[quote]Leeuwer wrote:
Synthesize wrote:
This is to say, a much wider range of abilities are required for leadership, and the very fact that these purported “beta males” can at all attain a leadership position disproves the notion of “Alpha Male” among human beings.
Institutional leadership does not equal instinctional leadership.
Did you follow your dad when you were a child because he owned your property ? Of course not, you didn’t even know what the meaning of property was when you were 4 !
You followed him because instinctually, you knew he had more power than you.
Synthesize wrote:
Unfortunately, the critical point that you neglect to mention is precisely that these are transient organizations and that in long term situations, a number of other qualities besides sheer “aggressiveness” or “assertiveness” are required to maintain a position of power. And this proves my point: power is acquired by human beings by a number of other means.
Of course it is.
If you are between a group of friends, visiting France, and you happen to know a lot about the country and decide to take the lead, and your friends unconsciously agree that you are in this particular situation superior to them, you are now the Alpha Male.
I understand what you are saying though.
Baboons have very uncomplicated life structures.
The strongest or wittiest will usually be the Alpha Male.
However, because of civilisation and institutions, we’ve come to ignore our instincts to instead rely on things like proper manners, and cultural behaviour.
This makes being a true Alpha Male much more complicated or demanding.
However, they do exist. They are rare, but you will find males, if you look hard enough, that everyone will follow regardless of what they tell, and that nearly every(single, because marriage is one of those limiting institutions) woman will want to be with.
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Human civilization did not “crush” the instincts of human beings. It was, in fact, the evolution of human plasticity – the capacity of human beings to use cognition to “override” instinct and therefore adapt to multifarious environmental/social conditions – that overrode “instinct.” Civilization followed, though I will admit that civilization has to some extent suppressed some kinds of behaviors that would have otherwise flourished in less developed hunter-gatherer societies.
However, the point is that “instinct” in the sense that we understand it (though we are getting into some difficult philosophical territory) was, by virtue of evolution, suppressed in favor of cognition (hence the wrinkled cerebral cortex of ours).
I think it is a grave error to speak of the “untamed, precivilized” man, as if he is altogether separate from the institutions that he created. It is true that evolution occurred predominantly in man’s days in the Pleistocene. Our behaviors today are remnants of this.
However, two important points must be made: First, evolution, given we have a correct understanding of it (which is itself an assumption too often ignored), has occurred since our days as “noble savages,” and so we have been somewhat molded in parallel with the ascending civilization that we see today. And second, civilization, this “suppressing of instinct” would have only been possible if mankind innately had the ability to suppress instinct. That is to say, the “suppression of instinct” is innately a part of the repertoire that evolution has imbued to us, and as such, human beings must be viewed not in the light of “beings suppressing instinct” but in the light that this “suppression of instinct” is an essential aspect of our humanity. So, to be true, we cannot really refer to it as a “suppression of instinct” since in fact it is a part of our innate character.