Casmin Bui Week 10: Who's the Alpha?
Nature is the epitome of diversity. Everywhere, everything is different from one another. All kinds of life as we know it from the land to the seas are different, but we are all connected by one force: the Earth! Of course, everyone in their science classes has heard of the levels of organization: a cell to a tissue to an organism to a community and it reaches all the way to the global level, but as of recently, I’ve come to discover how truly different and fascinating these animals can be from each other.
Power structures often vary among organisms, and I can’t help but wonder why they differ. Why is it necessary to have accommodations for certain species? Don’t they kind of function similarly? As natural selection continues to favor individuals with adaptations based on the environment and conditions, the more that the “peculiar” adaptations somehow… just work. As they reproduce, they create power structures that now pass down from generation to generation. Say wolves, for example. Why do they have a leader named an alpha to lead their pack? Why do some alphas eat first during a meal but sometimes children do? Not many other animals do the same, if they even appear in groups: cheetahs, pumas, lizards, they all live in solidarity.
Humans should be the greatest example of animals in differing power structures. They mimic many power structures that existed millions of years ago (solidarity is an exception). Like how elephants or bison travel in herds and don’t value power between each other, communism had strived to achieve the same effect of equality with no social class. When an alpha leads a pack to prey, a powerful leader can lead an army to war. Of course, humans initiate these concepts with greed for power and wealth, making them more evil. But essentially, these power structures live in harmony in mother nature. By working together, they create a vast ecosystem who depend on one another to balance their populations and prosper.
The Cold War serves as a chilling (see what I did there?) example of what having different power structures could result in: the closest contact of having a nuclear war. Communists and democrats couldn’t live without insulting the other’s practices. Why is the result of differing power structures much more destructive when initiated by humans? Despite how far we go in the future to develop technology, infrastructure, etcetera, we seem to stray farther and farther from nature to the extent that losing the harmony that once surrounded us and our ancestors seems inevitable.
Now this isn’t saying that any power structure is better than the other. There is no issue between these concepts of society, and in my opinion, both sides are understandable because they strive to avoid the mistakes that the other has made.
But if we don’t acknowledge the great changes we have made to our society away from the traditional power structures our ancestors used to live in, we’ll ultimately lose ourselves and our connection with mother nature, as cliche as it sounds. Even if we can replicate some of the structures that animals have today, they end up more destructive than beneficial.
“Who’s the alpha” ðŸ˜you pulled me in the SECOND I saw this title Casmin, it would have been evil not to comment on this. I loved your exploration of power structures in both animals and human society, and the implicit critique you make of us going to war over different power structures while even animals do not do so in nature. One would expect that after the huge wars we’ve had throughout history, we would actually keep and expand upon “the harmony that once surrounded us,” but we didn’t: even with the creation of multiple international organizations to safeguard peace (the UN, the League of Nations etc) certain international relations have always been strained. With mutually-assured destruction, humans were supposed to become more cautious and aversive to war (clearly not the case with all the geopolitical tension of the last 80 years. In your writing, I believe your use of rhetorical questions is extremely effective to encourage reflection on society amongst our class, and your analogies in the form of animals help make your point much clearer and immensely interesting (compared to without them). Thank you for a fantastic piece!
ReplyDeleteLike Atharv, I was also drawn to this post because of its title. This comment is quite tangential, but the mention of the infamous wolf pack theory—asserting that wolf packs have an “alpha” who dominates the pack and fights other alphas—was really intriguing to me. Upon further research, the origin of this power system became clear: it’s completely false. The theory of the alpha wolf dates back to 1934, when a scientist named Rudolph Schenkel, who studied wolves in captivity (this is important) and concluded that each wolf pack had one wolf dominating it, which he could as either the “lead wolf” or “bitch wolf” depending on their sex (you can guess which belonged to which). This later became the basis for the alpha theory when scientist David Mech published a book titled The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species in 1970, popularizing it (https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-myth-of-the-alpha-wolf). However, it’s important to note that these wolves were in captivity; therefore, their behavior didn’t actually reflect wolves’ natural behavior in their native habitats. In fact, the basic unit of wolf pack structure is actually pretty similar to that of humans: a mom, a dad, and their offspring. The “dominant” wolf of the pack doesn’t necessarily fight their way to dominance; instead, they just kind of naturally assume that role, usually because they’re the oldest member (this is true for other pack animals, too—including humans). It has nothing to do with violence or asserting superiority over other wolves. However, the authoritative role of the alpha wolf became permanently etched into the human psyche after Mech published his book, and we began using it to analyze human power structures and make claims about what it should be like. It’s ironic that the concept of the alpha wolf is used to support and justify authoritarianism, violence, toxic masculinity, and sexism, when reality tells us that wolf packs are centered around mutual support and cooperation.
ReplyDeleteHi Casmin, this blog is super interesting! I really like how you compared the power structures of other animals to humans. One thing I want to comment on is how you describe power structures not being “better than [an]other.” However, I personally disagree. There are some power structures that are better than others if it leads to better outcomes for society. If a power structure cannot support the entire population, that is inherently problematic and needs to be changed. If a power structure does not let us have the freedoms that we have earned like freedom of speech and expression, then it is inherently worse than one that does. I understand that it is not worth having a “nuclear war” for these beliefs but it is still worth fighting for a better future. Personally, I believe there has to be a “perfect” power structure that can encompass what we collectively want to focus on. Currently, I think our modern concept of democracy is the solution to the best power structure as it leads to representation from all the people. But, there are still some problems like exclusion from Gerrymandering and lobbying. I really like how we can take inspiration from nature, implement them into our society, and iterate on them continuously until we have a power structure that protects society as a whole.
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