In another thread, SexyWriter wrote:
So I’ve stared at this statement for a while, but can’t decide if it is true or not.
So I thought I’d open a debate, and maybe find the language to express my thoughts on the topic in the process.
I’m having difficulty discovering how this can be debatable.
Take a random 2 or more human beings, set them to performing a task, before the task is completed some form of heirarchy has formed within that group of people.
In order for tasks to be accomplished, there must be leaders, and there must be followers. Therefore heirarchy is inevitable.
And the counterargument is?
-Doug
Well, I suppose it depends how broadly we define hierarchy. If you and I go off to a pub for a few pints, we are accomplishing a task. And, sure, we have to decide where we are going, what beer we will be drinking, and who will buy the first round. But does that imply we’ve established a hierarchy?
Well, I think you’re going to get a counterargument about whether this is inherently inevitable.
You’ll get an argument, say, from people who try to escape hierarchies by moving onto a commune and attempting to live under some form of “communism.” Of course, said commune will STILL divide into “those in power and those who follow.” The participants will still set up a division of labor, and more likely than not, end up using that division of labor to connote a ruling class or person of sorts.
My original argument is that this formation of hierarchies is, basically, something hidden in our genes and limbic systems. Perhaps a counter argument might be that formation of hierarchies is only a result of societal pressures?
Though, like you, I’m not sure there’s any evidence of that.
-L
There is more than one way to escape hierarchy. I’m reminded of what Larry Niven wrote in A World Out of Time: it only takes one outside barbarian to destroy a water-based monopoly. Is the barbarian a hierarchy unto himself, or does he merely invert the existing hierarchy by the nature of his existence?
If I fear someone, then they have power over me. If someone fears me, I have power over them. Joel’s corollary: pity the weak and fear the strong, just make sure you know which is which.
That sounds true, though. Hmmm…
Hierarchies are entirely artificial but maintain themselves via laziness, depression, and ignorance, which is easiest to maintain under the weight of overpopulation and poverty. Hierarchy is inertia. Cooperative equalities (economies of opportunity) do not require more energy to maintain, they just don’t spend energy blocking human potential. Hierarchy promotes waste and excess at the top to help prevent equality and allow one person to absolutely control via wealth or power, thus making equality impossible as the entire nation pauses for millenia to worship a royal dynasty. (Hierarchy is absolutism).
Mentally, hierarchy also relies on renunciation of the world and elevation of anti-values: The renouncing of humanity itself. This mindset allows shame, guilt, weakness, despair, fear, cowardice, poverty, ignorance and dictatorship to flourish at will. (Compare so-called “first world” to “third world.”) Hierarchies are cheap to produce, because they rely on economic slavery and cheapened labor (over-breeding), and don’t attempt to achieve anything but conformity through mass undignified suffering. Hierarchies produce little or no technology, science, or art, and spend the extra time wallowing in self-pity.
An extension to this debate entails the question, what is natural? Freedom, justice, equality are natural to independent people by nature, but when civilization becomes too large for nature, that is when civilization opposes nature, and each other, and that is when the artifice of hierarchy enters the equation and it begins to decline and be swallowed by a bigger hierarchy, until it is maintained by sheer custom.
Note: We shouldn’t assume that civilization is natural unless it maintains itself by self-motivation and does not willfully waste replenishable resources and expresses “hope” by predicting its own end or divine redemption (implying suffering and injustice). Any Pharaohic police-state is based on force and terror to maintain itself, hence the failure of modern industrial communism, a near-feudal hierarchy relying on feudal traditions (contradicting the efficiency democratized technology affords). Also, the history of ancient Greece comments on the fact that a free army can defeat a slave army, often 10-1 against, for many reasons. Dictatorship ironically relies on the will of one person, while often negating the self-will of everyone else. Once a dictatorship survives many generations, it maintains its office via the fact that nobody has any idea of the alternative. People maintain their slavery by merely hoping to be masters–which is the same concept.
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*Originally posted by jmullaney *
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He is asserting his demand that HE be considered the dominant, alpha member of the pack, who therefore has access to food and other ammentities first and who also has a better likelihood of having his genes passed on. He has first choice in mating issues.
Certainly, the issue is clouded now that we’re not “living off the land” in the ways other animals such as wolves do. Our new ways of defining power, the necessity for people who may be “naturally” sumissive members of whatever “pack” they derive from to be aggessive in a business or other situation…and so on.
But the bottom line is that a hunger for power is a genetic inevitability…it implies a fight to pass on your own genes to offspring. The inevitability of some to be naturally “submissive” pack members, allowing others first access to food and mating rights, is also an inevitability.
No, this is not defined along gender lines, by the way. Female wolves are frequently the “alpha” of the pack. The same is true of other primates.
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No need to fear someone powerful in all cases. Respect can give them power over you as well.
-L
I think there’s also a symantic side to the argument. Even a “Cooperative equalities” is a heirarchy, it’s just a flat heirarchy. (Though I cannot think of a real world example of a cooperative equality that didn’t end up being at least a 2 level heirarchy, even if who was at what level was fluid) We may need to select a definition of heirarchy that we all agree on before we’re able to reach any definative conclusions on the topic.
Because from the defintion I’m using…
Does imply you’ve established a heirarchy. In most friendships, one makes more of the decisions and the other follows more frequently. This is least evident in situations where the task is entertainment related and I think more evident when related to securing food/shelter/security type tasks.
And Mr. Bunnyhurt, if heirarchy’s are entirely artificial (taking this to mean the opposite of natural) why is it that every species of animal also form heirarchys? Or is it just humans imposing their world view that causes us to believe there is one alpha male wolf in a wolf pack that leads?
-Doug
That’s not always the case. As the barbarian challenges the existing heirarchy and is unwilling to submit to it, if they put a gun to his head and tell him to obey, he has to be able to say “F— you.” Then perhaps they pull the trigger, perhaps not, but his potential for passing on his genes is diminished.
Insisting the issue is one of respect might be a more naive way of looking at a power structure – but certaintly one who always respects never experiences the underlying fear of punishment which comes from a lack of “respect.”
In a large group - yes. Once a group of people gets above N (I’m not sure what “N” is. In fact, I’ve had multiple day disagreements about “N”) it is simply no longer practical or efficient for there not to be some sort of heirarchy in place.
In a small group, I don’t think so… but since we’re used to hierarchies, it is very easy to fall into that pattern. With appropriate diligence, I think a heirarchical structure can be avoided in favor of a flat structure. The question then becomes is the amount of work necessary to do so worth the benefits (assuming there are any) of having such a group?
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*Originally posted by jmullaney *
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Okay, you’ve obviously misunderstood me to have said that in every case of one party asserting dominance, that dominance has successful consequences. I said nothing of the sort. Of course, struggles over dominance necessarily lead to a loser. That in no way indicates that the original struggle wasn’t borne out of a deeply buried genetic instinct to engage in that struggle.
When the alpha wolf gets ill, s/he’s pushed to the lowest strata in the hierarchy, and often completely excommunicated by the rest of the pack. That doesn’t in any way indicate that the tendency to form hierarchies is not “natural.”
Think of it this way: See if you can find an example of a group of people living together in which a hierarchy of some sort does not exist. I recognize that pervasiveness does not necessarily indicate “naturalness.”
However, consider ancient societies and their means of evolving. Native Americans elected leaders of their tribes via various means. And they did so long before anyone came along to explain to them OUR version of power. They did so before the issue was clouded by considering material possessions or money as a form of power. They did this in order to make sure that “they and theirs” had the best access to natural resources. When that a perceived threat to that access came from another people, they took up arms to defend it…or rather to impose their OWN hierarchy on another group of people.
Along with forming language and learning to use tools, formation of hierarchies is one of the MOST basic functions in any population.
-L
Brian Bunnyhurt
WOW!!!
I don’t even know where to start.
Are you sure that you understand what a heirarchy is? We are not talking about dictatorships here. We are talking about things as simple as random humans self-organizing to build a deck, to things as complicated as billion dollar corporations.
When 3 people are working on something, there just IS a heirarchy, or at least a struggle to form one.
Would you mind expanding a little on the following ideas:
…?
Do you know what a millenia is?
You realize we are talking about HEIRARCHIES here, not MONARCHIES right?
That whole king and queen thing is not being discussed in this thread.
What are you talking about? Please tell me you are posting in the wrong thread.
Are you trying to make a case that hierarchies don’t exist in the “first world”?
Cite please.
I’m going to have to let someone else handle the rest. I wish I could go through your entire post sentence by sentence, but I value my sanity.
We are not wolves, and wolves don’t practice hierarchy in an abstract sense–that is, by decree. When a decree allows a young child to rule over a nation, it just turned nature upside down. Also, if mute wolves best illustrate your point, then I would get another word to describe mating ritual dominance as to not confuse ecomonic hierarchy. Note: A wolf is free to challenge his highest rival. In real hierarchy, there is no such thing as freedom to challenge.
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Originally posted by Brian Bunnyhurt
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Yes, I’m afraid I have to side with Freedom in declaring this approximately the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard all day. ONLY hierarchies have produced these things in the history of civilization.
I don’t wish to be rude, but if Brian Bunnyhurt could please clarify some of your statements. Like Freedom I considered tearing your post apart, phrase by phrase, but decided your statements were too ridiculous to bother with an answer Again…no offense meant. Perhaps I just didn’t understand what you were trying to assert.
Again, you need to go to General Questions to get your favorite cites. I’m not quoting someone else. This is a debate. I asserted no percentages or scientifically measured data–wrong forum, wrong thread here. If you bothered to read any books on philosophy, you will only see cites where others are quoted.
No, wolves practice hierarchy by natural instinct. And as I have said, so do other higher primates. And so have humans since as far back in history as we are capable of examining.
As a society, we often “turn nature upside down” by doing things that go against it in one way or another. But the fact that we often HINDER those tendencies to form hierarchies naturally, along geneticly beneficial lines, does not mean that those tendencies do not exist.
No one suggested we were talking ONLY about economic hierarchy. And in fact, I indicated that that was something that tends to make issues of “natural dominance” less clear in today’s world.
You have poorly defined “real hierarchy” by suggesting that at necessarily means a monarchy. A REAL hierarchy is any situation in which a social power structure of some type is created. I assert that this creation is a natural process to humans and will take place despite our best efforts to minimize it. History backs me up in this assertion, as far as I know. If you can indicate any case in which that ISN’T true, I would appreciate the information.
-L
At least not in respect to power, as the OP mentioned, and not in respect to necessity. Certainly there will always be delegation of tasks, but this does not make the delegator “in charge” per se.
Power and/or class heirarchies, as brian said, are a likely result from some people’s desire to have power over others and everyone else’s laziness since overturning that power may not be worth the trouble.
I don’t know about that, though you may be correct. I would feel that a power desire comes from a feeling of inadequacy (in humans) combined with a keen lack of plentiful resources.
Were all resources not in limited quantities power over people through material goods (class power) would disappear. All that would remain is regular old brute force; without the guise of Robin Hood(or other material causes) using power over people will be left in the dust for causality and it would truly become power for power’s sake.
When my friends and I get together, for example, we play fighting video games. One of us starts out, and we pick our positions from there. No one has any power; order was created.
Nice post, brian.
My summary: there will always be structure, but that doesn’t mean a power based heirarchy is necessary for that structure.
People have been referring to hierarchies that are basically unchanging. However, if we were building a deck, I would defer to someone else (making myself low in the heirarchy) since I know nothing about building a deck. If I tried to be high up, I would cause problems since someone who actually knows what to do should be in charge.
This does not mean that I would allow this person ‘above’ me in the heirarchy in other endeavors.
The implication is human hierarchy, as in, “Are human hierarchies inevitable?”