The New York Post has this fascinating article on the fall of the alpha male. The author has a new book out, The Score: How the Quest for Sex Has Shaped Modern Man, and I’m tempted to pick up a copy, based on the premise of the article alone.
According to the article:
Stanford neuroscientist and primate expert Robert Sapolsky says he doubts humans have true alpha males because our society is structured in a much more complicated way than, say, dogs. We tend to belong to multiple social circles, so the guy who empties the trash for a big corporation might be a star DJ at night or dominate the company softball team.
Hallelujah and pass the donuts… Have you ever watched men in groups? Do you see the same guy take the lead in the car racing discussion, in the political discussion, in the stock market discussion, in the football discussion? No. Because no man rules all. Now, if you’re writing a prison book, okay, there might be alphas there, because that’s a pretty simplistic system. But the world is not so simple.
The author talks about the side-blotched lizards, where the largest males fight each other for female affections, but the smaller, yellow-striped lizards are largely ignored by the other males — but not by the females. While the bigger lizards are fighting, the smaller lizards are, you guessed it.. having sex with the ladies. I love the term a British biologist uses to describe their social hierarchical position: Sneaky f—ers, which the author shortens and sanitizes to “sneakers.”
As a reader, it’s interesting to me to see the stereotypical alpha male in a situation where he’s not the alpha. How does he respond? And what’s even more fascinating to me is seeing the non-alpha male in a situation where he is the alpha…. I know readers and writers want to stick people into one box or another, but the human mind is much more complicated than that. We all have capabilities and talents that take us in different directions and that is true of everyone.
As a writer, I like to show the hero in the place where he rules, because there always is one, for everyone. It could be a military base, a squad room, a baseball field, a courtroom, a bar, an airplane, or a pet clinic. Every character has their place where they reign supreme, and I like to write it, I like to read it.
One of the rather interesting points of the article is this one:
Human males are unique in their flexibility - able to use combinations of all the above strategies. Fathering, sneaking, beautiful displays - all this makes the old alpha males look not only obnoxious but boring. Where have all the cowboys gone? While they were out herding cattle, the skinny-jean wearing emo rocker took his woman.
hehehehe….
Yeah, I knew that. 
June 22nd, 2008 Kathleen O'Reilly Posted in Newsflash, On Writing Miseries | 1 Comment »
