Viewing the Work of Dr. S. Minsos

If, like me, you are drawn to narratives rooted in research, scholarship and curiosity, you might find my theory offers a compelling journey into the mysteries of the enchanted woods – those being the complexities of our common human behaviour and the power structures we navigate. Full disclosure: As interested in gossip as the next person, I have absolutely no (zero, nada, –minus 100%) medical expertise in the quirks of individual behaviours and individual cognitions. I have no idea what any given individual's personal psychology might be – that existential whatever – which compels said individual to make their social choices. I study our samenesses.  Cognitive psychology and psychiatry focus on our human differences (our neurodivergences, etc.); whereas, through the lens of group adaptability and manners, I study our selected norms, aka., our samenesses, at least our samenesses when it comes to playing the matrix social game: Weird Tit-for-Tat.  Hooked by my fascination with manners, I, an inheritor of the Presbyterian Brantford manner so brilliantly captured by Sara Duncan, have authored seven books on manners — three Canadian historical novels (one republished) and three non-fiction works. Both genres allow me to explore and challenge power dynamics to assert, yes, "power lies with the people," but how many people? What constitutes critical mass? Why, when, where does critical mass make a culture club (power structure), which in turn, dreams up the manners (fitting-in behaviours), which are crucial for the culture club's survival?  With a PhD in English (focus: novels and plays of manners, of course 😏) and a career formed and re-formed within an interdisciplinary Canadian Studies program, I bring a Canadian lens to my writing. I am curious about how internal and external forces, affordances, so-called, shape group identities, teams, communities, power structures and societies, those distinct groups and power structures, which, as stated, I umbrella under the label of culture clubs. Manners are my entrée: who sets them, who likes/doesn't like them, who is the cultural enemy, what are the contemporary affordances (contexts) needed to make a culture club, who quits the club, who is exiled from the club, and finally, endgame. Central to my research is a modification of 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" – the primary replicator), we are consciously aware of the way selection actively allows us to mitigate rampant and destructive selfishness, which is much like the good fairy rescuing Sleeping Beauty from her death fate. To avoid constant inter-personal conflict and to enhance a culture club's chances of survival, we make harmonizing manners. Individuals, who want to be recognized as individuals (individualism runs rampant on social platforms), are conflicted, because we are equipped with powerful herding instincts. Courtesy our herding instinct, we create and sustain complex societies — our culture clubs. Sometimes even at the cost of our lives. We are monitored if not controlled by cultural expectations. The herd versus the individual. The herd is powerful, but we want to speak with our own voices  – and our instinct to "speak up" has made Zuckerberg billions. But I digress . . . Political scientist Robert Axelrod (and other male social scientists) believe tit-for-tat sets the mold, the archetypal reciprocal game, that game which begins socialization. Nope! As herders, we very well know what works in chess and checkers won't help us in building a power structure. For herders, simple two-person, zero-sum, endgame (tit-for-tat) isn't enough to explain the rise of the power structure and the making of the team.  ​I argue that the social game includes but is more nuanced than the simple dichotomy of tit-for-tat choices (cooperate or don't cooperate). Instead, we navigate the holy trinity of options: dominate, comply, quit. 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 (oftentimes, the prisoner's dilemma, i.e., no-way-out). As mentioned, psychologists call our entire envelope of circumstances our "affordances." Affordances are personal. Our age. Our health. Affordances are political or financial: The sub-prime crisis of 2008. Or they are environmental: Antarctica is too cold for cities. Or they are communal: Too many people(s) of diverse backgrounds are crowded into my community; I'll vote against immigration. In Weird Tit-for-Tat, any and all extenuating factors, those which shape our social decisions, (to allow our culture club(s) to thrive), can be called affordances.  Contemporary affordances are the vigorous drivers behind an individual's game choices.  ​Perhaps not surprisingly, quitting a culture club or being exiled from a culture club is often traumatic. Consider the effect of having an American agent of ICE (immigration and customs enforcement) pounding on your front door to deport you from the US culture club – perhaps to Guantanamo. Politics of each case notwithstanding, the individual's reaction will range from shocked resignation to full-on terror. But we know this. We know that fitting is not a given. We have known about the difficulty of fitting in since childhood. Remember the elementary-school birthday parties you missed, or the business or friends' gatherings you weren't invited to? You feel the insult. You feel the fear. The join-up concern holds for children and adults: Together, a culture club's dominators and compliors decide who fits in. When it comes to fitting in, one instinctively understands a Weird Tit-for-Tat principle, which has been at work since forever: One won't be allowed to belong to every culture club one wants to join. Conversely, one won't want to stay in every culture club one has joined, either as a dominator or a complior. The game of life is agile. It has to be; our survival is at stake. Playing Weird Tit-for-Tat allows individuals and culture clubs to meet every contemporary affordance and cope with every changing affordance. To socialize, individuals balance the tension between two powerful instincts — our compulsion to assert our individuality versus our need to fit into a prestigious herd. For over twenty years, my work has explored the tension inherent in this dynamic, uncovering how these two conflicting forces configure everything from inter-personal relationships (teams) to geopolitics. 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 and how you fit into your culture clubs.