Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
The Wakefield Doctrine provides those with the aptitude for and the interest in understanding the behavior of the people in their lives, a perspective that is unique, very useful and quite often amusing. Part inspired observation, part creative inference, this view of human personality, while not rigidly empirical (more flexibly anecdotal), can afford the dedicated people watcher, an insight that will be both refreshing and amusing. There is a catch.
We have found, in the course of writing some 783 Posts over the last 4 years, that even allowing for a certain element of rhetorical density in our efforts to explain the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine, not everyone who reads this blog gets it. I know, how the hell can that be? Actually that was predicted by the Doctrine itself, that in order to clear the hurdles of the somewhat prosaic-ositousness of some Posts1 the Readers would have to be clarks or (being scotts or rogers), have a strong secondary clarklike aspect.
But here you are, shaking your head as you read this, thinking ‘do I really have this much free time?!’
1) like this one from December 2009:
‘…sun don’t shine, the gods look down in anger’
(Well, oh kay… interesting note to start a Post on… but stranger things have happened in and about the Wakefield Doctrine)
(…”this just in”…’clark…the seventies…were…thirty…plus…years ago’…stop…’please, stop’…)
Hey Reader! Yeah you!
Do you believe that your (personal) history defines and (pre)determines your future or what? Is there such a thing as the momentum of habit. (The ‘momentum of habit’ is the notion that what we are is simply a more elaborate form of what we have always been.) (Cheery thought, no?)Well? Do you think it does?
Do me a favor, given that you know something about us here at the Doctrine…Look back on your life. Try and recollect the things you have done, the places you have lived, the people you have known, since as far back as you can recall…
Now, erase the names of the people, delete the addresses of the locations and take off the labels of the things you have done (job title, education, religious designations). You can still remember your life, can’t you?
Even with names and labels removed/deleted/eliminated, you know that you have been alive, with a life that is yours and yours alone. You know, even without the names, you lived in one place (or many different places), you knew some people (or a lot of people) and you spent your waking time doing this (or doing that).
Your ‘life story’ runs from the first (and often sketchy) times you remember as a child through and right up to now.Pretty goddamn ‘straight’ line isn’t it?
(Come on roger, stop protesting. You know what I mean. You are capable of this.)
Look at your life in terms of how many different interests and activities and ways of investing your time is evidenced. How different was your life when you were 7 years old compared to when you were 17 years old (…or 27 or 77…)?
(Yeah, yeah scott, I get the ‘I gots the girlfriends/boyfriends thing’ Does not matter. Lose the names, and they (still) are people you shared yourself and your time with, no different than a best friend in second grade or a spouse in middle age or the person in the bed next to yours in the nursing home.)
What I am trying to get across here is that the important thing is not the names of the people, places and activities that comprise(s) your life.
Rather, I am asking you to consider the question, what did they (seem) to add to your life, why did you give them (these people and places and activities) your time!?I want the Reader to consider their lives without the qualification/rationalization/justification that we all impose when we reflect on our lives.
… ‘he was a great friend, even though he was an asshole’… ‘I really liked spending time with her, but I had to because she was family’ … “of course we are happy together! We have beautiful children and a nice home’… ‘I know this is a boring job, but I will stick with it, because otherwise, what will I do?…’maybe I can still pray and maybe its not too late for me…”who will take care of me if I get sick?’…
(These little quotes barely hint at the myriad of ways that we employ to make the fact that what constitutes ‘our lives’, the essential nature and character, if you will, is the same today as it was on your very first day at school.)
So?
So what, what is wrong with that, at least I have a life that I can look at and say, ‘hey I’m not doing so bad’!You are correct, scott. roger? you can come back in the room, we have stopped talking about life as if it were totally unpredictable and un-certain. We won’t talk about interchangeability any more.
Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? (Yes, I am seriously getting ready to close out this Post for today.) (No, I actually don’t have a more satisfying denouement for todays Post)
(writer leaves, house lights stay off…)
Alright, alright. Seeing that we have some new visitors (from Italy and Sweden and Ghana to name a few) and, of course, Sloveniaaa is in da house!! I will try to impart or at least ‘duct tape’ some kind of coherent point to this Post.
If pressed, I would have to say that the point of this (Post) is that our essential natures (clarks, scotts and rogers) will determine how our lives are experienced.
Having said that, I will remind everyone that the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated on the idea that we all have the full range of potential, we are all (potentially) clarks and scotts and rogers.
And despite how this Post reads, we always have the potential to feel, act, or think in the manner of the other two personality types.
In fact, that really is the purpose of the WakefieldDoctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers), to offer a tool for self-improving ourselves by seeing the world from a different perspective.
About clarkscottroger
Loved the flashback post to prove that not all might always get the doctrine at all times, but that it is meant to look at our life’s in general. And that in essence is the best part of the doctrine and the reason I think many if not most keep coming back. Thanks as always Clark!!
@Janine
…you do always seem to express what is in my mind when I write these Posts (though I might not always been overly sure, myself lol)
Four years. Awesome! That’s a long while in writing posts…and inspires me to keep pressing on. :) I learn something new every time I come here…and we were having an extended discussion on whether our neighbors were rogers or clarks last night…analyzing their behavior, their lifestyle…etc. Haha…you’ve gotten into our brains, Clark.
@Cyndi
(let me just say)…ayyiieee
“We are one. We are one. We will add your intellectual and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile”
Though, that said, we are made in a pattern – we are social beings, like the ants. Put enough of us together in a room and all of a sudden, a thought happens and we’re off. Great that we can do it online too.
@Considerer
(smiles) patterns!! god! if there is a clark-specific natural aphrodisiac, then it totally is ‘patterns’ (see the patterns…find the patterns…manipulate the patterns… have a cigarette post-pattern appreciation…lol
the Doctrine likes the idea of personal worldview… in a pre-defined sense (clarks, scotts and rogers) reality itself is totally open ended. All the Doctrine says is try and infer how the other person relates themselves to the world around them.
It’s interesting what you say that our nature will determine how our lives are and will be experienced. That’s true to a certain extent, though some people do change considerably over time (though I guess their basic nature would remain the same!)
@Roshni
agree… (the) interesting thing about change (imo) is that is still can be seen as being a function of the context, in the individual is not only percieving the ‘need’ to change along with the choices (of how to respond to this ‘need’0.
As one who’s still considering a ‘Golden Ratio’ tat made of Fibonnaci numbers, you are SO right! Gorrgeous patterns.
I need to work on my secondary. For some reason something in me baulks at the idea of it being Rogerian (ultimate loner crossed with ultimate groupie? I presume it works in *some* people, I just am resisting the idea of being ‘some people’) I’ll keep researching, learning and trying to apply the doctrine.
@Considerer
yeah, that one (predominant clark with secondary rogerian aspects) is tough to reconcile at first. Try the idea that there need not be a ‘wholesale’ overlay of the worldview, in order for it to be present. For example: I know of a person (a clark) who totally is into the geneaology thing…as in the celebration of history and tradtion.
Also, you can widen the ‘focus’ of the rogerian worldview… there is the natural affinity for social groups and interactions but (in a subset) there is the perception of the world as being essentially quantifiable. (Which leads to a lot of the manifestations we see in those exhibiting a rogerian worldview, a love or preciseness, enjoying mathematics, precision (and repetition)…these are all part of the rogerian worldview and therefore may in whole or in part be a secondary aspect.
You do not need to be a full on roger (or even see signs of it) to have that as a functioning secondary. Sometimes it can be a minor quirk… like enjoying building ships in bottles or (when gardening) sticking a photo of the vegetable at the head of the row that you just planted the seeds of…
I probably have mentioned Cyndi’s video efforts as an example of a secondary scottian aspect… just enough so that she could thrive ‘on stage in front of an audience’ but not every aspect of the scottian worldview… no stiletto heels while walking the dog…lol just a part of it. But, really it is just the parts that can be seen to result in an enhancement.
Jean Claude…back in the day:)
Ahem, where was I? Enjoyed everyone’s comments. I agree with Roshni. To the extent that we improve our habits, change jobs, take better care of our health, etc, our basic nature(s) do remain the same. I am a clark now and forever, amen and yet, I believe there is hope for me. LOL
The Doctrine proposes the theory that there are 3 basic ways to relate to the world. Understand yourself, understand the other 2, which is to say, understand how scotts and rogers relate themselves to the world and you now have a recipe for improving your life, your own self. If you are so inclined of course:)
Understanding the whys of people’s behavior (because you know the world they wake up in every day – clarklike, scottian or rogerian) becomes more simple over time.
If you know a person is a clark, scott or roger then you have a tremendous advantage. Think of the value this holds! Alter your own behavior and you can’t but help affect another’s.
I better stop. I’m drop dead tired and don’t even know if the words I just typed made any sense! Better come back tomorrow and hope I didn’t embarrass myself. LOL
Sign me,
a clark, w/ secondary scottian aspect; working on my rogerian side:)
Wow if a sometimes-love for zany shoes is Scottian, then I’m there too! I guess it’s possible to have all your cake and eat it, in this instance, as the point seems to be to access the aspects naturally present and enhance them as the situation deems appropriate. :)
@Considerer
“…the point seems to be to access the aspects naturally present and enhance them as the situation deems appropriate.” That is, in fact, the goal of the Doctrine. I have the potential to experience the world of the scott and the world of the roger. There are times and situations where I would be better served if I could respond to a situation as would a scott (or a roger), if I can find the scottian aspect within (for that particular ‘application’) then it totally would make sense for me to act from that place.
…easier said than done. But great strides are being made in the area of understanding our own individual (and respective) secondary and tertiary aspects. While beyond the scope of a Comment to address, one of the issues has to due with the fact that the personal reality (of any of the three) is in fact different. There for the ‘skills’ that we observe as adults are the result of practice over a lifetime. The Doctrine says that what others call personality types is simply the combined coping strategy that results from successfully dealing with the reality that a person finds themselves in, i.e. a scott is quick to act and aggressive because the nature of their environment demands it for survival, a roger is growing up in a reality in which there are Rules and the very world has an underlying quantifiable-ness to it and therefore will evidence skills that are predicated on this quality, successful engineers, accountants and scientists (these are the obvious rogerian occupation) as well as the less obvious ones such as the legal field (Judge, Prosecutor), Fire Fighter, High School social studies…school nurse. And so one…
While there is much to understand about the actually circumstance of the development of personality characteristics you can (or should be able to) observe within yourself that your skills and short-comings can be seen as a direct result of growing up ‘the Outsider’. So there is so much potential to add to what you already have (even before we have to get into the matter of ‘which reality are you experiencing’ lol) btw… consider what happens when, on the fairly rare occasions when ‘you are pushed too far, beyond your limits’. It has been reported as the experience of others that, ‘we totally change but this state does not tend to last (much beyond the resolution of the initiating circumstance) and worse than that, we do not maintain our self-awareness throughout it… tricky to express. I might get pushed and then I change and I deal with the situation. After the fact I can remember everything that happened, except for my self-awareness through the process. Tricky concept, especially to type it out. Worse than that…there is evidence from those who report this type of experience that the very nature of the precipitating event becomes different once you have been pushed.
Enough for now.
We totally have to get the skyype working…also I video taped the Saturday Night Drive from last Saturday but messed up and did one long take…23 minutes worth, and youtube does not accept 23 minute vids (at least I do not know how to get it to accept the thing. Next time I will break it up into smaller segments.
The shoe thing, Considerer, is all clark :D
@Denise
true…but lets never forget the statement: ‘everyone does everything, at one time or another’ which (@Considerer) is another way of saying, “…there are few things/activities/interests/skills/perversions/hobbies that are exlcusive to one of the three worldviews”.
Girlie here is, of course, correct. The love of shoes is part of the clarklike female’s worldview. In fact, it is nearly a primary characteristic… a way of astounding your friends and family, identify a clarklike female and you can say, ‘we just met but I can tell you what you have on the floor of your clothes closet at home’ lol (used to be ‘jump boots’, aka ‘combat boots’ or a particularly worn pair of cowboy boots, but increasingly we are seeing the goth/steampunk influence on the manifestation of that special pair of foot coverings…for clarks.
but, but! scottian females wear shoes too!
… they bein’ the ones what wear the stiletto heel shoes* Scottian females can** be characterized as being aggressive (and given most cultures) often manifested through their sexuality… hence the shoes… and the dress… and the… lol
*and manage to look exactly the way that the designer, in their hormonal stew of a creative mind intended
** remember, this is not a set in stone, rogerian one size fits all personalty theory… some scottian women are not knock down sexy… some are funny with a cutting personality***
*** ’cause, in this example it is all about being aggressive…how is the individual (male or female) allowed or permitted to manifest their innate aggressiveness? Remember! scotts live in the reality of predator/prey… they better be aggressive
Hmmm….you’ve given me tons to think about this afternoon. I really like this post and how you brought across those points about life and the meaning of it, and what we do with it, etc. I have to keep reminding myself constantly that everything happens for a reason. Things come into our life and go out of them for a reason and an amount of time. A few months or years, a few minutes, or forever. I’ve had great friendships with some people for a year or maybe even more, and then things just fizzle out because one moves away or circumstances change. Then I know it wasn’t meant to be and I can’t push for it to stay how it was. I know that these people come into my life for a reason and a purpose. Once that is up, it’s time to move on. I feel content knowing that now, where as before I would drive myself crazy. Same goes for jobs. Sometimes you have to have the really shitty ones and the asshole bosses to make you pursue something else or change direction, or go where you’re supposed to go. Brilliant post!
@Melanie
totally… and the thing about this (early) stage of the Wakefield Doctrine, and I’ve written about it before, the kind of person (probably more accurate to say, ‘kind of mind’) that gets something out of this blog is the one with what we used to call ‘flexible intelligence’. Perhaps due to the style of writing as much as anything else, people need not just be able to deal in abstract concepts but have the comfort and confidence in this type of (intellectual exercise) to enjoy it…and more, to take the premise (of three worldviews) and try it out in their own lives. and…and! most important (to me, lol) ‘report back’ what they are discovering! very cool fun.
remember… take notes! lol (btw scotts and rogers have fun with this as well as us clarks… they are just choosing to stay low key for the opening stages)
I feel like such a late comer to the Doctrine! I had no idea you had been posting for that long. It’s a damn good thing I’m a clark or I would not get it at all yet. Gee, that was a very Scott thing to say, wasn’t it? :)
@Amy
lol* thats the thing with my writing skills… it’s kinda selective for those with the mind that can put together the concepts despite how awkwardly expressed.
* yes, yes it was!
This whole concept intrigues me. I’m sure you are familiar with Hippocrates four temperaments – it’s testing has always told me I am masking my true self with another one due to some sort of trauma in my childhood or I answered the questions incorrectly. Yet even answering them with other people choosing the answer for me, the results were always the same, Sanguine Melancholy.
@Tracy
the fun thing* about this here Doctrine here is that it ties together characteristics that despite all logic appear linked, i.e. Ken Burns films and rogers… Richard Linklater films and clarks … uh… (whatever director is most fond of huge: explosions, car chases, breastes, explosions and cars… and sports…0 for our scottian bretheren.
clarks are fun was you get the past our natural protective camo…
* it’s cool in that, even though Hippocrates is a lot cooler name, this thing will make you laugh more**
** the antics of the scotts and the hugely inflated machinations of the rogerian personality types will definitely have you chuckling to yourself***
*** not too loud when alone, please!