Every now and again, I have heard folk with a limited and simplistic grasp
of the social dynamics of primates and canines talking about humans as being
divided into alpha
and beta
types; typically, such folk have a
smug air about themselves which silently proclaims I, of course, am an
alpha
; and I've long suspected they are talking nonsense. I now (early
2008) suspect that there may, in fact, never have been any human alphas (in
the genetically-determined sense that applies to at least wolves).
The distinction they're describing isn't even real in wolves: as I
understand it, the idea – that a pack of wolves is lead by a male and a
female who express some genetic traits that make them aggressively dominate the
rest of the pack, who do not express that genetic trait; the former are called
alphas and the latter betas – originates from studies of unrelated wolves
being thrown together. That's not a normal wolf-pack, though: wolf-packs are
usually extended families, with bonds of kinship, and the dynamics are more
complicated – much as is the case, indeed, for large primates. But the
myth persists: according to it, breeding is largely limited to this dominant
pair, who oppose breeding among the others. Without alphas to lead them, betas
supposedly fall to fighting and break up as a group. That would, were it true,
at least have made it easier to domesticate the betas by humans who'd discovered
that they could dominate the betas of a pack whose alpha they'd killed; the
betas would even like it and developed a strong loyalty to their
new alpha
. But more likely the domestication was facilitated by the fact
that pups are evolved to be raised by a social group of close relatives –
for whom helping the pup grow up was evolutionarily favourable – and
humans could, by fostering the pup, provide it with the same sense of belonging
and thus integrate it into a human pack
.
When I've heard someone prattling about the alpha/beta distinction and smugly believing (usually him-) self to be an alpha, they're thinking that's roughly how it works in primates. I'm no primatologist, but my impression is that the reality is nothing like that. My (very) limited knowledge of (non-human) primate social dynamics says that the cohesive (and long-term) social grouping is a group – known as a troupe – of females, generally fairly closely related to one another; they share the task of child-care, which makes it easier for each to forrage for food. Such a group will be accompanied by their children and a transient few males, one of whom (at any time) is the boss, who mates with all the females but allows the other males (who I suspect would be his close relatives) limited sexual access to one or some of the females in exchange for their help in fending off any other male who tries to barge in on the act.
I am not clear on whether boss-ness is, in primates, a genetic trait or merely a behavioural mode that a male can adopt; most likely, there are elements of both. Some genes predispose towards adopting the pattern of behaviour, but being able to behave otherwise makes it easier to survive to be big and strong enough to get away with such behaviour. In any case, those without the relevant genes (or with fewer of them) can still learn to behave like bosses, when that works to their advantage; genes for being clever are more strongly selected for among the descendants of non-bosses, because only the smart ones get away with having any descendants at all.
The crucial thing that those fantasising about being alphas (they generally
seem to believe this is a genetic trait, so that they can believe they are
born superior to
non-alphas) neglect is that the mythical primate alpha
male is a child abuser, a murderer and a rapist: he violates some of the most
basic taboos of every human culture. He forces sons to leave their mothers and
go off alone into the wild to finish growing to the point where they can be like
him. He is also so dominated by his instincts that he can't be subservient to
another male and can't tolerate the presence of another male unless the latter
is subservient to him. Consequently, I have long suspected that, had they
existed, early humans would have worked out that they'd be better off with
without alphas and systematically massacred them. I'm fairly sure if there were
genes that predisposed males to be alphas, our last male ancestors with those
genes would have been more like chimpanzees than humans. It is precisely
because our ancestors would have excluded alphas socially (and hence from
breeding) that early hominids were able to develop the greater social
sophistication that fostered our growing intelligence and the emergence of
sophisticated culture and technology.
Consider our proto-human ancestors. They were large social primates, so we must imagine them living a life-style not hugely different from what we observe among contemporary non-human primates. We may fairly suppose they were somewhat more intelligent than apes. We may also fairly suppose that, sometimes, after the resident males had driven off some interlopers, the boss died of his injuries, leaving the troupe temporarily boss-less. I suspect one of the dead boss's companions would take over his rôle. Thus, even if alphas had existed, you'd sometimes have had non-alpha bosses, at least until such time as a rival group of males lead by an alpha had invaded and replaced the resident males. In the interval, the intelligent females in the troupe would likely discover that the non-alpha is a lot easier to get along with; partly because they already have established relationships with him. They would likely be better able, with a non-alpha, to keep him from killing or driving off their children. Indeed the old alpha's companions would likely be used to working together, so the others would probably also be less dominated by the one who took charge; or they might even continue co-operating without any one rising to dominance. In the absence of any alpha, the troupe would be subject to less violence than when one is around.
Even though such interludes of relative civilisation (in this mythical world with alphas) might be painfully short, intelligent females would be apt to work out that life would be better if they could make the alpha-free state of affairs last. My conjecture is that, at some point, a troupe would thus have managed to persuade its resident males – the late alpha's companions and those of his sons nearing adolescence – to get along and not fight; maybe they also had sons who they'd kept in touch with since they'd been driven away, that they persuaded to join in. Such a troupe would have the males it needs to continue producing children and to drive off any invading alpha. The males would tend to drive off any other males altogether, but the females would prefer to allow more males to join the troupe, so long as they didn't behave like alphas.
Such a troupe might be subjected to the bad old ways by an invading alpha; but intelligent females would remember how it had been and would take care to build relationships with the other males, conspiring to restore the better life if the invasive alpha ever died after driving off an interloper; maybe even conspiring to drive him off themselves, or with the help of the more reasonable males.
Such a troupe might get driven back to the bad old ways by an alpha son growing up, child of the old alpha, who would be apt to seek to dominate the troupe like an alpha. Such a son would likely have his mother's (and maybe some aunts') backing to keep him in the troupe despite his alpha-ish behaviour, so the first troupes to try the alpha-free lifestyle would be vulnerable to this mode of falling back into the old ways. However, old mothers would learn: before long, troupes would learn to recognise the signs of an emerging alpha and his mother would find the rest united in driving him out.
To be sure, we should not imagine early primates being too refined about justice: but the basic violence of an alpha, had they existed, would inform the development of the taboos we have against sexual violence and violence against children. Indeed, to the extent that male violence actually was a trait among those primates – which it most likely was, given how chimps behave; although bonobos are a hint that it might have been less severe than with chimps – smart females will have recognised the value of developing such taboos in the real world, too. As such taboos began to get established, mothers surely taught their sons not to behave like that; but to be always ready to fight to drive off anyone who did violate the emerging taboos.
A troupe living an alpha-free life-style (or, indeed, in reality one with taboos against male violence against children and femals) would be better able to teach children more about the world (it's easier to learn when you're not cowering in fear) and it could function with a greater number of adults: the number of males would not be limited by how many some dumb boss can feel comfortable around, so the number of females who could be sure of finding an acceptable breeding partner within the group would be larger. More adults means better defence against invaders; and an alpha growing up within thesuch a troupe would have had a harder time building a power base from which to take control. More adults can support more economic activity (even when that's just grooming and food-gathering, more is better) and more complex forms of economic activity (such as grinding seeds to make flour, hence dough, to bake on a fire); and can (produce and) support more children. Intelligence becomes a more advantageous trait in a more sophisticated socio-economic context.
If one troupe can do that, likely others would be discovering the same things over the same period of time, especially in so far as (and I've little idea as to the extent to which this is likely) there's movement of individuals between troupes, or troupes uniting and splitting in re-arranged forms. Boys growing up in such a troupe but driven out by an invading group of males would tend to be better at fitting in to another troupe trying the same thing. A troupe successfully managing to live this way would tend to grow until big enough that it can split and yet still have each part large enough to sustain and defend itself; such splitting would expand their collective geographic range and hence the resources available to them, so would be advantageous. In time, then, we can expect there to be many such troupes.
Any boy growing up with violent tendencies, in so far as his family fails to tame him enough that he doesn't manifest those tendencies, is apt to be driven out and, thereby, excluded from the ancestry of subsequent generations. In so far as violence inhibits the ability to co-operate effectively with other males, it would be disadvantageous, even if so well socially controlled as to not be manifest. So any genes apt to predispose a boy to alpha-style tendencies get bred out of the population. By the time our proto-human population has accumulated enough genetic drift to lose the ability to interbreed with their distant cousins still living a violence-dominated lifestyle, there are no genes that predispose males towards being such unmodulated violence – and humanity has never looked back. Our cultures may allow individuals to dominate socio-economic and political situations, even at times to do so aggressively; but this is a far cry from the way alpha males supposedly behave in primate or wolf social groups.
If we'd ever had any genetic alphas, I would be inclined to look among the the psychopaths to find their heirs.
I'm no expert on the nature of primates, or on evolutionary sociology, so you should consult a real primatologist before even beginning to think about whether the above is anywhere near right; but I hope I have, at least, made a case for: how the benefits of peaceful co-existence may have prompted proto-human primate groups to develop taboos against brutality; and how such taboos could have been decisive in setting our ancestors on the road to producing the astonishing descendents we are. Also, please consult a real primatologist before spouting off about being an alpha.
Written by Eddy.