beekeeper wrote:

errrr....ok responding to this:

"This, BTW, is a classic experession of a Gamma male: "

I'm sorry but that really sounds like a personal attack.
 

And yet, it wasn't, but I see that you responded with one.  Perhaps next time you'll just ask.  I thought it was obvious. Let me try to be more clear.  I said:

This, BTW, is a classic expression of a Gamma male:  I suspect anyone who has spent a few years at a university full of public school Oxbridge near-misses feels the same.

I thought since you wrote it you would understand it from the context in which you placed it.  If said by a male in that position, it becomes a classic example of trying to establish a territory within a territory by excluding the highest ranking males and females and establishing themselves as normative and recasting the Alphas as outliers.. (Perhaps I should have included your whole paragraph.)

This happens in Sherlock with Sally and Anderson the first time we encounter them.  Sally, being the officer of rank at that moment and the only woman, rejects the Alpha male before he utters a single word.  She is trying to cast him as an outlier, to dominate him.  She also tries to dominate his companion whose status is unclear. (John) Then, her Gamma mate Anderson, attempts  to also assert dominance and also cast the Alpha Sherlock into the role of outlier. 

But, Sally is really just a Gamma female with a Gamma male and Sherlock easily takes every bit of power they have and re-establishes the social order.  The unaligned male, the perfectly Beta John Watson, follows Sherlock inside.  It's classic.

(Perhaps I should add as you don't know me, I don't debate.  Being right is the most overrated concept in society.  I like to discuss, however.)

Last edited by MysteriaSleuthbedder (April 12, 2013 8:59 am)

just a tv show....just a tv show...just a tv show...

lol at all this cod psychology/anthropology though. I can't follow it at all and I've studied psychology, biology and ancient Greek in my time. Last time I checked, Sherlock wasn't about chimps. You do know that these ideas, and particularly the idea that you can map animal behaviour and rituals onto human ones, are subject to the fiercest academic and political debate, don't you? An awful lot of people find them highly reductionist and simplistic and find the ideas that they are then used to justify to be morally repugnant. And the animal kingdom is a big place-you can find pretty much any behaviour in there to support any old garbage, including highly objectional racist, sexist and homophobic ideas. 

I expect its above my tiny epsilon brain. Ah well. I expect the writers of Sherlock had their copies of Cosmopolitan and Seventeen to hand when writing it all though, so they'll understand it much better than me.

You know, when my poor wording and unclear writing ends up inadvertantly offending someone, I just apologise and really try to make myself clearer next time. 

Last edited by beekeeper (April 13, 2013 9:38 am)