Posted under Russia
Regarding our recent discussions on Putin, Roissy writes:
It’s not often we get a photo with two super alphas — representing different male factions — squaring off in friendly admiration rather than combative distrust. But here we have it with Putin and the leader of a Russian motorcycle gang whose name is too long for me to bother spelling out, swapping war stories.
…
Strictly speaking, and in broad terms, Putin is undoubtedly the bigger alpha here. Putin ostensibly runs a country; Alexander the Biker runs a bike gang.
But alpha is often context dependent. Should he so choose, Putin has the fame and power and mystique to clean up with the ladies pretty much wherever he goes, but there are probably some biker bars where Alex is king of the hill and the girls will encircle him as aggressively or moreso than they will Putin. In the cramped quarters of a bar or street gathering, away from the media and cameras, these two men will be judged on more immediate male attractiveness criteria than their ability to pull off power moves in the Politburo.
With that in mind, this moment in time caught in a photo offers a rare glimpse of two fairly equal alphas in a pose-off. Putin, the shorter one, has a clear physical disadvantage in size that deflates some of his alpha allure. But Putin’s solid alpha body language — his ramrod posture, devious grin and straightforward gaze that avoids a betafying crane of the neck upward at the taller Alex — neutralizes his lesser stature.
Kirt Higdon on 19 Oct 2011 at 10:54 am #
Alpha males? The only people I see in the picture gazing with doe-eyed admiration at Alex and Vlad are other male bikers (if that’s what they are). The photo looks like a gay leather-fetish scene. And I have to be suspicious of the “orientation” of anyone who gushes so over the “solid alpha body language” of another male. Keep this guy Roissy away from me and as for Vlad, he should stick to photos with dead tigers or better yet with his gymnast mistress.
Savrola on 19 Oct 2011 at 4:28 pm #
Another conservative loser.
Imagery is everything. Something middle-class conservatives never could understand.
Which is why they lost the culture war. And the economic war. And every other fight they ever entered.
If you don’t like it step to the rear and keep your mouth shut.
Bernard on 19 Oct 2011 at 4:47 pm #
Of all the GOP hopefuls Mitt Romney is the biggest alpha, but even he’s less of an alpha than Bill Clinton, and both of them are much weaker alphas than the hyper-alpha Putin.
Is this the same beta / omega Kirt from previous threads that has no problem handing over his birthright to invading mestizos? No wonder he’s clueless in understanding alpha behavior.
RedPhillips on 19 Oct 2011 at 7:43 pm #
Roissy is not gay unless his entire act is a ruse because his whole obsessive focus on alpha, beta, “game,” etc. has to do with sleeping with women. That said, I can see how someone unaware of the context and history might raise an eyebrow.
I also agree with Savrola that image is important and messenger effects message. You can protest all day that it shouldn’t matter, but it does.
A case can be made that Romney is the most alpha, especially from a pure biography and image standpoint, but his history of flip-flopping plays against that. He is in essense admitting that he can be pushed around although in the service of achieving power.
Cain is pretty alpha as is Perry, but you can see Perry as an alpha if he were at a bar woing women. His particular gifts have not translated well to the national political stage.
Newt fancies himself an intellectual alpha. His debate performances are his attempt to metaphorically unzip his head and whip out his brain and show you it’s bigger. But that plays better in the faculty lounge than it does in presidential primaries.
roho on 19 Oct 2011 at 10:06 pm #
“A man with experience is never at the mercy of a man with a theory.”
With MMA and KGB background, I’m sure that Putin was not intimidated by Biker Boy?
Kirt Higdon on 20 Oct 2011 at 1:36 am #
So I am the only one here who thinks it a little creepy to gush over the “alpha body language” of leather clad bikers. I was over 50 before I ever heard the term “alpha male” and I first heard it applied to Bill Clinton so it had a creepy connotation for me from the start. Since then, I’ve heard it applied to George W. Bush and now to Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. This reminds me of that gay tingle in the leg that Chris Matthews got from Obama. Is this the now politically correct way for people to out themselves?
Two points to clarify – First, I have nothing against Putin as a ruler. He has been a pretty effective de-facto tsar of Russia. He’s way better than the last several US presidents although that’s not a very high bar.
And I am not a conservative. I’ve never called myself that. I’m a sort of paleo reactionary libertarian.
Savrola on 20 Oct 2011 at 4:04 pm #
No one is “gushing” over anything, as you so dramatically put it.
Positive examples of masculinity are rare in our culture, especially disliked by libertarians who suffer from asperengers, even those who acknowledge the reality of biopolitics.
Matt Weber on 20 Oct 2011 at 4:54 pm #
I guess it would help if Putin wasn’t holding what appears to be a pink CD.
I don’t understand why people take this Roissy guy seriously.
Kirt Higdon on 20 Oct 2011 at 7:58 pm #
I’m having a bit of trouble learning much about this guy Roissy, other than that he is supposed to be an expert on seducing women. That sort of fits in with what “alpha males” are supposed to be in both the animal and human world; i.e. the male who achieves supreme power for himself and gets all the females by bullying and intimidating other males. This is not my idea of a “positive example of masculinity”; it strikes me as appealing to males who are either gays, sociopaths or both. If sociopaths, they imagine themselves as the alpha male; if gays they long to be part of his harem.
Savrola on 20 Oct 2011 at 10:48 pm #
And that is fundamentally a simplistic view.
Though to be fair, men of your age, frequently have difficulty internalizing new concepts.
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