P. TRUSTER writes:

Regarding the post on “Two Kinds of Love,” it’s not clear to me whether all males are divisible into alpha and beta, winners and losers, or whether there are additional categories — gamma, delta, epsilon, etc.

I have to say that some of the alpha males I’ve known have been loathsome people, regardless of their ability to attract and entrap women who, as often as not, didn’t seem to be terribly happy with their men, in the long run anyway. Also, if there are indeed multiple categories of men, then it seems to me that beta isn’t so bad, and that indoctrinating girls with the idea that they must compete for the alphas and consider themselves failures if they end up with betas isn’t very wise or very conducive to the girls’ ultimate happiness. It strikes me as equivalent to bringing up sons to believe that if they don’t end up with supermodels, they’ve somehow failed and can’t expect to be happy.

Of course it’s possible to respond that I’ve misunderstood what an ‘alpha’ is, and perhaps I have. But the term has been popularized by evolutionary biologists and proponents of the “Game” approach to relationships, and I understand it to mean what they say it means. If you mean something different by it, it might be prudent to find another term and thus avoid confusion.

Mr. Truster writes:

I should have been clearer – I didn’t mean to suggest that you personally endorse the alpha/beta terminology, but one or more of your correspondents apparently do. Your advice to one of them — the woman who was disappointed in her husband’s willingness to let her go to the laundromat alone at night — was spot-on.

Laura writes:

Yes, I don’t personally refer to alpha and beta men. Even in Brave New World, which I assume is the inspiration for this system of classification, there are more than alphas and betas. If the terms were used to distinguish the men who have been completely indoctrinated by feminism (betas) and those who have not (alphas), they might be appealing. But they don’t really mean that in their popular usage. To the extent that they draw attention to certain inalterable dynamics in male/female relations – a tall, good-looking male athlete will have women seeking his attentions – they are good. The problem is, they reduce everything to these evolutionary dynamics and thus are boringly, stupidly and dangerously simplistic. I can’t help envisioning a gorilla when I hear the term “alpha man.” To call someone a beta is clearly an insult and is so general as to be almost meaningless. I don’t like to use either term.

As to your second point, when I was reading the remarks from the mother who was disappointed in her husband for not being more protective, it occurred to me that the popularity of Game has had an influence on women and made them think that they are failures if they don’t have what is considered an alpha man in the eyes of Game, which is very similar, as you say, to making men think they are failures if they are not married to supermodels.

John P. writes:

I don’t think the terms “Alpha” and “Beta” come from Brave New World but from biology. Wolf packs have Alpha males who are dominant and leaders of the pack and mate with more females. Beta wolves are followers and mate less successfully. Wolves and other predatory animals are not monogamous, neither are chimpanzees. Early man was probably not monogamous either. Thus these terms are relevant only to human mating habits in which monogamy is declining. Alpha wolves are actually “better” than beta wolves from a female perspective because they are better hunters, etc. In the world of game, Alpha men are often worse at “hunting” (food production) than Beta men so it isn’t a very useful distinction for anyone concerned with civilised relationships. 

Laura writes:

Yes, of course, the terms come from evolutionary biology with the description of pack dynamics.

Youngfogey writes:

I agree that the Alpha/Beta division is too simplistic. I prefer Vox Day’s hierarchy that can be found here.

Since you are opposed to talking about men in terms of Alpha/Beta, how would you propose to speak of men who, as a group, display traditionally masculine traits and those who, as a group, are obviously feminized?

Laura writes:

A man who is feminized is not really a man, in the cultural sense. So I guess I would divide them into men and non-men. We live (almost) in a World Without Men.

Jesse Powell writes:

There are two different ways in which the term “alpha male” is used; one in terms of a man’s relationship to other men and the other in terms of a man’s relationship to women. An “alpha male” in relation to other men is someone higher ranking than other men; he makes more money than other men or he is a boss instead of an employee. An “alpha male” in relation to women is someone who is assertive, dominant, “take charge” in his relationships with women; in addition he is protective and chivalrous and willing and able to take on the provider role. 

A woman, ideally, wants a man who is “alpha” in both senses of the word; she wants a man who is high status in relation to other men and she wants a man who is high status in relation to herself. In general, however, a woman can only get a man who is higher status than other men if she as a woman is higher status than other women; the attractiveness level of the man and woman equal each other in a long term relationship. 

Now, not all men, by definition, can be “alpha” in relation to other men; on the other hand all men, or almost all men, can be “alpha” in relation to the women they are romantically involved with; this is because in general men have higher status than women. An average status man, in relation to other men, will have a higher status level than the average status woman. All men can, and should, be “alpha” within their romantic relationships regardless of the status of the man in the overall society. 

Now, when feminists try to stigmatize alpha behavior in men claiming it is abusive and oppressive that will lead to some men voluntarily becoming “beta” to keep their feminist minded girlfriends or wives happy but there is no reason for a man to be “beta” in relation to women other than the pathologies that have been created by feminism.

Laura writes:

I would clarify your point that a woman “ideally” wants a man who is high status by saying that status is defined in different ways and that every man can have status of some kind in relation to other men. There is material status, professional status, moral status, artistic status, etc.

Vishal Mehra writes:

Regarding this alpha-beta thing, we don’t see this usage in any older writers. So either they used different words for this phenomenon or the phenomenon of beta men is itself novel. Or the phenomenon itself is illusory and this classification is wrong and incoherent.

However, we should take care not to fall into traps set up by modern nihilists. Man is monogamous by his unfallen nature and even fallen men are mostly monogamous. This female hypergamy that the Gamers make too much of is a modern Western phenomenon and there is absolutely no warrant to generalize it over all history and all lands. That sexual license of all sorts spreads as a society rejects God, we have been told 2000 years ago. Even in Hindu Gita it is said, that when women become unchaste, the mongrels are born and the society falls.

“Status” is also one of the words that needs careful use. There are a whole lot of contemporary writers that reduce all of society and morality to status-mongering.

Do men have higher status than women? I dont know what the question means. I cannot compare my status with my wife’s. It may be truer to say, at least in my country, that a girl of a lower status family prefer to marry boys of higher status families. And boys tend to marry girls from slightly lower status families.

Jesse Powell wrote

“An “alpha male” in relation to women is someone who is assertive, dominant, “take charge” in his relationships with women; in addition he is protective and chivalrous and willing and able to take on the provider role. “

But for Gamers, a provider is always beta. That is exactly where they fall out with Tradition.

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