Masculinity and the Baton Rouge Shooter

Characterized by action, initiative, independence, and logic, concerned with modelling behavior for others—for “future alphas and alphas in training”— alpha men are also, Long claims, spiritual beings, advanced in disciplined “detachment.”  Voicing a popular conception of self-help metaphysics, most notably associated with the New Thought movement, Long speaks of “the One within, what others call the One above.”  While he attributed to God the rights laid out in the Constitution, he was quick to point out that those rights only apply to people—to alphas—who earn them, by taking decisive action in the world.