If you are new here, the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy (which only applies to men) explained by Vox Day has had a lot of controversy around it and has been criticised, lauded and everything in between.
To be fair to Vox, he was always clear that his SSH was essentially a tool for generally understanding and predicting male behaviour in a social context and that it was fractal; which I think is a word that confuses most people and he might have got the point across somewhat better if perhaps less accurately by saying that it was contextual.
The point is that a guy who is generally an Alpha in most social situations might become a Delta in a situation that is totally unfamiliar to him.
The designation of Sigma has also gone viral to the point of almost absurdity, right up to people trying to ban the use of the word in schools.
There is a fairly exhaustive overview of the whole concept done by Sigma Frame that has some overall decent points to make, even if in some respect they miss the point, due to trying to retain a strictly “Christian” (still heretically Churchian to people like me) perspective, when in reality, the SSH is essentially silent on the topic of religion. The archetypes exist in any religious denomination of any religion under the sun you might care to imagine.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make here is that although it has already been noted that completely “pure” versions of each archetype don’t exist, because humans are messy, there is one aspect of the supposed would-be Alphas/Sigmas that I have noted over the years that is essentially the “chink” in their self-deluded armour.
What I mean here is that genuine Alphas, can and do have various weaknesses, and this is not news, everyone does, but there are certain types of “Alphas” that although would indeed be deemed to be alphas by most people, are in fact, mostly playing a role. A role they have convinced themselves of too mind you, to the point where they may even react unconsciously as the supposed Alpha they are; nevertheless, there remains an undercurrent of self-doubt.
I was recently asked by my friend Tony why I had referred to various people as Sigma-Gamma, Alpha-Gamma, or Omega-Gamma, and so on.
It is a difficult concept to get across, but he understood my attempts and defined it beautifully. Referring to two of these people, who may as well be polar opposites in many ways, yet also share some similarities he said:
It’s like they are both somehow performative caricatures of something… like their own, idealized versions of great men
And that hit the nail on the head.
Now, it was not performative in the rather obvious ways that someone trying to impersonate what they think is an Alpha, or whatever, can be. It was a subtler thing, like for example having a rule about never smiling in photographs taken in public. Or, on a recent podcast I saw, a rather well-known podcaster that seems relatively unassuming and calm, as he espouses relatively hardcore traditional values for men and women, stated he simply does not cry pretty much, ever, even when someone close to him dies. And yes, of course, that is generally true of men, but something about the way he said it set off my “this guy is forcing himself to try and be what he thinks the peak manly-man acts like” radar. I am sure he wasn’t lying, that he does not in fact cry, almost ever. Partly it can also be cultural, but there was an element there of insincerity. Some lack of real connection with his deeper self.
Of course, you can just think I am full of shit and just making assumptions without evidence, but that is not what I am doing. I come to these conclusions only after years of observation and confirming my observations to the point I can predict how these people will react, and do so in a way that goes “off-script” for their supposed archetype (which they tend to be very invested in.)
So, while I may not be able to give you a concise explanation with all the evidence, if you had 30 hours to review events that a specific person took over years of time, and then I can predict for you how they would react to X, Y, and Z in ways that contradict what most people would assume would be their reaction based on all the observations, and if I can do that repeatedly with different people claiming Alpha, Sigma (or more rarely Omega status) Or even who have just been labelled as such by others, then I would say that would be some solid evidence. Of course, I can hardly demonstrate that to you in a blog post, but I live that experience, and have been able to transmit it to others who bothered to try to confirm my observation, and they noted my predictions as correct too, so I know it is valid.
The difference, between what I would call a more genuine, or perhaps more “total” Alpha or Sigma, is a deep level of self-knowledge.
You know how Gammas inevitably recon they are anything BUT Gammas? That’s because at heart, the Gamma is the very antithesis of self-knowledge. These are men who avoid the truth about themselves the way most people would avoid pools filled only with radioactive, rabid, giant eels.
Sigmas in general are the ones with the most self-knowledge, which is why the opinions of others generally do not affect them very much, if at all. However, when you note a Sigma that repeatedly tells you how much the opinions of other people don’t affect him (and they generally don’t) but then has an obvious reaction when a specific point of fact about him is pointed out, accurately, mind you, not merely accusatorially, well… he may still, generally speaking be a Sigma, but let’s say he’s not a 100% DOC (Di Origine Controllata – That is, of the true 100% quality). And the same goes if he also pretends to not be affected by anything at all, ever, because pretty much everyone has something that pisses them off.
For me, especially 30 years ago, it was mostly being accused of holding views, or internal concepts that I absolutely did not, by people I generally viewed as at least moderately intelligent and/or capable. Today, 30 years later… eh, I realise the stupidity factor of even moderately intelligent and capable people is still waaaaay higher than my young and optimistic self used to hope for. And then Covid, and then the Ukraine war, and the Gaza genocide, and, and, and… has just made it very clear that the fault in my getting upset at their tragic misjudgment of my character or intentions, was the fault of my very own rose-tinted glasses, wild, wild, optimism about humanity as a whole, and some misguided desire of wanting to believe that, surely, if only I could lay out the facts before them… they too would be able to see…
So, today, if they are too stupid to figure out the basics, I will not waste any time trying to correct them or “help” them. But that is not to say I am unreactive to almost everything.
My daughter tells me enthusiastically about some absolutely trivial thing she did, or found out, or thought of at school, or some observation she makes that is probably obvious to bacteria on Mars on some level, and it could be easy to simply let it wash over me and not respond or react to any of it.
However, doing so would crush her enthusiasm for life, and as such would be a bad thing. I try to put myself in her young mind and think, why would she find this fascinating or interesting, and how did I think about it at her age? And as she is on the cusp of becoming a young woman, the pattern it paints is mostly still rather… well, as man, imagine being in a giant shopping centre of just women’s shoes. And having to follow your female relative around as she waxed poetic about every pair she wanted to try on, and did. It’s kind of like that. About 3rd level of Hell in Dante’s Inferno.
So I amuse myself by seeing if I can at all nudge her train of thought into something mildly more interesting.
“Oh you like the lacquer on those? I see… I think lacquer used to be made from tree sap. And possibly bug paste to give it colour.”
“What?!??!”
“Yeah, shiny bug guts under polished resin. Phenomenal stuff.”
“Wait… I don’t believe you, I’m googling it!”
“You know google is just a CIA Psyops to keep the truth from you, right? The truth is not in google. You need to find a book on lacquer printed before 1842. Original only, because they corrupt the digital and new print versions. Like Roald Dahl’s books.”
“I Don’t care about lacquer that much dad, and I don’t care who Rodney Doug was, or whatever.”
“Roald Dahl. He wrote Little Red Riding Hood, the story. You know, where she has a pistol in her knickers.”
“Oh DAD! Little Red Riding Hood didn’t have a pistol in her knickers! I know that story, remember, I used to tell you about it, when I was little.”
“Google it.”
“Oh come on, I…”
“Google it.”
(huffs, types in phone… reads…) “Wait… what?”
“See? Now what pistol do you think it was? Probably a low calibre, right?”
And so you see, terminal brain death narrowly avoided once more.
Of course, that’s my daughter and I love her. 99.99999% of the rest of the planet that tried to subject me to that, I would find an excuse to get away, or possibly murder them and get rid of the body, if they insist.
But my point is that Self-Knowledge is ultimately the total measure of a man. A man that truly, deeply, knows himself for example to be a coward, and say, accepts it, is someone that I have more respect for than one who fancies himself a hero, maybe even acts as one in many situations, but in reality, perhaps even not fully known to what extent even to himself, he is, in fact, a coward.
It’s not that I necessarily think of him as evil, or intentionally deceitful (though some are) it’s just that I can’t take him all that seriously when he clearly is not even familiar with himself at any real depth.
So, when considering the SSH and what generic category a man may fall in more than another, remember that not only is that archetype at least partially and sometimes almost wholly, contextual, but just like there are always more stupid people than you can possibly imagine, there is also just a lot more Gamma fragments in far more people than you imagine. Including… terrifyingly… possibly… yourself.
But the only way to know for sure, friend, is to actually look under the proverbial bed.
Then get under there, armed with a sharp knife in your teeth, swim down to the monsters under there, and face them.
