I used to believe that Shakespeare's Iago was perhaps the most dangerous type of human archetype imaginable: an introverted alpha male. I now know that isn't true and it is solely due to all the conflicting feelings I have about President Donald Trump.
Iago is certainly Othello's worst nightmare and I have a sneaking suspicion that Shakespeare himself was probably much like him. If he wasn't, then he was single-handedly the most perceptive human to have ever lived, which could be equally as true I suppose.
Like all personalities, an introverted alpha male can go one of two ways -- either toward health or away from it. The further he slips from health, the more manipulative and scheming he becomes. The closer he moves to health, the more he leads from the back and from places of privacy or unbreakable conviction.
I used to believe that introverted alpha males were more dangerous than your standard run-of-the mill alphas, who merely rely on brute strength or forceful personality to exert their will. The reason I thought this was true relied on a simple idea: that recognizable aggression would be naturally resisted in the modern era.
Now I believe I was dead wrong. The quality of the male identity has been so eroded in Western culture that we've entered into an age of vicarious "maleness," that makes the more aggressive alpha more desirable. I guess if I had really been thinking hard about it, I would have seen all the clues.
From John Wayne to James Bond, Hollywood has time and time again given us hints as to the things that our society deeply desires, or fantasizes about, regarding its men. I suppose somewhere along the way, I just naively accepted that an external bravado would be very easy to manipulate by an introverted alpha. For the most part, that assumption has proven true in my own experience.
But we've not encountered an alpha like Donald Trump in my lifetime. Some might argue that perhaps it is Steve Bannon, the more reclusive and introverted alpha who is behind the scenes playing puppet master, but I am not so convinced. He no doubt is playing a pivotal role in the ever unfolding chaos, but I've come to believe he is less "the root" and more "the fruit" of Trump's leadership style.
I've had to process my emotions about Donald Trump pretty heavily these past days and I definitely don't mean in the same ways liberals are processing with signs and protest marches. I have always believed that reactions from masses of people were weak because the strength (or lack of) is easily shared, masked, and spread among the numbers. Iago wasn't a marcher, nor a protester. He was Machiavellian, plotting, and in his own sickness, he was never willing to admit to himself that he wasn't in actually in charge of the entire affair.
Equally surprising to me was learning that I share the same enneagram type with Trump and it was probably there that my thoughts about all this were slowly unraveled. We are both Type 8's, fearing weakness and vulnerability. Nevertheless, while Trump takes his core fears public with a show of strength, as an introvert I've always kept my desire to be in charge curled up in a fist, sort of an internal response to perceived threats. We are both wired up as protectors, but whereas the extroverted Type 8 starts a personal crusade to find aggressors, the introverted one is on a constant search for self-identifying victims. The extroverted 8 launches into battle, the introverted 8 is busy amassing soldiers. The former is looking for any fight to prove dominance, the latter is always preparing for one solid, final strike.
In sorting my own emotions, it was eye-opening to realize that my own reactive state stemmed solely from a recognition of my loss of power. Whereas prior to this election, I always felt like I could lead, influence, or even manipulate from the back row, I have needed to wrestle with the fact that maybe that isn't really an option. To preserve personal power, I have been coaxed slowly out of my comfort zone and had to admit that maybe the domain of introverted alphas has come under a new kind of threat... that any perceived victory against such provocative outward strength would only end in a compounded misery for the victor as it did for Iago. The iron hand beneath the velvet glove still wouldn't be enough to break through the open injustices to which the masses of Trump supporters cling and actually support.
That loss of power is unnerving to any 8 and it provokes visceral responses. Living under the reality that quiet strength may in fact not be enough can push introverted alphas away from health rather than toward it. The fear provokes a deep-seated need to assert rather than to rely upon core truths to which we once comfortably enforced by stillness, influence and the power of quiet resolve.
The results bring into question the most treasured of our values and perhaps more poignantly, what constitutes our manhood. I need more time to process those questions, but feel certain that given the fact I am contemplating them at all means that whatever power I once felt safe hiding within is nowhere near as secure as I thought.
All that brings me back to Jesus, or at least reminds me as to why I turned to Him at all. That's not such a bad thing and gives me great pause to rejoice. How those questions play out and how introverted alphas manage their core fears of power loss will require more thought.
