Who here is an alpha male?

Exactly. As I said in my first post in this thread, only the former is an alpha.

Hey, didn’t catch you fast enough. I did an edit, check it out. I posted that bit, got up to get something to drink, and realized that wasn’t what I wanted to say :laughing:

Nietzsche probably suffered from a brain tumor or, if you prefer the popular tale, from syphilis. That he was able to write what he wrote attests to his strength. Anyway, you still seem to think that an alpha male must move the masses directly. This is not the case. The masses always need “shepherds”, i.e., men who direct the “herd”. And if such “shepherds” of “sheep” are alpha males, then “shepherds” of “shepherds” must be, like, alpha alpha males:

[size=95]Order of rank: He who determines values and directs the will of millennia by giving direction to the highest natures is the highest man.
[Nietzsche, The Will to Power, section 999, entire.][/size]
Compare the “devisers of new values” we discussed earlier in this thread. All the great philosophers are or were such “shepherds” of “shepherds”.

I think one thing we can agree in defining an alpha is that everyone wants to be, thinks they already are, or wants others to think they are one.

one of the highest and most flattering things you can say about a man.

I thought others gave perspectives on Alphas (myself included) that was just the opposite. However an Alpha would think everyone wants to be him, thinks they are an Alpha and wants others to know it. Right?

I’m an epsilon.

lulwat

All I was saying is that the term has very positive connotations. Nobody wants to be considered a non-alpha, at least not really. Are you mad I called you out for trying hard to seem aloof?

From what I see, the only concrete attribute that an alpha has is leadership, whereby to lead means exerting a significant degree of influence on a group, providing direction, etc. Everything else can be, I think, categorized as accidental means of achieving the aforementioned goal. What it takes to lead a group (specific characteristics) depends on the group. Values of groups vary.

It has very negative connotations also. I don’t want to be considered an alpha male, thats not who I am nor do I want to be. I know many others in this thread would say the same.

Now of course I’m not mad at you, why would you think that? I do understand however that you misunderstood my own post, as I already pointed out my goal of why it was posted. But sure I was a little ambiguous about my intent, but that doesn’t mean it must make me aloof. What good is being aloof anyways?

By nature yes, because we’ve evolved to want that. After all, an alpha has the best reproductive opportunities.

Not true. I don’t want to be an Alpha in the general sense.

While sometimes having more freedoms, the Alpha is actually the least free of all the categories presented. They are a slave to perception of others - after all that is something they must excel at.

Also, I want to point out that I didn’t (mean to) say that Metas are more ‘authentic’.

all this talk about the alpha male…

personally I prefer the Omega male. Have you all forgotten about him?

He’s the one to shoot for…

[-X

Whatever floats your boat

Yes, they do. :laughing:

Nope, that’s what I meant to say.

Not if you’re genuine…

When is anyone not themselves?

A ‘genuine’ general alpha must always win over the perception of others (along with everything else). They are slaves to their own ambitions. We all know people like this.

You can be alpha at being original, though.

I’m saying if someone doesn’t have to try to lead, in that if they don’t have to assume the role and actively try to maintain it in spite of wanting to and being comfortable acting in another capacity, then they won’t have to worry about what you’re talking about. Leading comes naturally to some people. It’s the role they’re most comfortable in. They don’t have to try to force it. You’re making a sweeping generalization when you presume that to lead a group you must always walk on eggshells and say or do what you believe will maintain you in that role, and not what you would normally say or do were you not to have tried and thought hard about your actions or words.

That makes no sense. You can’t be alpha at something. I think you mean you can be good at being original. To be alpha simply means to lead people, and that’s it. It doesn’t matter how you do it. There are no all-context characteristics that will win you that spot within all types of groups, so it’s pointless to try to define Alpha in terms of characteristics. The mistake in this thread is taking the connotative sense of alpha, i.e., admirable, and consequently giving qualities we think make people admirable. Take for instance what I sarcastically said earlier that being alpha means having physical strength. That’s just what I personally find admirable, but you don’t have to be physically strong to lead.

Being alpha means doing something, performing some activity within a setting. It’s like being a goal-scorer in a game of soccer. You can’t say a goal scorer is necessarily agile, because you don’t have to be agile to score. You can be 300lb and barely stand on your own feet, but if the opportunity comes where you can tap the ball slightly and put it in the net, you’re a goal scorer.

In other words, you can successfully refute anyone who says, “To be an alpha, one must necessarily posses x and y qualities,” by giving a counter-example where someone leads but doesn’t possess those qualities.

Another problem in this thread, due to Saw’s meticulousness, is that we’re left having to define leadership. In essence, imo, it means to exert more influence than others in a collective and towards some shared purpose.

Yeah and you can be a leader at, say, being original.

Just because someone makes something look easy, doesn’t mean they are not trying. If someone is not trying, they are not doing… anything.

Leadership is easy to define in this context: it’s what the public recognizes as the superlative. That’s why I’m saying that a general alpha is a slave to perception. He/she knows that their actions don’t actually constitute leadership - it’s the reception to them.

All I said was general Alphas are defined by their (general) need to be the superlative in whatever context. I think to strip it beyond that would remove the word as something which can be defined at all.

An alpha does always do what is required to maintain the role.

You don’t have to walk on eggshells. Some might do it that way. Some kill people.

I think the fact that even today, people who “consistently act on one of those extremes” are still around just goes to show that nature is selecting them for something. A good way to figure out if something is in the interests of our species is to check if it still happens. Not everything that is for the good of the species is nice and balanced.

“Should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken his rear; should he strengthen his rear, he will weaken his van; should he strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should he strengthen his right, he will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.” - Sun Tzu’s Art of War.

Can you be a leader of submission? Is that alpha?

Leading is sort of “just natural” in the sense that an alpha just finds himself doing it - but something does happen to cause the alpha to move first and then for everyone else to follow, but it’s usually just what everyone’s used to doing so seems like second nature. I find that things feel like they have a natural conclusion, at which point I just feel like I want to make a gesture that shows things have finished and I’m moving off, and then everyone else just sorta responds and follows.

However, there are times when other people are used to this same thing, at which point I feel a slight annoyance when they try and initiate things - so I steal it off them. Hardly a showdown, and it’s not like I have to consider things - this just happens. But it does reveal a slightly conscious element of competition, that you do have to compete even at the smallest levels to win the simplest things. And likewise there are more extreme situations that require much more conspicuous competition. So I once again contend with the notion that alphaness just falls on people’s laps. Just because it seems to “come to you”, doesn’t mean you never have to do anything at all to win or maintain it.

There is a tendency toward females selecting on homogamous grounds. A shy, submissive, weaker male is much more likely to be nice to the female - so he can still attract sexually. The alpha may be the centre of everything, including breeding, but that doesn’t always mean that no other males ever get sex. The alpha can protect better and is more healthy, genetically, but he is more likely to be violent than nice and caring. The omega is more female, which has its advantages - especially when conditions become unthreatening, lessening need to be protected. Nurture comes more to the forefront.

But this thread is about dominance in philosophy, not nurturing - there’s plenty of that around already, it’s not to my tastes and doesn’t seem to bear anything that creative or new.

I’m well aware of what Nietzsche wrote about alpha’s moving the masses indirectly, via shepherds. I just don’t agree with him. I think it’s much more effective if the alpha is able to move the masses. Dominance requires an unequal by definition, so it’s not like the alpha needs to be “one of the masses”, just able to lead them. In terms of logistics, delegation is practical and efficient, but that’s just utility. A large enough “social group” would practically require such measures in order to maintain control, e.g. Feudalism, though Feudal lords just became their own alphas really. Social groups lose cohesion after reaching a certain size, and splinter without a particularly strong alpha at the helm, able to dominate his “lords” and the masses from a distance as well as up close.

I wrote something to Gobbo on the previous page of this thread about those who fancy themselves as “lone wolves”:

The “meta” or “lone wolf” self-perception is usually indicative of one who is flexible, dominant sometimes and compliant at others. You probably see your versatility as eluding classification. But the fact is that you interact with other humans, you have a general dominance/submission relationship with them, and if you are not consistently on the dominance side then your rank is beta or lower.

It’s not like this is a bad thing, it’s not like lower ranks are just crap in general and serve no purpose, though I can imagine you rejecting this interpretation for your “placeless” version since - like xzc sort of said - nobody wants to not be an alpha if the only options are alpha or “lower”. Are you about to reject the idea of “alphas” altogether right now, or would you feel alright admitting lower rank?