by J. Walter Plinge
2002
 
 

3 MILLION YEARS AGO
Human predecessors are frolicking in South America, and southern and eastern Africa.

1.6 MILLION YEARS AGO
Humans evolve into homo erectus. This new species, is essentially what you see today. You, your neighbors, your parents: they haven't changed much in 1.6 million years. We have a genetic makeup nearly identical to chimpanzees (99.6%), and there's one trait common to chimpanzees which may prove to be a fatal flaw: its fawning, unswerving, eternal, adoration of the Alpha or dominant Male. The Alpha Male is characterized by his physical strength, aggression, and most especially, his egocentric view of the world. The Dominant Male is not noted for his intelligence. This wasn't a problem for the first 2.98 million years.

If you like the scientific approach there's a lot of information at the Center for Evolutionary Psychology:
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/

If you want to get away from the scientific terms you can think of the Alpha male in any number of every-day phrases and concepts, like social climing, status seeking, keeping up with the Joneses, — none of these terms have much to do with "lower" animals, but there's no end of them which refer to humans: back-stabbing, avarice, self-promotion, self-serving, arrogance, brinkmanship, egotism, prestige, rank, position, distinction, glory, nobility, eminence, renown, illustriousness, notability, honor, repute ... and so on ...  War.
 

20,000 YEARS AGO
Humans begin their long descent down the bumpy tracks of fate toward that Great Brick Wall of Doom. Hunter-gatherers opt for the farming life. This lays the groundwork for division of labor, ownership, and private property rights. The Alpha Male is in hog heaven; takes time to ponder who to kill next.

10,000 YEARS AGO
First experiments with money. Most systems developed are far more egalitarian than that of today. Alpha Male sets the stage for scrapping the barter system, the first, last, and only natural and equitable money system humanity has ever known.

5,000 YEARS AGO
If human history was one minute long, we are now at the 60th second. The Mother Goddess, the religious figure that has been present throughout the past, is dumped when men, in a fit of genius, invent a God in their own image; a male God. The Earth Mother/Goddess figure of the past million years was based on earthly life, cooperation, compassion and truth; the male God figure is built on myth, dogma, competition, domination, sin, guilt, fear and war. And ignorance. Especially ignorance; anti-science.

This - religion - is a majorly important human invention. In small hunter-gatherer societies, the Dominant Male served to protect and lead. In larger social settings he has nothing of value to offer his devotees beyond domination and subjugation. The Alpha male is profoundly un-democratic; society evolved, the alpha guy didn't. Religion changes all that; it offers some sense of pseudo-legitimacy for the dominant guy to hide behind — after all, he'd lose hands-down to a scientist, but with religion you can make your own rules.
     The power of religion is demonstrated today by the 3 billion Christians and Muslims on the planet, half of whom  - 25% of the world's population - are women. The Dominant Male successfully runs his operation on the backs of these women, what with the bake-sales, social evangelism, fund-raisers, choirs and office work, yet their devotion is not diminished when the church officially proclaims that their social position in the earthly hierarchy is one notch above domestic animals.
     Humans are the only earthly life form that can reason, and the only one able that doesn't. Good news for that Alpha guy.

3500 to 1500  YEARS AGO
The "Great" religions are founded. Clearly everyone seems to have spotted a gap in the market at the same time.

1500 YEARS AGO
The word "hierarchy" is invented. By a man: Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. Surely I don't have to explain what this means to an Alpha Male. Here comes Centralization. Here comes Winner Take All, the Star System, and Zero Sum Games. And here comes the heretofor unknown heights of power. Bye-bye democracy.
    The good Saint and his flock claim that human hierarchy is based in nature; bees for example. They forget that the "queen" was given her royal title by humans. The queen bee is, in reality, just another worker. She spends her life laying eggs, not in a limo on a cell phone lording it over billions of subjects. In real life bees cooperate, they don't ordinarily compete. In truth there's not much of a hierarcy to be found in nature. The only place where the term "hierarchy" has any meaning is as a bookkeeping tool, like in biology texts as means of classifying species.
     With this new concept of hierarchy comes a new concept of "democracy." In indiginous tribes such as the American Indians and especially the Iroquois, the "leaders" were simple functionaries who compiled, mediated, and promoted the will of the people. They were not actually leaders, they were followers who took their orders from the tribe. In the new hierarchy system the leaders dominate the people.

1000 YEARS AGO
Cities begin to form across Europe laying the groundwork for the division of those who consume (in cities) from those who produce (rural). Hierarchies abound.

500 YEARS AGO
Nations begin to be established in Europe. Bigger Hierarchies abound.

400 - 200 YEARS AGO
Scientists from Galileo to Darwin threaten to unseat the religious base of the Dominant Male. For a time they seem formidable.

300 YEARS AGO
Handel writes, "All We, Like Sheep." It was a hit. And still is.

200 YEARS AGO
Human rights are established in the U.S. It was a great idea until . . .

150 YEARS AGO
Human rights are established for fictional beings: portable feudal estates known as corporations. Hierarchies abound some more. The Alpha Male has found his niche.

130 YEARS AGO
Thorstein Veblen writes his "Theory  of the Leisure Class" although nobody, including Veblen himself, seems to know what to make of his observations. He was describing the new improved Alpha Male and his followers, some of whom were, by now, females emulating the Alpha guy (see Kissinger above).
     The leisure class is, by definition, those who live off the labor of others, and their tendancy is toward what Veblen called "conspicuous consumption" meaning that they are involved in "display" or what we call "sex appeal" and "power" more than they are involved in egalitarian social order. Indeed, it seems axiomatic that those preoccupied with display and power have lost all interest and ability to think rationally about equality; the two are contradictory. So the axiom is reduced to: Those in power, those we look up to, are actually unable to think about equality. They are AGAINST equality.

90 YEARS AGO
Post WW I sees the closing of national borders. Previously one could, and there were those who did, walk from Italy to England. Hierarchies abound still more, for, if their were no borders governments would have no power.

70 YEARS AGO
Television invented. The greatest propaganda machine on earth, sells monoculture in the name of "freedom of choice." So now there is a world stage available to spread the word on human rights ... and its is dominated by those who have never given it much thought.

30 YEARS AGO
Alpha Male's crowning glory: money created from nothing - the U.S. "floats" the dollar. This is better and easier than spinning straw into gold, more effective than alchemy, and more convenient than the Midas touch. Never has such vast power been held by so few.

20 YEARS AGO
Science, at long last, is subverted to the purpose of the  Alpha Male. Studies in colleges and universities as well as independent research are now controlled by Dominant Males, from their seats in government and corporations, who require predetermined results. This is the renaissance of religion; science is now a matter of BELIEF. Can't do without that.

10 YEARS AGO
Clinton inaugurated as top Dominant Male. The fawning and adoring population reaches out at the inaugural parade, to touch and be touched. Just EXACTLY like their monkey forefathers 3 million years ago.

2 YEARS AGO
The world's chief Alpha Male, the village idiot, the most powerful Dominant Male on earth, on two separate occasions, threatens to arrest those who do not swoon sufficiently at his speeches. It works; the people swoon.

1 YEAR AGO
The most powerful Alpha Male on earth, threatens indiscriminate use of nuclear weapons to protect his money system.

1 MONTH AGO
The village idiot, creates US$325 billion with a wave of the imperial wand. This money, he says, will be paid back by your children and, should we live so long, their children, who may never be born, and never had a vote on the war it will finance. But, born or not, we can be sure of one thing: our descendants would have had an undying (if I may use that term) adoration for The Alpha Male.

3 DAYS AGO (25 Nov 2002)
Gordon Brown, head economist in Britain, says that giving the striking U.K. firemen a pay raise equal to inflation would be "inflationary" and would bankrupt the U.K economy.

1 DAY AGO
Gordon Brown says (no joke) the U.K. must "borrow more money" ie. they need to Spend More into circulation. Nobody in the media sees a contradiction. (Think, pinky, think ... no money for basic social programs but no limit to money for corporations and weapons programs)
 
 
 
 

MoOOoooooo-o-o-o...
Walt

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