Volant ~ Invitation from Nathan Bar-Fields
Conversation started April 4, 2013
Hey Barry,
I co-founded a very special group on Facebook that is over a year old called Volant. It would be an honor to have you as a member if you qualify (which I'd be very surprised if you didn't).
Volant is a "Secret Group" on Facebook, so you can't see who is a member unless you are a member too. But here is the group's description. If it sounds interesting to you, let me know, and I can add you. It's a rather active group. Oh, Monica Anderson is a longtime member, and so is Eduardo Costa. You might want to pick their brains over whether to join or not. Hope to hear from you soon.
"Brief Description:
Volant aims to evolve into an organization for 3-sigma adults, similar to how the Davidson Institute is an organization for 3-sigma kids. People don't mind putting Davidson on their resume; they often are very hesitant to put a hiq-club on theirs. Volant will be like Davidson.
Long Description:
While we work on evolving into that Davidson group for adults, we're currently the optimal combination of insightful, active, and friendly discussions--even on controversial topics. Volant members are individuals who basically wanted a 3-sigma discussion group that was free of snarkiness, fighting, etc. (sorry, that's still not a lot of high-IQ societies, although many have improved), and also a place where members can network, make friendships, and basically help each other do great things.
Back when Volant was called HiQ-General, members were pooled from TNS, ISPE, OATHS, and adults who were a part of the Davidson Talented and Gifted Program. The high majority of the people in this group are members of one of these four 3-sigma groups. However, Volant also recruited from
1. Mensa boards (only the people who were routinely insightful and well-behaved); 2. School friends whose test scores qualified them for 3-sigma groups but refused to join any of them. 3. And people who struck members as ridiculously brilliant and well-mannered from their posts elsewhere--including Facebook groups and Facebook itself, but who weren't members of any high-IQ societies.
Since becoming Volant, the group’s admission requirements for new members have become much more formal. You do have to actually prove the minimal 3-sigma IQ of 145. It can no longer be inferred. But anyone who was already a member during our HiQ-General days when admission was more informal-- even if they are not a part of any high-IQ society or have not taken a proper IQ test-- has been grandfathered into Volant, so they're safe.
Parenthetical story:
Volant is a part of a few sister societies concurrently being developed. While a 3-sigma IQ score will get you into Volant.... 1) a 3-sigma CQ (critical-thinking quotient; See: Watson-Glaser Critcal Thinking Assessment) score will get you into SOLAR (Society of Lady Reason) 2) a 3-sigma CI (creativity index. see: Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking) score will get you into Interrobang, 3) a 3-sigma IC (intuition capacity. see: Cappon Intuition Profile) will get you into Trishula.
As with Volant, civility is also a requirement for remaining a member in any of these groups.
There will likely be other kinds of 3-sigma sister societies developed and added as well, as there are so many types of special cognitive talents and cases out there.
And truly outstanding members from all of these groups will be invited to join a crowdsourcing platform and think-tank called Hard Problems Club (for the social club part) and Hard Problems Consulting (the actual think-tank for hire)."
Hi Nathan. I have mixed feelings about exclusive elite private groups. I understand why people want safe, uncluttered venues for serious in-depth conversations, free from trolling and other disruptions. I also lament that the transactions of these groups may never be disclosed to, reviewed, or evaluated by outsiders. If I join, I need to be sure that anything I glean there can be freely reproduced elsewhere (with or without attribution), just as I routinely tell my correspondents that they are free to reproduce, adapt, reuse or repurpose anything they glean from conversations with me.
Note that I have no idea what my formal intelligence scores would be in any of the multiple intelligences -- Math/Logical, Verbal, Musical, Pattern-Recognition, Body-Kinesthetic, Spatial, Emotional/Metacognitional Intelligence, or Spiritual Insight.
Oh. I left off Naturalistic Intelligence from the list. See, I am so stupid, I can't even remember the names of all the many different kinds of intelligence in Howard Gardner's Model of Multiple Intelligences.
I'm wrapping up a chat with my Mom. When I'm done I'll give you the in-depth reply you deserve!
No rush. Take your time.
Cool beans!
“I have mixed feelings about exclusive elite private groups. I understand why people want safe, uncluttered venues for serious in-depth conversations, free from trolling and other disruptions. I also lament that the transactions of these groups may never be disclosed to, reviewed, or evaluated by outsiders.” In our case, that’s not necessarily true. As the group description illustrates, we’re aiming at being for gifted adults and gifted kids what the Davison Program is for gifted kids exclusively. That requires money. One of the ways we’re seriously considering raising funds is to compile our best discussions into a Q&A e-book and sell it on Amazon. Think of those “Ask Marilyn” books, only in this case there are numerous respondents. Some of the reasons that the group is set to secret is that, unlike practically every other high IQ club, Volant has a good number of people who qualify for IQ societies, but never joined any or had any interest in doing so. They only joined Volant because someone who already was in the group invited them. A lot of the members would prefer if no one knew they belonged to a high-IQ club, and others would prefer if their…poorly-behaved associates in other high-IQ societies didn’t know Volant existed! I honestly don’t know if you’ll enjoy Volant or not, which is why I suggested asking Monica and Eduardo what they think you’d think of the group.
“ If I join, I need to be sure that anything I glean there can be freely reproduced elsewhere (with or without attribution), just as I routinely tell my correspondents that they are free to reproduce, adapt, reuse or repurpose anything they glean from conversations with me.” Unfortunately, no, you wouldn’t. There are a lot of private things that are divulged in Volant, like a member talking about her experience being raped, which would not be appropriate to share outside of the group without said person’s permission. However, plenty of people share things from Volant with those outside the group. It’s one of the main ways we keep recruiting people into the club. Outsiders will read something that was posted, think “Wow! I’d like to be a part of that,” and voila! Thankfully there is a remedy: all you have to do is ask if you can share, and you’ll get a yes. I’ve never seen an exception, and I can’t envision there ever being one. The only thing that may be requested (as in the case of talking about being raped) is that they are quoted as an anonymous or pseudonymous source. “Note that I have no idea what my formal intelligence scores would be in any of the multiple intelligences -- Math/Logical, Verbal, Musical, Pattern-Recognition, Body-Kinesthetic, Spatial, Emotional/Metacognitional Intelligence, or Spiritual Insight.” Oh, if you took the SAT or ACT before 2005, I’m fairly sure you qualify. Same deal if you took the GRE before 2001. Qualifying scores for those tests are a 31/36 for the ACT; a 1460 on the verbal and quantitative sections of the 1994 GRE; a 2180 V+M score on the GRE from 1994-2001; a 1450 on the SAT taken before 1994; a 1520 on the SAT taken after 1994.
“Oh. I left off Naturalistic Intelligence from the list. See, I am so stupid, I can't even remember the names of all the many different kinds of intelligence in Howard Gardner's Model of Multiple Intelligences.” If you read the whole group description, you’ll notice that Volant has sister societies that are based on other cognitive abilities, like critical-thinking (I think you’d enjoy SOLAR, btw), creative-thinking, and intuition-capacity. Those groups were inspired by my readings of Sternberg’s triarchic intelligence theory, and to a lesser extent, Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory. I tend to think of Gardner’s Intelligences as aptitudes, though. And I think there are waaaay more than nine of them!
Um, I graduated HS in 1963, college in 1968, and grad school in 1975. I have no idea any more what my scores were on the SAT or GRE.
I have no problem with requesting permission for or anonymizing personal memoirs. Abstract ideas, I presume, have no ownership issues.
Oh wow! I never paid attention to your birthdate! For some reason I had it in my head that you were only about 5 years older than me! My mistake.
Yeah, the abstract ideas thing is perfectly safe and fine. In fact, we encourage sharing those kinds of things with friends, as it's a great way to not only recruit people who qualify into the group, but also implicitly know what to expect conduct-wise if they were to join.
So you'd have to wave the IQ Test Score thing if you want me in the group, because there is no way, at age 68, I'm gonna take any of those measurements, just for a private discussion group on FB.
Yeah, I don't blame you. We're discussing whether we should return to also accepting people into the group by way of portfolio and/or discussion list assessment. I'm hoping we get enough yes votes. If not we're going to run into another problem: there just aren't that many available tests for younger people to take in order to get in.
If it passes, would you like me to add you?
Just poll your membership. If you get a consensus, with no objections, then I will be happy to converse with your community.
That's what I mean. We're polling now. Not just for you specifically. It's a general question. There are about 11 people in total that we could get in if we can get enough yes votes.
Parenthetically, I scored 90 on my IQ test as a kid.
The key thing is that there must be no objections. It must be a unanimous consensus.
I seriously doubt that would happen for a general question. If I specifically made a poll for *you* joining, then there's a good chance of a 100% acceptance.
I have no concern about the gate-keeping for others. For me, I require unanimous consent, as I do not wish to engage with an antagonist. I already have plenty of antagonists on the Volokh Conspiracy.
Oh, antagonistic antics are definitely not allowed in Volant. I'm not going to say that civility reigns through each and every post, but civility definitely is the norm. If anyone were to attack another member for whatever reason, they get a warning. If it happens again, they have to find another group.
I don't mind being challenged on my analysis, evidence, or reasoning. That's to be expected. What usually riles me up is when someone asserts a haphazard Theory of Mind that purports to characterize my thoughts, emotions, beliefs, desires, intentions, or pretensions of knowledge. That's the kind of psychological trespass that I personally find unacceptably incivil.
We have a motto. Attack the data, not the person.
Precisely.
Not everyone embraced that motto the first month or so, but we've been on a very long winning streak since then.
Do you have a written Social Contract, or at least a tacit one that has emerged from meta-conversations about community norms and self-governance?
We decided against having a constitution since many of us from other high IQ societies are very aware that people can simply work around a written rule in order to piss people off. We worked on building a culture instead.
I wouldn't want to belong to a group governed by rules. That's why I asked if you have a working (written or tacit) functional social contract.
No. It wouldn't work. You wind up with a lot of legality and a lot of people "in charge" who take their roles way too seriously.
I am confused. I am not aware of any legality issues inherent in the social contract model of community self-regulation.
I was referring to why we don't have "rules."
I pretty much assumed as much. But I was interested in whether you have an express social contract.
I don't really think we do. We were mostly filtered from other high IQ societies (mostly Triple Nine Society) and the Davison Gifted Program. It was specifically people who were not only smart but also civil to others. We're talking about a group of people who for the most part don't need moderating and perhaps are all naturally working with the same unspoken social rules.
For example, if you were to join, you'll notice that political topics are generally handled clinically and for the most part neutrally. Every once in a while, someone will get a wee bit too impassioned. Instead of others engaging that person, they'll continue communicating with others. The impassioned person will then get the message and return to normal.
OK. So I'll assume that your social contract is tacit and inferred from the meta-conversation.
I would say so.
I'll probably end up extracting it from context and writing down the parts of it that I can divine from the meta-conversation.
You can certainly do that, but I don't think you'll have to. No one else has (that I am aware of) and we have 169 members at present. You just kind of get it intuitively, not that there is much to get. It's pretty much just nice people with unusually high IQs; some of whom occasionally work together on pet projects of theirs.
One of my practices is to elevate intuition to express theory. That's probably the biggest difference between me and Monica Anderson (besides gender, I suppose).
Yes, I've been reading some of your stuff online. I think Monica has a phenomenal idea, but I'm not so sure AN will work exactly the way she hopes without conceding some points. I often wonder what did Hinton ever do to her!
What's AN? I'm not recognizing that abbreviation.
Is Hinton the Geoffrey Hinton from Google, who does research in Informatics?
Did you mean, ANN, Artificial Neural Networks?
AN is Monica's abbreviation for "Artificial Intuition." And yes, I was referring to Geoffrey Hinton. Sorry, I'm in two chats all of a sudden!
Oh. Artificial Intuition. Does she have a model for that?
Ha ha ha!
We'll keep that one to ourselves.
See, I have no idea what something is unless I have a working model of it. Either math model or a simulation model.
Otherwise it's just a label for some vague mystical thing that I dunno what it really is.
I'm the same way, regarding modeling. Even when I'm solving a problem through dreaming (I was a test subject at the McCorkin Lab and Brigham and Women's) for dream studies.
I mean I know a little about how my own intuitive processes work, but who knows if that's applicable to anyone else.
There actually is a standardized intuition test called the Cappon IQ2. It's pretty interesting. I also was part of a binary intuition Test (again, at MIT's McCorkin Lab). That was a weird one.
When I turn to my intuition, I start searching for analogies or metaphors from broad cultural sources. If I find one that seems to fit, I try to abstract out the underlying model and see if it fits.
Did you know that there is an obscure branch of Mathematical Logic called Intuitionist Logic? I think Saul Kripke did a lot of work on it in the 1960s or 1970s.
I didn't know Saul (he's 5 years older than me), but I studied under his father, Rabbi Myer S. Kripke.
I did! I read a book on it when I was twenty or so. I didn't really understand much of it at the time.
And my dream-solving ability is very much an analogical in nature. I basically just symbolically dramatize solutions by working around the available data. It's a cool skill to have. I gave an illustration of it working with regards to intuiting my grandfather's passing.
Kripke was legendary in my high school. But most people didn't understand his work. They would follow him around and write down everything he said, but I reckon they understood very little of it.
Did you read Naming and Necessity?
It rings a bell. I'll have to Google it to be sure.
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah! I loved that book!
It was about a theory of semantics. What it takes to reliably extract the meaning of language.
I once tried to go a week without thinking in words after reading it.
What did you extract as the core message from the book?
I gathered that language is a core feature of consciousness, but I don't 100% agree with that.
Did you also read Wittgenstein On Rules and Private Language?
No, I haven't. But I am lightly familiar with his work on language from some of the members in Volant. One member is a huge advocate of his teachings. I briefly came across him in my studies for the Miller Analogies Test.
Did you ever study Benjamin Whorf's Model (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis)?
I have in fact. I bought a book on artificial intelligence so that I could better communicate with the computer scientists in the group (I am sooo not a computer person), and his model was touched upon.
This last one is kinda obscure: Have you heard of or run across a paper by Jean Piaget and Sabina Spielrein on "Autistic and Symbolic Thought"? It came out in the early 1920s.
No, that one is new to me. It doesn't ring any bells, either. I'll Google it in a bit. We have a member who is earning a PhD in symbolic systems from Stanford. He *might* have mentioned that many many months ago, but I doubt it. Now, I am familiar with Temple Grandin's work on Autsitic thinking and symbolic thought. I actually met her when I was a kid.
Do the CS guys in the group speak of the Lambda Calculus (or, equivalently) the LISP programming language model?
Temple Grandin and Edward Tufte talk about Thinking in Pictures, or Visual Reasoning. Also called Spatial Reasoning. Recall that one of Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences was Spatial Intelligence.
To be honest, I used to tune them out when they would post. :-}. They may have. I've only recently made the effort to learn their trade in order to participate in their conversations when they have them.
It sounds like, from among the references I listed above, the one you are most up-to-speed on is Benjamin Whorf's thesis (the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) that we think in terms of the languages we learn.
I strongly believe that the language we think in somewhat limits what we can think about consciously. However, there must remain some parts of the mind that can slip out of the language cage. I mean my dreaming brain does that a lot. I doubt I'm unique.
Yah, we tend to dream in somewhat phantasmagorical imagery, often in sequences that defy being described in a coherent narrative. I have tried to construct narratives of some of my dreams, and I find that they are mostly incoherent jibberish, with ill-chosen vocabulary words that don't do justice to the imagery of the dream, and also I can't work out a timeline sequence for the segments of the dream. It's as if some of the segment were running in parallel in a different part of my brain.
Now that I think about it, even my conscious mind will sometimes generate a mental image that I have to ponder and reflect on for a while. Once I understand it's meaning, I realize it was answering something I was struggling with. I could not conceive of the solution in words, but some part of my mind could and tried to express the answer to me in imagery, or an old memory.
The hardest problems I ever worked on, I solved visually in my dream sleep.
I am in no way surprised by that.
Lesser problems, I solve by coming up with vocabulary terms and phrases that never would have occurred to me in a waking state, just thinking normally.
Ah, yes. Wordplay. I'm dyslexic, and it sometimes impacts my writing. There are moments when I wind up writing something really clever because of that, and other times when I quickly run to the "Edit" button.
Ultimately, most of my thoughts that I propose to communicate to others have to be reduced to complete sentences in English. I have other thoughts that are fundamentally mathematical in nature, and even though I can express them in words, almost no one groks what I am talking about. And, of course, they don't read math at all.
A few times, I manage to construct a computer generated animation from a simulation model. But that can take weeks of work, just to express something that can be viewed in 5 minutes of animation sequence.
Ha! If you think about it, that speaks volumes to the power of visualizing.
I have a few concepts right now that are perfectly clear to me, but I cannot find a common language to communicate them to the average person.
I've been there. That's why I love it when someone else can express what I've been thinking.
Some visualizations, if they are mathematical in nature, can be translated to pictures by giving the math to the computer and having the computer run the math and make the animations.
But I also have visualizations that would take the hand of a Disney cartoonist months to reduce to a few minutes of cartoon animation. And I have no drawing talents.
That's pretty cool! You may have noticed that my nickname is Nth. As a child I was a specialized mental calculator who could do sequences and series in his head (hence the nth terms). I couldn't do any other kind of mental maths but that. The thing was I would just "feel" the answer. It wasn't visualizing, but it was sensualizing. However, when I had to learn math the formal way, that ability quickly dwindled.
Well, apparently 24 hours is my limit. I'm going to go finally eat! TTYL
Later then. Bon Appetit.
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April 14, 2013
Hey Barry,
Well you have 100% approval rate for joining Volant!
That didn't take too long, did it. Once I'm in, can any of them arbitrarily and capriciously withdraw consent, blackballing me back out again?
Um no! We don't operate that way!
Well that's a relief to hear.
If it's okay with you, I'll add you later today. I'm super tired and need to sleep.
No rush.
Alrighty. G'night.
G'Night, Nathan.
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April 21, 2013
At 3:33PM on April 4th in this chat thread, I wrote this:
Do you have a written Social Contract, or at least a tacit one that has emerged from meta-conversations about community norms and self-governance?
If you scroll up, you can re-read our ensuing conversation.
Feel free to excerpt any of that onto your newest post.
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April 25, 2013
I'm not sure if you overlooked it or not, but when you asked "I pretty much assumed as much. But I was interested in whether you have an express social contract." I gave an answer 6 minutes later, "I don't really think we do. We were mostly filtered from other high IQ societies (mostly Triple Nine Society) and the Davison Gifted Program. It was specifically people who were not only smart but also civil to others. We're talking about a group of people who for the most part don't need moderating and perhaps are all naturally working with the same unspoken social rules.
For example, if you were to join, you'll notice that political topics are generally handled clinically and for the most part neutrally. Every once in a while, someone will get a wee bit too impassioned. Instead of others engaging that person, they'll continue communicating with others. The impassioned person will then get the message and return to normal."
Yah, no Social Contract, which means no express Vision Statement and no express Mission Statement.
And then Daniel and a few others say there is some sort of undisclosed or inchoate plan.
I guess so!
So pardon me if I am confused, bewildered, and a bit discombobulated here.
About half the respondents said, in so many words, "We have no idea WTF a 'Social Conract' is, but whatever it is, we don't want one."
And a bunch more said, "We don't need no steenkin' rules," which is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether you have a social contract.
And then a few said, "This is an Argument Culture."
And I asked, "Do any of you care to declare the parameters of your personal integrity?" And the answer I got back is "My statement of personal integrity is the Null Statement."
Do you mind if I now throw up my hands in despair?
Or maybe just throw up.
Yeah, I'm having a chat with a conflict manager about Volant as I'm chatting with you. Sorry if I sound distracted at the moment.
Oh, take your time. This conversation is three weeks running.
The result of three weeks of conversation is something that sounds like Beethoven's Great Fugue of 1827, Opus 133.
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April 26, 2013
I don't know if you're picking up on it or not, but at least a handful of people in Volant are scratching their heads when you post. It's almost like you're in your own world and can only reference your own website. And then when there is nothing to argue about, it's almost as if you zero in on one little thing that is for the most part beside the point, but is something that can start another round of arguing. We can discuss the proper use of "optimal" and "hard problems" at another time in another thread. None of that is pertinent to what that particular thread is about. It goes back to why we asked for people to stop posting in that thread, as nothing new (or pertinent) was being added.
I strongly believe that you can engage with other members in Volant as a peer rather than a lecturer. Perhaps we can show that to the other members as well?
I'm sorry, Barry. I thought Volant would be a good fit for you, but I made a mistake. I hope you can forgive me in the future. You've been removed from Volant, not out of animosity, but solely because we really care about getting this group back to its healthy self and your actions were hindering that from happening. I hope you can still consider me a friend, but if you cannot, I understand.
My best to you and your endeavors.
May I publish your decision as part of my personal life story?
Sure.
Please prepare a statement from the moderators, setting forth their analysis, process, and decision.
I rather not.
Why not?
Because I think the last thing you need is more attention paid to you. You'll be healthier in the end, and may even thank me one day.
Nathan, I only have about 16 more years on this planet. There probably won't be any such day. It would be a kindness to disclose your thinking, your methods, your analytical and decision-making processes for the benefit of others like me who might similarly be put through a comparable ordeal at the hands of a group of individuals who claim to be in the 99.87th percentile of intelligence.
Anyway, "attention" is a scarce resource, and I respect the right of people to pay attention to whatever they prefer to attend to, and to disregard that which does not capture their attention. So, going forward, I'll be attending to some of my own business, rather than attending to the inquiries and comments of those in Volant.
Just so you won't be blind-sided, Nathan, please be aware that I have documented my experiences with Volant.
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moultonlava.blogspot.com
Which I told you is fine. I also told you it's fine to use my name. However, you would need permission to use anyone else's name. If Todd gave you permission to use his, then great. If not, then make him anonymous.
I lost the ability to communicate with members of the group.
Then remove his name until you can communicate with him. Stop being childish.
But I don't hold anyone responsible for what happened, nor do I intend to shame, blame, or hold anyone up for ridicule. I only intend to bear accurate witness, to tell the true story of my own life.
Nathan, even a child has an unalienable right to tell the true story of his own life.
I am not ashamed. I thought that was clear, when I told you that you can post my name. I am also unimpressed with your attempts to get more attention. You cross the line when you post any other members' name in our group without their permission. Don't play stupid.
I am entirely uninterested in attention, Nathan. Almost nobody reads my blog. I'm simply practicing the art of crafting memoirs that tell the true story of my own life. Nobody is obliged to pay the slightest attention to anything I write or say. And most people don't.
If you're entirely uninterested in attention, we'll see how long you can go without contacting me again. Goodbye.
Talk to you later, Nathan.
Try to catch today's podcast with Douglas Hofstadter on The Brain as an Analogy Machine.
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/04/26/the-brain-as-analogy-machine
You can listen to it live via streaming audio, or catch the podcast later.
Tom Ashbrook's guests for the hour are:
Douglas Hofstadter, Distinguished College of Arts and Sciences Professor of Cognitive Science and Comparative Literature at Indiana University. Author of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning book “Gödel, Escher, Bach.” Co-author of “Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking.”
Emmanuel Sander, professor of Cognitive and Developmental Psychology at the University of Paris (Saint-Denis), specializing in the study of analogy-making and categorization and their connections to education. Co-author of “Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking.”
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April 27, 2013
Hi Nathan.
Any Saturday Morning Quarterbacking to report?
Are people still furious? Laughing? Confused? Exhausted?
Social Groups are remarkable creatures. Among the academics who studied them was a notable Cultural Anthropologist named Victor Turner. He observed the aftermath of a Breach of Expectations and modeled that aftermath in terms of a model he called Liminal Social Drama.
Has anyone gained any insight or become enlightened from yesterday's example of Liminal Social Drama?
Here, for your reference, is my summary of Victor Turner's model of Liminal Social Drama, in the wake of a Breach of Expectations:
http://moultonlava.blogspot.com/search?q=Liminal+Social+Drama
4/27, 8:45am
moultonlava.blogspot.com
Sociologist Victor Turner made seminal contributions to the process of modeling the dynamics of social groups in the wake of a Breach of Expectations with his pathbreaking notions of Communitas and Liminal Social Drama.
Seen Apr 29