"Weird Tit-for-Tat facilitates exchanges of thoughts and and assigns labour. Our first dominator in the game of Weird Tit-for-tat is Mother. Mother’s energy is as it was, and ever shall be – given at HER expense for the good of another. Being frightened about the culture club’s chances for survival, Mother is severe. Mother demands respect. Mother instructs children on not only the courtesies enabling harmony in a close-knit group but also the crucial, life-saving behaviours to help them survive. The role of Mother the despot sounds familiar. Our first despots, be they benevolent or cruel, introduce us to public manners. 

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​"Where is our motivation to forego our competitive natures to make teams? How is it that selfish players can group up and stick together to act as single competing units? We know that individual survival traits (such as the aforementioned deception and envy) can be detrimental to a team's cohesiveness. Certainly, we function as individuals. We cheat. We lie. We love. We make individual choices (in a social situation will we dominate, comply or defect?). But here's the rub. To complicate our individualism, we have a herding instinct. We want make a herd (culture club)? That means we will have to make manners.

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Like the desire to speak, the desire to herd is an instinct. Wisest herding choices can be explained mathematically (Nash), but finding the genetic source of an instinct is a cognitive mystery beyond the pay grade of mathematicians and economists.

 

When Mother gives Her children particular words, those which are appropriate to their herd, and when Mother demonstrates the polite way to socialize within the herd, Mother is complementing instincts already in place in the child. 

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​"Although Mother [the dominator] drums into us the importance of following the rules, teenaged players who slavishly follow the rules lose a competitive edge – for the good or ill of their various culture clubs. Music is a good example."​ Culture Clubs: The Real Fate of Societies, p94