The Attack on Sigma

The Narrative's attempt to redefine the viral term

Yes, believe it or not, Hasbro has now released a video of Dora the Explorer, the children’s character, explaining what Sigma is. Apparently it means anyone who is cool, confident, independent, and a leader, never mind the intrinsic contradiction between the last two characteristics.

Now, etymology is all about the changes in words over time, but considering the rapidity with which the definitional mutation has happened, the fact that I have been actively suppressed by the media for more than 30 years(1), and the extreme level of interest in a relatively mundane neologism all tends to suggest that there is a purposeful element mixed in with the organic elements.

I mean, at this point, it is well beyond the usual memetic virality, especially when one considers the way virtually no one ever utilizes it in the correct context of the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy to which it is intrinsically and inextricably connected.

The evolution of the definition appears to stem primarily from two sources. One is the desire to prevent understanding of the SSH, the other is the desire to avoid the emotional pain of being forced to understand one’s lack of socio-sexual status. Which is why all of these redefinitions are not only expansive, but mutually contradictory. When one definition of Sigma is leadership, while another is being kind and inclusive, it’s pretty obvious that we’re dealing with pure rhetoric rather than any genuine dialectical analysis.

The most interesting aspect of this campaign, to me, is to see the way in which the Narrative obviously feels threatened by such a simple and readily observable truth about human social organization. Perhaps I simply wasn’t paying attention previously, but I find it difficult to think of a concept that has been so actively and inconsistently contorted from the moment anyone paid attention to it.

What’s your theory about all of this? I don’t have one, I’m still wondering if my observations on the matter are correct or if this is simply a normal and natural part of the etymological process concerning neologisms that successfully pass into the language proper. In any case, it doesn’t really matter, because the truth is going to survive in the end, since it’s always right there for anyone sitting by the river to observe and recognize as it flows past.

Flow River, Speak Water.

(1) I was the sixth and youngest columnist at the St. Paul Pioneer Press to ever be nationally syndicated in the newspaper’s 150-year history. When the token conservative on the editorial page left for a radio show in North Carolina in the early 1990s, I submitted two sample editorials to the Opinion Editor and requested the chance to replace him, thinking that I was the obvious choice given that they were already putting my picture on billboards around town. The editor called me into his office, told me that while I was one of their best writers and he personally liked my work, no newspaper would ever give me a regular slot on the editorial page because my thought processes were too independent. And he was absolutely correct, because even when Universal Press Syndicate subsequently signed my very popular WND column for national syndication, no newspaper bought it, with the exception of the Dallas Morning News, which bought it, ran it for two weeks, and then mysteriously had to drop it.