Friday, April 19, 2013

Evolution and the Self-Destruction of Omegas

An article summarizing a number of recent books on the widely-reported anxiety epidemic in the US concludes, “American anxiety seems like a cultural chimera created by, yes, social and economic problems, and by personal crises, but also by media attention.” The summarized books point to specific causes of anxiety in the US, such as the pressures of academia and the invention of Prozac-like drugs by Big Pharma. Certainly, the existential predicament I talk about doesn’t explain all kinds of anxiety, although some social and economic factors are related to our intense modern awareness of that predicament.

But I’d like to talk about an evolutionary explanation of melancholic depression by Jeffrey Kahn, summarized in the article. The explanation is that depression could have evolved as a means of weeding out unproductive members of a group, to conserve the group’s scarce resources. The old and infirm members would withdraw from society, sacrificing themselves for the good of the group and giving the stronger, more promising members a larger share of the food, weapons, and other goods. Howard Blum offers a similar explanation of self-destruction in The Lucifer Principle. However, there’s a better evolutionary explanation, which is that a dominance hierarchy forms not because the omegas direct how the group is structured, but because they’re not strong enough to compete with the alphas and betas, and the stronger members bully their way to a greater share of the resources. Genetically, the result is the same since the resources are reserved for the group’s stronger members, but the social mechanism is different: the omegas don’t choose to sacrifice themselves for the good of the majority, but are naturally pushed out by the stronger members in a competition.

Kahn’s explanation looks to me like it takes on the perspective not just of the genes, but of society’s winners. The winners and the best guardians of the gene pool might prefer to think that the omegas withdraw because the losers recognize the superiority of the other members and bow out by suffering from sort of anxiety or depression. The anxiety becomes a physiological mechanism that eliminates those who are no longer socially useful, but the point is that this is supposed to be an active self-withdrawal for the good of the group. I think this reverses cause and effect. Anxiety and depression don’t cause the social withdrawal of omegas; rather, the cause is the omegas’ relative weakness or introversion which in turn causes them to lose in competition with stronger group members, so that the pecking order forms in an organic way. Anxiety and depression are effects of being on the outside of a society. When you’re alienated from a society, you can afford to look on it objectively, in which case you recognize the arbitrariness and absurdity of its rules and practices; you lack a social network and the distractions of cultural games, giving you time to ruminate and philosophize, which leads to skepticism, atheism, a greater sensitivity to suffering, and a general appreciation of our existential plight. 

[Note: This short article has been added as a PostScript to Psychiatry, Anxiety Disorders, and Existential Angst.]

9 comments:

  1. Well, I have a problem with the whole of alpha/omega concept. True enough, certain individuals possess certain qualities that give them an advantage over other individuals. But this can be entirely circumstantial. It is like arguing that tall people are always better are sports. True enough, but only if by sports you only mean basketball. If by sports you also include soccer, then height is of much lesser importance. So what is the best body type to be an alpha player in sports? Depends on the game.
    Same with personality types. Extroverts and alpha types, type A personalities, they all do well in our society, but only because the rule of the game are tipped on their favor, not because they are intrinsically better. If evolution had not gifted the world with introverts humanity would still be living in caves, and a very loud cave riddled with conflict. An extrovert may get to pick the best flake, but could not for the life of him turn that flake into a projectile point. For that you need brain rather than brawn.
    I rather think of the Alpha as form of parasite.

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    1. Thanks for your comment. I agree that skills in one area may not lead to excellence in another and may even be detriments. I was speaking here only of the biological "game" of reproducing. In many social species, alphas have privileged access to the females and so they succeed best in strictly biological terms.

      But my blog defends omegas. That's why the subtitle is "Philosophy and Religion for Outsiders." My more complete view of alphas and omegas is in "Revenge of the Omega Men":

      http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2012/05/revenge-of-omega-men.html

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  2. Regarding evolutionary biology, I have to wonder if it takes into account our current epoch and its domination by signs/symbols.

    Would someone who is deftly able to manipulate signs to their advantage be considered "alpha?"

    The manipulation of signs to project an image that benefits themself (regardless of accuracy) can be likened to the mantra "fake it till you make it."

    You seem to define a more general principle of alpha, beta and omega. That is, it isn't so much "brains vs. brawn" but "motivation vs apathy" and whether one chooses to participate in cultural games.

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    1. Yes, I agree that evolutionary biology doesn't explain all human behaviour. You have to add the softer sciences as well as philosophy and religion to explain or interpret our less predictable aspects. So "alpha" and "omega" become looser terms when interpreted in nonbiological ways. But in the context of this article, I'm talking about whether depression and anxiety evolved in our ancient, formative environment, the one in which our brain evolved prior to the formation of much culture.

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  3. I think it's safe to say this is one of my favorite blogs ever, very thought provoking content. It's hard to imagine that this sort of social structure existed among hunter gatherers. You need a fairly stratified/organized society, and excess resources to be had. To what extent do the type of social/political structures lead to more/less alphas? Is there such a thing as a potential alpha, who chooses to be beta/omega, as a result of oppressive societies? There is a movement known as MGTOW, Men Going There Own Way, in which men who could be potentially "successful," voluntarily removing themselves from society because they perceive it oppressive to them. This has become a big problem for the Japanese government, as such a large portion of young men refuse to marry, and have children.

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  4. Should have been, Men Going THEIR Own way.

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    1. I'm glad you like my blog. I hope you'll keep an eye out for my novel, the first draft of which is almost finished. It's a zombie apocalypse story with my blog's cosmology/philosophy in the background, and the next novel in the series will get into some science fiction. It'll be available on Amazon and from this blog.

      I hadn't heard of MGTOW. This depends on how we define "alpha." If it's defined in terms of potential, then sure people can change their social position, but if it's defined in terms of actual position, then no, when you change position you change your social status. Anyway, most men who can live as alphas would choose to do so, I think, although my blog advocates for the tastefulness of at least minimal detachment from some cultural distractions that prevent us from dealing honourably with our existential situation.

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  5. I will certainly check it out, I was a latecomer to Lovecraft (I'm 40). If I had known how philosophical his works were, and how closely they matched my view of human existence, I would have read his work earlier.

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  6. Not sure it really matters, OP. The end result is the same. And if the end result is the same, the analysis of how it got there because exponentially more difficult.

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