Lessons from the Chicken Run on the Effects of Hierarchy.
With everything kicking off in America, it's hard not to avoid the racism arguments debates online. The other day I came across this quote from Scott Woods:
My first reaction to it was that it was an accusation that you are racist for being born white and isn't that in itself racist?
However, there was something else in it that kept buzzing away at the back of my mind. It was this sentence:
”Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites (some) at other people’s expense, whether whites (they) know/like it or not.”
Here I've scratched through ”whites” and replaced it with the more generic words in brackets to try and focus in a less triggering way on the point being raised.
You see I believe that racism, along with many other prejudices, is a symptom and the problem with only treating symptoms is that we never reach a cure. This is because the underlying cause still remains and I believe that our need for hierarchy, conscious or unconscious, is part of the problem. If you'll bear with me, I'll try to explain why.
First, for those of us getting triggered by “black lives matter,” perhaps this will put things a little more into perspective:
I gather the responsive “all lives matter” movement is upsetting the BLM movement and only recently realised why, because I'm a more literal minded person. I don't always see that other implications can be drawn from what's being said. For those who say all lives matter, perhaps look at it this way. You are correct and by default that encompasses black lives, so “black lives matter” still stands and they aren't trying to say no-one else's lives matter. For those getting offended by people saying all lives matter, perhaps realise that you've accidentally made some of your allies feel alienated and like you value them less than blacks.
If your reaction to what I've said above is something along the lines of, “well they should know better,” “that's their problem,” “I can't help it if they're uneducated” or something else less than sympathetic, then ask yourself if you are pulling hierarchy. You see, every time we do, say or think something that puts us in a superior position, often to make ourselves feel better, it's hierarchical instinct and this instinct is preventing us from moving forward together to find solutions to the core problems.
The original incident that sparked the current BLM protests was police brutality and numerous videos have been surfacing and doing the rounds since. Police brutality isn't confined to one race, although blacks are certainly over represented. The poor are also over represented (and yes, they are also over represented by blacks, hence the subsequent over representation of them with police brutality).
At this point I'm going to ask you to read this confession of a California ex cop. It's about a 20 minute read, but I urge you to read to the end, because it should further illustrate my point on how hierarchy causes so much disdain and give you a good idea of what the people are up against. Go ahead and read, I can wait.
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If you've finished reading then hopefully you're now starting to get an idea why we all need to start putting being offended aside and asking ourselves whether our goals are not in fact the same.
Our whole system is built on hierarchy. Some call it patriarchy and blame men, but be aware that by doing so we could be alienating male allies, because women are not free of hierarchical behaviour. In fact blame is a method of making you superior to someone or some groups of people.
We are communal creatures and due to this hierarchy comes into the way we function. If you've ever kept chickens you'll have a fine example of how it works. Small flocks will be the most cohesive with only the occasional in fighting and they function well for the good of them all. However, the larger the flock gets, the more squabbling you'll get and you'll even see the top section isolate off from the main rabble. The matriarch won't even bother herself with the rabble, she'll keep her immediates in line and if a lower hen tries to hassle her, the immediates will deal with it, like bodyguards.
Now imagine this on the volume level that our community has reached. Is it any wonder that we're becoming so disconnected from one another?
While we're never going to escape our hierarchical habits, unlike chickens we have the intelligence to be able to try and recognise when these habits are causing harm. If we can start to recognise this within ourselves, then we might be able to change perpetuating bad cycles that keep us bickering among ourselves, preventing us from making positive moves forward and instead forming into flocks following different methods of trying to achieve the same goal, which we don't in fact reach because we're too busy bickering and trying to change our own little bits around the edges of the core problem.
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This is superb @minismallholding. Articulate, wise, thoughtful.
If the racist symptoms of the hierarchical system are to be disbanded, we need to drop hierarchical behaviours. Maybe in a truly decentralized world we don't even need "elders" per se.
The paradigm shift DEMANDS that we rebuild on a different foundation. I love that you know and feel an have been able to articulate this so well.
Thank you. In all honesty I didn't know if I could articulate it, but am glad it came across.
Oops, just accidentally gave you a 100% upvote! Not removing it now, I'll only lose VP and you've probably earnt it in many other ways anyway! 😆
Three of my opinions:
Whatever you believe, what do we achieve by fighting about it?
Do you believe police brutality is escalating or that they are there for the good of the people? What do you think that faking that essay is trying to achieve?
If it's fighting among ourselves, then it's working. Hence, what's the point in fighting?
I don't want to stop liking people just because we disagree on something, especially when all we really want is the same thing ultimately.
It seems reporting of police brutality is escalating (especially in the past month), but it has always been going on.
I'm unsure what you mean by "us" - me and you, people on social media, or people wigging out in America?
And by achieve - for our own objectives, or for those of George Soros?
Faking that essay could potentially achieve some of the NWO goals. Just like faking that video did. And just like fake corona virus did. Whether it will or not is a different story.
And do we all want the same thing ultimately? - I suspect that people want a wide range of very different things.
For example, while I think we (as in you and I) have a lot in common, we probably don't want the same things in a day to day sense. And I think that is good - it would be very boring if we all wanted the same things. We could be on Fakebook :)
PS - check out people as dog breeds based on Myers-Briggs -
https://www.purewow.com/entertainment/What-Dog-Breed-Should-You-Get-Based-on-Your-Personality-Type
I'm an INTP chow chow :)
When I say want the same things it's noir of a broad sense. Overall I think most of us just want to live and let live (psychos excluded, of course). I'm darn sure we don't want more specific things the same.
My eldest likes those Myers-Briggs tests and dogs too. I should send it to her. I can never remember which one I'm supposed to be, maybe because I don't care...
I can do without being on Fakebook at the moment. I can't handle the bitching any more.
With the Myers-Briggs types I think all eight of the types starting with "I" (introvert) are cat people, but the page is fun anyway. I liked the smartest dog breed page too: https://www.purewow.com/family/smartest-dog-breeds
About once a week i have a very quick glance at my fb feed and post something offensive to wind them up - but I hate the place!
An Aussie dog made the smart list
Lol! We have a friend whose pastime is trolling. He joins facebook groups to stir trouble until he gets kicked off.
I’m an "I", but I'm no cat person. My daughter tells me I matched with a wiry haired terrier, which seemed appropriate considering my mop.
But being offended is so immensely satisfying XD
or at least I assume so given how successful things obviously intended to generate outrage are
The only real fix for stuff like this is
reformat reinstalla massive overhaul and given the level that has to be done on, is going to be hard to do because it requires people giving up power and one thing people seem to like doing is desperately clinging to every pathetic scrap of anything that looks like it kind of vaguely resembles money or power.Ideally we can just keep pushing our way towards it like we have been doing (with glacial slowness) because usually the other thing that works (for a little while til people forget and repeat the same mistakes because they delude themselves that they won't because they'll do the same thing better) are bloody revolutions and I don't like those much.
I think bloody revolutions do seem to be the default. Time to reset the matrix and it's going to be messy however it happens. Wake me when it's all over if there are any of us left.
Interesting perspective. I certainly subscribe to your view of hierarchial behavior. I've always wondered if we'd be entirely free of racism if blacks were the majority. I didn't like the honest answers I got (I always like pointing out that am black incase someone feels am talking out of privilege).
It's like recent report Chinese discrimination against blacks in their Country. We're so ingrained in hierarchial behavior it'll be difficult to drop
Hmm, blacks as a majority, that is an interesting question. Does the question only apply to the US? If we use African countries as a reference, there still seems to be some discrimination and violence between the different countries. I was taken aback to hear about the attacks on Nigerians in South Africa by South African blacks, which was retaliated against by Nigerians on South Africans workers in their country.
And it doesn't stop there, eastern Europeans were often resented in the UK for "taking the jobs," showing that white on white discrimination exists too. Which does seem to bring it back around to hierarchy being the underlying problem.
I hadn't heard of the discrimination in China against blacks, but have heard that people have been lashing out at Chinese (or any oriental looking people) over the virus. We really love the blame game, don't we!
Always love your interactions. You come up with some real thought provokers. Thanks for dropping by.
Uhmm, this is a really complex topic to debate, isn't it? And this is a much more eloquent and well written post that what I would have achieved.
I remember once in my Publicity class, the teacher asked us about the Coca-Cola commercial who they had to remove and publicly said sorry because, in it, there was Kendall Jenner in a manifestation and she offered a Coca-Cola bottle to the Police Line, which they accepted, and that's how the protest ended with everyone being united and peaceful and in love. Wohoo.
The thing was, in that moment, the black population got really angry because "that was privileged" as there was a black guy who has been killed by the police line offering a flower -or so- to them. And she was white. That's why the actors police didn't kill her.
So, the question of the professor was what would we have done if that was our Publicity Company. I said I wouldn't have took the Commercial down.
She got terribly offended by that.
My response was -being offended by our Venezuelan situation as well- that the police killing people was not a black issue. Police kill Venezuelan people in protests -it had happened recently that year. Police kill white people. Police-kill-people. It happens. Going on with my response, I said that, to me, minorities are SO offended that they get extremely sensitive and responding to that -as Coca-Cola putting the commercial down- just adds to the thing itself making it endless.
People will get offended - we will spoil them - and it would go on.
Now, I don't know if my ramble made any point at all. However, it is a complex topic. I do think Hierarchy IS the problem but how do we start to change that? Or do we have to?
As you explained with the chickens, it is nature.
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Another really thought provoking response here, @neyxirncn. So glad this has brought up some conversation.
I wonder if perhaps the advert was fine for some countries and not for others, because as you say, the situation varies depending on the country. For the US it could well be offensive in ways we don't fully comprehend because our country might have different issues. It reminds me of a car company who called the car Nova. Pretty cool in English, but it took them a while to figure out why it wasn't selling in Spain! 🤣
Of course that was a language difference, but we also have cultural differences. There are pros and cons to the fact these issues are being witnessed worldwide. For some it's a cause that they feel other countries should get behind, yet for others these issues are trifling compared to what they're dealing with in their own country.
I feel lucky that the countries I was born in and currently live in seem to be strides ahead when it comes to discrimination. Things aren't perfect, but with human nature what it is, I don't think they ever will be.
Amazing, calm and moderate post I really appreciated. I really love that image of the black girl explaining very simply about #blm. We just watched the far right riots in London - far out those guys are meatheads. They are out intentionally asserting their place in a hierarchy with little awareness it's not actual under any threat - like chickens, they don't realise that there can be a place on the perch for everyone if they only realised it. I do think we can escape hierarchies if we work harder at it. Oneness teaches that. Sure, maybe it's an ideal, a pipe dream - but I'd hate to believe it's impossible. As a white person I feel confronted by my place in the hierarchy, as if I've chosen it - I happily enjoy it - whilst still getting annoyed often aat my place as an OLDER WOMAn which carries it's own prejudices - but to be honest, most of us white walk around not thinking about how our systems subjugate others - we only think about it when it comes to a head or if we read something that tweaks our empathy, then we go back to our day to day lives. maybe we should be the meatheads at the riots, raging and kicking and screaming too.
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Mini!
Yes!
Yes!!!!
It's hierarchy and authoritarianism that are the root problem. The folks on top don't give a shit about any of us, white, black, yellow, red, whatever! As long as we fight each other on their terms, WE. ALL. FUCKING. LOSE.
I get it, not all lives matter until black lives matter. I'm with the BLM protesters in body and spirit. And when I was there and ever since, I've had a new fire burning against the root of it all; the destructive authoritarian hierarchy that keeps us at each other's throats.
Those at the top aren't bothered what we're doing unless it stops benefiting them, or worse, detracts from them. It's probably not even personal, it just is what it is.
As for BLM, if we fix the root problems behind police abuse of minority communities (which go way deeper than "racism") we address those same problems for everyone. There is no need for the me-too "All Lives Matter" response.
As for hierarchies, there will always be a "pecking order." Problems arise when people associate through coercion instead of consent. There is no problem with hiring a wilderness guide and choosing to submit to his authority in the wilderness. There is a problem if the guide destroys someone's home and then demands their obedience/submission. The market operates in the former way, while politics is entirely the latter.
A chicken coop can become an oppressively artificial environment. Like jails for humans, crowding and confinement create chaos. There is no way out of disputes arise, and violence is the only recourse.
We had chickens when I was a kid, but rarely had problems with birds being violent. Small flocks, decent yard size. But still, not an ideal way to explore avian relations and social steuctures.
Agreed. Fixing the root causes will go way further than fixing one problem. It would have a huge knock on effect.
Yes, the chicken coop is a restricted environment, however I still feel that there is something in the community size which seems to cause more problems as it grows. Have you ever seen Meerkat Manor? That was an eyeopener in many ways which reflected on human behaviour too. The family they followed was very large and while there were pros to this, there were also cons. The bigger the family got the more the hierarchy was imposed, with those not following the rules being exiled.
Some very good points, worthy of contemplation and care.
Thank you.
I feel like a lot of our modern problems come from inbuilt traits of human nature. If we can only learn to recognise why they are manifesting we can work forward from there.