psychology of personality | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 17 psychology of personality | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 17

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

Sure, there’s a good reason for constantly posting old posts.

Good question.

Answer: creativity appears to function, on a certain level, like exercise. In two aspects:

  1. the more you do, the more you can
  2. there is, apparently, a limit to sustaining (an) effort

Intriguing enough?

But…. b..but! we have learned a thing or two about sharing the principles of everyone’s favorite personality theory. The foremost of which is to keep it simple(st). What it is and who they are.

The Wakefield Doctrine is a perspective on the world around us and the people who make it up. It is predicated on the notion that to a small, but quite real extent, reality is personal. Further, the Doctrine is based on the idea that we, all of us, are born with the potential to experience the world from the perspective of one of three characteristic ‘relationships’. For reasons not yet understood, at the earliest of ages, we settle into one of these three realities and develop our strategies for interacting/surviving/thriving in this particular world. The personal reality we settle into is referred to as our predominant worldview. The style and manner, strategies and personal adaptions are what others might call personality types. Funny thing, though. From the view of the Wakefield Doctrine, we all have the best possible personality type. Because it represents our best effort to contend with the world around us, (and the people who make it up), as we experience it.

There is only one predominant worldview. We do, however, retain the potential to experience the world as do ‘the other two’. Sometimes it can happen that a person has a significant secondary aspect or, even tertiary aspect. This does not entail becoming a different personality type. It presents, usually in situations of duress, as an uncharacteristic personal quality. Usually to the benefit of the individual under duress. However, it recedes into the background once the ’emergency’ passes.

(Remember the thing we said about developing our strategies for interacting with the world around us? Yeah, from babyhood, through childhood, into adulthood. Practice. Example: We’re an example of a clark with a significant secondary scottian aspect. We’ll totally talk to a stranger, hell, we’ll do our damnedest to charm them… but were still a clark. The world, for us, is that of the Outsider. Not a Predator. Hey, ‘cellent segue no?)

The three personality types of the Wakefield Doctrine:

  • clarks(the Outsider) you know who you are, keep in mind, we tell the world about how we would interact with it, everyone does that* what we need to remember is that it’s a live series not a movie. scripts and even characters can change as quickly as is supported by a reasonable-to-the-audiance story logic. Oh, yeah… wear odd (often soon-to-be-fashionable) clothing, mumble, creative and solid friends
  • scotts(the Predator) hey!! (lol) the logo (in all senses of the word) of the scott… they live for the present…no, wait! that was a mistranslation** (from Outsider to Predator realities) they live in the present. (Appreciate the difference and you’re way down the road to making this thing useful in the ‘real’ world.
  • rogers(the Herd Member) man! this predominant worldview is as important to appreciate as their natural drive to make the world appreciate them! Whole post need here… but, thanks to the rogerian worldview we have computers and the internet to learn about ’em

 

* concept lifted from memory fragments of grad school, TA theory, I believe

** the primary value of this here Doctrine here? the concept of translating between predominant worldviews… huge undertaking…way worth it

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Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

We did mention that the Wakefield Doctrine is a tool for self-improving oneself, did we not?

Sure we did.

At the risk of leaving ourselfs open to the totally wonderful, (wish we’d thought of it), observation, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.” (Maslow sorta) we will remind New Readers: the Wakefield Doctrine is an additional perspective on the world around us and the people who make it up.

Enough with the ‘…for now, refer to the syllabus you were given at the start of the class’.

The word ‘perspective’ is also a clue to the (intended) use of the principles of the Doctrine for change and development. The Wakefield Doctrine is predicated on the notion that …

oh dip!* I’ve missed the early morning train to Insightsville! damn**

Be sure to check back tomorrow, we promise to offer useful information and practical applications of this most wonderful of personality ‘theories’.

Note: New Readers? If your first thought is:

“What the hell! I paid tuition. Well, I paid with my time, clicking here… ya know?!!? Though I gotta say the preliminaries are, no offense, pretty obvious. In fact, based on the most fundamental descriptions of the three personality types and the role of how a person relates themselves to the world around them (yeah, pretty clever, inserting that ‘themselves’ in to the more common, ‘how we relate to the world’ adds an entirely personal dimension to the equation) and a couple of other things like ‘personal reality’ and that initially way-weird ‘Everything Rule’ (in the last installment we actually heard Cameron (a total clark) on the wonderful internet video series BlackTail Studio state the Everything Rule, nearly word-for-word). I’ll just go ahead and do some self-study.”

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine. You got this.

 

the Wakefield Doctrine: ‘you’re already practicing the core Principles, you might as well get something for all your efforts’ (…yeah, even some fun!)

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

The reason we say,  you’re already practicing the Principles is that, as a personality theory, the Wakefield Doctrine does not start with a person answering questions, filling out a survey or questionnaire, reporting likes and dislikes, lying about weaknesses and strengths, exaggerating the things others like and hate about us. No. In a funny, you-guys-really-are-weird kind of way the Wakefield Doctrine doesn’t really care what the individual thinks their personality (type) should or could or might be. Nope. This here personality theory here does not need to know that.
…as a matter of fact! You don’t even need to involve the person that you are about to know (better, in a way) than they know themselves. You see, the Wakefield Doctrine is for you, not for them.

But I’m getting ahead of us. We’ll come back to this ‘you mean I can know my boyfriend’s, my Teacher’s, my wife’s, my boss’s, my kid’s personality types and I don’t need to ask them to help?’ in just about a paragraph. First, the Principles that the Title of today’s Post says you are already practicing.

The Wakefield Doctrine is all about how a person relates themselves to the world around them. Notice the odd wording, I did not say, ‘how a person relates to the world‘. Because that’s only one dimension, in a sense a description of  what happens as the person goes about their life. We say, ‘how the person relates themselves to the world around them’ because it is not simply a choice (about how to act, what to do, how to feel about it), it is reality. What we refer to as a worldview.
In the context of the Wakefield Doctrine, we all live in a personal reality, aka our worldview. This means that my reality is different from yours. No, nothing weird… no screaming vegetables, nothing shooting across the sky, no flying without the help of technology, but different nonetheless. And it is the way our worldviews differ that we find the value and utility in our personality theory.

The Wakefield Doctrine maintains that we are all born with the potential to experience the world from one of three ‘perspectives’, living in one of three worldviews, if you will. And what most people call ‘personality types’, we know as the appropriate behavior, given the world that a person finds themselves experiencing. (Remember!  personal reality as in ‘real’ and ‘reality’  not  “just ’cause you felt like it, or I think I will choose to act like this, she deserves it….”) The three characteristic worldviews are:

  1. the reality of the Outsider (clarks)  not ‘because’, not ‘well, you should speak up more’, and definitely not ‘well if you didn’t act so weird, people would get to know you and  you would have an easier time in life’  this reality is simply one in which you are here and ‘the world’ is out there. (For our clarklike Readers this last statement is sufficient, the rogers and the scotts might nod and look understanding, but will never get it)
  2. the world of the Predator (scotts) of the three personality types, scotts can be the easiet to deal with- they are energetic and active, enthusiastic and mercurial helpful and very dangerous… the saying here is: clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel’.  scotts are the life of the party and the reason the police get called, scotts are your best friend until someone who they look up to shows up and then your life will be miserable , scotts are the neighbor who will lend you anything in his garage and help build your deck without asking and she is the neighbor with the well-behaved kids (at least they are when she is around, when she is not….ayiieee!), scottsare fun and tiring, loyal and seductive  you have at least one scottian friend
  3. the world as seen by a member of the Herd (rogers) are the reason we have civilization and they are the reason we have repressive societies. they are the personality type that lives in a world of emotion… not just moods and feelings, but where clarks think things and scotts act out, rogers manipulate emotion, in themselves and in the people around them. Ever encounter someone who makes you feel comfortable talking?  ...roger  know anyone at work who is always in the center of things and knows all about everyone?… roger ever find your husband/wife…boyfriend/girlfriend  acting like they had no idea that you had a life outside the relationship?  lol roger  there is a saying around here: without rogers humanity would still be out on the savannah with the scotts roaming in packs, feeding on the giant herds of rogers while the clarks dart among the low underbrush in a desperate attempt to stay alive long enough to invent opposable thumbs

These three worldviews are the ‘core principles’ of the Doctrine that you are already practicing.

Back to the Practical Value….and how you don’t need to involve the ‘other person’ and how this Wakefield Doctrine is for you, not for them.

Today. Observe the people in your life. Infer which of the three worldviews they appear to be acting from, test this against the descriptions of each of the three personality types that you will find throughout this blog. Once you know which the other person is, you will know why they are doing the things that they are and because you know this, you will have the choice of how you would respond, how you feel about what they do, how to shape the message if you need to get them to do what you want. In other words, you will have more freedom of choice than they do.

 

* one of the best ‘tv shows’ available on the internets, ‘Good Place’ we totally recommend it.

** yeah, here… all too often

#wakefielddoctrine, #theoryofclarks,scotts,and,rogers

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Mondaus Reprintum -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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?

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Friday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

What say we do a quick reprint and see if’n we can’t come up with a new(ish) insight into the use and application of everybody’s favorite ‘personality theory’?

Got it! (ish)

What do the three worldviews fear the most in life.

Follow-up question: why is the word ‘fear’ not the best word in this context?

but first the reprint.

whoa whoa whoa!… Stop.

Best we contribute whatever novel insight into the use of the Wakefield Doctrine, before you enjoy today’s RePrint.

What the three predominant worldviews of the Wakefield Doctrine fear the most:

  1. clarks(Outsiders) scrutiny (yeah, big surprise there) to be subject to inquiry without consent
  2. scotts(Predators) non-rational unreliability. (yeah, like the old punchline, ‘that’s a pretty big word for an ‘action-is-everything’ personality type). (True backstory: Once in a discussion with Glenn(scott-with-secondary-clarklike-aspect) about the Doctrine, we suggested that, as clarks, there is nothing that is permanent to the world, that if today we awoke to a sky that was green with orange polka dots, we’d shrug and get on with the day. Glen’s response was, ‘That would be intolerable (to a scott), the natural world needs to be…natural and consistent, there have to be some standards.’
  3. rogers(Herd Members) disassociation. To be rejected, as an individual, from association with others, even, (and especially), if that chosen association is confined to the individual roger (Membership in a Herd is not dependent on a separate, independent acceptance by a member or members of said Herd. The individual roger needs only to accept the Herdosity of a group, a virtue of belonging and their own willingness to be associated. Don’t believe us? Go ask a roger.

The follow-up question: the short answer is, as so often, ‘the Everything Rule’. In this context means that how ‘fear’ manifests is subject to the nature/character of the reality in the individual’s predominant worldview.

Ok now on to the Reprint.

*

don’t worry, nothing nearly as strange/cool/frickin great as you think

Let me start by saying “whether due to cultural dislocation or totally subliminal deviancy, my personal opinion is that most of (Rockwell’s) paintings come across banal at best, creepy at worst”. (This is the cue for the rogerian art fans to start howling, in their bovine basso profundo voices, the chorus being…”but it shows what we once were”)

Sure, roger, take your wasn’t it wonderful past and your family history and your abused children and your paedofilic authority figures and tell us why you love them all so very much.  Sure roger, the predators were for the most part scotts, at least the obvious ones.  Sure the past was a great time…if you had power. But as the adage goes, “history is written by the victors” and this is so much truer for the cultural winners and losers as it was for the military/political adversaries.

So, what’s the deal with the photos today?  Well first I do want to thank our dead artist for the loanation of copies of his quote art unquote.  I really don’t know what set this off in today’s Post.  The ‘Lead’ photo was the most difficult, I kept coming back to it.  Looking through all the Rockwell I could find in the searching for a photo that would show all three of us (clarks, scotts and rogers), was not having much luck.  But the photo I am starting with has something so damn clarklike to it that I decided to use it. (The fact of the process was: “I do not know how I can incorporate this into the Post in any logical way, but I have to use it”) Hey, call it the vanity of the author.

Show of hands people, the Lead photo who does not see a clark? (hey clarks!! come out from under the bed! lol no one is going to say anything bad here, come on, join the “conversation” lol).  Let’s just rorschach this one and move on to the main photo.  This is the photo you see when you click on the read more link, the one on this page, knuckleheads.
Now we can get down to Doctrine business.  We have a photo that contains 2 scotts a roger and a clark. (and not too much abuse or predation, either!)

(Now I know you are all capable of making allowances for culturally anachronistic features) so, what do you see in the picture above?

Screw that…What do you see here?

 Yeah, another damn clark.

(I cannot tell you what the deal is with the clarks today.  Really, no games, not holding out for dramatic purpose, just don’t know.  Let’s just call it the horrifyingly familiar tint of fear that is the hallmark of clarks, it is jumping out at me in this, quote art unquote.)

…if clarks are to be the topic of today’s Post, let’s have at it.
Maybe it has been the Rockwell art overload, but I keep getting drawn back to the idea of what a culture does to encourage children to stay on whatever path they have ended up on i.e. being a clark/scott/roger.
(If we had Wakefield Doctrine study guides, this would be highlit in yellow with a EXAM QUESTION mark next to it)

as the Doctrine tells us, we all start life with the qualities of all three (clarks, scotts and rogers) and for reasons beyond the scope of this explanation we become mostly one of the three. This usually occurs at an early age, say  3 to 5 years old and we settle into experiencing the reality of the one we picked. (except for clarks).

So what is the deal with clarks and their strangeness?  Well it’s real damn simple, clarks are the outsiders, the blue monkeys, the strange ones.  In a school yard they will be the last to be picked for team sports and in the gymnasium they be the last to be asked to dance.  I can hear our rogerian Readers now (I’m talking to you, MJM) I can hear them saying in a voice that is meant to be caring and helpful but is, in fact, strident and insisting, “If only you would dress a little nicer, why do you have to wear that, you really are an attractive, nice person but you put people off…why do you keep doing that to yourself”?

(Today’s Post  has now officially careened right the fuck out of control.  I will no long be responsible for syntax, logic, reasonable conclusion or making sense to anyone other than our clarklike readers…)

So clarks are the outsiders but they are also the creative ones.  While rogers may build (being engineers and all) clarks create the ideas that they will bring to the world.  And while scotts are the leaders, they always,  (Did I say ALWAYS? ) (you know I did mean to say Always) scotts have clarks standing out of sight, off to stage left, telling them things about their audience/followers/mob that the scott will then pronounce and shape into power.

(What time is it?!!)

“You’re such a lovely audience, we’d like to take you home with us”

Hell, let’s have that for our music vid

This a Post that made no sense at all? Ask a clark to explain it to you, there is one nearby…you just haven’t had the time to bother with them…go ahead ask them, they will explain this all to you, but you roger will get annoyed when it becomes obvious that it does not center on you  and you, scott will get bored ’cause it doesn’t have loud explosions in it.

*

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2 (zzz) Dae -the Wakefield Doctrine-

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

The best of all days of the workweek. The Day of the clark, if a clark would step up and claim a day of the week. scotts have no problem claiming a day of the week. They’d be all, ‘Saturday’s alright with me‘ (and) ‘Come on! The week’s over, lets go unwind‘ (or) ‘How much can you study, you need to let the brain cells absorb that shit, I got something in my dorm room you need to see.’ and ‘Monday!?! Lemme have a couple a hours… be right as dodgers‘ or…. (you get the idea). As to our rogerian brethren, kind like that ‘ceptin more ‘me’, ‘Can’t you see I’m studying, well, sure, but only for a while…’ or ‘According to my schedule, a couple of hours in a couple of hours should be doable‘.

[ed. All the above SOC? Just to give ourselfs a permission to paste a music vid that’s lodged in our aurel brainus. The funny thing about aging… Wait, let’s make that, ‘the curious thing about aging’, is not simply how our tastes change. It’s how what we used to stand by and ‘No way’, becomes something more than we realized. In this example, certain types of music. The song today would have, sitting in the Student Union waiting for friends to arrive so as to begin the day in earnest, would have elicited, ‘Oh yeah, those guys.’ Now, here, on a Tuesday morning in ‘the Present’, I’ve got one of the songs I would’ve turned my nose up at, in partial but endless play-loop in my head.]

Now, studious Students of the Doctrine know, the Wakefield Doctrine is age neutral. (Along with gender and culture neutral). So what gives?

Nothing gives. The Wakefield Doctrine does not claim to govern the functions and actions, tastes and predilections of it’s three personality types. We (all) change and mature with the passage of time and the living of life, because our connections with the world around us, (and the people who make it up), become stronger and more rigid, or weaker and more flexible*.

The Wakefield Doctrine is strictly concerned with the character of the relationship between (a) person and the world. When we can understand, (and appreciate (and accept)) how we relate ourselves to the world around us, we become (more) able to know the world as the other person is experiencing it.

But that’s for a whole ‘nother post. We’re just typing ourselfs justification to copy paste the link below.

 

* in this case ‘weaker’ is intended to imply ‘more flexible’. Seeing how the world we come into, courtesy of our immediate surroundings, is the least flexible. We are told what the world is** Only with time, and luck, do we come to realize that there’s some wiggle room in the original brochure.

** thanks and a shout-out to Carlos Castaneda for having don Juan tells us all about the nature of the world and the child.

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