Can we avoid
hierarchical societies?
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Hierarchy:
Product of Inferiority
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Interacting inferiorities, individual and collective, produce hierarchy. Superiors "need"
followers. Inferiors "need" someone to obey.
Leaders squander life and property, but no matter how
often leadership disappoints, we believe new leaders will be different.
What motivates our urge for hierarchy? Collective image psychology says
it is our need to see ourselves as better than that
despised mass. Were we to see humanity as jolly good fellows,
we lose our taste for battle. When we are equal, we are what we are and
what we are is human.
We do economic battle even though economic hierarchies contradict closely held
beliefs. Major religions tell us rich men will not enter heaven,
but many seek wealth.
When the urge for distinction is collective, nationalism results. Groups
strive to distinguish themselves from other groups because we prefer superiority
to equality. We are better, we tell ourselves, because we are rich, famous,
American, English, or whatever. We should see ourselves as essentially alike,
because nothing alters our common humanity. That is indeed the rub.
Seeing ourselves as everyman strikes many as a serious demotion.
Collective image psychology has us equal, not identical.
We come in different sizes and colors; different abilities and talents, but no matter
what comparative we use to establish superiority, the judgment is arbitrary, meaningless,
and insane. All of us will be dead a long time.
It is difficult to grapple with madness of this magnitude, but we must begin.
Before exploring where positive collective imagery takes us, let's examine
the sources of collective inferiority. This will be painful. The culprits are
ideas we desperately want to believe are true.
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