Our Mismatched Characteristics

In the last few years, after a decade-plus hiatus, I've started reading science fiction books again.  My interest was reignited mainly by the themes of reimagining gender (Ursula Leguin's Left Hand of Darkness), collective intelligence (Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End) and the future of communication and the nature of self-identity as communications allow our presences to become ever more distributed and multiple (David Marusek's Counting Heads).  Things that are relevant to understanding ourselves now, and to better grasping where our energy may lead us in the near future.  There are still times, however, even when I read sci-fi books I like, that certain tropes and clichés cause my interest to flag and make me wonder if it'd be better to switch back to something about *this world* and *these times* and becoming more awake and engaged with the world rather than "escaping." But of course, good scifi can serve as a reflection of our present world and societies.

Anyway.  That was a bit of ramble.  What I wanted to post was an excerpt from Dawn, by Octavia Butler (the first black woman to become an internationally recognized science fiction writer).

Alien to human: "You have a mismatched pair of genetic characteristics.  Either alone would have been useful, would have aided the survival of your species.  But the two together are lethal.  It was only a matter of time before they destroyed you."

Human: "What [are] they?"

Alien: "You are intelligent. That's the newer of the two characteristics, and the one you might have to put to work to save yourselves.  You are potentially one of the most intelligent species we've found, though your focus is different than ours."

Human: "What's the second characteristic?"

Alien: "You are hierarchical.  That's the older and more entrenched characteristic.  We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It's a terrestrial characteristic.  When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all... That was like ignoring cancer.  I think your people did not realize what a dangerous thing they were doing."

It's interesting that the author conceives as the urge to hierarchy as a genetic inclination.  Maybe so; but humans are far more adaptable to different systems than other species are, and so I think have more potential to transcend hierarchy.

And I invite you to consider with me for a second.  Beyond, possibly, genetics, where does hierarchy come from in our lives?  Until I participated in Community Building workshops (and Open Space workshops) I didn't truly appreciate how much my upbringing, especially through our institutionalized school system, had ingrained in me an assumption that hierarchy was necessary to "get things done."  And not only a visible necessity, but an invisible default strategy to be turned to even in situations where, with a little consideration, it would become obvious that more collaborative strategies might have worked better.  What would society be like, if we had regular opportunities to practice solving problems by ourselves, collectively, from a young age?  If we learned to trust group processes rather than fear them?

{This is why I am intrigued and encouraged by democratic "non-coercive" schools or even more mainstream projects such as multi-year classrooms, where children learn to teach each other.}

But let's bracket our early bruising.  What about right here and now?  Have you perpetuated hierarchical thinking lately?  How so? I know there have been times that I personally have coopted the techniques of bureaucracy (perhaps the ultimate expression of hierarchy?) that have been aimed against me in the past and used them on others where it was convenient or seemed necessary to avoid conflict: speaking as an impersonal organization rather than as an individual, claiming recourse to "policies" that are written nowhere but the vapor of the moment, etc. etc.  I try not to do that, and I tell myself I do it less and more fairly than those who have bureaucratized against me; but I know that, at least sometimes, my rationales are only justifications.

Another thought: isn't hierarchy the natural precursor of capitalism?  Surely the more we think hierarchy is the natural means of ordering our social lives, the easier to believe it is the natural ordering of our economic lives as well...