Hierarchy<\/b><\/p>\r\n
Author: Stephen\r\nDeVoy<\/b><\/p>\r\n\r\n
From Merriam-Webster\r\n Online<\/p>\r\n
Main Entry: hi·er·ar·chy
\r\n Pronunciation: 'hI-(&-)\"rär-kE also 'hi(-&)r-\"är-
\r\n Function: noun
\r\n Inflected Form(s): plural -chies
\r\n 1 : a division of angels
\r\n 2 a : a ruling body of clergy organized into orders or ranks each subordinate to the one above it; especially : the bishops of a province or nation b : church government by a hierarchy
\r\n 3 : a body of persons in authority
\r\n 4 : the classification of a group of people according to ability or to economic, social, or professional standing; also : the group so classified
\r\n 5 : a graded or ranked series <Christian hierarchy of values> <a machine's hierarchy of responses><\/p>\r\n\r\n
Introduction<\/p>\r\n
Anarchists, especially within American society, are often confronted with the\r\nargument that human society has always been hierarchical and, therefore,\r\nhierarchy in human society exists by nature. Put more succinctly, there is\r\na natural law governing the organization of humankind such that any and all\r\nmanifested societies will be hierarchical. This paper will address that\r\nargument.<\/p>\r\n
Let's begin by asking ourselves what our detractors mean by\r\n\"hierarchy.\" I've noticed a strong and unsurprising preference1<\/b>\r\nfor dictionary definitions on the part of our detractors. Since they have\r\nthis preference, we should analyze their argument paying close attention to the\r\ndictionary definition of the terms they use. From the definition listed\r\nabove, the relevant definition of hierarchy is: \"the classification of a\r\ngroup of people according to ability or to economic, social, or professional\r\nstanding.\"<\/b> When using the word \"hierarchy\" in this\r\nsense, we must keep in mind that these detractors are speaking of actual,\r\nexisting hierarchies, not theoretical hierarchies, for they argue that they\r\nexist. Since the definition takes the form of a disjunction, let us\r\neliminate those disjuncts that do not exist in practice.<\/p>\r\n
Proof That, In Practice, Hierarchies Are Not Based On Ability<\/p>\r\n
We begin with \"ability.\" Consider this portion of the\r\ndefinition: \"the classification of a group of people according to\r\nability.\" While most of us believe that this happens in real life,\r\nlet us reflect upon the assumption. Conceptually, there are many kinds of\r\nhierarchies and there is a definition for an hierarchy based upon ability, the meritocracy\r\n(a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement). \r\nMost American capitalists believe that the American system of capitalism is\r\njustly based on meritocracy and that the success or failure of any capitalist\r\nendeavor within American society is the product of the natural meritocratic\r\nforces within American capitalism.<\/p>\r\n
Most of us who work for a living have seen American \"meritocracy\"\r\nfirst hand. As employees we have seen \"meritocracy\" from they\r\nbelly of beast itself. While employers actively attempt to promulgate the\r\nvirtues and existence of meritocracy, their attempts, more often than not, are\r\npurely propagandistic in nature. Few individuals, if any, find themselves\r\nwithin positions of the hierarchy based on merit. Indeed, one may, for a\r\ntime, rise to a position based on merit, but one does not remain in a position\r\nbased on merit. Similarly one may rise to a position for reasons\r\ncompletely unrelated to merit. The force behind both of these phenomena is\r\nnot merit, but rather something other than merit. Let us consider the\r\nsecond phenomenon first for it says much about the first phenomenon.<\/p>\r\n
Many individuals are inserted into positions of the hierarchy based on\r\npersonal connections, influence or economic status. Their employer or boss\r\nchooses to place them into such positions because he hopes to benefit personally\r\nfrom the insertion of the individual into the hierarchy. This corrupts the\r\n\"meritocracy\" in three ways: it inserts a non-deserving person into\r\nthe hierarchy, it displaces a better deserving person and it adds to the power\r\nof yet another (the boss or the employer) for reasons not of merit but of a lack\r\nof ethics, thereby adding greater hierarchical buoyancy to the boss or the\r\nemployer for reasons other than merit. This one act negates the hierarchy qua<\/i>\r\nmeritocracy and reduces it to the classification of a group of people according\r\nto economic, social, or professional standing and NOT according to\r\nability.<\/p>\r\n
We could end the portion of our argument excluding ability from the\r\ndefinition of real hierarchies at this point, but for the sake of completeness,\r\nlet us address the case of individuals that find themselves within positions of\r\nthe hierarchy based on merit alone. No doubt, some individuals are\r\ninserted into positions within the hierarchy based on merit alone. As\r\nwe've seen above, the hierarchy has already been corrupted by insertions other\r\nthan those based on merit. Therefore, any individual inserted into a\r\nhierarchy based on merit is likely to have others above or below him that have\r\nnot been inserted into their own positions based on merit. This, of\r\ncourse, violates the definition of a meritocracy. Furthermore, once an\r\nindividual is placed into a hierarchy for reason of merit (or for any other\r\nreason), he obtains some level of power and access to that power becomes a\r\nfactor in maintaining his position within the hierarchy. Over time, his\r\nlevel in the hierarchy is buoyed by this accumulated power and not by merit\r\nalone. Thus, any meritocracy, over time, becomes corrupted by natural\r\nforces. Meritocracy does not exist in natural human society.<\/p>\r\n
Proof That \"Professional Standing\" Is An Euphemism\r\nFor \"Economic or Social Standing\"<\/p>\r\n
Due to the previous proof, our definition for real hierarchies has been\r\nreduced. We've eliminated ability from real hierarchies and are now left\r\nwith the following working definition:<\/p>\r\n
Hierarchy: \"The classification of a group of people according to\r\neconomic, social, or professional standing.\"<\/b><\/p>\r\n
Let us now consider professional standing. What does professional\r\nstanding really mean? The operative word in this construction is\r\n\"standing.\" The relevant definition of standing, as used in this\r\nconstruction is \"to have or maintain a relative position in or as if in a graded scale\". \r\nThere are various methods by which a graded scale is produced and then applied\r\nto professions. The most obvious, and in an ideal world (which does not\r\nexist) the most sensible, would be one based on achievement, both academic and\r\nprofessional. Let us consider academic achievement first.<\/p>\r\n
In American society there is no doubt that having a degree from a prestigious\r\nuniversity carries much more weight than an equal degree from a less prestigious\r\nuniversity. Access to prestigious universities is not based purely on\r\nmerit. To obtain access to a prestigious university one must obtain the\r\nfunds to attend in addition to qualifying. Some individuals qualify for no\r\nreason other than being a legacy (e.g. George W. Bush). Therefore,\r\neconomic and social status play a large role in the distribution of standing\r\nwith regard to academics. We must, therefore, eliminate academics from our\r\nanalysis because we can prove it to be based not wholly on merit. This\r\nleaves us with professional achievement.<\/p>\r\n
Professional achievement is as much a function of the productivity and\r\ncreativity of a professional as it is to access to power within the corporate\r\nhierarchy. For example, given two individuals that are equally productive\r\nand creative, one in a higher position within the corporate hierarchy, the\r\nindividual with a higher position has greater access to power. His ideas\r\nwill gain attention. If he is unethical, he will thwart the ideas of\r\nothers or usurp their ideas as his own, thereby increasing his relative\r\nprofessional standing within the corporate hierarchy. Since, as we have\r\nseen in the previous section, his higher position depends upon accumulated\r\npower, economic position or personal connections, his greater professional\r\nstanding is based on something other than his individual productivity or\r\ncreativity alone (if at all). In fact, it is based, more than anything\r\nelse, on economic and social standing. We conclude, then, that\r\nprofessional standing is an euphemism for economic or social standing.<\/p>\r\n
We could go further than this. Professional standing is often the\r\nproduct of reputation alone. For example, within the field of Artificial\r\nIntelligence there are many famous individuals that have high professional\r\nstanding but have accomplished very little. The little that they are said\r\nto have accomplished, more often than not, has been accomplished by\r\nothers. I know this because I have worked for them. Nevertheless,\r\nthey enjoy a great deal of uncritical press. The press they receive is,\r\nmore often than not, a complete misrepresentation of their\r\naccomplishments. Often, in these articles, other professionals within the\r\nsame field are quoted praising the professional highlighted in the\r\narticle. This circle of mutual admiration creates an illusion of\r\nprofessional standing that attracts more funds in the form of investment and\r\ngovernmental grants. The influx of cash increases their social and\r\neconomic standing. This increase of social and economic standing becomes\r\nthe buoyant force that further pushes them upward in the economic and social\r\nhierarchy. Nevertheless, it is all based on hot air - not actual\r\naccomplishment.<\/p>\r\n
In The United States, Economic Standing And Social Standing\r\nAre Often Interchangeable<\/p>\r\n
We have all seen otherwise unaccomplished individuals catapulted within\r\nAmerican society for no reason other than name recognition. For example, Monika Lewinsky\r\nwent from being an unknown repository for a powerful man's long hard objects to\r\nbecoming a television celebrity. Her fame is based not on her professional\r\nstanding but on her willingness to recline (at least, her willingness to recline\r\nwith former President Clinton). The resulting attention made her a name\r\nand that name has now attracted to her the attention of those within the\r\nhierarchy that hope to gain by using her name. This increase in social\r\nstanding has translated, for her, into economic standing.<\/p>\r\n
On the other hand, Paris Hilton, the child of a wealthy family, obtained fame\r\nby the release of a porn video ostensibly made for personal use. This has\r\nnow increased her social standing, at least in terms of her name recognition.<\/p>\r\n
The simple fact is that within American society being well known often\r\ntranslates into becoming wealthy and being wealthy often translates into being\r\nwell known. While the two are not always interchangeable, they very\r\nfrequently are. Each of them share something in common: power. In\r\none case we have raw economic power and in the other psychological power. \r\nThis common thread is revealing in that, as the basis for hierarchy within\r\nAmerican society, it reduces rank within our system to one thing and one thing\r\nonly: power.<\/p>\r\n
The Proper Definition of Hierarchy<\/p>\r\n
Since we have eliminated ability as a real factor in hierarchy, reduced\r\n\"professional standing\" to \"economic and social standing\"\r\nand further reduced the latter to \"power\", we now have a new and more\r\naccurate definition for hierarchy within American society:<\/p>\r\n
Hierarchy: \"The classification of a group of\r\npeople according to their relative power.\"<\/b><\/p>\r\n
The Implications of Hierarchy in American Society<\/p>\r\n
Classifying groups of people according to the power is often expressed as\r\n\"might makes right.\" This, of course, is an essential part of\r\nthe ideological basis of fascism. As a society based on \"might makes\r\nright\", American society, at least as it stands at our present time, is\r\nfascist. Those who argue that American society, as it now stands, is based\r\non notions of equality, liberty and merit have a delusional notion of American\r\nsociety. Ours is not the \"land of the free and the home of the\r\nbrave.\" Rather, ours is \"the land of the powerful and the home\r\nof the slave.\" Is there anything wrong with this?<\/p>\r\n
What does it mean to base a society upon power alone? By eliminating\r\nmerit from the equation of social ranking we have removed the only possible\r\nethical basis for hierarchy. \"Might makes right\" is not\r\ncompatible with any real moral or ethical system, for it replaces reason with\r\nforce and all systems of ethics, by definition, must be based on reason unless\r\nthey are to become arbitrary and, therefore, meaningless.<\/p>\r\n
From an ethical stand point, within human society, evil is the absence of\r\nethical conduct. I am not employing the term \"evil\" in the\r\nreligious sense. I am employing it in the ethical sense. As a system\r\nwhich orders society by a mechanism based on power and not on ethics, our\r\nAmerican system is most appropriately viewed as a hierarchy of evil. While\r\nthis may seem to be hyperbole to some, it is easy to demonstrate from our own\r\npersonal experience that it is, in fact, an unavoidable conclusion.<\/p>\r\n
Let us consider the individuals currently at the top of the American\r\nhierarchy. George W. Bush earned absolutely no professional\r\nstanding. In fact, he failed as a business man, he was a poor student and\r\nhe only obtained a degree from a prestigious university through legacy. \r\nHis social standing was created by his father's influence. In the course\r\nof his life he avoided going to war based on his social and economic standing\r\nfor which it is likely that someone else went in his place (and perhaps\r\ndied). He lived a life of debauchery until, as a failed business man and\r\nfailed human being, his social and economic status enabled him to pursue a\r\ncareer in politics. Eventually, because the oligarchy found him a useful\r\ninstrument, he was inserted into the American hierarchy at the highest position\r\nwhere, through lies, deceit and manipulation he brought our country to an\r\nunethical war of aggression and, in the process, caused the death of thousands\r\nof Americans and many tens of thousands of Iraqis. Worse yet, his murder\r\nspree may have only begun.<\/p>\r\n
Next in the hierarchy, at least officially, we have Dick Cheney. \r\nCurrent Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney is the former CEO of\r\nHalliburton. George Bush and Dick Cheney launched an unprovoked war of\r\naggression on Iraq, but before doing so they committed the nation to billions of\r\ndollars in contracts, awarded uncompetitively, to Halliburton. In most\r\ncountries, this would be viewed as a classic and indisputable case of massive\r\ncorruption.<\/p>\r\n
At the other end of the hierarchy, the bottom of the American hierarchy, we\r\nhave individuals like the \"American Taliban\" John Walker who believed\r\nhe had found a system of ethics in Islam, dropped his own life to serve his God\r\nand marched off in personal sacrifice to fight what what he believed in, only to\r\nfind himself enmeshed in a war, arrested by the American hierarchy, tortured,\r\nabused, defamed and jailed. While I do not defend the ethics of Islam, at\r\nleast it is a system of ethics. By choosing to follow a system of ethics\r\nrather than to buy into the \"might makes right\" evil of the American\r\nhierarchy, John Walker is now at the bottom of the American hierarchy.<\/p>\r\n
Somewhere above John Walker, but well below Bush, we have the many Americans\r\nshot in the back by rubber bullets, pepper bullets and other projectiles for\r\nstanding up for their ethical belief that wars of aggression are immoral. \r\nThe peace protester finds himself or herself shot at and gassed by the tools of\r\nthe American hierarchy. Even Bill\r\nO'Reilly, a high ranking member of the American shitocracy,\r\nis alleged\r\nto have described what only can be seen as a hierarchy of evil, though there\r\nis no indication that he has nothing by praise for it.<\/p>\r\n
Is Hierarchy Natural And Inevitable?<\/p>\r\n
There is no doubt that primates show an inclination to arrange themselves in\r\nhierarchies. As primates, there is no doubt (and plenty of evidence), that\r\nhumans have also arranged themselves into hierarchies. However, is there\r\nany reason to believe that this may not always be the case?<\/p>\r\n
Arguments from nature often fail when applied to the human species. \r\nThis is not because we are \"above nature,\" but because we have two\r\nnatures: one genetic and the other memetic. \r\nThe human genome appears to have changed very little, if at all, in the last\r\n40,000 years. Yet, in the last 5,000 years we have seen the rise of\r\nadvanced cultures and in the last 200 years we have seen humans leap from riding\r\nhorses from town to town to riding rockets to the Moon. Clothing is not\r\nnatural. Written language is not natural. Medicine is not\r\nnatural. Much of what defines us as human being is not natural, at least\r\nin the sense of biological evolution. What defines us and differentiates\r\nus from other primates is the degree to which the evolution of memes has taken\r\nover the course of human development. Much of what has made our lives\r\nbetter and which has led us to greater discoveries about the world and ourselves\r\nis based on the evolution of consciousness and its associated concept\r\nspace. We are no longer our biological selves only. As time goes on,\r\nthe human species has become less a species than system of mutually supporting\r\nideas known as culture and technology. This new area of evolution, the\r\nevolution of consciousness, implies that we are more what we think than what our\r\ngenes define us to be. It is no wonder that we now contemplate issues such\r\nas the rise of artificial intelligences and the question of whether they, when\r\nthey do come to exist, will be conscious. We seen existence not as defined\r\nby biology but by what it is like to be. This change in our world view is\r\nstrong evidence that we are NOT following in the footsteps of our primate\r\nancestors and have embarked on a different path - one guided by reason and\r\nintellect rather than brute force. If this is our reality then hierarchy\r\nmay no longer be natural. Hierarchy may be a death sentence.<\/p>\r\n
1. It is unsurprising that our detractors refer to and insist\r\nupon the dictionary definition of all terms. Dictionaries are an\r\nexpression of authority. Some entity with sufficient economic backing at\r\nsome point in history finds itself in the position of being able to afford to\r\nproduce and publish definitions for some large subset of the words in a language\r\nwithout the consent of the users of that language. Since sufficient\r\neconomic backing implies, more often than not, embeddedness in the ruling class\r\nof the society, dictionaries afford an excellent opportunity to shape human\r\nthought by casting words in a light advantageous to the ruling class.<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n\n","contact":"Sorry, no email due to Doug Lenat.","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"Anarchists, especially within American society, are often confronted with the argument that human society has always been hierarchical and, therefore, hierarchy in human society exists by nature. Put more succinctly, there is a natural law governing the organization of humankind such that any and all manifested societies will be hierarchical. This paper will address that argument.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2004\/10\/117783.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}