Cowardly, Imprudent, Impulsive and Unjust

"Without contraries there is no progression." - William Blake

What Blake meant is that without criticism you'll never find the truth. It's similar to what the Greeks meant when they commented that dialectic is a rational discussion among two or more people, as opposed to rhetoric, which is emotion-based discussion, which these days often means, "fuck off and die, idiot!" (I get a lot of that.)

A lot of people can't handle any criticism of their religious beliefs and so respond with hostility and hysteria.

Having said that, onward.

Here is what appears to be the generally accepted definition of an Alpha:

"The alpha is the tall, good-looking guy who is the center of both male and female attention. The classic star of the football team who is dating the prettiest cheerleader. The successful business executive with the beautiful, stylish, blonde, size zero wife. All the women are attracted to him, while all the men want to be him, or at least be his friend. At a social gathering like a party, he's usually the loud, charismatic guy telling self-flattering stories to a group of attractive women who are listening with interest. However, alphas are only interested in women to the extent that they exist for the alpha's gratification, physical and psychological, they are actually more concerned with their overall group status."

Now let's apply some reality to this and see what pops up.

I know some "Alphas" and in some ways they fit that description and in many ways they do not. The ways that don't fit it wreaks havoc with that definition and makes it close to worthless.

I know one guy in particular who is tall, good-looking, charming, wealthy and popular with women. He told me he's had sex with around 100 women.

Now as for his flaws...I have found he is a coward, impulsive, imprudent, and unjust. That isn't just my opinion of him; his best friend thinks the same thing about him.

When he started making a lot of money he couldn't handle it. He lost hundreds of thousands of dollars impulsively buying things: houses, cattle, apartment buildings. When one of his secretaries accidentally made some mistakes he had to pay back $50,000 to the government. That was the last straw. He essentially collapsed, even though he was making over $100,000 a year. That shows he lack fortitude and perseverance, i.e. courage.

He lacked courage in other ways. In order to have sex with 100 women almost none of them can be beautiful, so he targeted women less attractive than him. Once, when he was walking down the street a man walked by him and said, "Your chick is ugly." He did nothing, said nothing, instead just kept walking.

In order to lay that many women he lied to them. He told me, "I told them what they wanted to hear." That he wanted to make a lot of money, have a nice house, have children, support the women in their careers.

The women fell for it. He would see them for a few weeks (while seeing other women) then break up with them. Some called him on the phone and left hysterical messages on his answering machine (he never answered his phone but always screened his calls).

He treated these women unjustly. He was (and still is) cowardly, unjust, imprudent, and impulsive. He has essentially ruined his life, and he has admitted it. He's has never had a sustained relationship with a woman, suspects he is incapable of love, and said if had to do it over again he would have been a high-school coach.

He was a cad, i.e., a man who seduced women with no concern for their feelings.

Cowardly, impulsive, unjust, and imprudent. Those are the opposite traits of the Four Cardinal Virtues: courage (perseverance or fortitude) self-control, prudence and justice. His best friend told me, "I wouldn't want his life."

Tall, good-looking, wealthy, popular with women...and "I wouldn't want his life."

I keep harping on the fact there is nothing new in the Manosphere, just old nonsense given new names, with the claim it is good instead of bad.

"However, alphas are only interested in women to the extent that they exist for the alpha's gratification, physical and psychological."

The word for that is a narcissist - someone incapable of love, someone only interested in power, someone who covers up feelings of weakness and humiliation with bluster and grandiosity. It has been described as a disorder "in which the individual is described as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity."

That description fits my cad/Alpha acquaintance almost to a T.

Heinz Kohut, who spent his life studying narcissism, found that since the "very structure of the self itself is enfeebled in the narcissist, their rage cannot flower into real assertiveness and they are left instead prone to oversensitivity to perceived or imagined narcissistic injuries resulting in narcissistic rage."

For Kohut, narcissistic rage is related to narcissists' need for total control of their environment, including "the need for revenge, for righting a wrong, for undoing a hurt by whatever means."

Let's look at part of the definition of a Sigma: "The sigma is hated by alphas because sigmas are the only men who don't accept or at least acknowledge, however grudgingly, their social dominance. (NB: Alphas absolutely hate to be laughed at and a sigma can often enrage an alpha by doing nothing more than smiling at him.)"

I'm not quite sure who came up with these classification (Roissy?) but he's clearly projecting his own disturbances into these classifications. The description of an Alpha is an almost perfect description of a narcissist: convinced he's entitled to the best without working for it. Believes he's top of the heap. Yet, is terrified what people think of him, including becoming enraged at perceived but non-existent slights. Grandiosity covering up his enfeebled self.

Does the originator of these classifications have any understanding of his motivations? I doubt it. "The individual who uses splitting," writes Dr. Richard Restak,"is unable to appreciate his own motives. Dr. Joseph Lichtenberg described these people as "characterized by shallowness in feeling, a lack of realistic self-appraisal, and an impairment in empathy and intuition."

A narcissist is nothing you want to be, contrary to the delusions who those who do not understand just how catastrophic the "Dark Triad" really is. They can't love, they are only interested in power, domination, manipulation and control, they are excruciatingly sensitive to not being taken seriously and will seek revenge for non-existent slights. I've seen people like this more than once.

Narcissists are so far incurable, although long-term therapy - for years - can alleviate it.

In the past these classifications would have never been taken seriously. Cowardly, unjust, impulsive and imprudent were not traits that were admired. In fact they were considered sins - and "sin" really means "missing the mark."

The fact that so many men today don't understand what these classifications really are is sign of a broken society and broken men.

"[The narcissist] either idealizes his objects or devalues them. At any given time, the objects are either all good or all bad. The bad attributes are always projected, displaced, or otherwise externalized. The good ones are internalized in order to support the inflated ("grandiose") self-concepts of the narcissist and his grandiose fantasies and to avoid the pain of deflation and disillusionment." - Sam Vaknin