clarkscottroger | the Wakefield Doctrine

‘…of goals and new Years’, the Wakefield Doctrine you know that, goal setting…hell New Year’s itself, is a different experience for each of the 3

December 27, 2012 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks of the future, scotts in the present and rogers from the past)

Hey ho, almost, the Year, she is ending. ( I did, in fact, refer to 2012 with the female gender-specific pronoun! Trust us, it is necessary in order for the music vid to make the inferences that my writing skill is not sufficiently developed to make on its own.) I think that almost everyone out there reading this Post will, at this point, experience some fairly strong and distinct feelings about the year 2012. I will venture to say these feelings will coalesce around… ‘ok! like a roller coaster, it was fun, (you’re) glad you rode it… but now, for a while it is time for a little normal life.’

The thing is New Years Eve (as a ‘holiday’) really is kinda shop worn, the victim of too many years of decorating the Day (mostly the ‘Eve’) with culture symbolism. The whole, good cheer lets all go out and pay way too much for not very good food in order to stand in a room with a bunch of strangers waiting to congratulate each other for still being alive, is so 1950’s

This is not to say that celebrating New Years Day ( and it’s more attractive twin, New Year’s Eve) is a pointless diversion. It’s just that, of the big three holidays, ( Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years), New Years Day is the most insidious in the ways that it is used by the forces of society and culture. Out with the old, in with the new! There is a chance to renew your life, to cast aside the old ways of thinking about life and take on a new view. The message is, ‘hey! no matter how bad last year was, (we promise) next year might be better! no! better than that! ‘hey the worse last year seems, the more you should invest in the hope for the coming year.’

It should come as no surprise that New Year’s Eve (and Day) are totally the holiday of clarks. If there is one thing that clarks do far and away better than scotts and rogers it is: hope.
Forget the outward manifestation of this holiday, i.e. a night of revelry and abandon, the real theme of New Years is hope and that is what draws clarks. While scotts will party because it is almost a societal mandate and rogers will talk about what others have said they have done in the past year, it will be the clarks who grow excited and yet stay quiet, making (their) plans for the coming year.

(For a clark) the approaching New Year is both a time of hope and a dangerous time to measure (the) progress they have made, it is an opportunity to set new goals yet not without risk, as the inevitable assessment of the outcome of previous goals. clarks like to think that they have improved their lives, not realizing that only clarks will think of it in quite those terms ( a scott will simply plan to get more, a roger will know that they will gain more recognition…in the coming new Year), clarks are the only of of the three willing to inflict pain on themselves in the belief that by doing so they have earned the right to discover what it is they need to do this new Year, never realizing that the discomfit is self-inflcited. clarks being the self-less givers (of the three personality types) will frame their resolutions in terms of the other people in their life, to do better so that…. they will have this, he/she will be happier, the family will be better off. Of the three personality types, of the realities that we call the worldview of clarks, scotts and rogers, it is clarks who have access to a nearly endless supply of hope for the future and that is their biggest shortcoming; this capacity to believe the future can be better, brighter, happier is the reason that clarks will constantly be trying to improve the future, rarely ever giving themselves the gift of knowing that it is their present that is what they are, that the future, the new Year is not where life is lived, right here is… today is that place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si_gaMUumKY

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: clarkscottroger, Personal, personality types, the Wakefield Doctrine

the Wakefield Doctrine ( a placeholder Post for this busy Monday Morning )

November 26, 2012 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the continuing theory of the a-synchronic relationships of clarks, the dogmatic and fatalistic lives of scotts and the circularitous perfection in justification world of rogers)

Today is Monday, and while we all like to read the new Posts on Monday Mornings, the fact is, we are all fairly distracted by the week that looms over us, like Godzilla looking in the window of the little kid in ‘Godzilla Returns!’

With this in mind, the Wakefield Doctrine would like to offer little, light (or, if you prefer ‘lite’) fare this Monday.

(in 1993 Jeff Foxworthy released his totally successful comedy album, ‘You Might Be a Redneck if…’ which, along with being very funny, bestowed on blogwriters everywhere a gift, a ‘device’ of value not seen since David Letterman’s ‘Top 10 things…’ )

With all due respect and appropriate disclaimers, credits, attributions, apologies and mal-referenced cultural authorities, we present:

You might be a clark, scott or a roger if…

If you immediately stop surfing the channels because you come upon a show that uses only black and white documentary photos and film…you might be a roger

If you love Christmas lawn decorations and cannot imagine having too many lights… you might be a scott

If you find a flier stuck under the windshield wiper of your car and you take the time to read it… you might be a clark.

If asked a question and you preface your answer with “in the beginning…” you might be a clark.

If someone gets your name wrong mispronouncing it or just getting calling you something other than your actual name) and you answer to it, without correcting them… you might be a clark.

If as a child building model cars, you made sure that the extra parts were put back in the box along with the re-folded instructions for future safekeeping…you might be a roger.

If you think that Slacker was the greatest movie made in the 1990s…you might be a clark

If you think that Borat was one of the funniest movies of (whatever) year…you might be a scott

If you think that the 107 episode, Directors cut, 15 DVD un-abashed edition of the compilation (with Writers notes (including what he had for breakfast) and voice-over reading of the credits by someone who knew someone who was a re-enactor who actually got hurt at an event) of all Ken Burns films, PBS episodes and commercials that last longer than most readings of the Iliad is the greatest film of all time…you might be a roger

If you have any inclination to wear hats for a fashion statement (for male rogers only) or a ‘fanny pack’ (either male or female rogers), or for that matter any clothing designed specifically for riding a bicycle (branded or un-branded)…you might be a roger.

If you happen to be at a golf tournament and feel that it is expected of the members of the gallery to yell anything (including but not limited to “get in the hole!!”)…you might be a scott.

…and finally, you might be a clark or a scott or a roger

If you are contemplating a project of any sort; a new deck or a term paper, writing a resume or planting a garden:

…you look forward to making the list of things you need to buy/gather/acquire first more than anything else…you might be a clark

…you must know what your friends on the ’do it yourself’ shows have done, that is what you want…you might be a roger

…CONTEMPLATE? PLAN? I JUST FINISHED IT! SCREW YOU ITS DONE NO! THIS IS FINE …THE WAY IT IS…you might be a scott

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: clarkscottroger, personality types, the Wakefield Doctrine

the Week started yesterday!! hurry up! the Wakefield Doctrine work to do, no time to waste!

November 19, 2012 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks ‘who think’ and scotts ‘who act’ and rogers ‘who feel’ )

…thanks to Molly and Denise for the lively and challenging discussion during this weekend’s Saturday Night Drive! For those of you who have not called in yet, we usually share questions about the Doctrine, examples of the characteristics of the three types and any new insights into how the Wakefield Doctrine can be used to help in our lives, what with jobs and kids and friends and such.

So this past Saturday Night, I brought the following ‘problem’ to the group:
I am at the point in writing the Wakefield Doctrine book where I need to demonstrate how the Doctrine can be useful in problems and challenges arising in relationships. The Wakefield Doctrine offers a unique insight into why we are attracted to certain people and why we are not… the Doctrine can help you understand why your best friend always goes for the wrong guy…the Doctrine will help you know what to tell your son when you see that he is so ‘in over his head’ with the girl of his dreams…the Doctrine can help you see what it is about you that seems to never learn, continually finding yourself in the very situation you were determined to avoid, this time!

The exchange of ideas during this last ‘Drive’, made it clear that I needed to use these blog Posts as a venue to write scenaria (relating relationship advice). This approach allows me to keep ‘the conversation’ going here at the blog and subsequently, (with a little cut…paste…edit) I will have the needed content for the book.

I also realized I needed the core principles of the Wakefield Doctrine in order for there to be any chance of creating credible dating/relationship situations as illustrations. When I began to write these ‘real life’ situations, I immediately found myself getting bogged down with the thoughts, ‘ok a female clark will see a rogerian guy in this light’ or ‘a scottian female so hates to be in the company of a male…’ which soon led to my thinking ‘what the heck do I know about what a woman finds attractive in a guy?’

Fortunately I remembered: the Wakefield Doctrine is gender neutral!
Our ‘personality theory’ is predicated on the experiences of humans in one of three characteristic worldviews. The Wakefield Doctrine says, very simply: if you grow up and develop in the worldview characterized as the world of the predator, then you will exhibit the personality type, traits and behaviors of a scott! As a member of the herd, in a personal reality marked by a belief that the world is a quantifiable place and there are Rules to live by, your personality and behavior will be consistent with the rogerian personality type and clarks… well, you know what you are like!
Of course it is still true that in every way important aspect, men and women are different because of gender.

But the thing that distinguishes the Wakefield Doctrine as a useful and insightful perspective on human behavior is that we start with the reality that the individual is relating (themselves) to and then look at the personality type.

Anyone, male or female, dropped into the worldview of a roger will develop a natural affinity for social relationships and interactions of the group and a talent for the quantifiable sciences; if as a girl or a boy, you grew up experiencing the personal reality we call scottian, then guess what? you will have an irresistible urge to establish the dominance/submissive ranking in any social setting you find yourself in and your temperament will be best described as mercurial.
The effect of gender? It defines an individual’s range of choices in how they express themselves, depending on the culture or civilization our subject is a part of, there may be more or less choices in terms of coping strategies that the individual has available when interacting with their world.

So this week we will present:

a clark is talked into going to a party
a scott at a company bonding retreat
a roger at the annual church picnic

These situations will provide the context for the very helpful relationship advice that our little Doctrine has to offer.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: clarkscottroger, personality types, psychology of personality, self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine

a reprinted Post that references another re-printed Post?! you can’t be serial! the Wakefield Doctrine ( “…and all the ships at sea”)

November 15, 2012 By clarkscottroger

hey, this being the week before “what-the-hell-do-you-mean-‘next-week?’-there-are-at-least-2-more-weeks-left’ Thanksgiving I thought I would re-run this, one of my favorite Posts.

But before we do that, a total big shout-out to them what listened and sent suggestions and such for the Big Radio Day! It went totally well, everyone had fun and this is so going to be an on-going feature of the Wakefield Doctrine! Stay tuned, yo. I want to thank Janine and Amy and Cyndi (on the 3rd shift lol) for the encouraging Comments but special thanks are in order to Jasmine Tea (and) Cari (thoughts and intent are real, at least for clarks).
Then there was Molly and Denise (tbfkaDS#1) Hey, It made a difference! Will be doing this again next week, you know I will be talking more about it.

But for today, on with the Re-run!

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers) on this eve of Saint rogers’s Day!

Thanksgiving Day¹ is the holiday that, if we did not already know that there exists a personality type referred to as a roger, someone else would have pointed it out to us. Perhaps the task would have fallen to an Art Professor in a land grant college somewhere in the Midwest. We can imagine the epiphany …in the middle of the night (during his sabbatical devoted to the study of the works of Norman Rockwell)
” My god! Norman’s work is not just a robust and healthy celebration of paedophilia! He has been trying to tell us to transform our culture! …for all good Americans to come forth and show their appreciation of patriotism, consumerism and child-abuse!!”

We have, from time to time, been accused of indiscriminate use of hyperbole in these pages, however, just consider the astounding level of pervasiveness of the ‘Holiday of Thanksgiving’. It is not enough to close the Post Office system and all other government agencies² , no it is not, this Holiday actually attempts to compel normal, rational, adult people to sit in front of the television and watch a Parade involving giant balloon representations of out-of-print newspaper cartoon characters! Who the hell watches the Macy’s Day Parade on purpose?!? Throughout the entire morning of Thanksgiving, you simply cannot escape the pageantry and spectacle, broadcast live and has as the ’emcees’, News Anchors from the major networks morning news shows! ( ” Thats right, Matt! That’s Kenny Chesney and Taylor Swift on the Snoop Dog float… it says here that her eye makeup took 12 hours and 6 pounds of aluminum foil chips to create!!” ). Like a Hieronymus Bosch painting done in ‘live-action’, the whole country is exposed to hours and hours of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… more than 3 hours of parade music and floats (” … hey, Anne isn’t the next float from your hometown”? “That’s right Al! it’s my old Alma mater, the East Clydesdale High School Marching Band playing a medley, ‘Straight outta Compton’, ‘Dope Man’ and ‘Gangsta Gangsta’ )

Why do we say Thanksgiving is the most rogerian of all holidays? Simply because Thanksgiving is about the how, not the why. As a holiday and a cultural event, this particular holiday tells it’s participants exactly what to do; what to eat and how to cook it! Taught from childhood, every member of our culture knows precisely how (and) where they are expected to spend the Holiday! Thanksgiving is about family! and if there is anything that rogers fake better than anyone, it is the joyful appreciation and celebration of the family.

But don’t just take my word for it! Following is an excerpt from a Post of the Wakefield Doctrine that was written over a year ago! (and nothing says credibility better than…age)

We all know that “the holidays” are experienced differently by each of the three (clarks, scotts and rogers) and therefore the demands of the celebrations are a very effective illustration of the nature of each. But if there was no Thanksgiving, a roger would have invented it! (Actually, they probably did). Think about it! A holiday celebration that is:

based on a factual historical event (sort of)

the protagonists (of the story) are religious refugees, persecuted and driven away together on boats

food, specific food and a not-to-be-deviated-from Menu

ritual menu and a full schedule of events

shopping in herds, as the climax of the celebration (Black Friday)

a moral taught to the young: we came here, those strangers who helped us were different, (…we had a feast and wiped out their culture)

I will be so bold as to suggest that there is no more rogerian a holiday than Thanksgiving! And since we are on the subject of rogers and holidays, (sort of), is there any human activity that is more one sided, over-hyped, ‘expectations-sure-to-fall short’, ( not counting sex on the eve of a relationship breaking up), than Parades? I don’t care if you are a trombone player in the middle of the herd or someone sitting in their living room watching it on TV, nothing says roger better than Parades!

1) the Day that the indigenous people of the North American continent made a gift of their lands and cultures and cuisine to their new European friends.

2) you do know about the Post Office and rogers, don’t you?

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, rogers, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: clarkscottroger, personality types, relationships, self-development, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

Controversial Post on Sexuality and the Wakefield Doctrine Cancelled!! (‘what I would have given to have been a fly on the window for that meeting, whispers an unidentified roger’)

October 19, 2012 By clarkscottroger

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

The Doctrine is zooming along the road to significance-hood, with an occasional horrifying veer off the road, through some bushes, straight across someone’s lawn (with one of the back-and-forth sprinklers on), barely missing the ‘breezeway’, into the neighbor’s backyard, through their clothes line and back on the road…all the while picking up speed!
Today’s Title refers to a recent project involving the active Readers here at the Doctrine. The Project was nothing less than an attempt to learn more by proposing an idea so outlandish that the only reasonable option was to try to re-phrase the thesis (that the Wakefield Doctrine can account for, in a useful and insightful manner, the way each of the three personality types manifest sexuality), in the hopes that a cogent theory would appear. Totally yeoman’s effort by all of the participants!

The thing of it is, the benefit and value of this exercise was not, as a clark might perceive it, totally in the final outcome, ‘the Answer’. We can appreciate, through the rogerian perspective, that the effort to engage in the process is what conveys the lasting value (of this project). This is, as all Readers will recognize, in keeping with the rogerian worldview, wherein the experience and sharing of a process, forms the basis of a lasting and more permanent tradition, the creation of (a) history, if you will.
And our scottian element (in this project) also demonstrated how the enthusiasm that is one of the defining characteristics of this worldview lent itself quite well to the ‘hell! who cares if this is grounded in fact, it just feels like fun…lets run with it!!!’
Finally, the clarklike members of the team were all, ‘err wait, before I commit to an answer, lets tre-phrase the question, and maybe I need to argue my case a little louder…” But, as those of you familiar with the Wakefield Doctrine will recognize, the creative drive of the clark had to be there to have a new, what do you want to know??! question to start with”.

As FOTD Mel used to say in his previous blog ( Spatula in the Wilderness), ‘onwards and upwards’.
The metaphorical car of the Wakefield Doctrine is safely back on the interstate… the scotts, all tuckered out, are asleep in the back seat, the rogers in the front passenger seat are comfortable re-folding the maps and organizing the glove compartment* and the clarks, feeling like progress has been made, drive on, their characteristic compressed-lips smile replaced with something more…open, confident ..like they were enjoying the feeling of the thought “hey this is not so bad!’