The myth of the alpha male stretches back some time in our history and is based on the observation of animal behavior in our nearest primate relatives, as well as other social animals. At the surface, it does seem to make a lot of sense: humans evolved from ape-like creatures and a lot of that animalistic hard-wiring is still with us today. Where it fails is when you examine it in detail.

Why Alpha Male Myths Fail

Every single guy reading this has a group of people that they hang out with on a regular basis. That's your pack or family group. Who is in charge? Nobody? Exactly. If there's no leader of your group, there's no alpha.

When did we change from animal to us? About 2.5 million years ago.

Back in the day, some lucky Australopithecus figured out that if you bash a rock against a rock, you sometimes get a sharp flake of rock to pop off. Thus was the tool-maker born and our social dynamic forever changed.

Making stone tools is no different than any other skill -- rudimentary ability is easily acquired, but advanced abilities are limited to those that practice. Most early hominids probably had no problem with the basic skill level much like people today don't have a problem pounding a nail through a piece of wood. Taking off a series of stone flakes, in just the right manner to produce a hand axe, is orders of magnitude harder in the same way that pounding nails isn't the same as building a house.

How Tool Makers Changed Status

What that meant in the grand scheme of things, however, is that the simple concept of an animalistic alpha male could no longer exist in the human realm. Then like now, there were people that were inherently good at a skill. Caveman Gar was big and strong, devilishly handsome as proto humans go and a great hunter, but he didn't have the knack for making stone tools. Caveman Ug wasn't nearly as physically awesome as Gar, but he had the eye for making tools that Gar didn't.

Not only did Ug provide a valuable service to the pack, but his worth in the eyes of the ladies also went up. Where Gar once reigned supreme, now he had competition that he couldn't simply beat down or banish from the group.

If Gar was the alpha male, what did that make Ug?

Look back at any point in our history and you'll find guys not just making tools, but specializing in the type of tool that they made. Specialization, contrary to Heinlein's assertion, is what allowed those early hominids to get a solid purchase on the future. It's so ingrained into us that the first question a guy asks when meeting another guy is, "So, what kind of work are you in?"

Translation: What kind of tool-maker are you?

2.5 million years of evolution turned us from ape-like creatures to what you see today, but it was the tool-making that truly transformed our brain and our societal structure.

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From Animals To Human Societies

Simply put, you cannot have an alpha-beta dynamic in a society where no single male can dominate the other males. In wolves and apes, the system works because all they're doing is being wolves and apes. Being a wolf or ape is a rather simple affair.

So, where did this alpha -- beta thing come from? Well, to be blunt, we can blame the media and academia. Starting with Desmond Morris' classic The Naked Ape, probably the seminal work on modern human behavior as it relates to evolution, we've been inundated with images and stories portraying this alpha-beta structure as the default setting for men.

It wasn't until Schick and Toth came out with their ground-breaking work, Making Silent Stones Speak, that we see academia actually take a look at what making stone-tools actually meant for early hominids in terms of brain development and evolution.

Media Heroes And Male Identity

Of course, the media contributes to the mythos by always portraying the hero in physically impossible terms. From GI Joe and He-Man cartoons to your average leading man in the movies, the hero is always an alpha male that's realistically impossible to emulate.

Women don't love cowboys, they love the fictionalized and romanticized image of the cowboy created by the media. Real cowboys are not Kevin Costner reciting carefully scripted prose to some perfectly-coiffed beauty on the back lot of a Hollywood studio.

In his piece "White Men Were Never Made of Marble", Jack Donovan makes the observation that the models for Greek statues "were probably sunburnt, hairy and scarred.", and that Plato was a "big, broad-backed wrestler".

These are examples of what I call pseudo-subliminal messaging: little things that stick in your brain and have an impact on your thoughts. You're not aware of it, but it's still there. Something as innocent as the theme song to Gilligan's Island doesn't bother anyone, but it's still in your brain because of the repeated exposure and good feelings associated with it. What else is in your brain?

The next time you look at a statue of a Greek god or famous statesman, remember Donovan's observation that they were most likely just regular guys that probably didn't look like the statues that commemorate them.

In both of the instances, you actually have to stop and think about it because you've been trained from your earliest days to envision something completely different. Think about a real cowboy covered in sweat and trail dust after weeks of riding the trail and ask yourself how many women would really love to ride off into the sunset with him.

Rethinking What Makes A Man

Today, men are at war with the feminist army, and they're losing. They're losing, in part, because they also have dissention in their own ranks. We constantly demean each other with this "alpha-beta" scale, elevating some guys above others simply because they are able to easily get laid.

How does that make sense? What message does that send to our sons?

Is Master Chim from the Pressure Project an alpha male? He's huge, strong, dominating, physically fit and trained in combat. He has a wife and three kids. He runs his own business and provides well for his family.

That would seem to fit all of the requirements for alpha status, right? But can he fix a computer or car? Does he have a degree in law or medicine? No?

Master Chim isn't an alpha male; he's a tool-maker. His craft is combat and he builds his body and mind (his default tools) around that specialization.

Is the average PUA an alpha because he can smooth-talk women into his bed? No. He's, again, a tool-maker. He has a real job, something that he does for a living, and one of his avocations is to get laid. To further that goal, he develops the tools and skills to be successful -- no different than a guy that wants to be a good hunter of other game.

If getting laid a lot, or standing a good chance of getting laid, is the measure of a man it's a pretty weak measurement. What that's basically saying is that an alpha male is the best servant a woman could ask for.

You don't get laid unless you please a woman in some fashion. She has to approve of your appearance, smell, word skills, income bracket, etc. So the guy that gets laid a lot is, in real-world terms, the guy that serves a woman's needs as the woman sees it. If you want to look at it from a strictly animalistic point of view, the guy that gets laid a lot isn't so much an alpha male, but a stud animal. He was chosen for breeding because of his physical characteristics, no different than a horse or steer.

And while it's perfectly okay for a guy to travel down that path, the time spent doing so is time not spent on hundreds of other endeavors. Was Michelangelo pulling down pussy left and right, visiting the local nightclubs in between learning how to paint? Or was he spending hours and hours in the studio building up to the point where he could grace the world with the Sistine Chapel? Is his contribution to history less than some guy that boffed a dozen floozies?

How many men and women dismissed Bill Gates when he was in high school?

Every Man Brings Unique Value

Specialization makes all men valuable.

We do not do ourselves any favors when we demean our brothers. The star athlete needs the dorky computer tech far more than the repairman needs the athlete. The lawyer needs the mechanic far more than the grease-monkey needs the shyster.

The overwhelming majority of those guys are not going to have movie star looks or bank balances. Movie stars are not anything more than entertainers, their tool is words and costumes designed to elicit a response from the audience. The big names get paid a lot because they have millions of customers buying their product -- and they all rely on agents, accountants, lawyers, best boys, grips, and cameramen to make them successful.

While we're busy tearing down other guys because they're not alpha enough, we're getting overrun by the opposition. The best thing men can do for themselves and their culture is to recognize and accept what Janet said so long ago -- men are critical to the function of society.

As Janet Bloomfield, aka Judgy Bitch, has so amply demonstrated on her blog, men are pretty important.

"We live in a world powered and created and maintained by men, and yet feminists have created a whole philosophy and ideology that insists women and men are equal." -- Janet Bloomfield

The overwhelming majority of those guys are not going to be movie stars, professional athletes or CEOs. They will be plumbers, electricians, truck drivers, coders, mechanics, farmers, cops, soldiers, and a thousand other things that quietly keep the lights on and the water running.

They are not lesser men because they aren't on a magazine cover. They are not "betas" because they don't fit some internet guru's checklist. They are men doing what men have always done: making tools, solving problems, and shouldering burdens.

If there ever was an alpha in our evolutionary history, the Tool-Maker killed him.

There it is, folks -- now it's your turn to have your say. What do you make of Ferrum's argument -- do you agree with his take on what he considers to be the "myth" of the Alpha Male? Or do you think his thesis is all wet? Are Men losing the "war" against Feminists, or do you think that notion is also all wet?

What, say you?