On Killing the Alpha Male
Scores of men today are crowded together at a bewildering impasse in the path toward their own identity as men. Largely severed from the lore of their father’s fathers, they are left struggling to feed their souls in the arid wasteland of a misandric Zeitgeist.
We live in a realm where the classic male archetypes, models of inspiration and aspiration, have been gutted and replaced with a model designed not to battle for progress, power or the greater good, but to fall on its own sword in self loathing, imposed from outside by its feminist creators.
Our archetypal Samurai has been replaced by a Shogun of Shame, a Sampson sheared of his hair, and the world of men now suffers from it.
The result is the grievous spectacle of masculinity succumbing and descending into the dismal culture of shallowness and self indulgence that is the hallmark of third wave feminism; the land of options without obligations; of self gratification without self awareness or self discipline.
This aimless, narcissistic existence is a fitting escape from lives lived as apologies for being male, making all efforts to deny their true nature, unless it serves the whims of others. And while serving others is and always has been entrenched in the nature of men, it is now just a trait to be exploited when convenient, and denied when not in use. Most men submit to this without even knowing it.
With the male image so vilified and demeaned in today’s world, and betrayed by the previous generation of men that let it happen, the newly reengineered man is all but defenseless against this downward spiral into insignificance.
It’s happening all around us.
And though they must be held to account, we must remember that they live in a world they inherited, not one of their own making. And without an available model of manhood that does not lead to their own destruction, they will be lost forever.
Underlying the platforms and politics of the Men’s Rights Movement is an unspoken mission to serve as a lifeline to this lost generation of our brothers. More than anything else, it is the job of men who understand, who have taken the red pill and seen through the Matrix, to push a meaningful archetype of manhood into the collective consciousness; to push it past the feminist censors and their obsequious male henchmen; to be willing, in fact, to roll over them in the process.
The only real question is what that manhood should look like.
And that, just as with the lost men of this generation, brings us to a crossroads as well.
I have written recently about what it means to be an MRA; how we must abandon reflexive chivalry and blind reverence for traditionalism; how we should dispense with party politics and move past internal divisions to further the cause of men and boys. That task, as important as it is, is just a preamble to this one. Because the real point of all of this is not what we do so much as activists, but that in doing so we define and exemplify what we aspire to as men.
The road to that enlightenment will not be an easy one. We remain divided along the many lines I have already mentioned. Underneath that, though, are the real divisions; divisions as old as mankind itself.
The world of men has always been a hierarchy. Alpha males residing at the top, the rest of us falling behind them, either as soldiers to their causes or as potential competitors for a spot at the top, and frequently both.
And in a world of defined gender roles this served us pretty well. Civilization progressed; advances were made and made again. And most of us shared, if not always equally, in the benefits.
The warrior, the athlete, the statesman and the like gave us models to emulate, traits of greatness to pursue and achieve in our own right. And honorable codes kept in check, as best can be, the corrupting influence of power. While evil existed and sometimes flourished, the system also produced widespread goodness, progress for all, and produced warriors, when needed, to combat the worlds evil and stop it in its tracks.
But in a world where one sex has moved past their role to assume political and legal dominance, and where the codes of honor have been replaced by the unbridled quest for control, the alpha male, the pinnacle of masculine archetypes, has gone from a needed figurehead to an agent of evil.
Ask yourself this. When feminism launched its attack on the core of masculinity some forty years ago and spread like cholera though every aspect of western existence, where were the alpha males?
They were doing what they have always done, consolidating and using power, often for the greater good, and admittedly sometimes not. Only, now, in our unanswered gender war, codes of honor and integrity were the first fatalities, killed off as enemies to the feminist agenda.
Faced with either retaliating against a population they had always served, or giving up power altogether, alpha males compromised, rather capitulated, with the surrender of their values.
Stripped of their guiding, corruption inhibiting principles, they became the muscle of the feminist Mafioso, maintaining rank and privilege through enforcing feminist will on the defenseless masses beneath them. They became cops hauling men to jail on the simple accusation of their wives. They became judges bludgeoning men with their gavels in corrupt courtrooms; politicians passing ever more misandric legislation; C.E.O.’s of pharmaceutical companies pushing drugs to sap the masculinity out of our boys, to make them more malleable to feminine control.
They became the enemy their codes had always compelled them to fight, and so colluded with evil to destroy the world of men. In an ultimate act of irony, the men who had been charged by feminists as evil, stooped to embrace them, and for the first time became the evil that had been alleged.
And since there will be no power for alpha males in heralding the cause of men and boys until the feminist hegemony is terminated, they are the primary enemy of the cause. It serves us well to consciously reject any notion that they are a relevant model to which men should aspire.
Another archetype is needed. And another archetype is available.
He is The Social Warrior.
He has many names. One of them is Tom Joad.
The protagonist in Steinbeck’s classic novel “The Grapes of Wrath,” Joad was an unlikely hero trapped in a Machiavellian landscape during the great depression that bears eerily similar features to the lives of men in more modern times.
Much like the growing phenomena of men in the west who increasingly either expatiate or seek to marry women from cultures other than their own, Joad abandons Oklahoma in the Dust Bowl for dreams of a better life in California. And just like the many men who find themselves duped by mail order brides more savvy to western law than they imagined, Joad lands himself squarely in the middle of troubles he intended to leave behind.
This leaves Tom faced only with more circumstances that seem beyond his control. He is pummeled by a shadow government, designed to use him as slave labor for the enrichment of a ruling class.
Joad tries first to keep his head down and work, surviving and ensuring the survival of his immediate circle. But he discovers, much like the men of today, that he is not going to be left alone to simply live his life.
As the prevailing powers seek more control and more utility from Tom and others, the ensuing friction finally ignites.
Tom witnesses the murder of Jim Casey, a disgraced former minister who has mentored Tom in the philosophy that divinity is not an ethereal ideal, but a tangible, supportive connection between fellow men.
And it is that ideal to which Casey martyrs himself, transforming Tom into a heroic archetype that avenges his mentors death and moves on as a fugitive to organize and fight on behalf of his exploited brothers.
In departing from what remains of his family, he becomes a Man Going His Own Way, but promising that his path is not of corrupt self indulgence. We will see him, he assures, not in the flesh, but in the spirit of men who fight back on behalf of their brothers against the forces of tyranny in whatever form they take.
It is easy, and I think in error, to infer that Joad’s rebirth is just an indictment of capitalism and a move toward collectivism, though it’s an idea that seems plausible in a story that unfolds against the backdrop of depression era America.
But the real message here is transcendent, delivered by a spiritual, not political leader, and speaks to the fellowship of man in a universal context, a connection far removed from the polemics of human political struggles.
One might also observe that the enemy of Joad was also the alpha male. That would be partially correct. Mankind has always struggled with the ebbs and flows in character from the corrupting influence of power. But Tom was merely the manifestation of the positive force in that struggle; the human embodiment of the code that has always risen to put evil in check.
Tom Joad was among the men that stormed the beaches at Normandy. He was the American revolutionary that fired the shot heard round the world. It was his arm that gave the first mighty swing of the hammer that toppled the wall in Berlin.
And he is the unknown, unsung and unrealized hero of men who face a similar struggle today.
In this context, Steinbeck offers us an archetype to replace the old one; to replace the one that failed us when he failed his own honor. We can now reject this model of manhood, the one that first enabled, then rode on, feminisms wave of power. And we can call these men out as the enemy they are, armed with philosophy and the righteousness to take them on, and win.
Call it the rejection of the archetype, or rebuilding of it if you will, as long as you keep calling these men to task.
And while they still have power and can inspire fear, we will see more men, cornered and desperate in this feminized world order, rise against it to fight. Or, in the immortal words of Tom Joad himself:
“It don’t take no nerve to do sumptin’ when there ain’t nothin’ else you can do.”
Paul Elam is the Editor-in-Chief for Men’s News Daily and the publisher of A Voice for Men
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Stumble It!
@ Colin
The main culprit is Ritalin. I coold expand on it more, but the following article is a good read.
http://www.angelfire.com/co2/RayThomas/ritalin.html
Paul, in this article you mention CEOs of drug companies who push “drugs to sap the masculinity out of our boys, to make them more malleable to feminine control.” I don’t know the kind of drugs you are referring to and the impact they have on boys/men. Can I ask you to give some additional commentary on this? Love your site, any help would be deeply appreciated
Speaking of archetypes:
These from 2005 & 2006:
http://mensnewsdaily.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php?s=Denis&mode=detail&comment_status=all&pagegen_timestamp=2010-01-14+17%3A13%3A37&_total=61143&_per_page=20&_page=1&action=-1&comment_type=all&action2=-1&apage=130
Submitted on 2006/05/19 at 11:28am by Denis
The feminine archetype is now dominant in the U.S. and western world.
There are many truths being said here on this board.
Feminism is causing the regression of women to the state of childhood: i.e., rights without responsibilities, consumption without production. For men, feminism has caused the opposite: responsibilities without rights. People with responsibilities but no rights are slaves. We are currently headed for a world in which women are children and men are slaves.
Feminsim is evil and I predict a “perfect storm” in approximately 20 years. Another generation of boys without men. A big push in gay activism in law. 50% of our schools (if they even complete school) made up of underperforming minorities with no American identity forcing the U.S. to compete with the Chinese and Indians with less than half of it’s workforce. 70% of Black families have no father. In second generation Hispanics (and higher) the percentage is higher.
We are looking at a HUGE increase of out of wedlock births. Huge social costs that will not correct the root cause (if history serves as a guide). So half the population has to compete with China and India with a punitive tax burden. Men will continue to retreat from society. Yes the MGTOW can quietly cause some change. As more and more women see men turning away some of these will wonder why. Some women may even one day be capable of an honest look at how men have been treated unfairly. But I think this route will take too long.
America is collapsing in my opinion. I would not be the least bit
surprised if America breaks up one day (say 20-40 years from now) like The U.S.S.R and some regions look like Bosnia with it’s infighting. I think if the government passes amnesty for illegals that this will accelerate America’s disintegration. Citizenship will cease to have meaning. We will be North American’s not U.S. Citizens anymore. We have caused so much social damage that it is impossible to steer the ship in the right direction in time. There will a huge increase in gang activities in some regions. There will probably be race wars. Incomes will drop because we will not compete well with China and India and this will breed discontent all over America.
We have replaced the male archetype with the feminine archetype which will be completely unable to deal with these problems-many of which it created.
We as a nation have been very slow, and are only now beginning to see that feminine evil exists. We have long recognized masculine evil. I don’t think America will come to grasp the extent of feminine evil unless it is spoken about out loud.
And:
http://mensnewsdaily.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php?s=Denis&mode=detail&comment_status=all&pagegen_timestamp=2010-01-14+17%3A13%3A37&_total=61143&_per_page=20&_page=1&action=-1&comment_type=all&action2=-1&apage=130
Submitted on 2006/05/15 at 8:17am by Denis
Well, America is much further down the road to implosion.
How to destroy America?
Easy.
Make the true builders and creators of virtually everything, e.g., the work horses of humanity, e.g., the men into disempowered 4th class citizens with ABSOLUTELY NO STAKE IN SOCIETY.
Do this for 40+ years.
Take away the rights of men:
1.) In their families. Create a huge monstrous government behemoth dedicated to destroying the lives of men on a simple whim of the Royal Class (e.g., the women). Spread the behemoth into the private sector with economic incentives (e.g, the fleecing of any man it so desires) and watch that “business” grow and grow. Watch the lives of millions of good men get destroyed. As an added touch, make it illegal for men going through this process to be able to discuss it publicly thereby insuring future generations of men to fed off of. This ensures the transfer of power within the family over to women.
This behemoth is known as Family Court and the Friends of the Court.
2.) Take away the ability of men to be providers to their familiies thus ensuring 1.) above for most husbands and fathers. Create a huge government behemoth to ensure that there is a transfer of economic power from men to women. All hiring, promotion, advantages within business is to be steadily handed over to women. This behemoth is called The Justice Department and the EEOC.
3.) Create a justice system that favors women over men in as many areas of the law as possible. This has been going on 40 years and shows no sign of abating. The double standard is not a double standard when it favors women. Create in the law a whole host of new legal thought that have no benchmarks in the law. For example, create a law against sexual harrassment but let the definition be so vague that sexual harrassment becomes whatever a woman says it is at any point in time. And there are no penalties against false accusations. Watch the charges grow. Besides ruining innocent men a whole new “high growth” industry is created.
4.) Corrupt the language. This is known as political correctness. Perpetuate the “woman as victim” viewpoint daily. Otherwise the continuation of 1.), 2.) and 3.) cannot go on indefinitely. Women cannot be seen as fully achieving fairness (a lie from the beginning).
5.) Take over the mass media. This ensures the success of 1.), 2.) 3.) and 4.).
Men no longer have a stake in society because of 40+ years of the above.
A society that does this to it’s own men cannot survive.
Baseball has 9 innings.
It’s the top of the 8th for America and it is way behind in the game.
Further thought on the alpha male. I believe he is charged with this at times against his will. As if he is sucked into a space that needs to be filled. Nature abhors a vacuum. As the herd huddles for safety, someone must be charged with it’s survival. The alpha’s step forward as lookouts, hunters, warriors. I believe if one looks closely, alpha’s do not step into a role to express themselves, they step into a void, defined by need. As Joad said “it don’t take nerve to do sumptin, when there’s ain’t nothin else you can do”. This is the ethic and politics of the alpha. Here today gone tomorrow. They are born from need and they die when the need is fulfilled.
The femolitical rail for equality, without risk. feMen that support them the judges, police, femoliticians, are son’s without fathers. They simply regurgitate the femolitically correct line to survive.
The glass ceiling is a glass floor that offers no “affirmative action”. It is Vulcan’s furnace, where men and women are hammered equally with a larger truth.
“the alpha male, the pinnacle of masculine archetypes, has gone from a needed figurehead to an agent of evil”
Amen to that, Paul.
We could even say that feminism, and female privileges are just one of the many tactics and manipulations Alpha males (politicians, big business and other bully’s) are using to control and manipulate the crowd of men.
Spot on Paul Elam.
A mens movement must nescesarily be preoccupied with male archetypes or male characterisations that either assist or impede the bringing forth of a world view sympathetic to maleness.
A mens movement cannot be preoccupied with female archetypes or female characterisations that assist or impede the bringing forth of a world view sympathetic to maleness.
This in practice means placing maleness up on the proverbial pedestal and examining its embodying characters favourably or disfavourably according to maleness values of our own choosing from there. On no account can a mens movement keep femaleness embodiments up on the proverbial pedestal to be endlessly examined for good or bad feminist valuations of womens choosing.
really enjoyed this article…….at 52 I still look for archetypes to believe in and follow. I have been “no faulted” twice with payments twice and the usual shunning twice. Now I shun. I shun women that abort babies, because they will abort a family. (“are you looking for a safe position on abortion?…neither am I”…I found mine and it guides me) “WISDOM” I do not remove their choice I simply exercise mine. I shun women that describe their men as “one of the children”. They objectify children as a burden loathsome as a man. Chastising a man as a child by day and sleeping with him at night. Pedophilia by choice….to aggrandize their influence, control and power.
I recently contemplated the difference between my mother and my father. My mother held me safe and warm, all day long. My father arrived at the end of the day with blood of the working world on his hands. My mother would say to me “everything will be alright”. My father would say “only if you make it that way”. I needed to see him each day wearing the world on his brow, because I needed to learn about the world so I could survive in it. My father brought the world into my life each day. Teaching me what was in store for me. Profoundly the government as father cannot do this.
You cannot kill the alpha male. He is auto-didactic…..he learns while he hunts or he dies. He will hunger on a long trail and feast on his successes. He is always silent and invisible when he is stalking. His moment to strike is decisive and final, without politic, only purpose.
I do not fear the death of the alpha male…….I fear the end of his silence.
Excellent piece paul. I would add also that the alchohol and drugs of the 60’s spiritually and psychologically wiped out alot of Alpha type, leadership males.
Great article, Paul. As more and more dialogue centers around men and men’s rights, I’ve come to realize how significant a task it is we have. For instance, Mike LaSalle’s statement:
“If your goal is “equality” and “compassion”, you need to degrade the source of humanity’s competitive spirit: the Male Archetype.”
Are equality and compassion women’s goals and therefore the male archetype must be degraded- by women? You are implying something but it flew over my head. I’m a little confused…
The On Step Institute will be establishing a Male Studies Program and I’ve included a link to a video put out by them. I found two things quite interesting from the film:
1. Since the birth control pill was invented and the control of reproduction switched from men to women, this has led to a demoralization of men. That I find quite interesting since I am 40 and have no clue what life would be like to be in control of reproduction. Only a much much older man could tell me. But I do think this requires some sensitive debate. Fairly soon, perhaps in the next two decades, men will start to take the woman’s last name in marriage. This needs some discussion, I think- not just silence.
2. 60% of university graduates are women and 40% are men. One of the ladies in the film, a PHD, journalist and feminist is anxious about her niece’s prospects when it comes time for them to marry. If men continue to decline in terms of their overall worth, status and income, she is worried that they will never meet ‘a great guy’.
When a woman says, ‘ a great guy’, should I presume she really means, ‘a doctor’, ‘an astronaut’, or ‘an architect’? Is that a reasonable assumption? Moreover, if we believe women to be hypergamous, that is, driven to ‘marry up’, that will leave roughly 15% of all american males being worthy of marriage. The other 85% will be worthless to females.
If a woman’s (or feminists) goal is ultimately the economic, spiritual, reproductive, political and physical emancipation from common men, and the ability to marry up, wed and birth with ‘great guys’ (architects, doctors, astronauts) what will the 85% who are common men do?
http://www.onstep.org/twmvideo_embed.htm
Excellent piece.
“Empathizing-Systemizing” theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizing_theory
As the theory goes, “systemizing” was an evolutionary advantage for male hunter-gatherers while “empathizing” was especially useful for females. Thus male brains are tendentiously systemizing and female brains are correspondingly more empathizing.
The academic Left seems beholden to this idea as it fits well with Marxism: Capitalism is at heart a system of competition between self-interested actors. If you believe in “equality”, then you know that vigorous competition cannot co-exist with empathy.
Why did Agamemnon kill every man and boy behind the walls of Troy? Vigorous competition.
If your goal is “equality” and “compassion”, you need to degrade the source of humanity’s competitive spirit: the Male Archetype.
I really think you’re on to something here. As a movement, we have been introspective to a fault. But I think that level of understanding is VERY important if we plan on coming out the other side of this thing without having our goals twisted to suit another’s agenda.
While I think the whole Alpha/Beta/Omega thing is a tad simplistic, I also think it’s time men stopped viewing themselves as primarily valued for what they can provide to others.
Men have intrinsic value as humans. It’s about time we men realized that, and demanded to be treated with respect.
Arriving at the courthouse alone in the early morning hours with a truckload of protest signs, the vile place exudes an atmosphere of cruelty and enmity. That’s alright, they’ll hate me more before the day’s over, or I’ll have failed to let them know how I greatly I despise the evil works they practice in family court – where feminist toadies don black robes and dispense tyranny. “Go,” I shout, pointing to the courthouse as suits walk past, “worship at the alter of the black robed Stalins who practice the work no honest men will do!” Whether standing in a crowd of MRAs, or standing alone as a force of one, Tom Joad stands alongside.
http://tinyurl.com/yg8rsrr
http://tinyurl.com/yjvze8b
http://tinyurl.com/yd8e5ys
Kurt Vonnegut’s “The Piano Player” had a character that wanted to stop – I believe being an advertising exec, read it long go. He thought it was a hollow empty place. His best friend and wife wanted to see him continue being $ucce$$ful.
In “The Neighbors Wife” Gay Telese wants sexual freedom, or to at least discuss it. Around age 40 was the first time he was “hit on” sexually as a sex object.
It’s interesting to look back at books from our past (Death of a Salesman) and to see that if men were like women, meeting in groups to discuss “a problem with no name” we woulld have noticed that many men were leading lives of quiet desparation. Ah, but too tired from working all day and not prone to “bitching” guys just did what a man’s gotta do and worked, and worked some more and then died.
Some say the pendulumn swung too far assuming women got the shaft and men had it made. The truth is their should not have been a pendelumn. Men worked,went to war, suffered in silence. Women assumed what, that men had it E Z. And today, with the rare MRA willing to stand up – too many men are on their knees searching for crumbs of love.
Great article Paul. When I read such – I think there is still hope, a light still burns. My hope is that other men will see what needs to be done, and soon.
SD