I’m a big fan of Roissy in DC — who isn’t? — but someone should tell him that he’s got the alpha-beta stuff all wrong.
In hierarchical primate societies, the alpha males are the ones with power. They have legions of subordinates who help enforce their will. They say what goes and what doesn’t. They engage in power-challenging with each other. They may get laid a lot, but that’s a side benefit. Power is the thing.
In Roissyworld, an “alpha” is single-mindedly intent on sexual conquest. He likely has no subordinates at all — would probably find them a hindrance, in fact. Roissyworld is neither the hierarchical society of high primates and neolithic humans, nor the egalitarian band of paleolithic hunters. It must be great to be a Roissy-style loner (I wouldn’t know), but that lifestyle has nothing necessary to do with either hierarchical or egalitarian social order — nothing to do with society at all, really.
In evolutionary terms, there are two kinds of Alpha male: the man’s alpha and the woman’s alpha. The man’s alpha is the powerful social organizer. He enhances the reproductive fitness of his extended kin group (which carries many of his genes) through building status hierarchies and patronage networks, at the top of which he sits.
The woman’s alpha concentrates on enhancing the reproductive fitness of his mother. He wastes no energy on building (or climbing to the top of) male social hierarchies. Instead he concentrates on acquiring and demonstrating the traits that women find attractive (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sociopathy) so as to spread his seed, and by extension his mother’s.
Men admire (and submit to the dominance of) men’s alphas. Women do the same with women’s alphas. Societies where men’s alphas get the most respect, we call patriarchal. In matriarchal societies, the woman’s alpha is the ideal.
Each represents a viable social organization, under the right circumstances.
So by Roissy’s definition, Bill Clinton would be an alpha male, right?
@Dean Could you point to a source for this division into two kinds of alpha male? Sorry, but I’ve never heard of it. As Bradlaugh says, Roissy presents himself as interested only in sexual conquest. He’s not (so far) passing on any genes at all. He appears to be sterile.
My definition of alpha males are whomever women are having the most sex with. Alpha males are the males who pass on their genes.
The purpose of “game” is to trick women into thinking the PUA is an alpha when he really isn’t, so that women will desire them sexually.
Does it work? It works for Roissy (giving him the benefit of the doubt), but that doesnt’ mean it works for the average beta.
Do you guys even realize that there is a scientific definition of the word?
It’s not like “art”, where everyone can come up with some random idea about what defines it and what doesn’t.
Roissy’s definition is closest to what biologist use to determine alpha rank: copulation frequency combined with the number of sex partners.
Roissy’s actually talked quite a bit about how the increasing dominance of alphas in the mating/dating world is not good for society. Our society was healthier in this regard when we had stronger laws and taboos about marriage, when the mother was as dependent on the father for sustenance as the father is on the mother for reproductive faithfulness. Maybe women weren’t always excited by their beta-type provider husbands, but they needed them. Feminism, no-fault divorce, and mother-slanted child custody have skewed that relationship. A provider husband is certainly a big convenience, but it’s not a need anymore, socially or financially, so women have more freedom to pursue the kind of men who excite them. That leaves more beta men with less incentive to be the kind of hard-working cubicle-dweller who can offer a quiet suburban home in a good school district. Too often, that way lies a few years of fighting followed by fortnightly visits with your children.
Of course, it’s possible to be for a man to be “alpha”—to be a man’s man who carries himself with confidence, who has a certain amount of self-control, who doesn’t see women as a superior species to be feared and supplicated to—and also be a good provider and loving family man. My grandfathers were men like that, as is my dad. But they grew up in a society that encouraged that kind of manliness, that looked up to men like Cary Grant instead of Alan Alda. To be that kind of man today is kind of like being a paleo-conservative—it’s something you have to go out of your way to learn on your own, because you certainly won’t get it from the mainstream.
“Game” starts out as a trick, wherein you mimic the behaviors of the kind of man who, in the ancestral environment, would have maximized a woman’s reproductive fitness, if he were chosen as a mate. But there is a bit of a feedback loop involved.
What makes a man the most “beta” is the pedestalization of women. ‘She is a delicate little flower whom I must not defile with my impure lust.’ Men who internalize that idea are unsure of themselves in making the approach. ‘Since she is so morally pure, if she rejects me that proves I’m worthless.’
The simplest way to get over that is to despise women. Not hate, despise. ‘Her possible rejection of me means nothing since bitches ain’t nothin’ but hos and tricks.’
If you grow up watching your mother fall for “players” who treat them (and you) badly, you will naturally form a low opinion of women. Therefore, a woman who gets impregnated by such men is potentially giving her sons a “gift” which will get them laid a lot as adults. And hence bolstering her reproductive fitness.
Chasing such men isn’t good for her personally, and it isn’t good for “society,” but from a Darwinian perspective, that’s not the point.
If a man who grew up pedestalizing women begins to mimic the behavior of someone who despises women, he will experience sexual success that he did not experience while still blatantly idealizing them. Over time, his actual opinion of women will change to match his new behavior, and his “game” will no longer be a trick.
Sorry Namloc, I cannot provide a source for the man’s alpha, woman’s alpha distinction. I picked it up somewhere in the Roissy-sphere, but I can’t remember where. And Google didn’t turn up anything in the first 20 hits, so laziness forces me to give up the search.
I’m not smart enough to have come up with the idea on my own, so it must be out there somewhere. Good luck finding it.
To me, it’s an issue of semantics. Whether or not Derb’s definition above is correct for the term “alpha” is inconsequential. The fact is there SHOULD be a term for that category of men and the traits that generally correspond to such status, like determination, willpower, intelligence, expertise, etc…, should be lauded.
There should probably be a breakdown of Good Alpha/Bad Alpha and Good Beta/Bad Beta. And if we accept those categories, determining which qualities belong to each category of men would make for an interesting discussion.
And, you think you’re telling Roissy something he doesn’t already know?
Well, its not the first time someone has taken a word with a clear definition and given it a new meaning of their own, but at least Roissy is quite honest about it.
He says clearly that he uses the term Alpha simply to refer to the guy who women find most desirable to sleep with.
But Roissy is a bit dishonest, too – for one, by choosing a word with a clear meaning and then giving it a slightly different meaning, he is clearly trying to piggy-back the on the words original meaning and the associations it conjures up in peoples minds, while giving himself room for maneuver. Allow me to explain.
Roissy simply shifts between the words Alphas two meanings – the literal one and the one he has given it – as it suits his arguments. I have seen this happen on his blog. He will say that behaviors that fit the literal meaning of Alpha are what attract women, like dominance or confidence, etc, and if someone presents him with an example of a man acting in non-Alpha ways who attracts women, Roissy will simply say that by his definition, any man who gets women is Alpha, so this man is, in fact, Alpha.
Its tautological, and it lets him muddy the waters about precisely what behaviors do or do not attract women as it suits him, because if any behavior that attracts women is Alpha, yet Alpha also has a clear meaning involving a clear set of behaviors taken from the animal world, then you can simply shift from one meaning to another as the season dictates and never be proven wrong.
Clever, but ultimately unavailing. Ive seen this happy little exchanges countless times on his blog.
Roissy is hilarious and a pleasure to read, but I dont think anyone should take him too seriously. The discerning reader will spot countless faulty reasonings and errors in logic in any single post, and some of his advice is just disastrously wrong.
The guy loves to shock and tiltilate, and we should appreciate him for that, and amidst the carnage he drops the occasional pearl of wisdom, and whats more important, even though he gets so many details wrong and his basic attitude is in so many ways flawed, his outrageous exaggerations are a useful counterweight to the sickly sweet feminization of our society. Sure, no discerning reader will take his extreme statements as balanced and just estimates of reality, but then, perhaps they arent meant to be taken as such.
A good case study in this distinction is the death row inmate with lots of groupies. He has no real power, but in a caveman society that might be a reasonable risk for a woman to take. I.e, the guy who’s a rebel might be powerless at the moment, but has what it takes to become powerful.
Aaron, you apparently embrace Carolyn Graglia’s theory that everything in society was just tickety boo before these damn women started going to college and getting good jobs. It’s curious that you come up with the opposite of her corollary. She gripes about what a shame it is that these dreadful modern women pass over manly Stanley Kowalski types in favor of pathetic pencil-neck geeks, but you seem to be saying that these dreadful modern women are forcing potentially nice guys into dysfunctional brutehood. At least Graglia’s theory correctly acknowledges that women who can earn their own bread seek men with commensurate incomes. Do you really think that women with good-paying jobs are gleefully chasing after shiftless losers because, after all, they don’t need a man to support them?
I think that women with good jobs tend to seek men that also have good jobs. The difference is women without good jobs or prospects don’t have to anymore. In my opinion, the problem isn’t feminism, it’s the welfare state. 100 years ago, the best bet for a woman of below average intelligence was to find a good provider and marry him. Now, women know that their babies will be cared for, by either the state or child care payments. The same woman will now sleep with “exciting” and “spontaneous” men who have no interest in raising kids. As a result, we see astronomical illegitimacy rates for lower class people, and stable families for the upper class.
Who isn’t a fan of Roissy? Me, for one. He’s doing nothing but justifying being a jerk and an asshole by calling himself alpha, and scoring (literally?) the numbers of conquests.
In my experiences with men (father, brothers, friends, spouse), Roissy would be the unmarried guy with no friends, though he would have shallow acquaintances who put up with him for a while before passing him off to new, unsuspecting shallow acquaintances.
The only alpha description that Roissy meets is the one used in software… a beginning, but not yet ready for beta testing with real people.
@Donna B.
Awww, Kitten!
Okay, not really. I’m a fan of Roissy for the same reason I’m a fan of “red in tooth and claw” nature documentaries: it’s fun to see someone go through all that. He’s an awesome study in self-absorption, and that’s always entertaining when you’re not personally involved.
I’m also a big fan of Trainspotting, but I ain’t gonna get a smack habit or junkie friends. Or, God help me, live in Glasgow.
John, I believe you are quite right. Other factors involved are the value systems of dysfunctional subcultures, which celebrate lawlessness and violence, and evaporating employment opportunities for physically strong but unintelligent men.
Well, don’t forget the Sexual Revolution. Prior to that, a man pretty much had to marry and support a woman in order to obtain a regular supply of sex. Afterward, he didn’t.
It must have been a confusing time for women of that generation. They went into college programmed to believe that they couldn’t sleep with anyone without being forever outcast as sluts. They graduated from college programmed to believe that if they didn’t sleep with everyone, they were frigid.
Clay … I couldn’t watch Trainspotting, my gag reflex triggers too easily. I do like nature documentaries.
Wrong. Alpha, or dominant, males and females in different social animals are defined as those who have the first rights to both eating and mating.