humor | the Wakefield Doctrine

‘so many different viewpoints… no, wait a minute’! 3 personality types and just one Wakefield Doctrine

September 7, 2011 By clarkscottroger

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

(totally grateful to Justin Greene and we really hope he doesn’t mind our using his most excellent comic panel)

Movies, video interviews, ‘live phone-in’ shows is this a personality theory or the un-conscious dream of the collective clark? What the hell!? I see a lot of creative intelligence being demonstrated, a boatload of perceptive intellect but Big Picture!! come on people!!….ya gotta be thinking Big Picture.

roger, roger roger….what have I done to have you treat us this way? of the three types you are the most gifted of communicators. You pick up the pen and the words come so effortlessly. Is it the fact that we knew that you would have this gift that makes you want to pull back and take your toys to your room and shut the door?

Hey, scott!! yeah… whatever. No, no save it! We know what you are going to say. ( Haven’t you been listening at all?…this is the fuckin Wakefield Doctrine…we know what you are thinking*) Yes, we see that you have all the energy in the world and you have been well behaved… We are not going to give you special privileges simply because you are reasonably well-behaved of late, as much of an accomplishment that is for you…

The Wakefield Doctrine is a unique, useful, very simple tool that will allow you to understand the personality (and behavior) of the people in your life. As a tool, the Doctrine requires learning and practice in order to use it properly and effectively. Being ‘very simple to use’ means that there is a danger of misuse, most commonly in the form of over: thinking/interpreting/analyzin and dramatizin.

And last, but certainly not least, the Wakefield Doctrine ( theory of clarks, scotts and rogers ) is fun! Really! Our blog is demonstration and proof of this claim. If you go through the pages of this blog and watch the videos that are attached and read the Comments to the Posts, you will see a growing collection of (fairly) exceptional people interacting in ways and exchanging thoughts and ideas and just plain having fun. When all is said and done, the Wakefield Doctrine is clearly growing and developing in ways that frankly, none of the original authors had anticipated. If there is a single, non-grammatically correct sentence that explains why the Wakefield Doctrine will continue to grow more and more rapidly, it is: “the Doctrine is more than we thought and is growing to reflect the needs of the people joining it…”

As new people come to understand the ideas that comprise the Wakefield Doctrine and the more they ask questions, the more we adapt and (the Doctrine) shows more useful elements. To the newer Friends of the Doctrine (FOTD) such as Nell or Molly or Claire or even the marginal ones such as MJM or the people who may go to the Video Channel devoted to Saturday Night Drives, to all of you we say, ‘hey thanks for stopping by! Pretty cool theory of personality, no? Just don’t over-analyze it. The Doctrine is more art than it is science, go with your gut. And, by the way? you want to get your scottian and rogerian friends to come along with you? Yes, we know how difficult they can be…but we guarantee they will have a good time.’

It has always been the primary shortcoming of (most of) these Posts that the fun aspects of learning about the Wakefield Doctrine is under-promoted, blame it on the clarklike perspective of the primary contributor. If there are any scotts or rogers out there reading this, if you would like to do a guest Post, write us a comment or an email and we will make the necessary arrangements. The Doctrine will meet the needs, the fun requirement, the challenge quotient of any clark…every damn scott and all the rogers in the herd.

To close, lets review:

we all have the qualities of all 3 personality types, it is just a predominance of (one of the 3) that makes us clarks or scotts or rogers
the Doctrine is gender and culture and age neutral…it is about how a person perceives the world, not their shape or their dress or their condition
if you are trying to figure which type someone is, remember: try different tests of characteristics, don’t get hung-up on just one (see point 1)
don’t forget! you are one of the three, so you will approach this as your personality type…
clarks, don’t get hung up on the details and don’t worry so much about maybe being wrong, (you will) get it wrong…don’t worry about it
scotts…don’t get scared by your inner clark (see Point 1) the fun you have in your head is no threat to the fun you have outside your head…so run with it!! (you like running)
roger…whether you like it or not you are a part of this herd…you just have not found the right scent or color pattern or whatever the hell you people do in order to feel that something is good and has the right to exist

Let’s listen to a ‘borrowed video’. And for god’s sake would someone volunteer for a Video Interview!! Good News…a vote was taken and it is a consensus that Videos should be no longer than 3 minutes**

* ok, to be totally correct thinking is not quite the right word… lol
** …each ( lol )

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: clarkscottroger, humor, Personal, personality types, predicting human behavior, psychology of personality, relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine, Understanding Human Behavior

3 personality types, the Devil and the Wakefield Doctrine

August 10, 2011 By clarkscottroger

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

I spoke to Progenitor roger on the telephone last night.

FUN FACTS ABOUT rogers!!!

did you know that the concept of the rogerian personality type was the third of the three to be formally conceptualized? ( read more about rogers: here )

by proportion, the majority of the people on the planet are rogers ( or might as well be, if they would stop talking long enough to let us get a word in edgewise )

rogers are the natural Story Tellers of the world (the key element being their stories are comfortable and non-challenging to read and/or hear )

there is a basic categorization of all occupations/professions and avocations: Scientist, Salesman and Machine Operator (Do you know which is the rogerian category?)

We discussed the recent arrival of new FOTD (Claire and Molly) and touched briefly on the topic of DownSprings. Mostly we talked about what would make the next Post the best possible Post in order to keep the interest of the newcomers and encourage them to get ‘more engaged’ in the Doctrine. We moved on to the topic of the recent Posts containing stories from the Past, i.e. the Rabbit by the Side of the Road and the Boy in the Orange Sweater and in the middle of it I remembered a story from the roger’s past life!

FUN FACTS ABOUT clarks!!!

did you know that clarks, when asked about how they see their own personality will initially describe themselves as: ‘introverted, shy, don’t-like-to-be-the-center-of-attention’ ?

did you know that clarks, while appearing to enjoy the company of their rogerian friends, will need (thats correct, I said need) to find a scott to interact with just to ‘recharge’?

clarks perform poorly when in a situation where ‘non-specific emotion’ is expected to be put on display ( for example: someone else’s child’s birthday parties) but in extreme situations clarks are the most capable and least likely to panic ( life and death level emergency situations).

clarks take ‘keeping things in confidence’ so seriously that they do not have a prayer when it comes to being a part of a ‘local social network’, i.e. people at work or on committees

Here are the Cliff Notes of the roger’s story: “…he was alone in his car driving home from a gig in Massachusetts late one winter evening and on a very deserted stretch of Route 95 came upon a woman trying to ‘flag a ride’. The woman was young, alone and appeared to be wearing a fur coat and nothing else. At 3:00 am. On the interstate. No one anywhere near, no cars on the road nothing else. roger then proceeded to make the kinds of decisions that we all know he would make… and the story unfolds ( but we leave this story for him to tell).

POP QUIZ!!!!!!

what was roger’s initial mental state, upon seeing what for all the world could only be a stripper standing by the side of the highway on a winter night?

if you were in the car with him, what would your advice have been?

the rest of the story involves lengthy detours (from rogers route home), a very, very dangerous part of Providence, RI and a large (and apparently angry) man…do you have any specific questions for the Progenitor roger, in order to know how this story turns out?

The rest of my conversation with roger focused on my upcoming Delta Mississippi Tour in September, during which I plan to claim that portion of the country (and by inference the heart of the blues guitar culture and history) by Rite of Hat.
If we have any Readers living in the Clarksdale/Rosedale area of the Mississippi, y’all best be writtin us a Comment!! If you do, I will personally deliver a (nearly free*) Wakefield Doctrine hat (for your damn head), otherwise I totally plan to grab my hat and my camera and claim it all for my own damn self. (Don’t believe me? Go ask the the fine folks in what used to be the Free State of Utah ( State motto: ” we’re such a safe and comfortable State, don’t be afraid!! you like rogers, don’t you? ) and their totally mis-leading Bonniville Salt Flats.

In any event, please direct your questions to them whats qualified to answer them:

the roger can be found here (sleeping with a green blanket around his legs, a smell of coffee and wood in the background) be careful, rogers don’t like surprises
our active scottian female the one known as AKH, she can so be found here ( no feeding the scotts, do not cross over nor extend hands and/or fingers beyond the bars)
clarklike female DS#1 can be found somewhere around here (hey Molly I bet DS#1 can tell you about the footwear in your closet to a degree of accuracy that approaches the spooky)
questions for our new little friends should be directed at them, Claire has a blog (but you need to have patience, take your time when you leave a Comment there). Molly comes to us via ‘the FaceBook’

Lets close out with a vid borrowed from ‘the youtube’

* “nearly free” that means that when you get a hat (for your damn head) you need to send us a photo of said Wakefield Doctrine in front of a large and recognisable landmark, with or without your own, personal (damn) head underneath. Photo-phobes (I’m looking at you clarks) may enlist their nearby scottian or rogerian friends to wear the thing for them**

**jeez…clarks…whats with you and photographs?***

*** lol no, don’t bother answering! this is the frickin Wakefield Doctrine, we know the answer

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: humor, Personal, personality types, predicting human behavior, psychology of personality, relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine

clarks are nouns, scotts are verbs and rogers…they are gerunds! the Wakefield Doctrine Mid-Week Reporting

August 4, 2011 By clarkscottroger

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

No, you are not wrong, all of what you have seen so far in this Post has been intentionally mis-leading, it’s all been a come-on, a ruse…for the purpose of enticing you into reading today’s Post. All this because, among you Readers might possibly be the one Reader who will write a Comment on this Post.

Surely that justifies the verbal legerdemain? Well, you are probably right, it is best not to resort to tricking people who enjoy reading blogs, who as we all know, are the most perceptive and discerning of audiences.

Having said that, if you are still with us here, we owe you another story. A few days ago, in the Post titled; 3 personality types, 1 rabbit and the Wakefield Doctrine, we told you a story and while it was a good story, it was meant for the scotts among us. Since we started today’s Post with trickery and deceit, it only makes sense to tell a story for the clarks out there! ( don’t worry, clarks will understand why this is the case. )

As a young boy about 4 or 5 years old I grew up in the town of Oak Bluffs, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. From where we lived I could walk to a family friends house in about 15 minutes and with another 15 minutes walking I could be in the center of town, which at that time consisted of 2 blocks of commercial development. 1 street with drugstore, restaurants and barbershops etc on both sides. Continue down Circuit Ave and you come to the Flying Horses (merry-go-round) and the boardwalk that defined the shoreline on that part of the Island. There was a neighborhood that was composed entirely of Summer Cottages across the park that overlooked the ocean. Year round residents did not take too much notice of this area, as they were boarded up and vacant for 9 months out of the year, when the Summer People went back to their real homes.

Whatever. One day (around end of September), I was walking home from town with a friend following an afternoon of doing nothing much. My route home took us past a recreational field which was part baseball and part football field. On this particular afternoon, the grassy area was being put to use as a football field by a group of ‘big kids’* The field itself was up a slight incline from the road, (no sidewalks or anything fancy like that), so for some reason we decided to ‘sneak up’ on the football game players. (Bear in mind there were no bushes or hedges between the street and the field, just macadam road a little sand then grass up 5 feet or so then level field). So we snuck up on the football game. (Nearly every boy of this age at this time in the culture had his Army Man game moves. Mostly a matter of running a short distance and throwing yourself down on the ground. From this position you would either do the ‘crawl into position’ or (you might) jump up and run another short distance so that you could ‘hit the dirt’ again. And so on and so on.)
We got into position on the side of the incline, peering over the top where the football game was continuing, obviously we were not spotted. For some reason I decided that we should throw some rocks at the kids in the football game! (Don’t ask me! Maybe the situation required the use of grenades, maybe I was bored…those of you Readers who are astute enough might know. I cannot recall why I thought it was a good idea.) But I did and we did, throw rocks. As soon as we established our range (with the stones) the big kids noticed and stopped their game. At first they laughed, at the sight of two 5 year old boys throwing rocks from the side of the road. But then one of the rocks almost hit (or may have hit, memory not clear) one particular boy who was wearing an orange knit sweater. The laughing stopped, the game stopped, we stopped and all of a sudden my friend and I had the un-divided attention of 10 boys. We stood up as a small group from the game headed in our direction (lead by the boy in the orange sweater). For reasons still not understood, even though the focus of the group on us began to waver ( “hey, forget them, lets get back to the game”), I threw one more rock and yelled “Run for it!”
We were chased. My friend headed for his house, me to mine. I could hear the kids somewhere behind me yelling something about calling the cops. Just as I made it to my house, quite by chance as I now know, a siren started wailing in the distance. And it was moving in my direction. I ran into the house and up the stairs to the safest place my somewhat desparate brain knew: my parents bedroom. I slide under their bed and lay and waited.

As I remember this childhood incident, the strangest thing about it is that the story stops right there, me hiding out like an escaped criminal under my parent’s bed, hearing the sirens somewhere in the distance, certain that I would soon hear the sound of feet pounding up the stairs.
None of these consequences materialized. Nothing happened, at all! My ability to recall ends there, no memory of what happened to my friend, whether the cops were after me on not (I know now, probably not) I don’t even remember if I told the family about it. Life (un-recalled) went on.

Hey!! Where did the time go! Tomorrow is Video Friday so set your clocks to Friday and be sure to tune in, we hope to have: a) a guest b) a really interesting conversation, c) good listener feedback.

And don’t forget now, the Wakefield Doctrine is to be found over at ‘the FaceBook’** so come over and visit, we even have a video club that you should join.

*big kids being defined as those between the age of 12 and 14
** it’s an old person thing, you know how old people always seem to stick a totally unnecessary article in front of things that they are un-familiar with? ‘the email’, ‘the Facebook’…’the cancer’…I suspect that old people do this thing with modern inventions as a verbal equivalent of using those oven mittens that everyone has at the stove…better be careful! you might get hurt…here put on these mittens and insulate yourself! fuck oldness.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: humor, Personal, personality types, psychology of personality, relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine

Turn that Frown Upside Down! Humor and the 3 Personality Types of the Wakefield Doctrine

May 6, 2011 By clarkscottroger

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

Added Content Alert! Added Content Alert!!
……….”Rinji news o moshiagemasu! Rinji news o moshiagemasu!”…………

(of course, the real questions is: ‘will those referrer guys let us send this Post up, just ’cause we added another vid clip? damn I hope so…well, wish us luck! come on…reddit!!)

No, everything is not a joke, but the three personality types of the Wakefield Doctrine will express and/or appreciate humor in three distinctly different ways.

clarks: preferred joke type is the shaggy dog story, example:

Two lions are sitting in a clearing in the deepest, darkest part of Africa. They are both sitting on the carcass of a freshly killed gazelle, their jaws are dripping with blood, from the dense underbrush comes the sounds of hyenas darting into the clearing, only to see the two ferocious lions and, with screams of frustration, disappear into the densely tangled vegetation surrounding the area. After an hour gorging on the flesh of their recent kill, one lion turns to the other and says, “No matter what I do, I can’t get it out of my head that today is not Friday’.

scotts: what can we say, they love the suffering of others, example:

Guy takes his wife to ER. The doctor comes out and tells him..”Your wife is very severely injured. She is paralyzed from the waist down—and it is permanent. For the rest of her life, you will have to bathe her, feed her, toilet her and care for her.”The guy starts to cry..”My poor, poor wife. Oh No!”

The doctor says, “I’m just fuckin’ with ya. She’s dead.”

rogers: you know friendly fellas, like them guys on the Blue Collar Comedy show. (Ron White and Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy). That is not to say that rogers are not funny! They are! Jim Gaffigan and others are good examples of rogerian comedians. Following is a clip from our new favorite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaK9bjLy3v4

Alright, everyone! back in your seats! This is not a free period! We are here to learn about the difference between clarks, scotts and rogers from the perspective of what they find funny.

clarks: living life mostly on an intellectual plane, they naturally find the silly, non-sensical jokes funniest
rogers: like jokes that rely on the listener identifying with the comedian, even when (the comedian) is making fun of them
clarks: like the humor of the absurd mostly because they have very little vested in the notion of being part of real, normal life (as rogers do)
scotts: real simple pain, embarrassment, humiliation of the object of the joke = funny
rogers: jokes serve as lessons, instruction to other as to how to live life, the sample video contains a number of references to segments of society that Dan does not agree with, thereby the humor
scott: the most concise example of the scottian sense of humor is the banana peel, (i.e. man falls down at minimum embarrassed, at maximum severely injured, now that’s comedy!)

As with everything else about the Wakefield Doctrine, the above characterizations refer to tendency, the predominance of a quality. This is clearly seen when you reflect upong your own response to what is referred to as ‘gallows humor’…’black comedy’…’dead babies jokes’…that most of us laugh when we hear these kinds of jokes, is not the issue; how we react to our own laughter (at this type of humor) can be quite illuminating. We laugh and then feel embarrassed that we laughed, this in and of itself is an irrefutable indication the scottian component of our personality, even if we are actually a clark or a roger. Do not forget, The Doctrine maintains that we are mostly one of the three personality types, the other two elements form the background, the context of our total persona. The difference between what we laugh at and what we think is funny is proof of this. …and we have not even begun to touch on what we can learn about the personality of the person telling the joke! (hint: outrageous, off-color, far-side of inappropriate is your scott; bungled, mangled punchlines indicates your clarklike joke teller and rogers? funny, reassuring ‘and-the-morale-of-our-story’!)

Pretty simple, isn’t it?

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: humor, personality types, psychology of personality, relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine

…things change…

April 3, 2011 By clarkscottroger

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

Hey, did you hear? FOTD Mel (Spatula in the Wilderness) is hangin up his blogational ‘whites’¹. (Damn!)

In any event, Friend of the Doctrine, mentor, ‘first-blogwriter-I-know-personally-to-get-material-banned-from-facebook’, former hospital chef, Mel announced in a Post at the Spatula that he is hangin up the Ladle-of-Literature, you know, the Colander of Characters, the Flour Sifter of Florid Prose, the…. ( …stop, not another keystroke…stop! ) .

In any event, Mel has experienced that ultimate nightmare of anyone who acquires an new interest, a hobby, an avocation. How many of us have come upon a talent, a gift within ourselves and realised, perhaps late in life, how much pleasure we create for ourselves and those around us? We experience trepidation as we find a joy in the hard work of learning and practicing new skills, the better to express our new talent. The world changes, our lives expand, we become more, not better and not worse, not even different. We become more of what we are as people. Be it music or art or even writing a blog, we laugh when people ask, ‘how can you spend so much time: practicing scales/ writing and re-writing those Posts/ drawing and sketching, so few people ever hear/read/ see them’.
We laugh because they are right and we laugh because we remember a time when these same efforts, these same exercises, the same frustrations that are a part of our new interest ( music or art or writing a blog) were work, to be dreaded, not looked forward to after a long day at the money-paying job.
How many of us sat through grade school music class, high school composition class, college art appreciation class and couldn’t wait until it was over? Funny about how work can turn into (a) pleasure of the most sublime nature. And this ‘ultimate nightmare’ of those of us who discover a talent, an avocation? While this nightmare is there for all of us, it is perhaps only the clarks among us who can actually see the nightmare, aka Changing Life Priorities. This nightmare is not an evil thing, it is not even a bad thing, but to the child (or the clark in us) it is the most awful of the nightmare that we encounter in life. We call it a nightmare because it represents the fact of life that things change…
How innocuous a pair of words…how totally harmless, …things change… As a junior high school student my parents got me a piano teacher because I had an interest in music and as a clark, I applied all of my energy to lessons because that would make everyone be proud of me. I had some talent, not a lot but some so there was early progress in my learning to play and because I was a clark, I asked the question of myself, ” I really like this, what happens if I lose interest in playing piano?” …things change… who among us has not heard those two words come from a person who was part of the framework of a life, ‘(I’m sorry but)…things change.”

But that is what makes a clark a clark…the capacity to see the nightmares that will consume all of us at one point or another in life, whether we are aware of it or not, whether it affects our lives in ways that we can feel (or not). scotts? they pretty much feel the advancing storm and dig a burrow and wait it out, never wasting a moment to consider the rightness or wrongness of the thing. rogers? they can hear it coming down the walkway at night, but they will close their eyes and tell themselves tales of old when things were simpler and when they open their eyes, things are changed to the way they have always been.

So, go read the Spatula while it is still up and write something to Mel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04KQydlJ-qc

1) The traditional chef’s uniform (or chef’s whites) includes a toque (traditional hat), white double-breasted jacket, and checked pants. It is a common uniform in the Western world. The double breasted jacket can be reversed to hide stains. Its thick cotton cloth protects from the heat of stove and oven and protects from splattering of boiling liquids. Traditionally knotted cloth buttons were used because they could stand up to the frequent washing and survive contact with hot items without melting. Typically, men button to the right while women button to the left. The black and white checked pattern frequent on trousers serves to camouflage minor stains. The white color of other clothing articles is intended to signify cleanliness and are often worn by highly visible head chefs. Aprons are used to shield the rest of the wearer’s garments from food splatters and stains. The toque is a chef’s hat that dates back to the 16th century when hats were common in many trades. Different heights of hats sometimes indicate rank within a kitchen. The 100 folds of the toque are said to represent the many different ways a chef knows to cook an egg. Some modern chefs have put their own distinct spin on the traditional uniform utilizing colors, patterns and design changes. Chefs may express their personal style by wearing a decorated chef’s coat, some of which have food inspired prints. In more traditional restaurants, however, especially traditional French restaurants, the white chef’s coat is standard and considered part of a traditional uniform and as a practical chef’s garment.

History

Chefs clothing remains a standard in the food industry. The tradition dates back to the mid-19th century. Marie-Antoine Careme, a popular French chef, is credited with developing the current chef’s uniform. The tall hats had already been introduced, but Careme wanted to create a specific uniform to honor the chef. White was chosen for the chef’s coat to signify cleanliness. Later, the French Master Chef Georges Auguste Escoffier encouraged his kitchen staff to wear suits outside of work to signify professionalism of chefs. Escoffier brought the traditional chef’s coat to London, managing the restaurants at the Savoy Hotel and then at the Carlton Hotel (courtesy of our friends at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef’s_uniform)