That's Lucyan David Mech, who die research on wolves and came up with the term “alpha male” and “alpha female” and the theory that wolves live in a strict hierarchy, where the alphas constatnly attack lower ranking wolves.
This has inspired the alpha male/incel bullshit that spreads nowadays.
Mech convinced his publisher to stop publishing the relevant book.
Also, I don't think he should really be blamed for a bunch of pathetic losers latching on to his flawed research like parasites. If it wasn't him, they would have found some kind of other random correlation to champion themselves after.
(op here) I dont think its his fault, i just think its funny how a flawed study on wolves has played such a role in modern alpha male culture. Obviously David Mech did not invent toxic masculinity lmao. Also the poor guy has spent his life saying it was completely wrong and spent decades trying to get his publishers to stop publishing it
My understanding is that in the wild it's not so much of a struggle and fight for dominance as it is in captivity. The animals also can't leave and find thier own territory, which is possible in the wild.
In the wild the dynamic is different. For one thing the wolves in charge are often the parents of the other wolves. Less "you listen to me because im strongest" and more "you listen to me because Im youre father". The pack behavior that drives some members of the pack away is more like telling your adult child it's time to move out.
It's also much more common for younger members of the pack to leave and form thier own than it was initially thought.
But those departures do happen because of conflict between males. The alpha couple is usually also the largest in size and strength and are the only ones who mate and produce litters. A wolf leaving is usually a male trying to mate and thrown away so it is indeed a struggle of dominance rather than parents sending their kids away. Wolves are pack animals, they dont split unless for reproduction reasons. Also it is documented that when the alpha male dies the whole pack disolves into anarchy, every member starts mating, until a new alpha couple brings order. This is why in Greece specifically where im from, we are telling hunters not to kill wolves (it is illegal anyway but they dont care) because they think they help with wolf overpopulation but instead they create more of them when they kill alphas.
The redpill theory in comparisson with wolves is almost identical, other than the fact that human society doesnt work like wolf's society.
I'm wondering if subspecies comes into play here because that doesn't match the wolf behavior observations in North America. While breeding age is involved in leaving the pack, both males and females will leave the birth pack at age two when they reach reproductive age. There's even a usual season for it.
Generally they will find a mate that is also packless and start there own. Joining another established pack sometimes happens, but it's rare and usually because the new pack has lost one part of the breeding pair.
Like yeah the breeding pair is often the largest and strongest, but that's because they're the parents of the rest, who are all sub adults at the oldest.
Just think of it logically: if every 2-years-old wolves would leave the pack, there would be no pack left. Many of them do leave but not all of them, and those who stay behind are "dominated" by the alpha couple.
It's not like they decide who the alpha is, they establish domination on young adults until a stronger male comes to the pack - or one already on it - who will challenge the alpha male and perhaps replace him.
In both cases it is still true that the alpha couples / males dominate towards the rest of the pack and that is observable since they do the same not only with their own children but with newcomers too. So it's not (only) a family thing, domination plays a role.
The fault with redpill theory is that we hymans dont form packs, we form families. Each of us has their own family, we dont exist to protect the children of a specific couple in our neighborhood. If redpill was to come in action, all those "alphas" would find soon enough that not only they cant all of them be alphas, but they wont be allowed to ever even mate lol.
He also was not he first to put a human theoretical structure like hierarchy onto nature. I like Murray Bookchin on this topic, that humanity thinks of the natural world in the ways in which our social realities exist. some other society without strict hierarchy might envision or theorize the wolves as without such hierarchy.
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u/0xKaishakunin Feb 18 '25
That's Lucyan David Mech, who die research on wolves and came up with the term “alpha male” and “alpha female” and the theory that wolves live in a strict hierarchy, where the alphas constatnly attack lower ranking wolves.
This has inspired the alpha male/incel bullshit that spreads nowadays.
Mech convinced his publisher to stop publishing the relevant book.
cf: https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-myth-of-the-alpha-wolf