pleasurable, enjoyable and would increase their ability to be alive and alert
• for a roger it might be something that will confirm the reality that exists for them, that there is an abstract good, a right way and it would bring all others into harmony

The Monkey’s Paw effect might then be that:

• a clark finds that by attaining what they desire, they have become the person for whom the desire holds little value
• a scott finds that to sustain the ‘joy of the hunt’ they must think of themselves as hunters/predators, which introduces the element of deliberation and self-awareness
• a roger confronts the fact that true homogeneity, though simple and desirable leaves no room for individual perspective, the essential element in appreciation

So there you have it! A simple story, a telling moral and three personality types.

Oh yeah!! Hold on, DownSpring roger is toying with the notion that getting Readers and Followers and Comments (from same) is a worthy goal for a blog writer… I know, I know!!  Hey everyone!! if we all clap our hands at the same time, maybe it will dispel this corrosive, self-destructive, funny-eating notion from his mind!  Lets all clap…   in any event go over to the Relentless Obsession and write him a Comment!