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

You know, you’re right!

It has been a while since I attempted a one-take ‘this is the Wakefield Doctrine’ post.

(ok…give us a minute… wanna clear the, whats the old term,  ‘Just need to clear me gulliver’)

The Wakefield Doctrine is an additional perspective on the world around us and the people who make it up. A fundamental principle of the Wakefield Doctrine is: reality is, to a small and not-weird degree, personal. The utility of the Doctrine in an individual’s life hinges on this concept. Although presented as a rational system of thought, like many other things in life, it involves the use of faith. Nothing religious, more like a piano student or a person beginning to train in the martial arts. Accept that personal reality, extending an opinion or knee-jerk reaction radius around us, is real and the power will manifest eventually.

The Wakefield Doctrine maintains that we, all of us, are born with a predilection to experience (a) world that manifests in one three characteristic manners

1. the reality of the Outsider(clarks)
2. the world of the Predator(scotts)
3. the life of the Herd Member(rogers)

The basis of the ‘personality types’ of the Wakefield Doctrine is: at a very early each we settle into one of three, (and only one), and grow up. Growing up is, in this context, the child developing strategies and styles, ways of interacting and surviving the world as they are experiencing it.

Drop a two-year-old girl into the reality of the Outsider, observing a world in which everyone else appear share a connection, a belonging and before long, she will find her strengths and hide her weaknesses. Throw a two-year-old boy into the world of the Predator and he’ll survive and thrive or die trying, teeth bared at a world that offers life for the quick and the strong. Open the life of the Herd Member to a two-year-old child and, upon oberseving the behavior and the understanding of the rules of the family/class/culture, they will gladly don whatever colors the local gang wears.

So, for the Doctrine, personality type is a label for relationship of the individual to the world around them and the people who make it up.

This relationship is referred to as a person’s predominant worldview. There is only one. We never lose the capacity, the potential, to experience the world as would the other two, but our ‘style’, our social strategies are of one, the one we grew up knowing was the world.

Some people have more developed secondary and tertiary aspects than others.

The benefit of the Wakefield Doctrine is realized as we look at how we relate ourselves to the world around us. How we relate ourselves to the world… not how we relate to the world. Big difference.

Learning the characteristics of the three predominant worldviews is the starting point. (Pro-tip: it’s how the other person is relating themselves that leads us to which of the three personality types a person is.The path to this understanding/appreciation/acceptance is to learn to see the world as they are experiencing it. Not how it looks/appears to us.

There are other tips and tricks to applying the perspective afforded by an understanding of the Wakefield Doctrine, including ‘the Everything Rule’. This Rule states, ‘everyone does everything at one time or another’. This serves to avoid the distraction of thinking of each of the three as a list of interests, inclinations and tropisms, instead of how (the) person is relating themselves to the world around them. A clark, a scott and a roger all do the same things, follow the same paths through life that all of us do. How a given activity, hobby, occupation or advocation manifests is where we see the proof of their worldview.

Have fun!

Hey! Nick! ( in the interest of link equity* shout outs to Chris and Jenne and Ford, lol) You seem to have a certain curiosity in this thing. Fair Warning. If you get to the point of knowing the characteristics of the three predominant worldviews sufficiently to begin to see the clarks, scotts and rogers in your world, you might find you’re no long able to not see them.

* if it’s still a real thing or, more likely an artifact from the ‘sphere from ten years ago