The word "Alpha' came from the study of wolves and it means "parent wolves." They are the only ones who bred, to limit having too many cubs. The lower-ranking wolves helped raise the cubs.
Since canines live in small, hierarchical packs, the Alpha couple leads all the dogs. There is a dog in second place, which leads the ones below it. The dog at the bottom, the Omega, leads no dog.
For people it's a lot different. The terms are relative, for one thing. A guy who's never had sex, never had a girlfriend and never kissed a girl is going to consider a guy with a girlfriend an Alpha.
For another thing people have self-consciousness, which is important. We're very aware of what's done to us, and we remember it.
So: why should an Omega not murder anyone above him? Answer: they do.
Seung-Hui Cho was the Virginia Tech shooter who killed 32 people. He of course was mentally ill, but he was made fun of his entire life, never had sex, never had a girlfriend and of course never kissed a girl.
People unbearably humiliated and ostracized get revenge, sometimes through murder. People who have been unbearably shamed try to restore their pride and self-esteem through revenge against those they believe have hurt them.
Then we have James Holmes, the Aurora shooter. He, too, was mentally ill, probably a paranoid schizophrenic, Still, he was a complete loser with women who couldn't even find a woman on a sex site. Even they rejected him.
As I read about Holmes: "James Holmes struck out with three women on an adult sex website shortly before he allegedly perpetrated the Colorado movie massacre...[he] was "a shy, pretty socially inept person."
Another Omega, not known at all today, was Charles Guiteau, the man who shot and killed President James A. Garfield in 1881.
Guiteau had joined a commune practicing " free love" and had been completely rejected by the women during the five years he spent there.
Author Candice Millard wrote of him: "Guiteau’s extravagant dreams and delusions persisted in the face of consistent and complete failure. Although the commune promised the pleasures of complex marriage, to Guiteau’s frustration, 'the Community women,' one of Oneida’s [the commune] members would later admit, 'did not extend love and confidence toward him.' In fact, so thorough was his rejection among the women that they nicknamed him 'Charles Gitout.' He bitterly complained that, while at the commune, he was 'practically a Shaker.'"
These men, alone, rejected, humiliated and ostracized, then get attention (revenge) by going out in a blaze of glory.
By the way, the German word "achtung" means both "attention" and "respect."
Writes the psychiatrist James Gilligan, who spent 35 years studying violent inmates: "One of the most common fantasies I have heard from many of the most violent prison inmates is the scenario of going to their deaths in a hail of gunfire while killing as many people as possible before they themselves die."
The first recorded murder in Western mythology is when Cain slew Abel. Why? Because God rejected Cain’s sacrifice and accepted Abel’s.
“Unto Abel the Lord had respect…unto Cain the Lord had not respect.” So Cain, humiliated, attempted to replace his feelings of shame and humiliation with pride by murdering his brother, on whom he (inaccurately in this case) blamed his problems. It was revenge.
For that matter, the first recorded war in the Bible comes right after Cain and Abel, when Dinah’s brothers slaughtered the entire tribe of the man who had seduced Dinah. It was to them a matter of honor and pride and in their minds it could only be restored by wiping out all the men and taking all the women and wealth.
Gilligan said he always heard the same story as to why his interviewees said they murdered or brutally assaulted people. What he heard, every time, was “He dissed me” or else humiliated, mocked, insulted and ridiculed the prisoner’s children, wife, parents, friends. Gilligan one day realized what he was hearing, over and over, was the story of Cain and Abel: the feelings of humiliation followed by revenge manifesting itself as murder. (Gilligan also said, “The most dangerous men on earth are those who are afraid they are wimps.”)
"Omegas" aren't respected. They receive no recognition (the word "recognition" means "to look twice"). Then they make people pay attention to them by the easiest and quickest way - violence.
What is the shorthand for "lack of respect?" Dissed. "He disrespected me."
These Omegas are already dead inside. The word "mortification" means to "make dead" through overwhelming humiliation.
People who commit these kinds of crimes always feel justified since they consider it self-defense. And it certainly isn't going to help things now that there is shorthand word to describe them - "Omega." At the bottom. The exact opposite of an Alpha. A complete loser with nothing going for him.
If those terms - Alphas, Omega, etc. - ever become commonly used, it will get to the point people can just look at someone and say, "Omega." And after a lifetime of that, what do you think the response will be?
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