5 ms·

What's wrong with hierarchies?

oarabbus_ 7y ago
Fair question - I'd say those at the bottom tend to dislike the system.
wpietri 7y ago
I am having trouble taking this as a sincere question. You've honestly never seen or heard of hierarchical power being misused? I mean, just to pick one enormous historical trend, there's a reason the world has mostly gotten rid of monarchies, and it's not because we thought crowns and scepters were maybe a bit tacky.
- ploxolo 7y ago
  The opposite of hierarchies is not some blissful state of civilized anarchy, it is chaos, violence and free for all. If you think some leftist state is the solution, sorry for breaking it to you but they are highly hierarchical if not more than state tending toward classic liberalism. Most experiments in this vein have ended badly (millions dying), see communist China (now a hierarchical dictatorship btw), USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil (thankfully steering of peril right now).
  - wpietri 7y ago
    I agree that left-wing authoritarianism is as bad as right-wing authoritarianism. But thinking that the only alternative to hierarchical power is chaos is going to be one sort of authoritarianism or another. As I explain elsewhere in this thread, one alternative of hierarchical authority is carefully limited, distributed power. There are historical examples of it working pretty well for hundreds of years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22415807 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22415807
    - luckylion 7y ago
      A society with hyper exaggerated social classes, with voting rights only for property owners, indentured servitude, slavery and all that was "carefully limited" in its hierarchical authority?
      - wpietri 7y ago
        Sure. Which was mostly way better than what Europe was doing at the time. And which, more importantly, led us to keep seeking that "more perfect union". Where each generation has said, "Maybe we could do yet better. And here's how." And where quite often we have done better.
  - ubnt 7y ago
    So, Bolsonaro is "thankfully steering Brazil of peril"?
- jsjddbbwj 7y ago
  Everything can be misused, that doesn't make everything bad per se. Saying that hierarchies must be mitigated (because they are bad, I assume) is unreal.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    Good thing I didn't say that, then. What I said was that we must look at what's natural and decide which bits require amplification and which require mitigation. And of course saying that hierarchies should be mitigated is far from unreal. It was the central message of the people who started America. They put a great deal of effort into checks and balances on power both at the federal level (between the 3 branches) and in having local, state, and federal governments, none of which have a hierarchical relationship. They put a strong emphasis on individual rights, which are counter-hierarchical as well. And let's not forget the freedoms of press and political speech, first among the Bill of Rights, which is very much a check on hierarchy.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      I'm not from the US, so excuse my ignorance. I was under the impression that US federal law trumps state law. Is this not the case? And wouldn't that imply a hierarchical relationship?
      - silentOpen 7y ago
        Federal law does not a priori supersede state law. The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution reserves _all_ rights not explicitly granted to the federal government to the states and the people. The Civil War was fought, in part, over this contention between the power of the federal government to emancipate slaves and the power of the slaveholding states to continue to allow the practice of slavery. In more modern times, certain aspects of the constitution have been interpreted more and more broadly to allow e.g. the regulation of medical products under the auspices of regulating “interstate commerce” (even if said products are only ever sold in a single state — they can be transported across state lines). From this system design, you can deduce that there _does_ exist a hierarchy in the theory of US government — the Constitution is the law of the land and all other actors and subsystems are subordinate to it. Modifying the Constitution requires significant effort at multiple levels of government usually including (by state law) extensive popular support and supermajorities of representatives.
- jumpman500 7y ago
  You're just thinking about one edge case. Any child is born into a hierarchy if they have a guardian of any sort. If you want to learn from a teacher you have to enter into a student teacher hierarchy. Any engagement with other human beings results in a formation of some kind of hierarchy. We all have different minds, bodies and skills that lead to different natural hierarchies.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    I deeply disagree that "much of human government through most of human history" is an edge case. I do agree that families are somewhat naturally hierarchical, and that can be good. However, there are plenty of examples of that being taken too far. I disagree that teaching and learning can only be accomplished through hierarchy, although that's certainly the common mode in industrial education. So it's as I said: we have to look at our natural heritage and decide which parts are good. Natural does not equal good.
    - jumpman500 7y ago
      I think I misread the comment I was responding too. I was more trying to say hierarchies are not always wrong, but I realize now that's not exactly what he was claiming. You're right they're often abused and should always be challenged. Nothing about nature is good or evil it just is.
      - wpietri 7y ago
        Thanks for saying so.
- verall 7y ago
  Careful, you're going to hear some lobster arguments...
  - wpietri 7y ago
    Is that what we're calling authoritarians these days?
    - Nasrudith 7y ago
      It is a reference to one of the weirder bits of Jordan Peterson and his infamous self-help cult.
- philwelch 7y ago
  > I mean, just to pick one enormous historical trend, there's a reason the world has mostly gotten rid of monarchies, and it's not because we thought crowns and scepters were maybe a bit tacky. How did that work out for them? * The abolition of the English monarchy led to the brutal military dictatorship of Cromwell, which ended only with the reestablishment of the monarchy. * The abolition of the French monarchy led to the military dictatorship of Napoleon, which ended in a cataclysmic continent-wide war and the reestablishment of the Bourbon monarchy. * The abolition of the German and Austrian monarchies led to Hitler. * The abolition of the Russian monarchy led to the Soviet Union and the mass murder of tens of millions. * The abolition of the Chinese imperial monarchy led to a half-century-long civil war between Nationalist, Communist, and warlord factions, leading ultimately to a Communist dictatorship and the mass murder of tens of millions. Hierarchical power is a human universal, and trying to abolish it without recognizing this fact only leads to its reemergence in even more violent forms within the space of a few years, decades if you're lucky.
  - chacha2 7y ago
    The Rhetoric of Reaction Albert O. Hirschman [1] Hirschman describes the reactionary narratives thus: - According to the perversity thesis, any purposive action to improve some feature of the political, social, or economic order only serves to exacerbate the condition one wishes to remedy. - The futility thesis holds that attempts at social transformation will be unavailing, that they will simply fail to "make a dent." - Finally, the jeopardy thesis argues that the cost of the proposed change or reform is too high as it endangers some previous, precious accomplishment. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Reaction
    - philwelch 7y ago
      Which is not what I'm doing at all. If we're going to talk about the abolition of monarchies, how is it that some of the freest and most prosperous countries in the world today are constitutional monarchies? Norway, Australia, Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Japan, Luxembourg, and Spain all rank within the top 25 of countries by HDI as well as the top 25 of countries by Democracy Index. All of those countries are monarchies. And you still haven't addressed the historical fact that the styles of radicalism that led to the abolition of monarchies in England, France, and Russia utterly failed to make things better and, in fact, largely made things worse. That doesn't mean it's futile or counterproductive to improve society, but merely removing the existing hierarchy and attempting to install something bespoke in its place has historically been a failing proposition, while reforming and improving an existing system has historically been much more successful.
- gdy 7y ago
  Think about captain on a ship.

Fair question - I'd say those at the bottom tend to dislike the system.

I am having trouble taking this as a sincere question. You've honestly never seen or heard of hierarchical power being misused? I mean, just to pick one enormous historical trend, there's a reason the world has mostly gotten rid of monarchies, and it's not because we thought crowns and scepters were maybe a bit tacky.

ploxolo 7y ago
The opposite of hierarchies is not some blissful state of civilized anarchy, it is chaos, violence and free for all. If you think some leftist state is the solution, sorry for breaking it to you but they are highly hierarchical if not more than state tending toward classic liberalism. Most experiments in this vein have ended badly (millions dying), see communist China (now a hierarchical dictatorship btw), USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil (thankfully steering of peril right now).
- wpietri 7y ago
  I agree that left-wing authoritarianism is as bad as right-wing authoritarianism. But thinking that the only alternative to hierarchical power is chaos is going to be one sort of authoritarianism or another. As I explain elsewhere in this thread, one alternative of hierarchical authority is carefully limited, distributed power. There are historical examples of it working pretty well for hundreds of years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22415807 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22415807
  - luckylion 7y ago
    A society with hyper exaggerated social classes, with voting rights only for property owners, indentured servitude, slavery and all that was "carefully limited" in its hierarchical authority?
    - wpietri 7y ago
      Sure. Which was mostly way better than what Europe was doing at the time. And which, more importantly, led us to keep seeking that "more perfect union". Where each generation has said, "Maybe we could do yet better. And here's how." And where quite often we have done better.
- ubnt 7y ago
  So, Bolsonaro is "thankfully steering Brazil of peril"?
jsjddbbwj 7y ago
Everything can be misused, that doesn't make everything bad per se. Saying that hierarchies must be mitigated (because they are bad, I assume) is unreal.
- wpietri 7y ago
  Good thing I didn't say that, then. What I said was that we must look at what's natural and decide which bits require amplification and which require mitigation. And of course saying that hierarchies should be mitigated is far from unreal. It was the central message of the people who started America. They put a great deal of effort into checks and balances on power both at the federal level (between the 3 branches) and in having local, state, and federal governments, none of which have a hierarchical relationship. They put a strong emphasis on individual rights, which are counter-hierarchical as well. And let's not forget the freedoms of press and political speech, first among the Bill of Rights, which is very much a check on hierarchy.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    I'm not from the US, so excuse my ignorance. I was under the impression that US federal law trumps state law. Is this not the case? And wouldn't that imply a hierarchical relationship?
    - silentOpen 7y ago
      Federal law does not a priori supersede state law. The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution reserves _all_ rights not explicitly granted to the federal government to the states and the people. The Civil War was fought, in part, over this contention between the power of the federal government to emancipate slaves and the power of the slaveholding states to continue to allow the practice of slavery. In more modern times, certain aspects of the constitution have been interpreted more and more broadly to allow e.g. the regulation of medical products under the auspices of regulating “interstate commerce” (even if said products are only ever sold in a single state — they can be transported across state lines). From this system design, you can deduce that there _does_ exist a hierarchy in the theory of US government — the Constitution is the law of the land and all other actors and subsystems are subordinate to it. Modifying the Constitution requires significant effort at multiple levels of government usually including (by state law) extensive popular support and supermajorities of representatives.
jumpman500 7y ago
You're just thinking about one edge case. Any child is born into a hierarchy if they have a guardian of any sort. If you want to learn from a teacher you have to enter into a student teacher hierarchy. Any engagement with other human beings results in a formation of some kind of hierarchy. We all have different minds, bodies and skills that lead to different natural hierarchies.
- wpietri 7y ago
  I deeply disagree that "much of human government through most of human history" is an edge case. I do agree that families are somewhat naturally hierarchical, and that can be good. However, there are plenty of examples of that being taken too far. I disagree that teaching and learning can only be accomplished through hierarchy, although that's certainly the common mode in industrial education. So it's as I said: we have to look at our natural heritage and decide which parts are good. Natural does not equal good.
  - jumpman500 7y ago
    I think I misread the comment I was responding too. I was more trying to say hierarchies are not always wrong, but I realize now that's not exactly what he was claiming. You're right they're often abused and should always be challenged. Nothing about nature is good or evil it just is.
    - wpietri 7y ago
      Thanks for saying so.
verall 7y ago
Careful, you're going to hear some lobster arguments...
- wpietri 7y ago
  Is that what we're calling authoritarians these days?
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    It is a reference to one of the weirder bits of Jordan Peterson and his infamous self-help cult.
philwelch 7y ago
> I mean, just to pick one enormous historical trend, there's a reason the world has mostly gotten rid of monarchies, and it's not because we thought crowns and scepters were maybe a bit tacky. How did that work out for them? * The abolition of the English monarchy led to the brutal military dictatorship of Cromwell, which ended only with the reestablishment of the monarchy. * The abolition of the French monarchy led to the military dictatorship of Napoleon, which ended in a cataclysmic continent-wide war and the reestablishment of the Bourbon monarchy. * The abolition of the German and Austrian monarchies led to Hitler. * The abolition of the Russian monarchy led to the Soviet Union and the mass murder of tens of millions. * The abolition of the Chinese imperial monarchy led to a half-century-long civil war between Nationalist, Communist, and warlord factions, leading ultimately to a Communist dictatorship and the mass murder of tens of millions. Hierarchical power is a human universal, and trying to abolish it without recognizing this fact only leads to its reemergence in even more violent forms within the space of a few years, decades if you're lucky.
- chacha2 7y ago
  The Rhetoric of Reaction Albert O. Hirschman [1] Hirschman describes the reactionary narratives thus: - According to the perversity thesis, any purposive action to improve some feature of the political, social, or economic order only serves to exacerbate the condition one wishes to remedy. - The futility thesis holds that attempts at social transformation will be unavailing, that they will simply fail to "make a dent." - Finally, the jeopardy thesis argues that the cost of the proposed change or reform is too high as it endangers some previous, precious accomplishment. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Reaction
  - philwelch 7y ago
    Which is not what I'm doing at all. If we're going to talk about the abolition of monarchies, how is it that some of the freest and most prosperous countries in the world today are constitutional monarchies? Norway, Australia, Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Japan, Luxembourg, and Spain all rank within the top 25 of countries by HDI as well as the top 25 of countries by Democracy Index. All of those countries are monarchies. And you still haven't addressed the historical fact that the styles of radicalism that led to the abolition of monarchies in England, France, and Russia utterly failed to make things better and, in fact, largely made things worse. That doesn't mean it's futile or counterproductive to improve society, but merely removing the existing hierarchy and attempting to install something bespoke in its place has historically been a failing proposition, while reforming and improving an existing system has historically been much more successful.
gdy 7y ago
Think about captain on a ship.