the Wakefield Doctrine

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

The Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) is a bloghop that first appeared on the internet during a snowy March in 1989. Many were surprised, (and entranced), by its simple format and attractive premise.

Participants were, (and continue to be), invited to share a list of ten people, places and things in their lives, (both real and imagined), that have elicited the psycho-emotional state of gratitude. And, so, here we are fifty, (or ten), years later reading about how life, at least on the personal level, bears little resemblance, in tenor or tone, to those reports shouted at us from the tv or radio or media or whatever fingerprint factory we might be exposed to. There is no shortage of sources of information that would promulgate the attitude that the bad is winning and the good is in hiding.

For us, here at the Wakefield Doctrine, we were grateful this week for:

1) Una

2) Phyllis

3) the Wakefield Doctrine

4) serial story writing/fictional world creation i.e. the Whitechapel Interlude, the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf and, of course, that asylum with an open guest list and no minimum, ‘the Six Sentence Café and Bistro

5) the Six Sentence Story bloghop, chief enabler and bad influence

6) Friends of the Doctrine

7) non-Winter-like weather

8) something, something

9) the Café and the process of writing for it (aka discovering a totally non-intuitive path to adding accents to words, an increasing necessity what with the SSC&B spreading like spilled milk on a formica-top kitchen table)

10) Secret Rule 1.3 from the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) which insists that, contrary to the opinions of certain Sisters of Mercy in the 1960s: “…the thought is not the same as the act, but it, (the thought), can be as real as the world in which both occur.” (BoSR/SBoR Chapter 29 ver 2-4) ibid, op.cit, ten-four, over-and-out.

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

(Detail of a painting by the most wonderful Edward Hopper)

Liked the 2015 posts.

Here’s another.

January 21, 2015

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. (source: Wikipedia)

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.

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You know how, when the conversation strays onto matters metaphysical, someone always focuses on ‘the here and now’? And, you’re all, “Sure, we all know it might be a state of higher something, but it’s nearly impossible to even touch it. At least more for a second. And, a short second at that, ’cause you end up pulling yourself out of it by the simple fact of being aware of it.”

The search is, in our opinion, about language, or, as we prefer, ‘word tools’. Certain words, phrases, descriptions and rhetorical concepts. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we stumble upon one that is useful to us.

Consider that the here and now is not a point to be reached, rather it is a natural rest state. It’s not that we have to get there, we have to stop leaving there.

…whatevs

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

From the year: 2015

From the Month (of) April

(Since you ask) the date was the 18th!

Actually, this is a bit of a twofer… well, maybe more a threelet (a Reprint and Alphabet Rodeo*) and…. and! A Ten Sinks of Smartass!

provocative (prəˈvɒkətɪv)
adj
1. acting as a stimulus or incitement, esp to anger or sexual desire; provoking: a provocative look; a provocative remark.*

“…finally a word we can sink our teeth into!!!” (said nearly every scott, at one time or another). Find me another word that does more to generate images of lipstick and slinky dresses**, not that that’s what today’s Post is going to be about  …much.

In the words of a clark, ‘yeah, no! but….‘   in the early days of this blog, we saw any number of occasions when, searching in earnest for an illustrative metaphor for one of the worldviews, or a fictional encounter between members of the three worldviews, meant to demonstrate how our worlds are experienced differently, we’ve been met with the response. ‘what?!! did you just say that scotts are predators??’ (yes)…. “I’m not sure that a photo of a cow is really such a nice way to begin a discussion of rogers, don’t your think you’re being a little offensive?” (no).

I’ll say this for certain, the behavioral metaphors that are associated with the three worldviews, are exaggerated and yet ring true, they are over-the-top examples of ways that people perceive the world and yet, when used as a predictor of future behavior, are uncannily accurate. And it’s fun. That’s the other thing that I can say for certain, all that is written in the Posts*** that collectively are the Wakefield Doctrine blog, is written with a sense of affection for each of the three personality types. And this should be anything but surprising, seeing how we all have the potential, the capacity, to experience the world as any of the three personality types do.

Of course, the way ‘provocative’ is manifested in each of the three worldviews is as different as…well, as the three worldviews.  scotts come to mind first, as the definition that we used above, anger or sexual desire. rogers, not so much. clarks, oddly (lol, well, duh!) enough, clarks can be very provocative people, in a secret, roundabout way, of course.

Since I have a TToT Post to add to this, lets run out some favorite statements that help us appreciate today’s Word.

rogers are mean, scotts are cruel and clarks are heartless

scotts are stupid, rogers are dumb and clarks are crazy

scotts get angry, clarks get mad and rogers get resentful

(stop me anytime,  remember: ‘acting as a stimulus or incitement’!)

* courtesy of free dictionary.com

** at least for those of us blessed to live in the happy and peaceful land of Y Chromia! I assume the womenfolk, (to use the proper technical psycho-socio-cultural term for members of Gender X….), will find their mental drive-in movie playing a similar but different film (you ‘not-old people’, you have heard of drive-in theaters?  please say ‘yes’)

*** those Posts that I wrote, which are not all the Posts in this blog.

 

TTOT

1 through 4: I am truly grateful for being a part of this TToT bloghop. (Increasingly as I experience the…er experience of participating in the A-t0-A Blog Challenge! Not that there are not very nice people and interesting bloggers and skilled writers among the 1893,  1723….1669  entrants. There are. But I appreciate more than ever the TTOT (not that I’m gonna take up needlepoint or watching the Lifetime Network or anything too girlistic)… I guess what I’m responding to is the sense of community that was our Ms Roger’s original goal for this here bloghop here.

5) I will have to invoke the SBoRs rule governing two part grat lists… work demands and sleep insists, leaving me with little time to do a proper List.

6)  (not sure if I should classify this as ‘grateful for technology’ or ‘grateful for roadside cows’!)

7)  I am beyond grateful for ‘the youtube’  as the endless source of referential material!  I mean, it’s like a frickin combination ‘time machine’, ‘term paper writing service’ and high school reunion all rolled into one!   (For example: I was researching tomorrow’s post and wanted to say something about the effect of the behavior of a scott (when the scott and a clark are hanging out) when a more dominant scott enters the social context… and so I went looking for an old Warner Brother’s cartoon… and, as Lizzi used to say, ‘Boom’!  New Readers? in this clip  both characters are scotts...

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10) you know it’s gonna be 1.3 of the Secret Book of Rules, right?

 

* Not it’s real name but everyone was into it doing the aplphabet letter a day thing… when you look at the comments you see how busy the Doctrine was back on a TToT weekend. Click this  (Hey! That’s Dyanne back then… and now, twenty-three years later, she’s still cranking out the Artichoke-to-Zenobia posts, even back then)
(cue up Miss Bonnie and her ‘magic’ mirror)
Hey! In those comments and among those Hostinae, did I not see zoe and val and… holy shit! That’s Christine! our first second-generation scottian FOD!! damn! (a course, our first, first generation scottian FOD was our Miz AKH.