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

Hey, don’t laugh scott (well, actually, go ahead, from you we enjoy it)…rogers, don’t blame us (look around, do you see anyone else storming off in a cloud of offended sensibilities?)… you read the title a second ago, you knew what the words were intended to convey and, yet, you’re are still reading.

Actually, this tendency to engage in creative malapropism provides us with two, if not three, insights and useful illustrations of the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine. These two, (or three), would be ‘the Everything Rule’ and (an) insight into the personal reality of the Outsider(clarks).

Being Monday, let’s do the second thing first.

Outsider(clarks) This is the term for the person who grows up, (and develops their social interaction strategies), apart from. The typical clark begins each day considering the challenges and rewards awaiting them in the world, out there. This predominant worldview is characterized by interacting with the world, (and the people who make it up), at a distance. A common ‘mistake’* is to think of clarks as simply being ‘introverts‘ or ‘very shy‘ or ‘he is weird but harmless‘ or ‘she dresses funny and seems stuck-up, but really is quite nice‘. All descriptions are permissible, provided one additional character trait is included: clarks abhor being the center of attention but will not tolerate being ignored. So this is your Outsider. They’re there today, all around you. You just have to look. Quietly without fanfare. (How do you think they’ve managed to stay off the social/interpersonal radar this long?)

Among the many tools the Wakefield Doctrine provides us for learning about the world, counting pronouns is one of the more low-key search ways to identify a(nother) person’s predominant worldview. clarks tend towards the 3rd person impersonal (sic lol). No, seriously we do!

Back to the Outsider. clarks think (scotts act and rogers feel), the reality of a clark is that of the intellect. You’re hitch-hiking cross-country and you get a ride in a car that’s old but the interior is clean? You’re riding along and finally, after a length of time passes that assures you the price of the ride is not endless conversation, the driver asks for something from the glove compartment***. You’re happy to comply. Pushing the chromium button, there’s avalance of those little rectangular plastic packets of ketuchup and mustard mixed in with paper container-ettes of sugar and salt.

The car is the intellect. The contents of the glove box emotion. Your driver is a clark.

Enough with the roundabout.

As are we all, clarks are born with the capacity/ability/capability to experience the world as one-half of three characteristic relationships: as the Outsider(clarks), the Predator(scotts) or the Herd Member(rogers). Once we settle into one, we proceed to grow and mature and develop our strategies (aka personality type) appropriate to the world as we experience it. The thing with clarks is that we almost immediately notice that everyone else, (or so it seems, not yet having a Doctrine), knows what to do to be a part of the world. Family members appear quite familiar to each other (and prefer it that way) friends at school (or pre-school or job sites) are either already friends or don’t care too much about friends while still not being strange.

the typical clark comes to the conclusion, (after much thought, introspection, consideration …all the ‘ations’ except conversation) (lol) that clearly, since the world makes sense to everyone around them, they, the clark, must have missed a lesson. Maybe they over-slept the day ‘You and Your Fellow Humans‘ class was being taught. And so, the characteristic curiosity of the clark. We’re forever interested in new facts, different ways of looking at things… quietly, mind you. Because the second most important thing about the desire to learn is the need to do it alone.

We search for the secret of being a real person.

…hey! where the heck did the time go?!!

ok…. one, little baby reprint. Remind us to pick up the thread at ‘how is it clarks are so comfortable making up words and such?’

(here ya go, from…)

Hey! sorry! got no little, baby Monday posts! lol Serially. I musta got all enamored with the whole reprint thing way back. Besides, we at, like, seven hundred words which, in the early, pre-I-need-to-write-more-to-learn-to-write-good phase, five hundred words was, like, holy smoke, who let the roger sit down at the keyboard?

* not really a mistake, as the Doctrine is not subjecting itself to the rigor and discipline of academic scrutiny. A mistake is only possible among equals (the alternative construct would be condemnation and blind hero worship)… but that’s not important now**

** ‘Airplane!’ (1980)

*** do they still call them that? What the heck sense would that make to anyone under the age of eighty-nine?