"...self-serving, self-perpetuating oligarchies"

[Michael Bailey]

bandwraith wrote:

>  I think "hierarchy" has gotten a bad rap, but your distinction
>  between "system" and "viewed as a system" is insightful.

thank you.  I suppose it's that "up a level" kind of thing,
where you can create an infinite regress/nihilism/antinomianism,
by applying the distinction between being in a situation and
perceiving a siutation with dizzying rapidity and ad absurdum,
but in another sense, it is also akin to the development of consciousness,
fish-becoming-aware-of-water...

>In one sense, hierarchies are the inevitable result of the symmetry
>  breaking at the dawn of time. Ultimately, the broken symmetry
>  between knowing and being- symbol and symbollized- becomes
>  the issue.

my first thought was,
 "Adam naming the animals" blissfully existing,
- but then the sorting (Maxwell's) demon comes into play,
winnowing and sifting by any sort of principle, exercising preferences...
creating a better/worse duality and, as Dean Moriarty
recognized "people practicing facial expressions for indicating unhappiness"
when they don't get "their way"

- but really, broken symmetry between knowing and being
would precede that action...
I don't automatically associate "knowing-being asymmetry"
with "matter-antimatter disparity" - should I?
I see it more as analogous than as identical...

>It is slightly ironic that you have chosen the kidneys
>  and the bowels to hold up as equally important systems within
>  the hierarchy of the body. For many species these organ systems
>  perform the dual function of excretion and marking territory.

the characteristic I was seeking was that of
indicating that the body isn't in fact hierarchical, that
its components derive sustenance from being part of a co-operative
entity.  A muscle cell and a nerve cell could be good examples also.

My thesis has recognizable imperfections: for instance, in weight loss,
certain parts will be selected to go before others.  In the course of one's
career/hobbies/sicknesses/any activities, selective favoring will occur.

However, you're not pointing those out, but using the examples I chose
to direct the analogy toward "inside-outside" - making a distinction
that I think Deleuze would approve of: Sameness vs Difference...

>  The demarcation of boundaries marks the beginning of life-
>  between the animate and the inanimate- and, eventually, of
>  consciousness- between the meaningful and the meaningless.
>

G. Spencer Brown, Laws of Form?

>  If nothing else, these acts of demarcation represented the
>  origin of something new. At the very least, they indicated a
>  temporal hierarchy, before which, everything was equally
>  unimportant.
>

Temporal hierarchy?  Pre-Cambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician,
Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, Permian?


>  The kidney cell is part of a joyous alliance- one for all and all for
>  one! But it, and the cells of the bowel, and indeed, all the body's
>  cells are derived from one progenitor cell, the pleuri-potential
>  zygote. They share the same genetic code- perfect harmony.
>  But there is, sometimes, cancer- a rebellion against the constraint
>  of harmony- an atonal dash for freedom from the hegemony of
>  the whole, with its programmed death and well mannered
>  oblivion.

and indeed, the universe itself was infinitely small at the Big Bang...
so if that is the case, we are all con-substantial.

>  The duality seems to enter in with the emergence of
>  individuality and the competition for scarce resources.
>  It reaches another scale with the emergence of sexuality
>  and the competition for a mate. Group cooperation then
>  becomes a complex matter. I think hierarchies based on
>  division of labor and individual talents are inevitable and not
>  necessarily bad, if there is fairness. Whether or not oligarchies
>  are inevitable- I'm not sure.

You make a point that I nod vigorously in agreement with:
boundaries, distinctions are what create meaning.

On the importance of hierarchy, then, I'm willing to
listen, though my impulse is to think of hierarchy itself as tending to evil.

But (imputing an argument you might make) contention for limited resources
will create hierarchy.  For instance, if I have limited reading time,
I might have a sorting demon of some kind that will create a hierarchy of
coolness, so that I will read Pynchon rather than less-cool stuff.

Then my task becomes a question of upgrading and massaging the
application of hierarchy so I don't neglect other cool writing...

similarly, the inflexible hierarchy of corporations where certain people
are enshrined as decision-makers with ridiculous compensation and
no market feedback, while others create the actual value and still others
are tasked with protecting the (some would say richly undeserved) position
of the hegemons -- could use some work, imho.

(eg - "Mr Scarsdale how's about you all live in shit so I can buy
paintings Vibe"
as Reef put it)

Ignoring sweat equity by outlawing the sit-down strike is an example
of allowing excessive hierarchy and etiolating the delicate tendrils of
a just chain of command based on the "consent of the governed".