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Comments are welcome, but moderated for obvious reasons. If you don't see it right away, don't worry. We check a couple times a day and it will be up there.
If you haven't already, you’re really going to want to have seen the movie for this one.
The elevator pitch is that there was an organic youth culture that developed within the fake media world of the evolving beast system. One that was every bit as much a divorced-from-reality Mouse Utopia as the mainstream, but one that actually followed natural social processes. Our contention is that this imprinted itself so strongly because it was the only real thing in their venal narrative-huffing lives. As such, it stands out in living color against the drab gray meaninglessness of filling requirements and busywork for stuff.
What better way to show the meaninglessness of adult world than with the contrast of the signs and actions.
Like goggle-less Benny making his paddle or minor-age Mitch having a beer.
That appeal was turbo-charged by the dopamine. A life of mindless diversions and pleasure seeking before grudgingly giving in to the beast system pantomime. Future material for “glory days” – to keep you looking down and back rather than up. Given the official beast system alternatives, the funnest game in town.
The most reality + the most fun = the most alive. No wonder they couldn’t get past it. Succumbing to the beast system – “selling out” in their idiot parlance – meant giving up the only smudge of authenticity they’ll ever know.
The most reality + the most fun = the most alive. No wonder they couldn’t get past it. Succumbing to the beast system – “selling out” in their idiot parlance – meant giving up the only smudge of authenticity they’ll ever know.
We go on about the verisimilitude - not that everything is documentary realistic, but that the realistic flavor or the joy and naturalness of just hanging out is pitch perfect. Parker Posey also deserves recognition for queen bee uber-bitch Darla.
Carefree pleasure is crazy appealing by nature. But that much more so when it's natural organic socialization and what comes next is a string of existentially empty hoops masquerading as "responsibility".
This is only a problem when the Mouse Utopia abundance that makes the beast system alluring completely cuts people off from life. In traditional life, necessity was obvious - there was no transition from a period of pure idle fun-seeking to an adulthood of mind-numbing busywork. Randy's speech near the end is ironic. The thought of these being the best years is awful, but they will be. Because what comes next is equally empty but also oppressive.
The alternative is Wooderson's defiant call to keep LIVIN'. But the beast system prevents that by changing the keys to social success as you age out.
The beast system alternatives are glory days nostalgic depression or life on the margins. This is a plea - unwitting or not - for organic culture. Where life and social bonds enrich over time. It's just that that doesn't start with a surge of accountability-free dopamine.
This means that their youth culture was the one thing that actually mattered to them. They were invested in it in a way they will never be in anything again. Compare the official metric - honor student - with making the scene on the level of significance. There's no comparison. Self-contained, organic, with group buy-in… This means that as long as the verisimilitude holds up, we have a laboratory to observe social patterns.
An environment where the conditions are fake, but within those patterns, the socialization is natural.
The difference from pre-internet GenX socialization was that creeping socio-cultural doom ruled out the carefree self-absorption needed for this degree of full autonomy. Being bored stopped seeming like such a terrible problem to face.
The last post looked at social patterns in a general way. Writing it improved our understanding of why the world we were born into seemed so different from the one we read about in books that weren’t that old.
We understand now.
First - the weird set-up where a completely organic youth culture coexists with a completely fake soulless “adult” pantomime inside a de-moralized, detached bubble of Mouse Utopia is historically unique. Hence the absence from older stories.
"You guys know anything about a party here tonight?"
It's a funny scene, but this level of disconnect had never happened before. And likely won’t again in any practical timeframe.
But the verisimilitude extends beyond one specific time and place to capture more universal behavior patterns. It’s this - plus the effectiveness as a period genre piece - that makes Dazed and Confused such an unusually great movie
Take the historically specific – the impact of girls on male sociability. The movie shows the immediate aftermath of feminism and the sexual revolution on culture. The bizarrity of boomer attitudes towards male-female relationships is probably another amber-frozen legacy of this time.
The Cliosophic Society, 1889.
A Princeton political, literary, and debating society founded in the 18th century and still in existence as the American Whig–Cliosophic Society.
Many wonder where the intensity and passion of old-time activities went. Part of it is media glamour. But the main part comes from no girls. The reward system is different. So the competitive goals are too.
An alien visitor would marvel at a society where men relentlessly pursue and judge each other for sexual activity, women are supposed to maintain some degree of decorum without "prudery", and everyone is thrown together with tons of intoxicants. The opening for the Postmodern backlash was baked into this absurd contradiction. Current reality sublimates sexual impulses within an official a-sexual sociability enforced by law but with no limit on what happens outside that. How this plays out in either context depends in a big part on where the guy falls in something called the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy (SSH).
This is something else that we touched on in the last post. The SSH is a
set of patterns pertaining to social interactions and roles that has
proven ridiculously consistent in our experience. It was formulated by
polymathic thinker Vox Day as a way of categorizing and predicting male
behavior, which it does. Once you see how it works, it’s like
clairvoyance.
Unfortunately Day hasn't written the definitive account of the SSH yet. It's developed over many places.
And since the SSH involves female reactions, it’s the universal pattern in the historically-specific setting. Whether the boomer or the Postmodern version. Material-level logos coming through a de-moralized, inverted, logos-free settings.
Note – we need names for the settings - the different iterations of the veil of illusion level of the beast system at different times. “Fake media world” gives the impression of TV Land - when in reality it’s a lot more. The de-moralized materialism – where there are no values, meanings, or beliefs beyond acquisition and how you look to other acquisitionists. The blind faith in “official” mouthpieces despite constant incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. The inability to grow or change in meaningful ways. A “professional” world based on lies, fronts, and existentially meaningless busywork. The flight from responsibility on the moral, rational, and familial levels.
It does all branch out of pretending mass media world is reality, but so many parts aren’t directly related to watching t.v.
This is a magazine ad from the early '70s. The same era as the Dazed and Confused crowd.
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At the same time, we are wary of too much house jargon. Not because new coinings aren’t useful – ideally that’s what we should be doing. But we lack the reach to inject new words into the language and don’t want to become unintelligible for readers. Especially new readers who weren’t there for earlier discussions and don’t want to research the archive.
We use secular transcendence all the time because it's what when wrong with the West on a macro scale. It’s also fairly easy to sum up because its name is descriptive – the impossible fantasy that abstract truth and ultimate Truth are present in material things. Flatland is a great metaphor for the condition of secular transcendence. Bold red with exclamation point for conceptual inversion is similar – Art!, Science! - more like house symbolism, but Band specific. We've been referring to the softness of modern bubble world as Mouse Utopia, but that analogy is more rhetorically punchy than precise.
The article is a typical “Free market” shilling where it's “the welfare state” that's the Mouse utopia. The reality is it's modernity in general if you're thinking material reward for the efforts and inputs required to put in.
There really isn’t a word or short phrase to evoke all the fakeness, disconnect, and mediation of modern culture. Mouse Utopia gets the effort-to-abundance ratio and the appetite for dopamine. But it misses the importance of manufactured consensus in fake media world. Strings of adjectives will have to get it done. Just remember what we’re referring to.
Whatever that fake reality is called, we find ourselves still living in the aftermath of it. If anything, male-female relations have become more difficult, with more factors to navigate, and with higher stakes. The SSH holds here as well. To be clear, this isn’t the PUA degeneracy– that offal learn techniques to deceive women into responding to them as if they were something they aren’t. The SSH observes how men actually are. It does let you predict how women are likely to react to a man, and plan accordingly. Even out of the beast system – especially out of the beast system – it matters for the logos-facing man who wants a wife and family.
Appeal is rational but not strictly so. There’s interpersonal alchemy that can be predictable to a degree but not certain. Why does the same overture get totally different reactions depending on who’s making it?
There's a lot going on, but it falls into some very consistent patterns.
Linkletter isn’t a visionary, but he didn’t have to be. Dazed and Confused is semi-autobiographical. Mitch and Randy are loosely based on his real feelings and experiences - being initiated into a cool party crowd by older students as a freshman and as a popular, hard-partying athlete who crossed social boundaries as a senior.
In the last post we mentioned that Linkletter tanked the success of his movie rather than compromise the story he wanted to tell. Characters act and events play out like they really do. Because of this, he can capture truths about people and society without even meaning to. Just by faithfully recounting things that people really did.
The real-life Slater, Floyd, and Wooderson who went to school with Linkletter even sued him over their use of their names, but it didn’t go anywhere.
The Band has been meaning to write about the SSH for a while and Linkletter’s male experience is a perfect opportunity. We did bring it up in the last post but decided hold off on it so we could do it justice. The rest of this post will use Dazed and Confused to explore the SSH.
Question: How does this relate to dismantling Postmodernism?
Consider our catch phrase – what we can know and how we can know it. Postmodernism is just lies. It belongs to that fake media world beast system in the aside up above – where life is a de-moralized dance of illusion. The discourses and relativisms that Postmodernism pretends is reality refer to that dance. Even daily life is internalized dishonesty.
Question: How does this relate to dismantling Postmodernism?
Consider our catch phrase – what we can know and how we can know it. Postmodernism is just lies. It belongs to that fake media world beast system in the aside up above – where life is a de-moralized dance of illusion. The discourses and relativisms that Postmodernism pretends is reality refer to that dance. Even daily life is internalized dishonesty.
But logos extends to material – meaning human – level. Truths about human nature liberate us from fake media world and re-align us with reality just like higher truths do.
We haven't spent as much time on material level logos because it is so varied and situational. But a pattern like the SSH is an example of predictive logic at play in human sociability. The most subjective of material things.
The Socio-Sexual Hierarchy describes material-level reality so accurately as to be predictive of future behavior. Postmodernism is based on lies across the full vertical spectrum – from the nature of God to the nature of the human. The SSH is the opposite of that on an empirical human level. The Band relies on pattern recognition extensively, and the SSH was like a clairvoyance upgrade package.
It can a bit of time to ascertain where someone is on the SSH – though often the reveal is instant.
On the left, a likely alpha, though there are other possibilities. On the right, the obvious beta simp is probably a gamma. The fractal nature of it means positions change with circumstances. Some people fall near the overlap between positions. The traits are general and can manifest in very different ways in individual cases. But however long it takes, once you get a fix on someone, it is that accurate in a general pattern way.
It’s not without controversy. The word “hierarchy" - that some positions carry more social value than others - and the inability to really control where you fall triggers gammas. It’s similar to discussing IQ. Reality is general is hard for mentally and emotionally weak protoplasm raised on “follow your dreams”, “you can be whatever you want”, “image is everything” lies instead of reality. But the alternative is to accept that limitations are an intrinsic part of existence. And modern culture is based on denying that at all costs.
"You can be anything" is desire over reality. That’s satanic, no matter how platitudinous. In fact, when you aren’t an actual moron, you can see what a fake, impossible recipe for misery and disillusionment that it obviously is. Secular transcendence on a personal level, lighting the path to the abyss.
That's not saying being black-pilled is the answer. That's asinine. It's live in reality and seek fulfillment where logos points.
Day must weary of explaining that the point of the SSH isn’t to rate yourself. It’s not a personality self-assessment and wasn’t set up to work that way. It is something you use you assess the people around you. To pick up on their patterns to understand how they are likely to act in the future. You may have a sense of where you fall, but it is harder to read yourself. Because it isn’t about inner feelings or desires.
It’s a descriptor. It’s empirical – based on the fruits. Consistent patterning in external reactions to you. What you feel is irrelevant.
Any hope at self-assessment starts with rigorous honesty about how other people react to you.
Not how you wish they would, or how they did in your imaginary flights of things that didn’t happen.
It’s how you are. And that’s a lot easier to spot in others.
There are three main reasons for the Band to write an SSH post besides our own valuation of the concept. Because things we share here have to have some value to readers.
The first is just an homage - giving respect to something of direct benefit. Among other things, Day’s presentation of the SSH is a perfect example of material-level logos accessed in the appropriate empirical way and then used to infer an abstract pattern. That is confirmed by subsequent observation.
The first is just an homage - giving respect to something of direct benefit. Among other things, Day’s presentation of the SSH is a perfect example of material-level logos accessed in the appropriate empirical way and then used to infer an abstract pattern. That is confirmed by subsequent observation.
On this level, it’s proof of concept of the Band’s vertical logos and ontological hierarchy model.
That logos manifests on the material level as general consistencies that can be observed empirically. This is the level of the vertical ontology that we’ve spent the least attention on because it’s the most varied.
Material level logos is made up by the patterns and rules that we see in the natural and human worlds. Aristotle described it as causality – that things happen in logical, predictable, sequential ways. And having spent a lot of occult post space on the inversions of psychology, it's nice to give time to a positive alternative. An insight into the human psyche that is empirically verifiable, ontologically legitimate, and most shocking of all. endlessly useful.
The general patterns – seven slots for the male population has to be general – are shockingly consistent despite specific personality differences. To the point where the SSH does let you predict how people will react to certain things. This allows you to have the least frustrating possible interactions in whatever setting you find yourself.
When the SSH is called fractal it means it reshuffles as groups change. A gamma with a modicum of leadership will take charge in a group of gammas and omegas - like the stereotypical RPG group. They're situational alphas, the most charismatic sidekick is a situational bravo, etc.
Jack Kirby inked by Dick Ayers, cover to Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #13, Marvel Comics, December, 1964
Things like this are fun to consider. Comic characters make good archetypes because they're defined in broad strokes. The SSH markers are easier to see.
Fractal SSH - this shows two alphas, with the least alpha becoming the situational bravo. The lieutenant between the alpha and the others. But ahead of the alpha's usual bravo - ignore the whole kid sidekick unpleasantness and note where Bucky is. Behind alpha #2 but a shade ahead of his bravo - the bowler-hatted Dum Dum Dugan. Alpha playing situational bravo trumps natural bravo, and the bravos rank according to their alphas. This picture has to do with the billings of the characters in the comics - but the illustration of how the fractal part of the SSH works is great.
The second is to work through the concept on our own terms. The best way to really understand something is to thoroughly explain it.
The last is to share the idea. People who run into it often ask about it, and the Band wants readers to benefit from insights we find valuable. Both our own and those of others.
So here’s the Band’s take...
There are seven categories in the SSH - each given a Greek letter. The list is alpha, bravo, delta, gamma, sigma, omega, and lambda. Lambda gets the least attention - it refers to gay men and the sexual behavior component of their socialization is very different. Neither we nor Day can say much on that – we lack the empirical experience to comment on lambda sociability. If you are curious, there is a huge amount of material on the subject. We can't say where to start other than look for smart lambda commentators. So there are six categories for the sake of this post.
A couple of points on the terminology, starting with calling the second position “bravo” and not the Greek letter “beta”.
A couple of points on the terminology, starting with calling the second position “bravo” and not the Greek letter “beta”.
This distances the SSH from the PUA scene. Those lying hedonists used alpha – beta as a simple-minded binary to differentiate dudes that get laid from ones that don’t.
It’s literally this practically limited. Though there is a kernel of truth.
There is a “sexual” component in the SSH, but it isn’t a guidebook for false fronting. It’s a metric – not a plan – a way to reliably identify the set of social behavior patterns a guy falls into and predict future outcomes. All societies and cultures have social pecking orders regardless of the women. This is where most internet commentary on the SSH goes wrong - it's too focused on success with women and not the full underlying character.
Charles-Philippe Larivière, Raise of the Siege of Malta, September 1565, before 1843, oil on canvas, Versailles
A monastery, platoon, or pirate ship has a hierarchy.
A monastery, platoon, or pirate ship has a hierarchy.
Bravo sidesteps the sexualized and pejorative connotations around beta, while...
...still allowing beta orbiters to be identified without cluttering up the SSH.
The fractal nature of the hierarchy complicates the relationship to attraction. Any group can have an alpha – even just a situational one - and that guy may not be all that sexually attractive in general. But they will be more so relative to the other guys in that group. It’s not that all alphas are irresistible, but if 10 % of the girls look at Bob and 0% at the other dudes, sexually, Bob’s the alpha in that context. It’s the likelihood. Of course, the larger the group, the more universally attractive the alpha as a general correlation.
Getting ahead of the yeah buts from female readers, it also follows that not all women find all alphas attractive. It's the likelihood.
Then there’s the letters not being in alphabetical order. Day is a logical thinker, but there’s a conscious rhetorical bent in his writing. There will be a reason for the choice and ordering of the letters – likely the gamma’s false self-importance vs. the reality of their social value.
This dude may be more omega than gamma, but that line can be blurry at the edges. The unfortunate attempt to appear cool suggests a mix of concern for the opinion of others and a total lack of self-awareness. Probably a low gamma.
What matters are the ideas that the signs represent. And these ones are prescient.
It’s important to note that the predictive consistency of the SSH only works with men. Women have their own hierarchies, but they’re different. Like Linkletter, Day doesn’t have the access to address the ladies. The general nature of the traits means that women will have some of them. They’re human. But this doesn’t indicate the presence of the others associated with a rank, or allow the same degree of predictability. Because in women, the traits don’t map onto the same patterns as consistently.
Then there is the issue of money. Alphas are often associated with wealth and material power, but like sex, this is a metric rather than an end.
The alpha is a natural leader among men. There’s an aura or charisma that people find compelling and their decisions tend to pan out – reinforcing the magnetism. “Leadership-building” dolts struggle to grasp that this is innate. It can be sharpened, but it can’t be created. This means that they will tend to “win” at whatever measures value in the hierarchy that they’re on top of. Whether that’s money or female attention.
Plenty of non-alphas get wealthy. Buying a trophy wife is different from alpha charisma. One is the result of magnetism, the other prostitution. How to tell them apart? By the fruits. Consider how she reacts to him and how other women do.
Real alphas embrace leadership as well – the sense of responsibility is one of the things that makes the position much less pleasurable than non-alphas may think. So resources indicate the potential alpha, they don’t make him. They show you where to look. But history is filled with individuals who attained material success without impact on their nature.
Real alphas embrace leadership as well – the sense of responsibility is one of the things that makes the position much less pleasurable than non-alphas may think. So resources indicate the potential alpha, they don’t make him. They show you where to look. But history is filled with individuals who attained material success without impact on their nature.
One strong suggestion that the “social media leaders” aren’t leaders at all is the lack of alpha traits. The likes of Jack Dorsey are completely devoid of alpha signs other than the valuation of their company. Which is consistent with being a puppet for the narrative engineers, not an actual leader.
Bringing us to the lies that incel a-holes spew to justify their inadequacy rather than face responsibility or accept human nature. The all women are whores crap. Like all liars they invert.
Alpha traits most strongly correlate to social success, so in a materialist society, on the average they have the most stuff. In a sexual marketplace, they attract the most female value. Money can attract women directly, but that’s a conscious economic exchange, not the more subconscious appeal of a natural alpha.
Alpha traits most strongly correlate to social success, so in a materialist society, on the average they have the most stuff. In a sexual marketplace, they attract the most female value. Money can attract women directly, but that’s a conscious economic exchange, not the more subconscious appeal of a natural alpha.
The reality is broader in a modern society – where the fertility for resources is present, but less stark than the theory makes it out to be.
What high value women have is choice.
There may be nothing there, but you’re way more likely to take the time to find out if she’s attractive.
Material resources have the greatest pull in general, so that’s be the biggest draw. But the Band can speak to the reality that even HB 9s can have other motivators. The larger point stands because her value allows her to maximize return wherever her motivation lies
Which opens the door to the whole range of behaviors intended to draw female interest.
Edmund Blair Leighton, The End of The Song, 1902, oil on canvas
Once the possibility – however slim – of success without resources comes in, there is an incentive to have those traits among the resource-poor.
Edmund Blair Leighton, A Picnic Party, oil on canvas
Most of this is deceptive and doomed to an unhappy end. But it does explain why adding females radically changes male sociability. It alters the reward structure, and by doing so, alters the men.
Resources and female reaction are two factors that go into determining someone’s position in different ways, but they aren’t the only ones. How other men react to them is just as important. How does hierarchy work when there are no women present? What roles are the guys most effective in? It’s a complex assessment. And these factors aren’t independent.
In a really big group like a school there’ll be layers within layers. Status at any one moment is group dependent. In arriving at a single letter you have to look at the person on the balance. Sometimes there isn’t enough information – especially when relying on a single movie.
The genius verisimilitude of this single movie is that it delivers as much as it does. Even when we can't conclusively fix a position we can narrow it down. The SSH unfolds throughout the movie as if Linkletter had read Vox. He didn’t – the movie came out first. But the basis in true memories of a purely organic culture means a basis in SSH. It’s that accurate.
The opening sets the tone and lays a lot of subtle groundwork for the rest of the movie – starting with the brilliant first shot.
The opening sets the tone and lays a lot of subtle groundwork for the rest of the movie – starting with the brilliant first shot.
Pickford’s long, slow entry in his gorgeous GTO Judge in sync to the trippy start to Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion packs the essence of the film in one perfect bit of direction. More on this later.It then montages groups of characters as the start of the last day of school draws nearer, and packs a ton of information into the quick cuts. Don trying to chat up a girl, Benny working on his paddle, Mike, Tony and Cynthia playing cards are all glimpses of the prior life – and personalities – leading into the events in the movie.
A group of pretty girls interacting with self-conscious “nonchalance” are probably “in”.
Other subgroups are glimpsed – stoners and black students. And here's a social insight that isn't SSH, but gets at boomer civnattery - one of the most inexplicably uncrackable spells of all.
Boomer civnattery... Remember that formative experiences in youth culture – fake or not – are the only things that were organically real in their lives. Which is why their attitudes froze in amber – never to grow or change. Mel’s friendship with the others IS authentic because they all grew up together. To the others, his blackness is a visual identifier – no more meaningful than Wooderson’s age, Randy’s good looks, or Slater’s long hair.
It’s real on the personal scale because people develop within what they know. But it has to be real to matter. Mel certainly seems to have a good time. He’s a natural part of an organic socialization on a personal.
The failure of this has been noted by different sides of the of the spectrum. Having had a person of color or two in the crew in a homogeneous, high trust society isn’t a template for macro-scale questions of demographics and policy.
There’s always going to be a culture. The globalist dream isn’t inclusivity within an organic culture. It’s the replacement of any organic culture with de-moralized “entertainment” and consumption.
And it actually opens the door to charges of systemic racism – because it replaces racialized identity with the biased projection of a dominant culture. You can claim to be “color blind” but only an imbecile or ego-maniac thinks necessarily false claims matter to the person they're lying to about not seeing.
Cognitive dissonance kicks in because boomers can’t separate the personal from the macro-scale. The memories – sometimes of real friendships, more often of t.v. friends - are real. The strength of the organic socialization makes it painful when “having a friend who’s…” is greeted with venom by people that view your existence as an affront.
Cognitive dissonance kicks in because boomers can’t separate the personal from the macro-scale. The memories – sometimes of real friendships, more often of t.v. friends - are real. The strength of the organic socialization makes it painful when “having a friend who’s…” is greeted with venom by people that view your existence as an affront.
These bigger questions are outside the scope of this post. For SSH purposes we are accepting the terms of the youth culture because larger truths are irrelevant to organic socialization inside those terms. That it’s existentially meaningless posturing isn’t the point. The SSH transcends cultural specifics. We don’t need the culture to be true – we need it to be organic, independent, and with group buy-in. Once we have the petrie dish, we can look for behavior patterns WITHIN its terms.
As mentioned, Mel and Slater appear as the alphas of their “subgroups”. Just glimpses, but they do show them at the center.
Regardless of what those groups are or how legitimate they are.
The same applies to Mitch among the junior high schoolers. The events of the evening go a long way to cementing this status. His case is complicated by the age gap. He doesn't have the history with the others. That said, his alpha status seems to carry over.
Among the sub-groups, Mel and Slater are also the two that cross most successfully out of them. Each has "something" that connects them with the wider student population. For Mel it's football, for Slater it's weed. And both have different statuses in the wider group.
Mel falls somewhere in the bravo or delta category, with glimpses of alpha in the way he treats Mitch. He's complex.
This little bit of telepathy where he and Randy deflect the sadistic O'Bannion from paddling the battered Mitch a second time. The way they recognize their teammate's pathology and maintain the "rules" of the hazing doesn't determine what exactly Mel is. But it's fantastic verisimilitude.
Slater is a gamma.
School complicates the SSH in some ways because it is so age dependent and the top tier keeps turning over. On the other hand, when that degree of churn also comes with purely organic socialization, the natural positions will show themselves quickly. Circumstances may change, but the core personalities tend not to. Let’s look at the ranks through the main characters in them, and see what the verisimilitude can teach us.
The Alpha
Randy is the obvious one. He’s smooth, attractive, and charismatic and people are naturally drawn to him. A lot of it is natural – the looks, hair, easy grace, how the clothes hang. A warm charming personality. He’s the center of any group of guys and the girls want to be with him.
Randy is the obvious one. He’s smooth, attractive, and charismatic and people are naturally drawn to him. A lot of it is natural – the looks, hair, easy grace, how the clothes hang. A warm charming personality. He’s the center of any group of guys and the girls want to be with him.
The way the unnamed girl looks at Randy when he's talking to Julie is another one of those moments of verisimilitude.
More than any other character, this lets him move between social circles and ties the movie together. It also shows that being the alpha comes with its own pressures. Everybody wants him. And his reciprocal sense of resonsibility for the others pulls him in different directions. He declines the nerds poker plans with the manner of someone who has joined them in the past.
This is not implausable. Especially in a small community. Consider. When Randy and Slater talk to Pickford’s mom, there’s a brief exchange about grades. Both claim straight As, but Randy’s eyes pop when Slater says it. A micro-pattern, but consistent with the alpha-gamma split.
Randy probably has been an excellent student. Quarterbacks tend to be intelligent and disciplined, and his friendship with the nerds is exactly the sort of thing that comes from years together in various “smart kid” groups.
Hence the invitation to the poker table. This group of friends would meet a certain need in his life that isn’t compatible with his sports or partying. And while they are low priority relatively, he does show concern for them.
Typical of the verisimilitude, there is an ease and sense of familiarity in their interaction. Like school friends when one is moving into a different social phase.
You can see the alpha solution – he gets them to come to the party. That way he’s including all his guys without cramping his social plans.
And when they show up, he’s the one who looks out for them.
Great photo of Mike's first encounter with Clint. Note when Clint rips his shirt off and attacks, Mike is frozen. Delta Tony is way out of his comfort zone and useless. Randy saw it 20 yards out and is already halfway there.
It’s innate
Fights are revealing - especially in a fighting culture. It was pretty typical in youth cultures to have elements of fighting - often with unwritten rules of conduct - like no weapons. Some guys love to fight - Clint and his crew fit that bill - but there's also a mean edge in how he picks his target.
Mike is easy prey. But note that when Randy aggressively pushes Clint and orders him to relax, Clint – who clearly isn’t posturing when he claims to want to fight - shows zero interest in tangling with him.
Part status aura, part real-life Randy tends to win fights, and part pure alpha dominance. Note how his forward agression puts Clint on his heels - the same dynamic with less violence that Clint did to Mike. The calculus is reversed, and Clint simmers down in front of his crew.
It’s alpha and SSH with just amazing consistent granularity.
As a star quarterback, he’s the center of the football crowd. And another reason why switching to physcial aggression would come easily. Football was built on the SSH – guys accepting their role in a hierarchical structure to achieve a designated goal. But it’s symbiotic – Benny confronts him when he’s failing to provide leadership. As a high Delta does.
As a star quarterback, he’s the center of the football crowd. And another reason why switching to physcial aggression would come easily. Football was built on the SSH – guys accepting their role in a hierarchical structure to achieve a designated goal. But it’s symbiotic – Benny confronts him when he’s failing to provide leadership. As a high Delta does.
His guys do the dirty work for him letting him be the leader. When Mitch takes a hellacious paddling, Randy doesn't add any punishment. He pulls him together, drives him home, invites him to come hang out, and pretty much takes him under his wing.
But when Slater’s short cash for weed, he’s got some to lend him. He’s got a cool car with the KISS mannikins in the back for the party. The advice he gives Mitch invariably works. And his crisis of confidence rocks the worlds of the people around him in ways he can't even see. He’s surprised when Don replies he’s only been laid “a few” times from football. He can’t imagine life not being the way it is. It’s why the SSH is hard to self-define.
Mitch is the younger version. He’s the head of the junior high pack and a good athlete in a leadership role. Any wonder why globalist filth hate youth sports? It’s a meritocracy. He’s a quick learner who intuitively understands the SSH, rises to challenges and grows in confidence.
He’s a dick… right?"
More brilliant subtle verisimilitude. Mitch is feeling out the landscape and Randy handles it well - letting him know how things are.
The scene where he runs into his junior high friends after buying beer at the store nails it. But note how he uses his new social position to benefit his guys – planning the revenge on O’Bannion in a way that keeps his hands clean. And he gets the girl.
Wooderson’s hard to classify because represents looming out of the autonomous organic youth culture. And the longing for some kind of authentic LIVIN. It shouldn’t be a choice. That said, the charisma and sexual magnetism is still there.
Say what you will about Wooderson, "listen. You ought to ditch the two geeks you're in the car with now and get in with us. But that's all right, we'll worry about that later. I will see you there, all right?" is alpha as...
Cynthia's reaction compared to Mike and Tony? More pitch perfectness.
Wooderson is the cautionary tale that reminds us that the bubble is still fake. It may be organic socially, but it doesn’t lead anywhere or mean anything outside itself. And there’s a time limit that is ruthless.
The Bravo
This position gets it’s name to distinguish it from the beta of PUA beta simp fame. Because the positions may carry more perceived status but they aren’t inherently good or bad in a moral sense. Except gamma, and that’s because of the lying.
This position gets it’s name to distinguish it from the beta of PUA beta simp fame. Because the positions may carry more perceived status but they aren’t inherently good or bad in a moral sense. Except gamma, and that’s because of the lying.
There’s nothing “loser” about bravos. They’re natural seconds – lieutenants and wingmen who are alpha’s right hands and often best friends.
Patroclus is an ancient archetype. The lambda dimension to Greek culture had different connotations. It was more mainstream and has less impact on the other ranks in the hierarchy.
Don is the bravo’s bravo. Enough status in the alpha’s value system that the alpha wants to hang and different enough to keep things interesting. The differences are perfectly done
He doesn't have a car so he's always looking for rides. Randy beating him out for shotgun is a subtly brilliant depiction of the natural alpha-bravo distinction. The experience of the whole rest of the outing will be different.
The relationship to girls is also on point. We've already mentioned Randy's reaction to the "a few" answer - that nails the differences and how those differences lead to different world views. Don has to work much harder too - he's always hustling for less result.
He has social access to the high-value girls but without the attraction exerted by Randy.
Shavonne is very pretty and with the cool crowd - the sort of social access a bravo has. Her premature ejaculation joke does confirm they've been intimate, but takes the piss out of him publicly in a way that you can't imagine happen to Randy.
Day has mentioned that the bravo enforces social hierarchy more directly than the alpha, and Don shows this clearly. More than that, the verisimilitude in his relationship with Randy shows us why.
Natural alphas, like sport stars, often don't grasp how much they stand out and how unusual things that they take for granted are. They do work on status constantly, but in a way that feels more like time than work. That's because the status and the requirements needed to maintain the status are extensions of who they are. Like breathing in and out. Which is why the idea of "becoming alpha" if you aren't one is so risible. Even a sigma with alpha talents can't fake that that for long. Because even a perfect intellectual grip on the role and the ability to perform at the necessary level doesn't give the instinctive social reads and reactions that an alpha lives.
"Slate man, why are you always such a dork man?"
Don works relentlessly - more than anyone else in the movie - to impress and pick up girls. He finds Slater hilarious until he thinks the goofiness jeopardizes their cool status.
Bravos are intimate with alphas and see what alpha world looks like. They can't create it, but they live there and their own status depends on it. That is critically important - the bravo status is dependent on someone else in a way that the alpha's isn't. But the bravo is also more attuned to this than the other ranks because of the proximity and familiarity with the alpha. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the bravo works to support the alpha, and that means supporting the social order that has the alpha on top. This can create friction in the group when one of the members isn't up to the bravo's standards. A problem for gammas and especially those occasions when a well-meaning alpha attempts to "socially rehabilitate" an omega-type by dragging them into situations they can't handle.
Quick scene where Don makes the small nerdy kid flinch and Randy is completely oblivious to him is a perfect illustration.
The cancellation of Pickford's party is a damper on everyone's plans. Sigma Pickford doesn't care.
It's easy to miss because Wooderson and Mel get the ball rolling, but Don is the one who comes up with the idea for a party at the moontower.
Contrast Don's high-energy socializing with Randy's natural ease. The subtle verisimilitude gets it again - it's easy to miss Randy hitting his sneaky belt pipe while Wooderson is stealing the scene. But that's the point. No wacky theatrics or public display - just an excellent gadget and chill demeanor that makes it somehow cooler than all the stoner hijinks.
Bravo effort can include pushing the envelope as well as enforcing the order. Don is often the instigator of the crazier ideas.
Another notable aspect of the bravo type that comes through is how it is transitive. There is a glimpse that Don can fall into the same bravo role with Wooderson but we don't see them together much. We do see him do it with Pickford - sigmas have alpha traits and when locked in and engaged project alpha signs. A situational alpha-bravo relationship can unfold naturally. The limitation is the sigma's interest, since they aren't engaged in the hierarchy like an alpha is.
Pickford is Don's friend, so he's socially engaged. It's easy to imagine Randy in his place in the KISS figure reveal scene and imagine a similar dynamic.
Ditto the aftermath of the mailbox scene.
Randy's even present - riding in the back with Mitch - who's getting high for the first time. The SSH isn't a straightjacket. It's patterns. And Don's are bravo to the bone.
Don even attempts to play situational alpha after Hirschfelder's own brutal hazing. Contrast his beer toss with Randy's handling of Mitch earlier on. It helps that Randy has a car and Don's always getting rides. A lot goes into an SSH rank.
John Hill, Interior of the Carpenter's Shop at Forty Hill, Enfield, around 1813, oil on canvas, Tate, London
James Peale, The Artist and his Family, 1795, oil on canvas, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The situations are totally different. The larger pattern is that alphas create contexts and bravos react to them.
Don has trouble absorbing Randy’s decision not to play football since he can't imagine giving up a place at the top of a fixed status hierarchy. Because he can't imagine the alpha perspective of alpha mastery. And his own most excellent position is dependent on being Randy's pal - Randy might "do just as well in a band or something" but Don can't be as confident.
"I might play ball. But I will never sign that"
And he probably will play. The reality is that a small-town Texas quarterback for a team with real expectations could get away with most anything and play.
The will I play question is likely an alpha power play - at least in part. He won't be signing. The only question is whether his reluctance could overcome a summer of intense social pressure from many avenues. But that's his choice. Don will have to sweat it out, bong in hand.
The Delta
Solid dudes and rank and file. The range of guys that get things done. The general description is the man who wants clear, logical purpose and then takes pride in meeting the task. They don’t want to write the rules or enforce/interpret them – socially or professionally – but they do want them to be there and to be rationally enforced. In a healthy society, this is most men.
Solid dudes and rank and file. The range of guys that get things done. The general description is the man who wants clear, logical purpose and then takes pride in meeting the task. They don’t want to write the rules or enforce/interpret them – socially or professionally – but they do want them to be there and to be rationally enforced. In a healthy society, this is most men.
In the traditional West, high trust and internally-driven morality made the deltas the bulwark of society.
John Hill, Interior of the Carpenter's Shop at Forty Hill, Enfield, around 1813, oil on canvas, Tate, LondonWhen the bulk of your society are moral and conscientious by nature, minimal coercive central control is needed. People do the right things by choice. Sounds incredible, right? A social planner’s dream outcome. There’s just one catch.
The big macro-scale social problem around deltas
is that they are less attractive to women than
they are valuable to society.
Consider – the stable family was the backbone of Western success. Temperamentally, deltas are best suited to be successful family men. This is a general tendency – plenty of deltas are abusive a-holes and plenty of alphas raise good families. But as a pool, the responsible, task-oriented, live-within-themselves nature of the delta correlates to stable and satisfied provider.
James Peale, The Artist and his Family, 1795, oil on canvas, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The comfortable skilled worker and his stable family is a bulwark of Western social stability and overall prosperity.
From a societal outcome perspective, you want generations of deltas married to solid women and raising orderly responsible families.
The macro-scale conflict comes from the combination of male polygamy and female hypergamy – the biologically-advantageous impulses for men to spread their genetic material and women to maximize the quality of their mates. The traits that make deltas so important to society don’t score high on the hypergamy meter and don’t create polygamous opportunities.
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pool in a Harem, 1876, oil on canvas, Hermitage Museum
Consider societies where polygamy has always been normal. It’s not the hard-working problem solvers that keep the baths at a nice even temperature that get the big harem.
Consider societies where polygamy has always been normal. It’s not the hard-working problem solvers that keep the baths at a nice even temperature that get the big harem.
This picture illustrates the concept, but more generally speaking, Orientalism is really weird. Eroticized stereotypes that turn "the East" into a projection of inverted Western nonsense about Progress! It somehow idolizes and demeans at the same time. It can also hide depraved subjects behind seductive allure. We don't care for it at all.
The alpha can’t monopolize the women, people have to pair up outside immediate bloodlines, and bonded household pairs become the societal norm. Wherever you go in the West, the basic family of mother, father and children was a constant. It’s Biblical and it works. When the delta can assume a solid marriage in his future simply by law of averages, his competence is rewarded by his realistic prospects.
David Teniers, A farmer with his Wife and Child, 1640 – 1670, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
A culture that serves its deltas is likely to be a productive and successful one. Unless the success fuels vanity and secular transcendence that destroys the possibility of success. But then the culture has stopped serving its deltas.
When you really think about it, re-writing Western social status around picking up girls may be the most underrated direct blow to Western culture of all. The entire set of age-old mechanisms by which social fitness was tested and society carried forward was flipped in a relative instant.
This is beyond dyscivic. Dyscivilizational.
Gustav Moreau, Helen on the Ramparts of Troy, around 1880, oil on canvas
Women have always been central to male status-seeking. It’s biological. Helen is an archetype - the face that launched 1000 ships.
Women have always been central to male status-seeking. It’s biological. Helen is an archetype - the face that launched 1000 ships.
Moreau deals with this impossible beauty by leaving the face blurry but using very attractive color combinations and flowing lines.
The idea is to channel this in the most pro-social way possible on the macro scale. You can’t war against human nature, but you can make it go in the direction that’s best. The Western family did that.
Compare these patterns of achieving status and mating prospects:
Circle of Philip Mercier, A family portrait in an extensive park landscape, early 18th century, private
Door # 1. Distinguish yourself as a leader or a doer to maximize your prospects for marriage.
Door # 2. Trigger hormonal responses and subconscious patterns in free-floating women to get them to sleep with you.
And the delta gets shafted hardest. Alphas are very successful. Bravos do well for diluted versions of alphas. Sigmas sigma. Gamma explodes onto the scene – lying is incentivized when verification is difficult and actual success impossible. And the omega goes from an antisocial guy to a basement dwelling incel weirdo.
The cure for the deltas is to move away from the worst Mouse Utopia aspects. As long as there's civilization there's going to be more resources per capita than you can produce on your own - efficiencies of teamwork are the point of forming civilization in the first place. It's the number of teat-riders - those compensated without producing anything at all - that are fodder for globalist programming. Meritocracy, hard work, law and order - the extent to which these sorts of values can be realized is like an index for delta fitness.
Benny is the obvious high delta. He follows his role within the rules carefully and zealously. Here he takes the lead in the hazing preparations.
He's a zealous paddler but not sadistic. A right of passage should be righteously administered and he does just that. Likewise there's no alpha-esque outreach afterwards. When Don tosses a limping Hirshfelder the beer, Benny asks him why he wasted one.
He jokes with his coaches - you get the sense he's an exemplary hard worker and fierce competitor. He's also willing to call Randy out for his failure to lead. Deltas don't resent following leaders - they need them to set the agenda. They resent following poor leaders. Having no leader or a good leader go soft is a crisis.
Note how Benny calls Randy. He’s doesn't want to take over - he wants him to step up. He appeals to their years of effort and commitment they shared. And he does it in private. No grandstanding - just a stern man to man message. Man up. We need you.
That’s the delta challenge, and it comes with a shame factor built in. Because it's a stinging charge of deep betrayal. Benny would have busted his ass since pee wee learning to play off and optimize a talented quarterback. Over the years they and a few others grow close through success in their shared mission. To have the tip of the spear bail when everything is coming to fruition is inconceivable to strong delta like Benny.
Note how Mel, how shows delta qualities, also appeals to group bond loyalty. He does it more openly and gently, but his personality is different from Benny's. What isn't different is the commitment to the mission.
"Fuck the coaches man. Just do it for us man."
Alpha problems. If you're a good leader, the bravos and deltas are keying off you. That's awesome when it comes to status. But it also comes with expectations.
If Randy plays - the Band would put roughly 2-1 odds that he does - it will be a summer of intense pressure from his deltas that will be why.
O’Bannion took some thought. His self-perception is way off from his reality which is enough of a gamma tell that it has to be considered. But only for a moment. He’s way too blunt and direct, and there's plenty of evidence in his few appearances to show he's good at the things he postures over. Like the guy he ridicules while beating at pool - he really does wipe him off the table. Randy alludes to his effectiveness as a blocker.
It’s clear from the reactions to his rage that his peers are wary of him. Everyone backs off fast, suggesting his aggression isn’t show. Guys who know each other don’t back off gammas like that.
His motivations are different from Clint. He appears more psychotic and violent. But they're similar in that they're guys that like to fight.
Tony is another one. Delta, not awful person. He hangs with a completely different crowd, but he’s constantly trying to be decent and sensible in an absurd place. One assumes he’s a good student who generally follows the rules and doesn’t get into much trouble. Even his criticisms of the world around him are relatively low-key and polite.
Tony is awkward when he's drawn into the girls' hazing ritual, but he is able to pull it together and participate in a fashion. Omega Mike - more later - can't even face Jodi and Sabrina.
Tony and girls reveal a lot. "You might experience something more tangible than an Abraham Lincoln dream" captures the plight of the nice solid delta in a world of unleashed hypergamy and polygamy. Benny and O’Bannion aren’t with girls either, as far as we can see. Tony does wind up with Sabrina, but even that further confirms of the big picture. Remember - high value females have choice and Sabrina is really pretty.
She also seems less than fully enthralled with her introduction to the youth culture. She’s drawn to the quiet, intelligent Tony rather than the more boisterous charismatic types. Consider what happens.
Sabrina simply has to walk up, say hi, and winds up with the senior guy who most perfectly fits her unconventional tastes. The fact that she can just do this is the power of female attraction.
And the fact that her choice of Tony marks her as unconventional shows the larger problem.
The success of their relationship will likely depend a intelligent, decent, industrious fellow remaining what she wants. Even though you can see from the glimpses that he'd make a better mate than Don or Pickford. That's the delta plight that monogamous pair-bonding minimized and the dance of polygamy-hypergamy blows open the other way. The consequences are civilizational.
The Gamma
The Band will confess a particular animus for gammas, as those familiar with can attest. But we’ll try and keep it dialectical.
Slater is the only obvious one, but he can be overlooked because he’s funny and relatively inoffensive. But that’s also true in a verisimilitude sense. The tortured losers that melt down on comment pages and dedicate their lives to hating winners are extreme cases. Gammas are not outside the hierarchy, so they do have some social presence.
Slater is the only obvious one, but he can be overlooked because he’s funny and relatively inoffensive. But that’s also true in a verisimilitude sense. The tortured losers that melt down on comment pages and dedicate their lives to hating winners are extreme cases. Gammas are not outside the hierarchy, so they do have some social presence.
Slater is a mild case. He's burnt to a crisp and inadvertently hilarious. Weed is an important social factor here and Slater is a legitimate weed master. High-status guys that smoke a lot will have different smoking buddies, and Don and Randy smoke a ton. Note the stoner they hang with is the alpha stoner.
Gamma ego comes from mastery of some skill or lore. And the problems come from that being in something unvalued or uncool. Slater's expertise is getting high, which does have a degree of social currency. More than say fantasy gaming. [Remember - we're accepting the ant farm on its own terms to see the socialization that arises.]
The gamma's problems come from chronic unhappiness with where that social presence lands them. To the point that they lie to seem more impressive or capable than they are. A lot of gamma behavior comes from fear of failure. Don't show up, then make up a story why you'd have succeeded if you had. Internalize it until you essentially did succeed in your imagination. Repeat until lies sediment into a delusion bubble - a fully-internalized fake perception of self and reality where they're the"secret king".
Slater isn't there. He makes things up to seem cooler or more savvy since he doesn't really have much real to offer.
Slater's lore is bro science and nonsense. The character does an excellent job with the microexpressions of a b.s.ing stoner.
The whole George and Martha Washington scene is the best example of the gamma taking an opening to show knowledge.
Funny and harmless enough. Though one pities the real-life Michelle if she and Pickford ever split.
Compare uber-stoners Pickford and Slater. Sigma Pickford has the perfect car and girlfriend for the lifestyle, and limitless pot as a dealer. Slater... doesn't.
The odds of Michelle being the unmoved and unfortunate recipient of the gamma "moves" should she become single are about 100-1. She would seem equally perfect to Slater, though pedestalized through his own projected self-fantasy rather then understood like a person. And though way too high status to approach cold, the long friendship is an "in" for that most familiar of gamma dreams - the friend who morphs into lover. The inevitable rejection spurs hostility and more self-rationalizing lies.
What's a more socially relevant observation is how in a fake culture, gamma behavior becomes endemic. Posturing becomes the norm.
The Omega
We need to deal with Mike before moving on. We've decided he isn't a gamma despite some gamma tendencies. Most likely he's what a borderline omega looked like before completely withdrawing and living at home until your 30s became an option. An ascerbic, fairly anti-social guy who doesn't fit into the hierarchy or want to.
Omegas are one of the two classes that can be called outside the hierarchy - meaning that they don't have a place in it. The omegas are the socially unsuccessful ones - your weird loners, eccentrics, and other individuals to uncool or odd to really register socially.
Mike is a pretty mild case - like Slater's gamma - but he's the most socially hopeless of the characters. His only friends are Tony, Cynthia, and Randy to a degree. Compare his night to the others'.
A real hardcore omega loner wouldn't be in the movie, but these were less prevalent in an era before the internet and lingering at home forever were possible. They muddled through, confused and alienated, looking more to be left alone then to rise the ladder.
There is a clear difference between his degree of social adjustment and his one real male friend Tony.
When Sabrina was interested in a smart mature guy, Tony was appealing. Mike would have been inconcievable.
The fight with Clint turned out to be tactically unsound at the time, but it may have saved his life. At the very least, staved off entering the social world as a gamma. The scenario is another that plays like it was written with the SSH in mind.
Consider - the gamma is motivated by fear. Being suddenly ambushed by an agressive stranger in a place that's already unfamiliar and intimidating is about the worst thing that can happen. The sort of experience that can stay with him for life, playing over and over in his head in increasingly far-fetched scenarios. But after Randy rescues him, Mike has a moment of real insight.
"And I'm just not gonna just let this be another situation that contributes to me being a little ineffectual nothing the rest of my life, you know?"
He can see the deeper long-term psychic danger that the fear represents. So he concocts a plan.
This is the gamma crossroads.
The gamma path starts by here. Choosing the safe road of heading home quietly at the end of the night without further incident then starting the process of what you could have done. Until it becomes confused with what you did. That's the path to the delusion bubble.
The notable thing is that the plan went off about as well as could be hoped.
Success 1 - Clint and his friends are oblivious to Mike's approach.
Success 2 - The beer over the head is sufficient distraction to throw an open haymaker.
Success 3 - The roundhouse connects flush - squarely enough to send a tough guy sprawling.
A non-fighter couldn't have scripted better execution. But then the inexperience comes into play. There's no way a guy like Clint gets smoked that hard in front of all his friends without coming back with vengence. Unless he's knocked out. And a non-fighter like Mike isn't knocking anyone out, even with a perfect set-up. This was the best it was going to go.
Then there's the sucker punching the alpha of a scrappy group of guys in front of them. They're not going to be in any hurry to break things up until Clint gets his payback. Any chance Mike had of getting out that way needed him to swarm after the knockdown, do damage, and force the friends' hand. That is, be experienced in a real fight. Instead he stands there in a moment of confusion then gets pounded by an enraged dude who's way tougher than him. Plus people love a fight. There's a difference between breaking things up instantly and waiting until there's a clear winner.
Alphas to the rescue... again.
To Mike's dismay, the bystanders make a circle and prevent anyone from breaking it up until Randy and Wooderson burst through.
But consider the lessons. The damage proves less traumatic than letting things fester would have been. And he stuck up for himself. He might be a terrible fighter, but he moved into the group of guys who will fight. Over time the details will be less important than the simple fact that Mike fought Clint at the moontower. And that's something that isn't gamma.
The half-hearted attempt to claim that he didn't "get his ass kicked" is quickly replaced by the more plausible reflection on historical figures who "got into a brawl".
More verisimilitude - the social implications are immediately visible. Randy says goodbye by throwing a play punch and calling Mike "Ali".
Not only is the alpha already making light of his friend's improbable trauma as no big deal, you can see the outline of a senior-year nickname coming into view. And that's organic socialization. Mike may never be "cool", but by standing up for himself in the face of fear and violence, he gave himself room to live.
The Sigma
Last up is the other outside the hierarchy group, and maybe the hardest to classify. Mainly because they are defined by operating outside of social hierarchies, but have status when they do engage with it. Outsiders who still manage to be charismatic or successful on their own terms. Any time you have something that is defined by what it isn't, there are troubles with clear definitions. And the sigma is worse because of the amount of misunderstanding swirling around it.
Pickford is the resident sigma in Dazed and Confused. Like the other characters, he is so well done that you can see a lot of defining traits and how unique they are.
Note Michelle who is very pretty, perfectly suited to his lifestyle, and totally devoted.
This is where the pick-up scene does a real disservice by filtering everything through superficial attraction to women. It makes sense from the peddling the promise of dopamine to de-moralized losers perspective. It just doesn't do much for deep understanding.
That's the larger difference. The PUA world isn't based on grasping truth. It uses some surface insight to project false impressions for short-term gain. This gives the impression that SSH ranks are "image" - like something you can control or put on. It is based on other's observations, but of you, not some surface tics. With a good frame you can fake for a while - it's why PUA techniques skew
success rates enough to stay popular. But SSH isn't an act. Ironically, to someone familiar with the SSH...
Trying to think of Wolverine or Han Solo as "mysterious stranger archetype" that you play is more than retarded. It's inverted.
Adam Kubert, cover to Wolverine 73, Marvel Comics, July 2009
Wolverine is a comic character, and while he might be a sigma, the writers are gammas. It's not a real archetype.
And worrying about seeming sigma is literally the inverse of a sigma. What appeal the sigma has comes from omega-level uncaring about the larger social order - other than how it intersects with his own needs and goals. Focusing on appearing other than how reality indicates is the path to gamma.
Asking "am I a sigma" is nearly synonmous with not being one. Likewise worrying if others see you that way. If you're not playing games with yourself, it's obvious. The reality is that sigma is the marriage of uncaring and appeal. And this is very rare.
The uncaring is the real rarity. Humans are social animals by nature, so to reach a point where social hierarchies are as personally meaningful as the weather is unnatural. And to do so in a way where appealing functionality still registers on people in the social hierarchies is very uncommon. There's a reason why sigma traits can seem uncomfortably psychopathic on first glance. It's the disinterest in conventional social assumptions.
Pickford is the least affected by the cancellation of his party. He's "over it" and concentrating on his foosball game. And of course he's really good at that.
The guy who is totally oblivious to the social world around him deciding to throw a party, it becoming the big social event of the moment, and having to cancel it last minute and not really caring while everyone else is bummed out is pure sigma.
The difference is that the healthy sigma has plenty of empathy and compassion. They just don't care about what most people do. They have powerful cares and drives - they're just personal. Sigmas can be loyal and devoted to a fault if their personal aims align that way. They can be awful if their aims are pathological. That's the "outside the hierarchy" part - self-driven rather than reactive. Sigmas can play the social game - they're good at it when they do so - but when it's expedient to do so for personal reasons.
Morality is a matter of logos, not personality type.
Pickford takes to Mitch so he engages with him in an almost alpha way. He's already giving him a nickname - Junior - which is what he does with his friends - like Woodybear, Slater-san.
Here's more subtle verisimilitude - Slater carrying on is the focus, but Pickford is quietly smoking Mitch up in the background.
This degree of uncaring without having a cluster B disorder requires some degree alienation or trauma. Basic social instinct has to be broken and rewired. Just as sigmas take many forms, there are many things that can do this. Day is an obvious sigma - the Band is disinterested in his personal life, but high intelligence is sufficient to isolate a child from the social context and start the path to sigma self-containment.
The point is that the uncaring isn't a choice. There's no nagging voice inside to cover over or to have wear at you when ignoring some absurd pointless social mummery. Not only does it not matter what some rando's opinion is, it seems retarded that anyone else unconnected would care. If you are ever dealing with a sigma in an important capacity, wrapping your mind around the extent to which they don't care about your social niceties qua social nicities is a good way to avoid misunderstanding. The advice to the sigma would be to recognize the impact they have, even when they're oblivious.
Pickford's world with Michelle and his friends.
Sigmas aren't misanthropes. Nor are they "frozen hearts" in need of melting. They can be extremely socially savvy and fiercely committed. They just couldn't care less what person X thinks if person X isn't important to them. That isn't a choice you put on.
Making
your way successfully on your own terms does not necessarily mean
mysterious stranger. It means that you prioritize your own path over
societal expectation and it "somehow" works out. Somehow, because sigmas
tend to be poorly understood by those within social hierarchies.
From the opening montage.
Pickford's focus is easy cool and a stoner lifestyle. Contrast how he makes it work with Slater. His personal choices resonate with people in the hierarchy. But he really couldn't care less if you think he's a jerk or dislike the color of his car.
You can appreciate the effectiveness of the sigma if you imagine the same outcome with a focus that's actually productive.
When we say humans are social animals it means they internalize social hierarchies and norms so perfectly that they can't separate them from themselves. Sigma uncaring and self-direction are outside their frame of reference. The results range from confusion to triggering. Because of this inability to comprehend, weird paradoxes result, like this one.
Sigma success is sometimes described as underachieving and improbable at the same time.
This gets to the flawed or glitched alpha comparison. The sigma is able to succeed to the extent they do outside of the hierarchy becaue they possess alpha traits. There's also a turbo-charged omega dimension, where the desire to avoid social entanglements is brushed aside by charisma and accomplishment and the attention and overtures that come with it. However you describe it, they lack is the ability or the inclination to maintain leadership in any stable social hierarchy. But the successful independence and high-value characteristics combine to be attractive to women.
That's where the truth in the PUA takes comes in. Sigmas are distinguishable from the fantasists - the gunslinger-in-their-own-minds aspiring gammas and cacooning omegas - by their appeal to women. It's not the limelight appeal of the alpha perched in everyone's view atop the hierarchy. But there are invariably pretty girls around.
Michelle hardly speaks, but is one of of the few who actually has interests in doing things like art and music. Unconventional compared to the in girls, her looks and aura still give her what in the calculating world of game is called a high sexual market value. In other words, she has choices. She's also pitch perfect for a guy like Pickford.
Not surprising from a sigma. Who else even catches her interest?
Sigmas interact with the hierarchy in different ways. If engaged elsewhere, you won't see them at all. But when they lock in, they bring formidable tools. We already noted how Don can fall into his bravo role with Pickford. Dazed and Confused also uses physical resemblance and interactions to show the similarities between alpha Randy and his sigma counterpart.
They don't exactly look alike, but they look more like each other than any other pair.
This comes through in the nimble air freshening scene where they're tossing things back and forth.
Sigma-alpha friendships can work if the alpha isn't dependent on the sigma - as in a workplace.
The alpha rarely enjoys the company of a personal peer, and the sigma is unthreatening to the alpha's position. This scene isn't deep or portentous, but it shows the appeal of the sigma as someone who the alpha can do cool stuff with that the lower ranks can't.
It lets the alpha be one of the guys. Just on a higher level than the guys usually are.
They're even attractive in similar ways. Linkletter did an excellent job of finding guys that fit a mid-70s heartthrob look, as far as the Band can tell. Randy's a tiny bit more composed, but the appeal is cut from the same cloth.
One of the few narrative themes in the movie is Randy's crossroads. There are enough hints that he's transitioning into a "bad crowd". Not just from the coaches and football players either. Mike's little comment "is this a smoked or liquid lunch" isn't just a sign of friendly needling. It looks like the smart kids are also noticing a change too. If there's a bigger message, it's the problem of instilling priorities and responsibility in a world where everything is fake. And if the status markers aren't real, it's hard to keep the alphas where they need to be.
In SSH terms, it's Pickford that is showing the alternate path.
Slater and the run of the mill stoners don't appeal, but Randy can project himself into Pickford's little custom world because he can relate to him. Pickford's himself without all the social hassles and pressures, and given the pulls on him, that does appeal.
But it can also never work for him. Because "without all the social pressures and hassles" is the difference between alpha and sigma. And that has to include "without all the social attention and status". Even step one - seriously committing to one girlfriend - is a bridge too far.
It should come as a shock to no one that fidelity is often a problem for alphas in general.
That's the Band's walk through the ant farm. The SSH is difficult for some because it's a bunch of generalities that take on different forms. Meaning you have to be able to see both. Dazed and Confused is so unusually realistic in it's portrayal of an autonomous social scene that it makes a perfect way to show examples that are internally consistent throughout. Now put aside the absurd terms of this world and think how it plays out on other social environments.
Checking back with our goals at the start of the post:
The second is to work through the concept on our own terms. This has shown a good handle on the concept.
The last is to share the idea. We've gone through the levels in detail with lots of specific illustrations, reflections, and big-picture ideas to make it easier for readers to grasp it as well. Along the way a ton of insights about boomer delusion have washed up.
The first is just an homage. Considering the previous two, we'd have to say a personally satisfactory homage to Day's most excellent model.
And that's enough for Dazed and Confused for now as well. Got a Renaissance post in the making - they take a lot of preparation - and how to look at paintings on the art front. Taking a small hiatus from the occult digging to give the soul a break. Might be time to start thinking about The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant...
Great work. I'm thinking a von Neumann game, but that's not it either; maddening, I've seen the term for this in mathematics but can't quite recall the name.
ReplyDelete"There really isn’t a word or short phrase to evoke all the fakeness, disconnect, and mediation of modern culture." Maya might do the trick. It covers a lot of ground. Perhaps more than desirable in this context.
ReplyDeleteThere is something to that state of projected deceit. Add the motivated evil and property of moral entropy in a Fallen world - the metaphorical state of Babylon in Revelation. Unwholesome liars in an unwholesome house of lies. It seems extreme because there is some virtue coexisting as well.
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