self-improvement | the Wakefield Doctrine

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

June 28, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

Lets go try and find a reprint on the Doctrine and fairy tales, shall we?

ok.

kinda.

(In the context of the common misperception of clarks as the one (of the three) with the smallest-by-social-standing ego weight*, we’ll contribute something original. Well, as original as Heraclitus** might offer us cover for it being ….kinda original.)

Full Disclosure: Part of us feel it is shirking our responsibility to simply post what has been written, even with the understanding that old posts are new posts to New Readers. But, since we’re not against restating some of the more original insights and observations let’s run out a couple of the old favorites.

clarks abhor being the center of attention, but will not tolerate being ignored

a scott, alone in a room, isn’t

clarks are crazy, scotts are stupid and rogers are dumb

Reprint From April 2013

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

Melanie and Janine and them wrote a Comment saying how much they enjoyed our little look at the Fairy Tale ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and went on to say how they were looking forward to today’s Post as we continued our analysis of these cultural icons vis-a-vis the Wakefield Doctrine. Being a clark and all, I am certainly not one to ignore a request, even if I did have a perfectly good ‘re-print Post’ all set to go for today. It was a Post from the first full year of the blog, replete to references to the foreign exchange students at Millard Fillmore High and there might even be a mention of our favorite valedictorian, and all-around cool co-ed, Janie Sullivan. It (this Post that was to have run today), even had something resembling a survey meant to determine personality types. The writing is a little rough, but it was fun to read. (Have I indulged in being rogerian enough in my un-gracious acquiescence to Melanie’s and Janine’s request yet?) No? Well how about this: for a personality type that is hardly ever accused of wearing our hearts on our sleeves, clarks place the feelings of others way, way before their own. Even if the other person does not explicitly state that their feelings or emotional state are at risk, clarks will invariably think, ‘it would be awful if their feelings were hurt’ or thoughts to that effect. Simple empathy? …or the hint of something deeper, something more inextricably tied to the worldview of the Outsider? Well, think about it… but first a little Fairy tale Doctrine-style!

Jack and the Beanstalk: (that’s right!, this is a movie now), I guess I don’t have to expound on the role of Fairy Tales as indoctrination for the totally impressionable members of society. Well, yes I do. Ask yourselfs ‘who, of all the potential audience for these tales of violence, greed, subservience and rogerian membership is the one group (demographic, if you will) who has zero choice in being exposed to the sick, sick message that most of these tales are disguising?
Give up? The most impressionable! the ages: (negative) six months (‘Look honey! I bought the complete Grimms Fairy Tale on dvd, so after the baby arrives, you can just hit ‘Play‘) to 18 months (“…leave the dvd running with the volume real low… it will lull her to sleep, it’s been such a long time, sure! leave the door open, we’ll only be a room away) to 2 years ( “would you read to the baby? I so have to get back to the gym just take whatever you are reading and sit with her, put the dvd on and you can read your book and he will think you are reading to him…“) to 3 years (“…no dear, there is no such thing as a troll under the bridge, no matter what the big kids are saying“).

The victims are always the defenseless children. So, back to Jack and the Beanstalk. That is certainly an uplifting tale of triumph over adversity, beyond criticism or reproach, non?

(as always from Wikipedia*)

Jack is a young lad living with his widowed mother. Their only means of income is a cow. When this cow stops giving milk one morning, Jack is sent to the market to sell it. (“Carlos Castaneda wrote a series of books about learning about right living, in one of these books, he relates how a brujo offers a young man 2 gourds in exchange for help carrying them to market. The young man agrees and when the task is complete accepts his reward and takes the gourds and opens them. He sees only food and water, and, expecting gold or other tangible rewards smashes both gourds on the ground and walks away. Am I the only one to see the short-sightedness in Jack and his mom’s instant reaction to the change in the cow?”) On the way to the market he meets an old man who offers to give him “magic” beans in exchange for the cow. (Chase Bank is currently advertising a wonderful new feature of their credit cards…direct deposit of paychecks. That’s correct, you can have the ease and convenience of having your earnings be transferred from your employer to Chase, as the radio ad holds, ‘leaving you time for the important things in life’)

Jack takes the beans but when he arrives home without money, his mother becomes furious and throws the beans out the window and sends Jack to bed without supper. (“…what a bitch! you sure she isn’t really Jill and this is a way messed up couple and she has, like family issues and maybe a substance abuse thing going? rational response to a disappointment, Mom!”)

As Jack sleeps, the beans grow into a gigantic beanstalk ( lmao…not even going to go near this one… hey! Janine! …you got any Reader overview on this? ). Jack climbs the beanstalk and arrives in a land high up in the sky where he follows a road to a house, which is the home of a giant. He enters the house and asks the giant’s wife for food. She gives him food, but the giant returns and senses that a human is nearby:

Fee-fi-fo-fum!

I smell the blood of an Englishman,

Be he alive, or be he dead,

I’ll have his bones to grind my bread.

However, Jack is hidden by the giant’s wife and overhears the giant counting his money. Jack steals a bag of gold coins as he makes his escape down the beanstalk. ( As well he should! He was a guest in the couple’s house, given food and shelter…of course he would steal from his hosts)

Jack repeats his journey up the beanstalk two more times, (!!!) each time he is helped by the increasingly suspicious wife of the giant and narrowly escapes with one of the giant’s treasures. The second time, he steals a hen that lays golden eggs and the third time a magical harp that plays by itself. This time, he is almost caught by the giant who follows him down the beanstalk. Jack calls his mother for an axe and chops the beanstalk down, killing the giant. The end of the story has Jack and his mother living happily ever after with their new riches (Happily) (ever) (After) ( magic beans = 1 cow, giant beanstalk = hyperactive hormones, opportunity to steal = the hospitality of non-larcenous childless couple, live happily ever after =Priceless)

… forget the analysis, if there was a full-grown blue-fin tuna in my 3′ above ground pool and you handed me a fully loaded shotgun… it would be less obvious than the message of greed and avarice and violence and self-gratification at any and all costs than this child’s tale. I mean, really. lol luckily, we have the Wakefield Doctrineto make sense of it all!

Oh yeah… who’s who? Jack is a roger, his mom is a scott the giant is a roger and the giant’s wife is a clark

…now go to sleep, tomorrow is almost here

* not a ‘real’ term or concept in mainstream/popular psych, not even those fine folks at Oscar Meyer Pick-a-Number, Any-Number School of Personality

** one of our favorite old, dead guy quotes: “No ~~man~~ person ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and ~~he’s~~ they’re not the same ~~man~~ person.”

ed. You know, we’ve never had a problem with Readers getting all escited about stuff in these post, getting worked up to the point of writing aggressive and critical comments. Too bad, in a sense, as that takes a much larger readership than we’ve had to date.

Yes,I did edit a timeless quote. And it set off a discussion in our head about…. “Wait a minute! You can’t do that. And, besides, its a fricken pronoun. And… and! that’s the cultural context the guy wrote it in. You think you’re doing something special? Making a statement? When you write your own timeless truth, then you can use whatever fricken pronouns you choose to… but if you want to use a quote, you should leave yourself out of it.”

…as you can see, the argument did not sway me.

Why? (Permit us a way-typical style of answering), we choose to replace the gender-specific pronoun with a …whatever pronoun for one reason:

Dagwood Bumpstead
Andy Capp
Jackie Gleason and Frankie Fontanie

We plane to refrain from googling the above ‘reasons’ for now. Hopefully they, (the search returns), provide enough information for you Readers to get a sense of ‘why’.

Let us know in comments and, what the hell, if we continue on in this: ‘Dude! Lighten up, it’s a blog and a quote, chill. Have fun. We know the Doctrine is meant for fun, even if it’s explicitly stated to be gender, age and culture neutral.’

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: predicting human behavior, psychology of personality, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine, three personality types

RePrint Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

June 13, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

Today’s reprint is pretty straight-forward (at least so it seemed, when I scanned it just now) and action oriented. So let’s get right do to it.

October 23, 2020

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

At last! Friday! With all its pressure to make the cost of the weekdays feel worthwhile, and most of its promise to allow sufficient enjoyment to believe we are not all running on invisible hamster wheels.

New Readers (and not-so-new-Readers) Here is our challenge for the weekend:

Find the clarks in your world and let them know that you know (but won’t tell anyone)

Spot the scotts (there will be one among your immediate social circle and at least one just out there) Make them laugh at something/anything*

Identify the rogers (to whoever said, ‘Like that’s gonna be tough, they make up 2/3s of the population‘, we retort: “Hold on, we’re not done with the assignment.”) Get within conversational range and compliment them, then leave before he/she can reciprocate.

Any questions?

Quick Guide to the three worldviews:

clarks tend to dress in a way that doesn’t look quite right, but not in a negative way. There is always something creative to the fashion/dress of a clark (in our North American culture, females enjoy a range of sartorial expression not normally enjoyed by their clarklike brethren, so why wouldn’t one make of the most of the metal and lace palette and employ a palette of color visible only to lifeforms more comfortable in the fluorescent end of the spectrum). When you spot a clark, make no sudden moves or otherwise draw attention to them, or they’ll blend into the woodwork faster than a chameleon on amphetamines in a pile of saw dust. Best way to let them know you know: listen for the jokes they mutter, the two of you will be the only ones laughing.

scotts ….well, scotts they’re there, thing is, its best (for the purposes of this assignment) that you spot them first**. In fact, the challenge in this….err challenge is to spot the scott before they spot you… good luck.

rogers… ok, don’t have to look too hard… well-dressed, (by local conventional standards), friendly and at the center of a moving spiral of people (if there are enough people) Warning: if you are a clark, do not attempt the challenge if your target Roger is not alone or has less than four people around them….

[Ed. Note: Yes, there is a correlation between the predominant worldviews of the Wakefield Doctrine and the three main characters in the Wizard of Oz. I mean, it’s as if the idea of a clark, scott and roger were, like, some kind of universal principles! lol If you’re trying to decide how to associate the three, remember, the Doctrine is about how a person relates themselves to the world around them.]
* extra points for it being a scottian female

** there is zero question that, once you’ve entered into their environment, (social, physical, sexual…pretty much all the ‘als’ other than spiritual, lol), they will notice you and interact with you if, for no other reason than to establish ranking***

*** total, defining dynamic in the world of the Predator

Don’t forget! The Doctrine is not an Answer… it’s a perspective.. use it wisely

It’s all about how we relate ourselfs to the world around us and the people who make it up.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, psychology of personality, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine, Understanding Human Behavior

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

May 17, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

Just enough time for a short, quick little post.

(Gots to work on our Six Sentence Story(s). Yeah, we know! How the heck did that get pluralized?!! Will explain at the bottom of this post. First things first, y’know. The Doctrine being all, sine qua non and all.)

Damn! Could not find a short, quick little Doctrine post. Guess I’ll just have to write one from scratch.

The Wakefield Doctrine is an additional perspective on the world around us and the people who make it up. This last half of the previous sentence? Big clue to getting the most out of the Doctrine. When we say, :…and the people who make it up”, we’re being pretty much literal. And, while how it can be that we’re literal, is beyond a quick, little post like this, suffice it to say, the Wakefield Doctrine is predicated on the notion that all reality, to a small, but very real degree, is personal.

Yep, just what your inner roger is saying, “Oh, you’re telling me that we make all this up. That if I drop this anvil on my foot, it will be alright. That’s what you’re telling us? Prove it!”

First drop the anvil.

(ba rum bump!)

Seriously. There’s a saying here that came into use somewhere around the fourth or fifth year. It describes the goal/end product of utilizing the principles underlying this here personality theory here. The wording is quite deliberate and so necessary to the intent, that each time we reference it, we include the phrase, ‘Notice we did not say…’

The saying, describing the the practical application of the Doctrine? To help us appreciate and improve how we relate ourselves to the world around us. (Did italics rather than a ‘Notice…’ figure you’re all regular Readers if’n you’re still here.)

It is not enough to relate to the world, (and the family-unit and the-teacher-at-the-front-of-the-room and the-cashier-at-the-gas-station or the-priest-doing-their-best-to-help or the-b/gfriend-doing-their-worst-to-gain-the-upper-hand or the-voice-in-your-head-that-assures-you-it-has-nothing-but-your-best-interests-at-heart), we must/should relate ourselfs, as in, account for, accept responsibility for our roles.

(Well! That was refreshing… to get all old-school-Doctrine-post-with-the-connected… you know what we mean)

Any way.

Stop back any time.

What makes this work? The Doctrine is one more, additional perspective on what you’ll be encountering today. Try using it. It won’t make anything worse. It will, in all likelihood make things more interesting.

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

Tuesday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

March 29, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

Quick reprint post from 2015.

But first a little contemporaneous Doctrine:

Remember: clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel.

The friend who is easiest to talk to?

they’re a clark if all you want to do is reveal a secret that must never reach anyone else’s ear (Price: well-intentioned advice, on the plus side, easily ignored)
they’re a scott if all you want to do is something fun, outrageous, sorta crazy, when you want to be reminded life is only today (Price: whatever the bail money set)
they’re a roger if you want to believe that someone understands and feels as you do (Price: a lot of others will be given the opportunity to understand)

Here’s the promised reprint

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

Seeing how, of late, we’ve been all studious and learning the use of the Wakefield Doctrine to self-improve our own selfs, lets kick back and have a mid-week break! You all deserve it*.

Lady Godiva took pity on the people of Coventry, who were suffering grievously under her husband’s oppressive taxation. Lady Godiva appealed again and again to her husband, who obstinately refused to remit the tolls. At last, weary of her entreaties, he said he would grant her request if she would strip naked and ride on a horse through the streets of the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word and, after issuing a proclamation that all persons should stay indoors and shut their windows, she rode through the town, clothed only in her long hair. Just one person in the town, a tailor ever afterwards known as Peeping Tom, disobeyed her proclamation in one of the most famous instances of voyeurism. In the story, Tom bores a hole in his shutters so that he might see Godiva pass, and is struck blind. In the end, Godiva’s husband keeps his word and abolishes the onerous taxes.

Most of you will not need me to tell you whats going on with this most…. civic of fairy tales (cautionary tale?… fable? morality play?… whatever). I will, however, address the New Reader.

New Reader? The fun (and real value) to be found in the Wakefield Doctrine lies not in being able to immediately identify Lady Godvia as a roger, her, kind-of-a-jerk, husband as a scott and …and poor Tom as a clark. It does not. The real fun (and value to ourselves, as people trying to better understand the people in our lives), lies in accepting that we have the qualities of all three of the characters in this story. ( One would represent our predominant worldview, and ‘the other two’ as our secondary and tertiary aspects, which, of course, our potential to be better (or worse) people.)

(While the more experienced Readers giggle in the back of the class and compose their smart-assed, but nevertheless perceptive interpretations of this Tale, lets review the three personality types of the Wakefield Doctrine):

clarks are the ‘personality type’ that results from growing up as ‘the Outsider’. Through no fault of their own (though, they will go through life suspecting that there was something that was their fault…but that’s a whole ‘nother Post), clarks seek to learn how to live the best life possible, they place their stock in understanding the world, and believe that what they think is missing (in their lives) is knowable and rational. They are very creative, funny and (they) see the rules of social order as just another interesting thing about all the real people around them

scotts are identified by the coping strategies that have allowed wolves, lions, dogs and other predators to thrive through history. scotts are impulsive and decisive, mercurial and sentimental, for them the world is very simple: wake up… eat, protect the pack, be alert to threats and opportunity in the day, reproduce (of course! metaphorically as well as literal! knucklehead!) and sleep. scotts are the first pick for captain …of the other team (lol…. no, think about it a little….) (if you’re reading this you were in the other team… not the first team) they are great best friends and scary adversaries

rogers are the people who grow up and develop their coping skills knowing that they are ‘a part of’, they belong. rogers live (and thrive) in a world that is quantifiable, understandable, predictable ( in an unpredictable way) and above all has Rules…. rogers live searching for the Right Way (to do things) and will go all out to help others engaged in this task… the Yearbook Committee? pretty much all rogers (with one clark or so to do the stupid work)

ok.

You now know what is necessary in order to understand why we are identifying our three main characters as we are….lets open the Post for Comments.

(New Readers? the real fun lies in what is really required to successfully identify another’s worldview, i.e. you need to see the world as the other person is experiencing it. So…. Lady Godiva’s husband? so he says, ‘sure, I’ll lower taxes if you ride naked through the streets of town’…. bet that guy had a supply of banana peels, seltzer bottles and whoopee cushions around the palace and, that naked part? And Godiva? issue a proclamation (aka a Law)… that she would ride naked (implying that she would be exposed to all) but then say…. ‘you can’t look’ god! how many times in high school did we have to deal with that kind of behavior! … Tom? clark…clark…clark oh man, dude! you don’t have to make things so difficult for yourself… she doesn’t care!)

* did we mention how the Doctrine is predicated on reality being personal? that last sentence is the perfect example of what we mean by personal reality.

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

RePrint Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

March 28, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

Question: is there any concern about repetition or otherwise lacking the ‘oh boy! another Wakefield Doctrine post?’

Answer: no.

Question: what’s the most surprising thing about writing this blog.

Answer: did you not read the first question and answer?

(ha ha)

The reason for this is, coincidentally or not, at the heart of the Wakefield Doctrine itself. While the Doctrine offers three personality types, complete with a depth of characteristic behaviors, traits, tropisms and peccadillae that not only serve as a guide to identify the three types, the central tenet of this thing is not a simple list of behaviors. The central tenet, (and ambition), of the Wakefield Doctrine is best expressed as, “Increasing our awareness of how we relate ourselves to the world around us and the people who make it up”. (We always comment here that, we did not say, ‘how we relate to the world, etc’ we said, ‘how we relate ourselves to the world’)

The basis for the three personality types, (of the Wakefield Doctrine), and the primary strategy for its use as a tool to self-improve oneself, is grounded in (our) relationship(s). To the world, to the people and to ourselfs.

The process of writing these blog posts, or, for that matter, reading these posts, benefit from this unifying statement. It’s akin to saying, ‘Hey! You’ve talent for painting. Everyday I want you to do a self-portrait. And, then a year later, three years later… come back and show us the true self-portrait’.

enough with the metaphyics… on with the reprint.

here from way back in 2017

It has long been my ambition to write the Perfect Wakefield Doctrine post. (One might argue about that adenoidial descriptor, it has always been my ambition, since the very first post, hell, before the very first post). In any event, I’ll give it a shot today, Monday.

The definition of perfection? A post that a total stranger, (to this blog or, for that matter, a person who has not come into contact with anyone who knows of this personalty theory), can read…once and apply it to their own life right then and there. They will look around and they will see the clarks and scotts and rogers.

As a personality theory, the Wakefield Doctrine is more the key a song is played in than it is the song. It is not a definition of a set of established behaviors, tendencies, drives and tropisms, rather it is a way of looking at (the) behaviors, tendencies, drives and tropisms that everyone you encounter today will exhibit. Including yourself. Unlike most of the personality theories that we all come into contact with, the Wakefield Doctrine is not concerned with establishing where, in a pre-established matrix of behavior, you fit best. The Wakefield Doctrine is not concerned with behavior. The Wakefield Doctrine is concerned with ‘how you relate yourself to the world around you’.

Quick set of assumptions and predicates: reality (the world around us) is, to a small, but certain extent, personal; we are, all of us, born with the capacity to experience the world around us in one of three characteristic ways: as an Outsider (clarks), as a Predator (scotts) or as a Herd Member (rogers); finally, although we all, (all of us), settle on, settle into one of the three worldviews, we never lose the capability to experience the world ‘as do the other two’.

Even though the Wakefield Doctrine is concern with relationships, it helps to have labels and definitions (provided that we do not ignore Korsybski’s famous statement, ‘the map is not the territory‘.

Hold on. Enough with the Wikipedia citations and the excessive use of semi-colons!

I think I’ll settle for a quiz that’s as close to a personality assessment as you’re going to encounter here at the Wakefield Doctrine):

When you woke up this morning, did you feel good/scared/confident that today would be a good day in ‘the world out there’? If that sounds at all reasonable, go stand over there… no, there are others already in that section of the gym, you’ll see them when you get there.

When you woke up this morning, did you get up? ok… amuse yourself while I deal with the last group of personality types. Sure, anywhere will be fine.

When you woke up this morning, (well, lets rephrase that to ‘when you transitioned from quiet concern to active concern), did you feel that although you might describe yourself as confident, you will swear in a court of law that the world makes sense if you just work hard enough at understanding it. If you don’t find that description of the start of the average day totally un-reasonable, don’t go anywhere… stay here in the middle of the crowd of participants

There you have it! The three personality types of the Wakefield Doctrine!

How do you know which you are?

Up at the top of the post, I wrote ‘how you relate yourself to the world around you’. That is how you know. Even at the Doctrine, where words are viewed as either those colored semi-candy things that you sprinkle on desert or, the yellow and black Cliff Notes that serve as badges of ‘success at any cost’ in school, sometimes we mean exactly what we say. When we say, ‘how you relate yourself to the world around you’, we do not mean, ‘how you relate to the world around you’. It is about you and your relationship to the world that the Doctrine is concerned. So read some posts, read some pages that describe the characteristics of the three worldviews. The perspective ( as an Outsider or as a Predator or as a Herd Member) through which the world is least blurry, that’s your predominant worldview, your ‘personality type’.

Congratulations! You’re a clark (or) a scott (or) a roger.

Lots more to tell you* stop by anytime!

*self-grading of attempt at the perfect Post: C+ … ok a B- (seeing how you’re a clark and clarks are nothing if they’re not willing to do most things to help the other person feel better).