The weak man wears the amor of ego.

Deborah and I spent a few days with the mountain gorillas of Rwanda, in 2018.  It was an amazing experience which also included a  profound realization which sadly has come true; the power of the Alpha Male.  I witnessed how the alpha male used force to dominate and intimidate the males (mostly drive them out) and to dominate the females.  Looking at the suppliant behavior of the families (tribes) and thought “we are so fucked.”  I was so right.  What I realized that there were genes flowing through some of us that would respond to the alpha male.  That is what Trump also realized even if his pea brain is not really capability of articulating it.  He grew up with an alpha male father.   

Humans are primates.  We are most closely related to  Chimpanzees and  Bonobos sharing 98.7% of our DNA with them.  The former has a very strong dominant hierarchies  while the latter are more matriarchal.  I think we are some kind of mix.  While some of us will relate to the Alpha Male and fall in line, others of us will not even understand the concept.  That may be at the root of the political turmoil we are now seeing and also explains much of human history.

This dissonance in how we relate to authoritarians can be seen so clearly in the political situation in which the world finds itself. a world that has mostly been run by tyrants and dictators.  It is, sadly, the world we once again find ourselves.

So while some of us want to be lead by someone smart (does not have to be a man) others want to be lead by someone strong (most likely a man).  It is also possible to have a hybrid, someone that is both an authoritarian and smart such as Lee Kuan Yew, the amazing founder of Singapore.  But I think they Hybrid is the exception as is the Smart Man.

I wonder how much of the predisposition to supporting a Smart Man versus a Strong Man is genetic.   Perhaps this could be tested using genetics and AI? I am sure there is a difference by gender. 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The DEI movement can be thought of as an unconscious attempt to resist the Strong Man.   DEI distributes power while the Strong Man concentrates it.   It is very difficult to be really powerful without concentration of power.  Having few people with power makes it more practical for  the leader to consolidate his power.

The role of Religion

God, while portray as benevolent, can  also be seen in the Abrahamic  religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) as the ultimate Strong Man and is invoked by the hierarchy of the various religious institutions.  God is seen as male.  But for the human Strong Man, God is just another Strong Man whose power can be used to bolster his own position.    

Why Science has to be repudiated by the Strong Man

The Strong Man has  little appetite for science because it does not lead to a concentration of power. Science is open-ended and based on doubt, experimentation, and revision. It is decentralized with no single person having  the “final truth. It is transparent where data, methods, and peer review are public and open to challenge. In contradiction to the Strong Man,  science constantly reveals how much we don’t know.

The Strong Man, by contrast, is an authoritarian: He claims absolute truth, often without evidence. He is dogmatic and sees questions as threats, not invitations. The Strong Man is hierarchical, expects loyalty, not peer critique. The Strong Man needs to appear invincible and infallible.

What can bring the strong man down

The Strong Man fears that emergence of other Strong Men that can challenge his leadership.  So to protect himself, he will end up surrounding himself with weaker and less effective versions of himself.  He will seek to create conflict between them so that none of them can consolidate power. He will often turn against them and remove them.  The result is that he can never create an effective team to deal with the issues that confront him.  To stay in the Strong Man’s graces, the mini versions will never confront him with the truth if they think it will displease him. Rather, they will tell him what he wants to hear. 

Hitler was a great example of this.  He probably thought he could still win the war until a few days when the Russians entered Berlin, Then he poisoned his newly wed wife, Eva Braun, and blew out his brains with a gun. 

Most strong men historically end up with a violent death (Hitler, Mussolini, Gaddafi, Hussein, and Ceausescu) or public disgrace (Nixon and Berlusconi ).  But the Strong Man can do so much damage while in power.  The Strong Man doesn’t just want obedience—he wants  worship. Legacy is everything to him. His deepest fear? Becoming a footnote instead of a monument.

Many if not most Strong Men suffer from some physiological problems.  Some were/are likely  psychopaths such as Stalin. While others demonstrated sociopathic behavior such as Gaddafi.  There term Malignant Narcissism might be an apt description for others such as Trump.  

The Smart Man

It has been a struggle to come up with examples of a Smart Man leader.  In my opinion the last clear example was Roosevelt more than 80 years ago.  We had some that came close, such as Jack Kennedy. Obama could have been this but in my opinion lacked the political skills needed.  Outside the USA, we have a few examples such as  Nelson Mandela, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Angela Merkel.  Obviously, Merkel is a woman but since she was the only example of a Smart Woman leader, I could find, I choose to put here together with the few Smart Men leaders I found. I think she would not mind the company.

After Mao (the ultimate Strong Man), China had a collection of hybrids until Xi who is a text book example of a Strong Man.  The UAE leaders are a fascinating collections of Royalist, Strong Men and Smart Men.

Israel, the country that is the closest to my heart was initially lead by Smart Men, starting with  David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.  But since 1996, it has been run by Benjamin Netanyahu who is definitely a classic version of a Strong Man.

Strong Women and Smart Women

I used the term Strong Man and Smart Man but these traits are not limited to men.  It is just that most leaders have been men.   Example of Strong Women are Margaret Thatcher (the Iron Lady) ,  Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir. 

Evolution and the Strong Man  

It makes sense that we would have the strong man/alpha male in our midst.  It probably serviced to have such people especially those that were a hybrid of strength and intelligence such as Genghis Khan.  But as human civilization evolves and increase in complexity, we must have smart leaders not just strong ones.  Unfortunately, and to me,  surprisingly, we seem to be going in the opposite direction.