alpha bite

I have always thought that the 'alpha wolf' idea was nonsense.

The meme has floated around the culture for as long as I can remember, but it's based on faulty research. Decades ago, research on captive wolves misinterpreted their behavior. In the wild, wolf packs are generally a breeding couple and their pups. Removed from their families and thrown in an unfamiliar setting, you get the cruel dominance games that can be seen in human prisons.

I don't know if humans are innately meant to exist within a dominance hierarchy. I imagine that some vibe with that arrangement, based on personality. (Jordan Peterson fans seem to prefer it.) The variable is the option to rebel against or escape the hierarchy.

(The current political climate could be viewed as a desperate struggle between two groups rebelling against perceived hierarchies, while a much smaller number try to seize dominance. These groups aren't trapped in a prison together, but they are conceptually bound together by both a federal government and social media structure. Neither works very well.)

Still, some guys love the wolf metaphor. I just saw a thread breaking down various film characters into 'delta wolf' 'sigma wolf' and other wolf categories. Of course, it was hawking a guide that would turn every reader into an alpha wolf. Everyone gets a trophy, I guess.

The narrative is wrong, but it might improve your life anyways if you believe in it.

This goes for any belief system (or BS).

Every religion is wrong. At least, we can agree most of them are wrong. But religious people tend to have longer, happier lives.

Every political ideology is wrong. At least, we can agree most of them are wrong. But ideologues tend to have more friends and better social cohesion within their spheres.

In the 2011 film The Grey, survivors of a plane crash face off against a stunningly unscientific wolf pack, led by an alpha the size of a grizzly. This is not what the story is about. As the survivors realize that they are about to die, they interrogate the internal narratives that led them to this point. They know what will happen next, and question whether these stories serve as a suitable companion for the journey.

In that sense, the alpha wolf is very real. And we will all have to fight it someday.

​I hope you go down swinging.