Ok, so we’ve established that humans do have a history of vying for breeding rights, due to the varied sexual success of males throughout human history - indicated by there being twice as many females in human ancestry than males. This implies a pecking order of male maters, where the alpha has existed - at the top.
Whilst every human was a product of both 1 mother and 1 father, the same father has historically appeared much more commonly than the same mother.
We also seem to be establishing that this alpha male represses their strength by not expressing any surplus of it. This would equate the alpha role with that of efficient co-ordinator, and also self-effacing motivator according to the above quote.
This is doubtlessly a useful role, the kind that would serve the group rather than dominate it. Are we establishing that the alpha is fundamentally servile? As well as repressed?
Riding around on a white charger for the duration of a short lifespan sounds like a pretty fulfilled lifestyle - not in order to die for that cause, but in order to live “to the max”. Adolescent stupidity - not worth following at all in the face of the self-tamed, utilitarian and long lived.
We are not like gorillas - but we are not like bonobos either. There is a distinct sexual diamorphism which implies a hierarchical society at some point in our evolution.
Maybe not a pure elephant-seal-like alpha male society, but surely a chimpanzee-like struggle for male dominance within increasingly fluid and sophisticated sexual behaviour (at least among young Humans)
The sisterhood of young females is ill-understood, but is assuredly different from the young male competition and boasting easily seen.
We haven’t, at all. “Vying for breeding rights” occurs in pretty much all animals, pack or otherwise. This doesn’t entail the existence of an alpha at the head of a group having first pick of eating and breeding opportunities (which is what alpha denotes).
If you’re using it to mean more attractive, assertive, charismatic males, then fair enough. They generally don’t have problems finding attractive, charismatic women and having children; without a monogamous society, I’d expect them to outbreed the unattractive shy loners.
Usually the term gets thrown around by jocks with overinflated self-esteem and underdeveloped philosophies to excuse inconsiderate, boorish behaviour. Is that the adolescence you mean?
What liars, even compulsive ones, can be trusted to never tell the truth, ever? You can’t trust a liar to lie because his behavior will never be that predictable. In fact, a liar may tell you the truth just because he thinks you’re expecting a lie. Your “alpha” may lead himself through adversity, but given the characteristics you listed he could only be trusted to ‘guide’ someone else incidentally.
Again, this is not “trust” you’re getting at, in my opinion. Just simple, superficial expectations.
The kind of loyalty that implicates compassion, empathy, humanity, that sort of thing. Of course, this does beg the question, what twisted conception of “loyalty” are you assuming? Loyalty and utility are two different things.
A cold emotional attachment amounts to utility. You are useful to him for some purpose. That isn’t loyalty or anything remotely admirable. I’m not loyal to a hammer, for instance, but it is my default tool for certain tasks for which I can’t find a more convenient alternative.
No, but I wouldn’t call a person a douche based off of a single observable act. I also wouldn’t immediately regard such a person my “leader” either. He saved me by accident, which places the importance on the specific act rather than the character of the person.
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Then you’ve confirmed, your definition is askew.
Of course not. The alpha leads through others with a clear concise understanding of the goal(s) involved. Repressed? How funny! The true alpha has no need for posturing, their only concern is accomplishment. Moreover they have no need for adulation. They are their own judge and jury. They don’t need others to pat them on the back and give them trophies to collect dust on a shelf. That’s reserved for alpha wannabes, which is always a secondary goal of an alpha. The alpha knows success when the followers say, “We did this by ourselves”.
As I said in my first post, a true alpha is invisible as far as is possible. An alpha isn’t a soaring eagle, they gather and fly their eagles to the target.
Considerate, polite behaviour is valid social expression - but its imperative over inconsiderate, boorish behaviour is loutish insolence. The length and breadth of man is asphyxiated by the pretenses and protestations of modern man. I await someone unafraid to be reckless, someone voluntarily unrefined! Are philosophers so very uptight?
Not only on this forum do we see plenty of impolite sloppiness born from such intense intended accuracy. I think the major flaw of philosophy has been its obsessive compulsion with order - forget OC"D". What better way to misrepresent and misunderstand the world than to attempt to draw its picture with such clear outlines - any good artist will know that their final picture will entirely paint over any pencil marks. They were only useful as an initial guide and then nothing more.
An alpha will understand this implicitly. Perhaps lacking the delicacy of an artist, but sharing much of his mindset. Somehow much more control emerges from much less attention to the smallest details. There is so much importance for an alpha - particularly in philosophy.
We don’t have eating and mating orders - everybody is stuck in a routine of individual alienation, through the militant demand for equality. Everybody can have only their own partner, and their own meal. They are each shared - divided up with restraint - until everybody has an acceptible equal portion, and only then can one devour.
Again you describe some kind of single-minded executive, intent and firmly fixated on his job as though desperate to divert full attention away from himself at all times.
An alpha is no task-oriented, narrow obsessive. Likewise they have no need for others to pat them on the back and give them trophies, yes - but need is a poverty of desire, want is a richness. Their want of glory and posturing is through the instinct of the dominant. I must make this abundantly clear:
There is need through desperation, as with the alpha wannabes. There is the want through the overflow of health, as with the alpha. Very very very different. Do you understand this difference?
Loyalty can range from a distant acknowledgement of vague duty, to an unquestioned overwhelming feeling to do anything for someone.
Utility tends to imply some kind of control over what you are using. One relies on an alpha, rather than uses him. Utility is also something conscious, and the relationship between the alpha and the rest is not a conscious thing.
Loyalty can be born from the exposure to reliance on a leader - in the sense of the feeling that you will stick by them through thick and thin because it means a lot to you that they do what they do, such that you are grateful for their reliability. Whether they meant to benefit you or not is irrelevant unless we are talking about a reciprocal loyalty.
This kind of loyalty involves compassion, empathy, “humanity” because it’s publically expressed like a feeling of love that demands to be out in the open. But loyalty can be private and one way. And it’d still be a human feeling.
Leadership likewise does not have to be a two-way personable relationship - it’s essentially just descriptive of command and obedience in action. Intentions and feelings are not intrinsic issues to the simple causal relationship of what two or more people just “do”. Someone entirely unknown to you can lead you. They are then a leader. A feeling can lead you (if the self is really the consciousness of feelings rather than the feelings themselves). Accident or no, if you’re following anything at all, it’s your leader.
I don’t see how Charles Manson is an “askew” model of an alpha.
You misunderstood, I think. I said people rely on the “alpha”, whereas your “alpha” would see them as means, as utility for his own goals.
I agree that loyalty to the “alpha” can grow from a reliance. However, by your definition, the “alpha” couldn’t be expected to reciprocate that loyalty. He can’t be expected to act in any interest but his own. What I’m getting at is that things like compassion and loyalty are just as important in the alpha as the followers. He has no followers unless he can lead and care for them properly.
Sure, leadership can amount to something like despotism, but a person doesn’t become a despot by accident. And I would think sentiment plays a role in all relationships.
So a “leader” to you is someone who has led something in some way, at some point? Everyone is a leader by that definition. Your last sentence is just an equivocal statement all around without defining what constitutes a “leader”.
Because he obviously wasn’t the “alpha” he, or you [apparently], thought he was. He accomplished nothing, got himself and his people locked up for the rest of their lives, and showed he is clearly insane. I’m not saying he wasn’t something of an “alpha” within his cult. I am saying he is a terrible leader – he is/was an actor more than anything. His position was coerced and he had no business assuming the role. I would think an “alpha” is at least competent.
This thread is much like playing Calvin ball. The goal posts keep moving, and the rules change too often. If this is about alpha males, then there isn’t any such thing except in a Harlequin romance.
So we are in agreement that people rely on the alpha, great - and that the alpha isn’t a user by definition. As I covered in my last post, the alpha is not a conscious role, and utility is conscious - hence why I never meant the alpha sees people as a means. Others follow him and end up doing what he wants to do for himself because that’s what they want to do for theirselves.
And I find that the kind of sentiment you mean doesn’t play a role in all relationships. A relationship isn’t by definition an emotional relationship - a house opposite another house has a relationship with it.
Someone who has led something in some way at some point is a leader at that time, yes. Everyone has been or is being a leader at some point, but does that make them “a leader” more generally? Not necessarily at all. An alpha is more inclined towards leadership in general and is thus “a leader” in general. Just by having been a leader before, you are not a leader in the universal sense - only in the particular sense.
Competent at what? Perhaps what he did doesn’t fill your competence criteria, perhaps he accomplished nothing that you would call accomplishment, and it would seem you deem somebody incompetent if they end up in jail with their followers, and if they are insane.
Even if that is taken as incompetence, we agree he was something of an alpha within his cult - and he clearly led them. To what? This matters not. He was the kind to attract all attention, to attract followers, and to pursue his own goals along with a consenting group. This required charisma and other qualities that would indicate that he wouldn’t have only been an alpha within his cult.
I don’t see how any of your commentary invalidates his alpha-ness. And he’s not even the best example of one.
At no point have the goal posts moved at all.
I have had to endure all sorts of qualifications on the definition of the alpha, and perhaps this has corrected where you thought the goal posts were - but I have not gone back on myself once. My intention was to test if there was an alpha here on this board, not to quibble about how well he must be defined and in what way. This far into the thread, I am satisfied that there is no such person here.
Your conception of an “alpha” is something else - nothing more than someone who might be appointed by someone else to co-ordinate things for utility purposes. That is no alpha description on its own, they must desire to appoint themselves in such a way as to have others want this too out of natural submission, just because of the way that the alpha is. A task-oriented specialist who looks always outside of himself will not fulfill this - he is a tool.
Funny, I see it the opposite. The person who is full of himself and play’s “follow me, boys!” is the tool used by the true alpha. Being out in front isn’t being an alpha, just being out in front. The people who truly have the power of leadership love to have your notion of alpha out there. In the meantime, they quietly go about insuring the agenda brings about the desired results while the “alphas” bluster about full of pomp and bluster. Controlling your alpha is easy. Just feed their ego and point them in a direction.
What kind of philosophy/ies would alpha philosophers gravitate toward? I see the alpha as Machiavellian and pragmatic, but not any kind of logical positivist or postmodern philosopher.
The utility is conscious, so he must see others as means, at some point. But I think you’re right in that some people are so desperate for leadership they may either be blind to their role or just not care.
A person opposite another person [spatial relationship] doesn’t imply a social relationship, and that is what we are talking about here; no?
Then I contend your “alpha” characteristics are not those of a leader, but of a person who can/does lead incidentally and inadvertently.
Competent at leading. I thought we went through this. And, yeah, that would be a pretty good example of incompetence in that respect.
So an “alpha” is simply someone who attracts followers? Does a leader merely attract followers, by your definition?
To be clear, I’m not saying he failed as a leader. I’m saying he never was one, though he may have put on a fine show. He led people to take drugs and murder innocent families in hopes of provoking a race war. He has led […I guess], but is not a leader.
The alpha is not impervious to trickery and underhand manipulation, this is true. It would be no alpha who resorted to this, but I suppose this is how we entered the realm of leaders who nobody wants…
But anyhow, I restate the question: who here is Arrogant, Self-centred, Uncaring, Unapologetic, Selfish, fine with all that - AND susceptible to being used?
I suppose the depressing thing at this point is that many members here will ask “why would you want to be?”
Ok, an example of people in a non-emotional social relationship: an employee and their employer in a large company.
Ok, perhaps we can’t go anywhere from here without some kind of evidence of it really being alphas who lead not just incidentally and inadvertently. I contend that there must be a significant detraction from inter-personal closeness etc. if the alpha is going to be so focused on his own expressions to the extent that his conviction and self-belief is going to rally the necessary support from people who are more spread out and reliant on others to complete their thoughts.
This just makes sense to me, whereas it just seems you can’t get past the fact that relationships can be cold. If you won’t be moved then so be it.
“Alpha” is a subset of “leader”.
All alphas are leaders, but not all leaders are alphas. You can be appointed leader, or only be the leader incidentally etc. An alpha is mostly just someone who attracts followers, yes, though also must contain the capacity to coldly control those who in relation to him who seek to usurp him.
“He led people to take drugs and murder innocent families…” I dunno, that sounds not only like leading but also something that would require a lot of submission and respect to be driven to do. This requires competent leadership by the bagload - let’s not downplay how difficult murder is, and drugs don’t come close to explaining such behaviour on their own. Jail at the end or failure to start a race war doesn’t detract from this. That’s just a reflection of how weakened the alpha of today is.
Some good questions - though we’re still seeing far too many “who/what/how” questions about the details of alpha-ness. Do we all need to define everything anally before we can answer the question in the title of the entire thread? (I appreciate that you, fuse, have answered the question - thank you).
Something apparently requisite to the philosopher is the passing of all questions through the exact rationality test before any decisions can be made. This is decidedly un-alpha. I refer back to my latest reply to O_H concerning the artist.
mines
Charisma is what draws people to you. Confidence has a lot to do with it, perhaps with a showmanship that comes from extraverted confidence. Though the introvert can be intense and pique a fascination over what they are thinking or going to say or about to do. People have said they are drawn to me when all I do is consider interesting responses. Hard, uncompromising self-belief: when you are extremely self-involved to the interest of others, they are sucked in too through a kind of social mirroring.
fuse
I wouldn’t say the alpha is drawn to a specific philosophy, nor perhaps that they are necessarily philosophical at all.
In the case that they are philosophically inclined, it would be a toward a broad understanding of philosophy rather than specific philosophies. Machiavelli would strike a chord, I’m sure. I don’t think they would necessarily avoid logical positivist or postmodern philosophy - though these tend to attract notably non-alpha types. There is something very narrowly methodical in logical positivism, which would no doubt repel somebody who is not looking for something to follow - and there is something very evasive and avoidant in postmodern philosophy. An alpha is assertive, so might get frustrated by this. There is strength and an emphasis on personal creativity in the writings of Nietzsche - that would no doubt be a huge appeal to the alpha.
I suppose it would vary a huge deal, though I favour the broadly philosophical alpha - not sucked into any philosophy, but taking love of wisdom into account as a tool to hone creativity on a large scale with regard to what is contemporarily relevant. Someone with an intense but general potential.
That could be a “cold” relationship, as you put it, but not one that is entirely devoid of emotion. I’m not denying that social relationships can exist at an emotional distance, so to speak. However, that employer has a responsibility as a leader to care for those he leads. Whether that “care” is genuine or not is debatable.
After some thought I concede your point here. The only part I find suspicious is that you say an “alpha” always prioritizes himself first and is always focused on his own goals. Those who follow simply choose to do so. How, then, can he be expected to lead in a way that isn’t incidental and/or inadvertent?
The “alpha” is something of a natural right, is it not?
OK, so this goes with what I’m saying. An “alpha” is not appointed alpha by request or appeal, it is a natural role.
Murder is not difficult, especially poorly executed, sloppy murder. His role was not a natural one, it was entirely coerced. I’ve admitted that he was the “alpha” of his cult, but he is obviously not the model leader or an exemplification of “alpha”. Being a leader involves more than a simple ability to play on the gullibility of others. He led, sure. He isn’t a “leader” in the broader sense, though. And by your own definition all “alphas” are leaders.
Do you know what is wonderful about places like this?
It is a perfect place to peek into bedrooms without being accused of being a creep - poor Brian couldn’t control himself - and to observe from a quiet distance.
When you see someone talking about penis size or if it matters or how do you increase it, then you can pretty much imagine the dimensions involved.
For instance, my own interest in feminization and gender issues and social issues and psychology can be linked to my feelings of emasculation and of being repressed and prevented from using all of my advantages…for nistance I must endure the chatter of retards, on a daily basis, I must tolerate children and women, with their gossipy, parroted, over-optimistic infectious naivete.
I must do so for my own good.
Simple stuff…so this entire focus on “alpha” status sort of illuminates the playing field.
Aside from this spare issue, this all seems to be coming together fairly excellently.
Humans are pretty hardy things, even gunshots often fail. But with the assumption that you manage to do it right, summoning up the courage to take the life of something that is the same species as you - that something you reckon you could just do off-hand?
But whatever, we agree that the alpha is a natural role, or “right”, and let’s go with a “cold” relationship not being entirely devoid of emotion. The issue of whether the alpha is necessarily responsible and caring with regards to his leadership (I’m sure he has select friends socially), or whether he merely incidentally and inadvertently leads is something we’re still stuck on - but let’s say the alpha has some kind of responsibility and caring with regards to his leadership.
