This applies to everyone who can memorize but cannot analyze
"Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility."- Sigmund Freud
This is something I've noticed myself, for years: there are no "Alphas." There are only those who are afraid they are humiliated wimps, who try to cover it up with what they believe is "Alpha," the idea of which they memorized from other people (it's easier to not think and let someone else do it for you). Ultimately insecure, frightened, weak, confused and unpopular with women, they have to cover it up with grandiosity.
The term "Alpha" came from the study of canines and means "parent wolves who bred." That's all it meant. Transferred to humans, the closest would be "patriarchal family."
As for the strict hierarchies among dogs, it happens in one place, and one place only: zoos. Prisons, that is. Among humans, it's why you see such strict hierarchies in the military, prisons, totalitarian societies...public schools. Unfree places. So now we have people seeking freedom from the prison of their own cruel/incompetent/rationalizing mothers and weak/absent/incompetent fathers, from a society that tries to crush men...hence the "I'm afraid I'm a humiliated wimp" syndrome.
As for those who believe in these definitions, it's clear they think they've been at the bottom. And those who feel humiliated and are afraid they are wimps...society is going to pay and pay and pay.
Of course I do not agree with everything in the following article. However, it does contain some interesting thoughts. It was written by "Eddy," and his site is HERE.
And I will again point out that those who think there is anything admirable about a narcissist or a psychopath don't know what they are. And the writer has theorized something similar to what I have noticed: there have been many cases of unpopular losers ("omegas") killing the popular and well-to-do ("alphas"). And what exactly is wrong with that? They're just replacing their feelings of shame and humiliation with pride.
"There are no human alphas"
"Every now and again, I have heard folk with a limited and simplistic grasp of the social dynamics of primates and canines talking about humans as being divided into 'alpha' and 'beta' types; typically, such folk have a smug air about themselves which silently proclaims "I, of course, am an alpha"; and I've long suspected they are talking nonsense. I now (early 2008) suspect that there may, in fact, never have been any human alphas (in the genetically-determined sense that applies to at least wolves); and that this may even be a critical fact of how the human species arose.
"Alphas and betas
"The distinction they're describing is real enough in wolves: as I understand it, a pack of wolves is lead by a male and a female who express some genetic traits that make them aggressively dominate the rest of the pack, who do not express that genetic trait; the former are called alphas and the latter betas. Breeding is largely limited to this dominant pair: I'm unsure whether they breed with the others (but I suppose they do), but they oppose breeding among the others. The betas are usually close relatives of the alphas: by assisting the alphas, they are helping individuals with many of their genes to pass those genes on to future generations. Without alphas to lead them, betas fall to fighting and break up as a group: it is likely the domestication of wolves happened through humans discovering that they could dominate the betas of a pack whose alpha they'd killed; the betas even liked it and developed a strong loyalty to their new 'alpha'; and all modern dogs are descended from such betas.
"That is a grossly over-simplified description of the case for wolves: and, generally, when I've heard someone prattling about the alpha/beta distinction and smugly believing (usually him-) self to be an alpha, they're thinking that's roughly how it works in primates. I'm no primatologist, but my impression is that the story is significantly different among primates. My (very) limited knowledge of (non-human) primate social dynamics says that the cohesive (and long-term) social grouping is a group – known as a troupe – of females, generally fairly closely related to one another; they share the task of child-care, which makes it easier for each to forage for food. Such a group will be accompanied by their children and a transient few males, one of whom (at any time) is the alpha, who mates with all the females but allows the others (who I suspect would be his close relatives) limited sexual access to one or some of the females in exchange for their help in fending off any other male who tries to barge in on the act. When another alpha male (typically with some companions) does manage to barge in on the act, he drives off the prior males and is apt to kill, or at least assault, the children of his predecessor; boys who are old enough to fend for themselves run away to avoid being killed.
"I am not clear on whether alpha-ness is, in primates, a genetic trait or merely a behavioural mode that a male can adopt; most likely, there are elements of both. Some genes predispose towards adopting the pattern of behaviour, but being able to behave otherwise makes it easier to survive to be big and strong enough to get away with such behaviour. In any case, those without the relevant genes (or with fewer of them) can still learn to behave like alphas, when that works to their advantage; genes for being clever are more strongly selected for among the descendants of betas, because only the smart betas get away with having any descendants at all.
"The crucial thing that those fantasising about being alphas (they generally seem to believe this is a genetic trait, so that they can believe they are born 'superior to' non-alphas) neglect is that the primate alpha male is a child abuser, a murderer and a rapist: he violates some of the most basic taboos of every human culture. He forces sons to leave their mothers and go off alone into the wild to finish growing to the point where they can be like him. He is also so dominated by his instincts that he can't be subservient to another male and can't tolerate the presence of another male unless the latter is subservient to him. Consequently, I have long suspected that early humans worked out that they'd be better off with without alphas and systematically massacred them. My new hypothesis, however, goes further: and leads to the confusion that, if there were genes that predisposed males to be alphas, our last male ancestors with those genes were more like chimpanzees than humans. It was precisely because our ancestors excluded alphas socially (and hence from breeding) that early hominids were able to develop the greater social sophistication that fostered our growing intelligence and the emergence of sophisticated culture and technology.
"Driving out the alphas
"Consider our proto-human ancestors. They were large social primates, so we must imagine them living a life-style not hugely different from what we observe among contemporary non-human primates. We may fairly suppose they were somewhat more intelligent than apes. We may also fairly suppose that, sometimes, after the resident males had driven off some interlopers, the alpha died of his injuries, leaving the troupe temporarily alpha-less. I suspect one of the dead alpha's companions would take over his rôle but, lacking the raw aggression of an alpha, would tend to run away rather than face a determined attack by fresh interlopers. However, in the interval, the intelligent females in the troupe would likely discover that he's a lot easier to get along with; partly because they already have established relationships with him. They would likely be better able, with a non-alpha, to keep him from killing or driving off their children. Indeed the old alpha's companions are likely used to working together, so the others would probably also be less dominated by the one who took charge; or they might even continue co-operating without any one rising to dominance. In the absence of any alpha, the troupe would be subject to less violence than when one is around.
"Even though such interludes of relative civilisation might be painfully short, intelligent females would be apt to work out that life would be better if they could make this state of affairs last. My conjecture is that, at some point, a troupe managed to persuade its resident males – the old alpha's companions and those of his sons nearing adolescence – to get along and not fight; maybe they also had sons who they'd kept in touch with since they'd been driven away, that they persuaded to join in. Such a troupe would have the males it needs to continue producing children and to drive off any invading alpha. The males would tend to drive off any other males altogether, but the females would prefer to allow more males to join the troupe, so long as they didn't behave like alphas.
"Such a troupe might be subjected to the bad old ways by an invading alpha; but intelligent females would remember how it had been and would take care to build relationships with the other males, conspiring to restore the better life if the old alpha ever died after driving off an interloper; maybe even conspiring to drive him off themselves, or with the help of the more reasonable males.
"Such a troupe might get driven back to the bad old ways by an alpha son growing up, child of the old alpha, who would be apt to seek to dominate the troupe like an alpha. Such a son would likely have his mother's backing to keep him in the troupe despite his alpha-ish behaviour, so the first troupes to try the alpha-free lifestyle would be vulnerable to this mode of falling back into the old ways. However, old mothers would learn: before long, troupes would learn to recognise the signs of an emerging alpha and his mother would find the rest united in driving him out.
"To be sure, we should not imagine early primates being too refined about justice: but the basic violence of the alpha would inform the development of the taboos we have against sexual violence and violence against children. As such taboos began to get established, mothers would teach their sons not to behave in ways that might be mistaken for alphas; but to be always ready to fight to drive off anyone who did violate the emerging taboos.
"A troupe living this new life-style would be better able to teach children more about the world (it's easier to learn when you're not cowering in fear) and it could function with a greater number of adults: the number of males would not be limited by how many some dumb alpha can feel comfortable around, so the number of females who could be sure of finding an acceptable breeding partner within the group would be larger. More adults means better defence against invading alphas; and an alpha growing up within the troupe has a harder time building a power base from which to take control. More adults can support more economic activity and more complex forms of economic activity; and can (produce and) support more children. Intelligence becomes a more advantageous trait in a more sophisticated socio-economic context.
"If one troupe can do that, likely others would be discovering the same things over the same period of time, especially in so far as (and I've little idea as to the extent to which this is likely) there's movement of individuals between troupes, or troupes uniting and splitting in re-arranged forms. Boys growing up in such a troupe but driven out by an invading alpha would tend to be better at fitting in to another troupe trying the same thing. A troupe successfully managing to live this way would tend to grow until big enough that it can split and yet still have each part large enough to sustain and defend itself; such splitting would expand their collective geographic range and hence the resources available to them, so would be advantageous. In time, then, we can expect there to be many such troupes.
"Any boy growing up with alpha tendencies, in so far as his family fails to tame him enough that he doesn't manifest those tendencies, is apt to be driven out and, thereby, excluded from the ancestry of subsequent generations. In so far as alpha-ness inhibits the ability to co-operate effectively with other males, it would be disadvantageous, even if so well socially controlled as to not be manifest. So any genes apt to predispose a boy to alpha tendencies get bred out of the population. By the time our proto-human population has accumulated enough genetic drift to lose the ability to interbreed with their distant cousins still living the alpha-dominated lifestyle, there are no genes that predispose males towards being alphas – and humanity has never looked back. Our cultures may allow individuals to dominate socio-economic and political situations, even at times to do so aggressively; but this is a far cry from the way alpha males behave in primate – let alone wolf – social groups.
"If we have any genetic alphas, I would be inclined to look among the the psychopaths to find them.
"Summary
"I'm no expert on the nature of primates, so you should consult a real primatologist before even beginning to think about whether the above is anywhere near right; but I hope I have, at least, made a case for: how the benefits of peaceful co-existence may have prompted proto-human primate groups to develop taboos against brutality; and how such taboos could have been decisive in setting our ancestors on the road to producing the astonishing descendents we are. Also, please consult a real primatologist before spouting off about being an alpha."
"The most dangerous men on earth are those who are afraid they are wimps” - Dr. James Gilligan
5 comments:
This would also explain the hatred of great intelligence; more than 120, and you represent an existential threat to the tribe, which is only partially mitigated by the improvement of strategy which is offered by it.
The main defense of the tribe is to define "threats" as evil, then to insult, ostracize and expel them.
I do get a lot of insults....I guess they're fearful. I'm a threat? Oh, come on!
In the past year or so I remember reading a story about a man in China who would try to sleep with as many women as possible, whether they were married or not.
The other men in that village subdued him and chopped off his penis.
But I think the pyschopaths who claim to be alpha today are more hidden. They don't always march into the tribe, kill the old alpha and try to get rid of existing sons from his new wives. And I think as a society that has no unified moral guideline and a 100% judgement-free policy (which is not even a matter of judgement, but of even pointing out bad habits, morals, idealogies)these pyschopaths can exist to a greater extent than in the previous decades of American history.
I see this in almost any country where the culture is HOMOGENOUS. "Alphas"(Pyschopaths) don't tend to exist because the society knows it is a bad thing for it long term. Since America is so diverse, there is no unified defense. The pyschopath is a parasite that feasts on a dying society. Is it any wonder that when America's economy is at its worst, unemployment is horrible, trillions in debt, and in multiple wars across the globe, along with a diverse constantly bickering sectarian population, that PUAs, "alphas", psychopaths, narcissists are at an all time high?
What if what is currently described as alpha and even game, is simply most of what most males behaved in the '60's ;-D
I did quite well with woman. I did it by being funny and sometimes witty, and I'm a pretty nice guy. I'm not "insanely confident, or have "the Dark Triad." Some of these fools today setting themselves up as mentors and models...I'm seen bouncers throw guys like that in dumpsters.
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