A Dearth of Bravos
Why the Right struggles to work together for mutual benefit
It always struck me as strange that the opinion leaders of the ideological Right have never, for many decades, ever been able to successfully cooperate the way the apparent leaders of other groups, many of whom are considerably less intelligent, are observably able to work together, despite the obvious advantages that accrue to those who do. Instead, they’ve usually been more inclined to engage in internecine conflict on the rare occasions that they’re not simply ignoring each other and going about their own respective activities.
When I wrote a book called The Irrational Atheist back in 2008, one of the things that struck me was how effectively the group identified as the New Atheists by Wired magazine, which at the time was comprised of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and, to a lesser extent, P.Z. Myers, were able to continually build each other up and mutually benefit from everyone making the others appear more significant.
With the recent addition of Christopher Hitchens, the New Atheists are nearly as inescapable these days as they are incestuous; here Dawkins is lionizing Harris's “wonderful little book”, there he is favorably quoting Dennett favorably quoting himself, while the works of Dawkins and Dennett top Harris's list of recommended reading. Only Hitchens, ever the iconoclast, doesn't join the endless circle jerk, keeping his references to the others at a minimum and showing the good sense to be embarrassed by the two professors' insistence on calling themselves “brights”.
We have seen the same thing in rap music since the 1980s. No sooner does a rapper enjoy any success than he is both inviting others to perform on his singles while he performs on others. He’ll appear in movies, while his actor friends will appear in his videos. While the frequent appearance of the guest rapper is in part due to the repetitive and unmelodic nature of rap requiring vocal variety to substitute for chord progressions and pitch changes, it is clear that there is also a communal culture of group advancement - “I’ma blow up witch’ya” in the words of Cedric the Entertainer - that is wholly absent among the intellectuals of the Right.
Sixteen years later, I suspect the answer to this lies in the cold realities of the socio-sexual hierarchy. If you look at the New Atheists, their demi-successors in the Intellectual Dark Web, or the endless continuum of post-Tupac rappers, it is very clear that none of these groups are comprised of high-status men. They might be rich, they might be famous, but their situational roles notwithstanding, their profiles tend to be in the lower range. And their success, almost to a man, is far more dependent upon their ability to kowtow before the ticket-makers than upon any genuine talent or intellectual abilities.
But unless one is a gatekeeper in the Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson mode, anyone of note who has even a modicum of success on the ideological Right has to possess a high level of self-confidence as well as a significant amount of talent and intellectual ability to break through the ideological ceiling imposed by all the mainstream institutions. These are individuals who succeed in the face of all the soft power of the media, they are swimming upstream instead of downstream like the others.
And therefore, they tend to be leaders and contrarians, which is to say, Alphas and Sigmas. They all have their own missions and a part of their success is due to their independence and their refusal to pay heed to what anyone else thinks about their actions and objectives. Which is why, for the most part, they do not play well together or cooperate effectively.
Indeed, SSH analysis may even be useful in identifying gatekeepers, because the gatekeeper’s SSH profile will tend to be that of a Delta or a Gamma, which therefore will permit him to cooperate with other fake leaders in a manner that is virtually impossible for the genuine thought-leaders.
The reality of the SSH, which is the reality of male human behavior, is that someone always has to be the Bravo if the group is going to survive and thrive. If there are too many chiefs and not enough indians, the tribe will inevitably fracture and fail over time. The problem for the Right is that Bravo is a profile that will inevitably be very, very difficult to find given the massive headwinds that must be resisted by any individual who is willing and able to stand in opposition to the mainstream narrative.
As a bravo in the prime of his life, I would add that it always amuses me how everyone talks about leadership but never the art of following. You'll never hear it.
I've done both, and I'd like to think done them well. I often prefer 2nd in command, so it gives you a unique view. Bravo is a lost art in the U.S.
I almost think alphas don't even screen for it anymore these days, but this could be me projecting my own struggles to find a band of brothers to be satisfied with. Deltas are of little interest to me usually. Maybe a small pack lead by a sigma would work for higher-IQ bravos?
Another layer, possibly relevant: Alphas are constantly in competition with each other, which makes them unwilling to promote each other. There is an old joke about the University of Chicago professors processing in single file out the door at graduation because two egos couldn’t fit together through the doorway. Perhaps tellingly, we process in pairs now.