The Work of Dr. S. Minsos
In Brief
FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIALIZATION: The Matrix Game, Weird Tit-for-Tat
As a curious reader and researcher, I aim to engage other curious readers with thought-provoking ideas to challenge a few assumptions about the conduct of Homo sapiens. If you are drawn to narratives rooted in research and scholarship, my writing offers what I hope is a compelling journey into the complexities of human behavior and the power structures we navigate.
Pushed by my fascination with social dynamics, I have authored seven books—four Canadian historical novels and three non-fiction works. Both genres allow me to explore and challenge traditional ideas of power. With a PhD in English from the University of Alberta and a career focused on Canadian Studies, I bring an interdisciplinary lens to my writing. I am curious about how internal and external forces shape identities, teams, communities, power structures and societies—what I call "culture clubs." Manners are my entrée: who sets them, who likes/doesn't like them, who is the enemy, who quits the club.
Central to my research is the tit-for-tat theory of socialization and how, even though we individuals seek advantage over other individuals in the game of life (because we're shaped by what Richard Dawkins calls the “selfish gene"), we are consciously aware of the way selection actively allows us to mitigate rampant and destructive selfishness, much like the good fairy saves Sleeping Beauty from death.
We are equipped with herding instincts. Through herding, we create and sustain complex societies — our culture clubs. Sometimes even at the cost of our lives, we are sufficiently controlled by cultural expectations, aka., group manners of warrior societies.
Political scientist Robert Axelrod (and some social scientists) believe tit-for-tat is the matrix, the archetypal social game. I argue that the social game is more nuanced than two simple tit-for-tat choices (cooperate or don't cooperate). Instead, we navigate a matrix of three tit-for-tat options, a trichotomy. We throw in a zero for endgame. Our behaviour is not predictive (sorry, economists) but adaptive and responsive, with each of our social moves confronting and debating an envelope of contemporary circumstances (the prisoner's dilemma). Psychologists call the envelope of circumstances our "affordances." Contemporary affordances drive an individual's game choices: Shall I dominate, comply, or quit? Perhaps not surprisingly, quitting a culture club is often a damn problematic game choice.
To socialize, individuals balance the tension between two powerful instincts — a compulsion to assert individuality versus the need to fit into a group.
For over twenty years, my work has explored the tension of this dynamic, uncovering how these two conflicting forces configure everything from personal relationships to global politics. Whether through fiction or nonfiction, I aim to spark your curiosity about the social matrix to offer you a new way to see yourself as an individual and perhaps discover why you fit into your culture clubs.
Publications - Print & Audio
CELA and Eschia Books,
Audiobook
Sky Walker, Tehawennihárhos. Book 1. Mark Demeda, Reader. David Stinson, Production Manager. Available for borrowing at CELA libraries. Book 1 of the Mohawk Trilogy, Sky Walker Tehawennihárhos, was chosen for audio production by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta.
Available on Amazon Audible.ca.
I’m a paragraph. Double click me or click Edit Text, it's easy.
Margaret E. Atwood @MargaretAtwood Nov 25, 2022
Culture Clubs: The Real Fate of Societies by Susan Minsos. @PhillipsPOBrien A propos of left-right convergences. Plus a bonus: Are women funny? [Check out] goodreads.com
Culture Clubs: The Real Fate of Societies
Foreword Magazine Review
Rating: 5 stars out of 5 "[Charter's] lovable, intricate characters and the challenges that they face every day, from protecting their lands to safeguarding their hearts, are an irresistible draw." Lillian Brown
Audiobooks.com
Sky Walker Tehawennihárhos and the Battle of Vinegar Hill, Book 2, DELC, producer. Elijah Lucian, reader. Eric Svilpis, production manager.
Sky Walker Tehawennihárhos, DELC, producer. Elijah Lucian, reader. Eric Svilpis, production manager.
Three Rascals Press
Culture Clubs: The Real Fate of Societies. Kindle and paperback available on Amazon.
DELC
Sky Walker Tehawennihárhos: Charter, Mohawk Trilogy, Book 3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Dragon Hill Publishing
Sky Walker Tehawennihárhos and the Battle of Vinegar Hill, Mohawk Trilogy, Book 2. Writer awarded Canadian 150-year commemorative pin for books 1 and 2 of the trilogy, recognizing their contribution to Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation. Lectures to public (on the Grand River Navigation Company's scandal), sponsored by Government of Canada grant, given at the University of Alberta, and later, at MacEwan University during her tenure at the latter as Writer-in-Residence.
Great Plains Quarterly
Reviewer, “The History of Prairie Theatre” by E. Ross Stuart.
Course Co-Designer
Summer (for teens) and Winter (for High School teachers in Public and Catholic High School systems, Edmonton) drama classes and exhibition, and An Introduction to New Canadian Playwrights, done consecutively. Co-creator, with Sally Williams. Sponsored by Government of Alberta.
Spotted Cow Press
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Squire Davis and the Crazy River
Weird Tit-for-Tat: The Game of Our Lives
Podcast with Bob Chelmick (CKUA) about the matrix game of socialization, producer, Spotted Cow Press.
Culture Clubs: The Art of Living Together
Published, Human Universals
and Cultural Illusions
Focus on Canada and Japan, published in Reports of Serial Lectures on Canadian Studies. Tokyo: Meiji University, Centre for International Programs. As head of the Canadian Studies program at the University of Alberta, Dr Minsos was invited to lecture at Meiji University, Japan.
ERA
PhD Dissertation
Narration, Dialogue, and Plot Structure in Duncan's The Path of a Star, The Imperialist and Set in Authority
MA Thesis – Toward a Myth of Community: James Reaney's Trilogy: The Donnellys
Canada Theatre Review - Author
"The International Fallacy at the House Shocter Built."
Eschia Books
Sky Walker Tehawennihárhos, Mohawk Trilogy, Book 1
Principal Reviewer, NeWest Magazine
Canada New Play Reviews
Presenter
British Association of Canadian Studies, Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, UK. Topic: English-Canadian speech and British expressions.
The SIX Principles of Weird Tit-for-Tat
Neural artificial intelligence (AI) is neither conscious nor self-conscious.
Humans' "pretending" AI is a self-conscious agent is so threatening to the existence of Homo sapiens, one feels breathless just thinking about it.
Daniel Dennett on AI: “The real danger, I think, is not that machines more intelligent than we are will usurp our role as captains of our destinies, but that we will over-estimate the comprehension of our latest thinking tools, prematurely ceding authority to them far beyond their competence.”
S. Minsos on AI: A human and an AI chatbot should NEVER play the matrix socializing game – Weird Tit-for-Tat. Humans are boss, now, forever and always.
1.
The shape of a culture club is a triangle (a few dominators regulate many compilors), and the triangle, a graphic of a power structure, exists within the never-ending circle of life. The herd reacts to current affordances – all power structures are the same, only manners differ, culture club to culture club;
2.
One "Race".
3.
No Gods.
Consulting
4.
Our limbic system does not fight with but complements our intelligence (get your machinations off the limbic, AI.);
5.
Contemporary affordances affect an individual's socio-political choices - who dominates, who complies, who defects;
6.
Female is the biological default.