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

* when it’s a reprint of a unfinished intro to a reprint post… (Damn! today is so the day for over-reaching… see below)

Wait, here, This Post** is the precedent, precursor to our post today.

(Full Disclosure: I did not, in fact, complete the post last Tuesday, so it’s kind of a hybrid post. A pre-re-print.)

Well that was fun.

**Monday’s ‘this is the Wakefield Doctrine’ post, that is. Short, concise and possessed of the core elements of this here personality theory here, i.e. three predominant worldviews, reality being personal and the value of having (an) additional perspective on the world around us and the people who make it up. While it is possible for one to acquire the benefits of the Doctrine solely on the basis of a reading of yesterday’s post, the fun is in the three ‘personality types’.

(Standard Warning: once you are able to see the clarks, scotts and rogers in your life, you may find you’re no longer able to not see them.)

The three predominant worldviews are:

• clarks (the Outsider) although never shunned, they’re always in the background, on the fringe, in the shadows. From the moment they become aware of others, the Outsider realizes the people around them have a connection they cannot feel. Knowing that it can only be information they lack, the clark assumes they missed the class on being a part of.  This assumed knowledge, this secret information, is clearly fundamental, if for no reason than the clark cannot perceive what it is that passes between and among the people in their life. This increases the perception of value, and by not being in possession of this information fear they would be ostracized. So the clark resolves to ‘fake it’. Being alone (the reality in which they are existing) the Outsider lays all their stock in using the tools at hand: rational (if not with flawed premises) thought and, being un-encumbered by the common values shared by the others, a genuine, if not ferocious, creativity. While true creativity is to bring into existence the new, novel, unique, the process is much like a forge: the flame must be maintained. The raw material for this forge is: everything, the drive to gather raw material is curiosity. While the famous adage warns us that ‘curiosity killed the cat’, an Outsider chooses to become, well, a mass murderer. All in service, in common with compulsive killers of the more pedestrian ilk, of the erroneous assumption that it is the secret to becoming a ‘real’ person. The ‘fatal’ flaw is the belief that what makes everyone around them a part of a group, belonging, is that they know something the Outsider does not. A simple mistake. A curse, if one’s mood tends towards the melodramatic. Driven by the most powerful of needs, to belong, clarks don a disguise that, ironically, becomes a disguise only to themselves, and begins a life-long search for the secret of belonging.
• scotts (the Predator) energetic, impulsive, mercurial, loyal, impulsive… if you woke up as an infant on the wide-open savannah and a herd of wildebeesteses were charging in your direction, how much time would you spend thinking the situation through in oder to become comfortable with your understanding of the appropriate response ….wait!! get that scott back here!! lol As clarks exist in a reality that manifests as rational, considered thought, scotts dwell in a reality in which the coin of their realm is action. They are (in relation to the world around them and the people who make it up) what they do; preferably physical expression, increased volume will serve if gross motor function is restrained.
• rogers (the Herd Member) they know the world, the universe and everything else is quantifiable. Their world is one in which reality is manifest in terms of emotion. It is their expression, their talent and their limitation. The strongest possible force, in a reality in which relatedness is the highest good, is emotion. This accounts for the ‘everyone around me knows something I don’t‘ condumdrum clarks find themselves in… to paraphrase Nietzsche¹, ‘Everyone who appears comfortable in a crowd confirm the apartness of those emotionally bereft’. Or something. Too much? We really love the Nietsche quote, it actually works in both directions for clarks… we like the idea that we’re Outsiders because of a natural quality that we happen to be afflicted with and, like the deaf audience at the dance recital, if they only knew…  yeah. right.  (Note: the Doctrine is either an attempt at creating a hearing aid or, failing that, a sound system that cannot be ignored.)

damn… so much for the power of starting and finishing a post in one sitting.

1. at least most references give Fred the credit… but who knows? (What? Who said that? Matter of fact we agree, “Who ever it was, they totally were a clark.”

At least we have an obvious much vid