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?
I agree with WW3. I’m not an Alpha, and although there are Alpha characteristics I find desirable, I do not find that I want to be an Alpha. I’d also consider myself more of a “lone wolf.”
You can’t decide which type is best without already having certain values that underlie your very decision. Different values lead to different appraisals of “best.”
No. I would say that is the exception to the rule. Or perhaps we would call that the superlative form of the beta.
I didn’t mean it that way, though. The Meta, in essence, allows for the discussion of Alpha and Beta. The Meta is constituted by the existence of the dichotomy, and serves to illustrate it without falling into one of the categories.
Maybe the ranking system is not quite right, or more complex. I do not mind to be in a position of dominance over people I don’t know or am not close with. I mind very much, however, if people I don’t know or am not close with are in positions of dominance over me.
For people I am close with, I would prefer above all else to have a more or less mutual relationship. I could stand to be in a position of slight dominance or submission to such people. However, if submission is the case I would have to have developed a high level of trust and security with that person, which I have already mentioned is difficult and rare for me.
Why do you think it would be a lower rank? Could a Beta ever dominate an Alpha?
Yeah of course - I’ve written about how ranks are subject to change. But if they’ve not yet dominated the alpha they’re still beta, still flexibly compliant and dominant rather than primarily dominant - and definitely not “outside” society and its social groups in general just because they’re content with their lot and thus feel free to be themselves.
I guess the whole system is pretty complex, though gets more simple the higher the rank. The alpha is a lot more clearcut and rare - lower ranks are less and less distinct, and more messy.
It’s often a sign of compliance to desire equality, due the simple fact that only the dominated benefit from more equality. Though of course it’s possible you might just not feel too much drive for either domination or compliance, in which case you’ll have learned relative submission and found your place in between somewhere, not really dominating or complying - which by default puts you in a position where some are going to be more imposing than you. You have to comply relatively more amongst them, and relatively less to the more predominantly submissive.
Not seeing yourself clearly in terms of rank places you nicely in the middle.
I get your model, but since you aren’t removed from society and its groups you are not outside anything. The alpha and beta don’t need 3rd party confirmation, they are defined off one another fine. By not feeling you fit into either you have much in common with what’ve just said about fuse.
Silhouette,
Note that I said I would prefer a mutual relationship with close friends, partners, etc. not an equal relationship. I do not wish for a partner to treat me exactly as I treat him/her. I do not wish for equality, but understanding. We may both be leaders according to our strengths. Neither person must always play the dominant or submissive role. We can “switch off” like two runners drafting in an endurance race.
At any rate, what is your explanation for this?
As I said, for people I don’t know or am not close with, which is most people, I would rather be in a position of dominance versus submission. Alphas are not the only type who are dominant or desire dominance.
Meh. I’m still lone wolf, I don’t accept your placement. I simply do not get dominated.
Can I join your wolfpack?
There is no wolfpack 
Characteristics of a certain kind of human, not necessarily an alpha male.
Do you find yourself challenging males a lot? Or being challenged by males?
Do you find yourself puffing up to the biggest men in a group and displaying your wares to them and any females within earshot?
Are you regularly challenged by males?
Or are you the type of person who easily gets others to do your dirty work for you? That is, you dominate others to the extent that they will do your bidding? A bit like Napoleon and his Imperial Guards?
Quite often an alpha is one who by his ‘fearful displays’ reduces the desire to risk a full challenge by others. Or an alpha quite simply is the toughest male in the group able to repel all challengers…for a while at least.
Those who like to spout about being ‘lone wolves’… are most certainly not alphas unless and until they stumble across a group, the leader of which by pretty quick assessment (the alpha opportunity door being a small one to knock on), could be taken or be forced by such a display of bravado to back down. Sometimes a group will be split by such challenges where both challenger and challenged are fairly evenly matched. Then it’s tic-tac-toe, eh girls? Or maybe loyalty comes into it…
As for the fine Silhouette? Ah… confident aintcha?
So far so pack social.
Who here amongst the humans is for pair bonding?
Sings like a nightingale in Berkeley Square…
I believe we are referring to the same thing due to how I meant “equal”: equal in the sense that you lead/follow in equal measure rather than treating each other entirely equally.
In this case there is just as much compliance as dominance, which is still consistent with my placement of you in a middling rank. There’s nothing wrong with anyone in middle or lower ranks, it’s just what happens when people grow into groups throughout their lives.
I agree - I’d even say all ranks desire dominance to some degree. Those who deny they do are usually those settled into lower ranks. It’s a case of how much you want dominance along with how able you are to get it. Even the most ably dominant guy might not want dominance and the most motivated guy might never be able to get it. So there is some degree of correlation between how much you want it and how high ranked you are, meaning that middle ranks more than likely want dominance more than submission.
Preference for equality in leading/following is a sign you want compliance - in equal measure to dominance. For someone who wanted and had dominance, such equality would get in the way and be unpreferrable. For someone who didn’t have dominance and wanted it, equality would grant their wish to a degree by promoting them to a middle rank from a lower rank. So we have equality benefitting some and not others, right?
Clearly this sentiment is a show of dominance, showing yourself to be a higher than average rank - perhaps alpha. You don’t have to use the terminology but there’s still clearly some dominance going on in what you are writing, fitting in nicely with the alpha->omega model…
Another dominant gesture that’s consistent with the metaphorical wolfpack…
Yeah, but one plus one makes two, and then you have a wolfpack!
Nonetheless, nobody is being dominated, we are having a mutual exchange. These suspicions are just speculative inference.
If you ‘win’ something it hasn’t exactly ‘come to you’ unless you’re talking about the lottery here. If you win, you’ve fought in some way or other. Even if you only stared someone down with your eyes…
Alpha status is very high maintenance because there’s always going to be some young gun lurking about the perimeter (or sitting at your feet) who thinks they can win in the arena. 
Of course eventually some young gun will win what you’ve carefully maintained for a while.
So, to die in a blaze of glory, or ride off into the distance on a fine, white horse…