Ruminations on Alpha Males

      Last night, preparing to lead a student study tour to China in March, I watched a film that my co-leader and I assigned to the 32 students we'll be taking there.  It's a documentary called "China's First Emperor."  Here was a guy --- in about 250 BC --- who united seven warring kingdoms into one China.  He also was the guy who had all the thousands of clay soldiers, horses and chariots molded, which are now one of China's most famous tourist attractions.

SOURCE

This emperor must have been one of the earliest recorded, classic examples of the alpha male.  

Google "alpha male" and you get more than 15 million hits.  They include:

• What is an alpha male? http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-alpha-male.htm
• How to become an alpha male http://www.themodernman.com/how_to_become_an_alpha_male.html
• Examining the alpha male at work http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/Careers/04/16/cb.alpha/index.html
• And a study of alpha male baboons that indicates it's stressful to be --- and remain --- at the top http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/science/15baboon.html

The Wall Street Journal has asked "Are alpha male healthy?" and concluded that the characteristic aids the rise to the top but produces harmful stress. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903532804576566553268698820.html

Wikipedia tells us, "In social animals, the alpha is the individual in the community with the highest rank. Where one male and one female fulfill this role, they are referred to as the alpha pair (the term varies when several females fulfill this role – it is extremely rare among mammals for several males to fulfill this role with one female). Other animals in the same social group may exhibit deference or other symbolic signs of respect particular to their species towards the alpha." More

Alpha males no doubt will ask, "Where would he rest of you be without us?"  The rest of us may wonder if the benefits out weigh the costs of having them at the top.

This is the question my co-leader and I have posed to our students on our BlackBoard Discussion Forum:  Was China's first emperor a hero or a tyrant?  A savior or a monster?

Another way of asking that is, was he a Churchill or a Hitler?

Were the first emperor's clay soldiers a megalomaniac's madness, resulting in the enslavement of millions of workers... or were they a brilliant public-works project, resulting in the gainful employment of millions, raising their standard of living, and giving them something larger than themselves of which they could be rightly proud?

(Or is it always some of each? Hmm...)

Here's your chance to decide for yourselves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRJQru6yQwY