The Importance of Forgiving Gammas

I suppose that using terms from the Social/Sexual Hierarchy is a bit passé these days.  Over the past few years they’ve filtered down to the general vernacular, and in the process they’ve lost their distinctive meanings.  It’s the same thing that happened to the word ‘Retarded’.  Originally a medical term denoting developmental delays (lit. “Mentally Retarded”) it became a put-down used by the hoi polloi.  Similarly terms like ‘Alpha’ and ‘Beta’ (and less commonly ‘Gamma’) have lost their original context, and nowadays mean little more than ‘cool’ and ‘uncool’.  Nevertheless I will use these terms according to their original definitions, because all posturing about coolness aside, they have proven themselves as useful tools for analyzing male behaviour.

First, some brief definitions:

Alphas are the leaders of the pack; the Captain of the Football Team.  They’re experts at navigating society, and often wind up in leadership positions.  They usually hold themselves to objective standards (that is, they put into practice successful behaviours), but they’re willing to go along with social delusions if it makes them popular.  For instance, they might vocally support women spending their most fertile years slaving away in the workplace, only to then marry a younger wife.  Or they might cheer on nerds, while ensuring none of the ‘nerd stink’ splashes onto them.  They achieve the objective goal of social status by submitting to the subjective beliefs of the crowd.

Betas are the lesser Alphas, who don’t quite realize that it’s a game.  They take leadership from the Alpha – trying to emulate his behaviours – but they’re seldom able to distinguish his actual beliefs (work out, make money) from his stated beliefs (“Girls don’t like guys who are too big,” “You need to find a career you’re passionate about,”).  Where the Alpha consciously goes along with ridiculous social norms, the Beta does so unconsciously.  They’re successful to a degree because they emulate certain good behaviours, and say the appropriate things; but they never fully capitalize on their potential because some of the things they say and believe are the delusions of the crowd.  The Alpha lies about wanting to marry a woman with a career; the Beta actually believes it.

Deltas are at the base of the Beta spectrum, and form the bulk of society.  They replace charisma with intelligence, ambition with obedience.  They fail to understand the social game (or they realize that it’s hopelessly stacked against them), so they focus on the physical game underlying it.  Here you have the stereotypical programmer, engineer, trucker, or plumber who achieves enough physical wealth to find a woman, but insufficient social capital to pick a woman.  They’ve checked out of the social game, but are still participating in society; they tend to be satisfied with their lot (avoiding major betrayals such as currency collapses or catastrophic marriage failures) and while they have the potential to notice the subjective nature of social beliefs, for the most part they don’t care.

Omegas are the cast-aways, the neck beards, the hickomoris, the nerds: those who aren’t even participating, but who seem to be satisfied living in their nerd dungeon.  They obsess about things nobody else cares about, and presumably have some sort of hierarchy in their own circles.  Thus far no anthropologists have dared visit this obscure tribe, so little beyond this is known.

It’s the final two groups that we’re going to be most focused on in this post, the Sigmas and the Gammas, both of whom are, in their own ways, antagonistic to the social order.  They share a lot in common, they’re opposites who attract, and they deeply loathe one another.

The Sigma is frequently described as the lone wolf, or the outsider.  The Sigma considers the social game to be idiotic, but sees the utility in playing it… in moderation.  In a way, he is the orthogonal Alpha.  Where the Alpha cares about Objective reality so that he can dominate Subjective reality, the Sigma cares about Subjective reality so that he can dominate Objective reality.  This can lead to either friendship or conflict.  Friendship, if the Alpha appreciates a non-sycophant who calls him on his self-serving lies; conflict, if the Sigma undermines his status purely for the sake of pointing out how stupid social status is, without trying to take the top-rung for himself.  Where the Alpha is considered magnanimous for enabling the bad habits of lesser men, the Sigma is considered a bully for telling nerds to clean the Cheeto dust off their fingers.

Ultimately, the Sigma serves as a check on society’s delusions about itself.  He’s the necessary critic that shows up when everybody decides that the cool thing to do is drink bleach, but when society isn’t that far gone, he’s just the disagreeable jerk who knocks over everybody’s Jenga tower for the sake of pointing out how stupid it all is.

The Gamma is the other outsider, but unlike the Sigma who hates the social order for being ridiculous, the Gamma hates the social order for failing to crown him king.

If the Sigma is the sideways Alpha, the Gamma is the sideways Omega.  Unlike your typical Omega, he’s usually astute enough to realize that he’s at the bottom of the social hierarchy, but rather than figuring out a path to success (or rejecting the whole premise as the Sigma does), the Gamma engages in self-delusion, entitlement, and inflated sense of self-worth.  He considers himself the Secret King, and the Perfect Gentleman.  Ergo, he joins groups, attaining mastery over its skills – but when the group doesn’t react by elevating him to leadership, he lashes out at them and tries to destroy them.  He puts women on a pedestal, viewing them as immaculate creatures – and then seethes with hatred when he sees the Alphas gently teasing them (in his mind it’s misogyny and abuse).  The Gamma constantly seeks after power – and usually attains some because of his intelligence – only to then use it to tear society down for refusing to acknowledge his nascent godhood and support him in his narcissistic delusions.

Gammas are a destructive force because their delusions of grandeur are ultimately unsustainable.  When the Alpha promotes careerism to women or nerdism to Omegas, those groups can rationalize the poor outcomes which result – at least they get to be Cool Wine Aunts and Warhammer40k Experts.  But anything short of being crowned king will be insufficient for the Gamma, and when their ambitions inevitably fail, the Gamma explodes into a destructive force.

On the surface, Sigmas and Gammas have a lot in common, particularly during their younger years.

• They both hate how fake the culture is, often targeting celebrity worship, pop music, or sportsball with their ire.  But where the Sigma hates these things for being pointless (“Why would I spend my time watching that garbage just to be popular?”) the Gamma hates them because he’s not the one in the spotlight.
• They both obsess over objective fields of study to a degree that seems unnatural to most people.  But where the Sigma seeks to attain mastery over something that shows utility, the Gamma seeks mastery so that he can lord it over others (only to find out that nobody cares).
• They’re both hostile to the social game.  But where the Sigma calls it stupid, and decides to become successful on his own terms (with women, money, or art), the Gamma hates it because he’s not the winner.
• They’re both opposed to the direction society is moving.  The Sigma, because he sees the dangers of these social experiments; the Gamma, because the shift threatens whatever little fiefdom he’s managed to build up for himself.

These surface similarities create an attraction between the two; they’re both saying the same thing, after all, and ostensibly are going after the same enemies.  But close interactions between them have two inevitable results.

• The Sigma offers the Gamma some advice, consisting of one of the easy Social Hacks he’s figured out.  The Gamma views this as an unforgivable insult, since the offered advice implies that he isn’t perfect already.
• The Sigma realizes that the Gamma is jealous of the morons playing the game, and his whole pretense of being against the system is just a hopelessly idiotic attempt to subvert the system and place himself on top.  The contemptible little creep is even phonier than the phonies!¹

This is where the break happens, and they wind up absolutely loathing the other.

I’ve read others argue that Sigmas serve as a form of pest control for Gammas.  Because the Alpha is so busy playing the social game and feeding into others’ delusions, he doesn’t notice the stark difference between the Gamma and the other Omegas.  He gives the Omegas a pat on the head for eating Cheetos, and they’re satisfied.  He gives the Gamma a pat on the head, at the Gamma seethes with hatred and vengeance.  Left unchecked the Gamma will eventually attain enough power to use it as a weapon – whether he lashes out like Elliot Roger, or he merely tanks a product launch within the company (in his mind, destroying a product launch proves that he’s more powerful than the Alpha).  Sigmas will naturally sniff out the Gammas, and their loathing will drive them to oust the parasite.

All of this might be true, but thus far we’ve been discussing the real world.  When it comes to the Internet, things drastically shift, and it becomes very important for the Sigmas to learn forgiveness.

First, it should be noted that Gamma behaviour seems to be on the rise thanks to the Internet.  It’s hard to say why this is.  It’s quite possible that the Internet just gives more Gammas a voice, so we’re noticing more of them.  It’s also possible that the nature of the Internet and modern culture – allowing Gammas to hide behind the screen, the increasing shift towards snark and pseudo-intellectualism, and the utter dearth of positive masculine role models, of meaningful challenges for masculine ambition – is turning more men into Gammas.

Whatever the cause, they seem to be proliferating.

The Sigma’s natural temptation is to quash them like bugs.  The Alphas tend to ignore the infestations, while the Sigma sees entire art movements and promising political organizations fall prey to Gamma treachery.  But this is an instinct which must be avoided, because unlike real life – where the Gamma can be so beaten down and narcissistically injured that he slinks off – on the Internet they view all of this as validation, and only double down on their attacks.

It’s the classic case of wrestling with a pig; the pig enjoys it, and you get covered with mud.  There are no ultimate consequences to an Internet slap fight, and the Sigma who wages it winds up descending to the same level as the Gamma.  He spends all his social capital battling the latter, alienating his friends and supporters, while the Gamma gains attention – these attacks prove to his followers that he must be the Secret King after all.  Eventually the two become utterly indistinguishable, and the Sigma who sought to prevent toxicity from spreading, winds up attracting that same toxicity to himself.

In battling the Secret King he becomes the King of the Secret Kings, with a legion of Gamma followers being the only support he has left.

If you’re a Sigma, beset by Gammas, the only sane choice is forgiveness.  Refuse to play their games.  The Internet is nothing but pure subjective reality – nothing but likes and clicks.  The Sigma’s strength lies in objective reality, and that simply isn’t available in the online world.  You can’t win a fistfight on the Internet.  You can’t date a beautiful woman on the Internet.  You can’t drive a nice car on the Internet.  On the Internet, the winner is the person who got the most thumbs up, no the one who presented the best arguments.  Ergo – forgive, let go, and let the baby have his bottle.  Focus on those areas where your strength does lie, and don’t squander your energy fighting the devil in his home turf.

Footnotes

1. Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye is not only a great example of a Gamma (somebody who calls everybody else phony while being just as phony himself) but also a great example of how most people can’t distinguish between a Gamma and a Sigma; don’t let yourself become such a caricature.