Human hierarchies
Arnold Kling is one of my favorites writing on the internet today. Not only do his ideas consistently appeal to me, but he is also very good at condensing ideas down to their essence, at being concise.
In a recent newsletter, Kling described three ways (there may be more) that humans in groups decide who their leaders are, how they decide on their hierarchies. It would be hard to distill it better than this for two of them:
A dominance hierarchy is enforced by the threat of physical force. A prestige hierarchy is obtained by demonstrating skills that other[s] wish to imitate. People are drawn to prestige voluntarily, out of respect. They accept dominance grudgingly, out of fear.
Further, he rates the two:
In general, I think of prestige hierarchies as good and dominance hierarchies as bad. A prestige hierarchy induces people to compete by demonstrating skills that are useful, or at least entertaining. A dominance hierarchy induces people to compete by engaging in violence.
Kling cites Lorenzo Warby to introduce a third type of hierarchy: propriety. This one is a bit harder to conceive. It involves assigning leadership roles to those who are particularly good at following the social rules and norms, and who are good at demonstrating this ability.
While dominance cannot really be faked—you’re either the strong Alpha type who wins and defends his position as king of the hill, or you aren’t—it is easy to imagine people faking prestige and propriety. And if you can fake those two, perhaps the result will be to turn these, too, into dominance hierarchies. Kling suspects this may be how social-justice concepts function in academia and other leading cultural institutions today. Dissenters are bullied into a lower social status and value.
At any rate, I’m just going to accord a lot of prestige to Arnold Kling on this matter. See what you think.
Afternoon fellow humans...lol
I think when I have been picked for leadership roles it has been a combo of Propriety and Prestige...along with my ability to get along with almost anyone....lol
TMD headline refers to weight loss breakthrough, relegating the Republican mess to lesser status. My comment: So, McCarthy and the Rs lost the top line to weight loss. Does this prove they are really lightweights?