Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
What fun!
As we often do (and are ever so grateful for) we’re using Reader’s Comments to provide a theme (for a) Doctrine post.
First up, the Comments/Inspiration/Challenge (arising from) Monday’s post.
Secundus (no, not the Silent Philosopher!), the Comments in reaction/reflection/response/recidivism (lol) from three of our favorite Reader-Commentationers: in chronological order:
Denise (our edits for selfish authoritarian reasons):
Funny, this post speaks of learning to love our rogers and back then, I did embark on an active quest to “learn to love the rogers” in my life. More difficult with some than others, it behooves a clark to attempt this thing. Which is to say, observing/learning how rogers relate themselves to the world challenges us (as clarks) to step outside of ourselves and imagine a thing we’ve never felt, have not, certainly not innately, experienced. More specifically, with the Wakefield Doctrine as guide, as a clark I can understand the whys of a roger’s behavior. No easy task, but not impossible. Learning how things, events and such manifest for a roger takes a huge load off a clark. That is not to say it doesn’t necessarily excuse a roger’s behavior yet having the understanding of it goes a long way in allowing a clark to interpret more properly why a roger said or did what they did. Which then informs us how more appropriately to react, or not, to a roger.
Well, now, this is just not on, this ‘saying, “I want that office… when are you leaving?” I see two possible avenues here: 1) invite him to sit at her desk, where she’s placed an inflated, extremely loud whopper cushion so that the entire office bursts out laughing hysterically at him … or 2) say something along the lines of “…coffee; white and 1 sugar … chop chop.”
Mimi:
I really like Misky’s second suggestion, but as noted, it might be best to try a different approach.
Thank you to the three above Students of the Wakefield Doctrine. We would say:
“Ego sum. Tu es.” (or) “Je suis. Tu es.” (or, even) “Yo soy. Tú eres.” (to avoid any accusations of chauvinistic parochialism): “O a’u O oe.”
All three are correct (or, to keep it as annoyingly subjective as possible), accurate.
The Wakefield Doctrine is a system of alternative perspectives on the world around us (and the people who make it up). Three and only three, to be precise. Three realities (albeit personal realities) but, then again, when you get right down to it, when is reality not personal? (No fair citing forests and unstable flora).
We could, with sufficient time, present the above scenario (in it’s original form as zoe was so kind as to offer for our consideration) and ‘translate’ the scene three distinct ways.
(Who in the back of the room shouted “Don’t ya mean ‘describe’ rather than ‘translate’??”) cue Jules Winfield: “Correctamundo!”
Now to hint at a discussion way, way beyond the scope of this post, we might suggest: The three comments are more about the author’s personal reality than the ostensible object of their observations.
ed. we’d considered offering a sample of three responses to each of the three comments, from the perspective of a clark, scott and roger. But, hey these guys are, in fact, on target and provide a very insightful…err …insights.
but, time-being-Tuesday, lets get all koan(ish) on this subject
The most difficult/antithetical/’no-fricken-I-could-live-in-this-world’ for each of the three:
- clarks :: rogers
- scotts :: clarks
- rogers :: scotts
Ya know?










