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Title: The Rise of Hierarchy Author: Peter Gelderloos Date: 2005 Language: en Topics: anthropology, anti-civ, anti-militarist, gender roles, hierarchy, organization, patriarchy, technology Source: Personal communication with the author, August 9, 2009 Notes: Fall 2005
In charting the origin of social hierarchies and control systems, many
radical theorists take a materialist stance, and attribute authoritarian
behavior to surpluses resulting from agricultural production and other
aspects of the civilization process. The fact that some
non-agricultural, hunter-gatherer societies developed hierarchical
social structures offers a critical contradiction to the materialist
view, and presents the key to understanding the origin of hierarchy.
Anarchists, whether we wish to abolish all the cultural artifacts of
Western civilization as inherently oppressive or to retain certain
aspects of civilization, would do well to learn the partial extent to
which civilization and hierarchy are concomitant.
Civilization being understood etymologically and culturally as the
subjection of human beings to a centralized or common power “to keep
them all in awe” in the words of Hobbes, or make citizens out of them,
to refer to the Latin, we can turn to hunter-gatherer peoples as a clear
example of stateless society. The two major forms of hierarchy evidenced
in some hunter-gatherer societies are patriarchy and gerontocracy.
Several hunter-gatherer groups are nascent patriarchies. For instance,
among the Aché of the Amazonian forests, the sexual division of labor is
stark, and men enjoy greater influence in decision-making. The Aranda of
central Australia also give greater political influence to men within
the group. Additionally, ownership of communal land, which is the source
of identity for each band, is traced through the patriline (father to
son).
Gerontocracy, age-based hierarchy dominated by elders, is particularly
developed among the Aranda, politically, socially, and spiritually.
Generally speaking, Aranda children are not active participants in the
affairs of the group, whereas elder males are accorded positions of
leadership, and the Aranda religion is based on ancestor worship (Lee
and Daly, 1999).
The Mbuti of the Ituri forest of central Africa provide an excellent
contrast in demonstrating how non-hierarchical a society can be (the
Hadza of the Tanzanian grasslands also practice egalitarian social
organization, though there is less literature available on them). Though
the Mbuti practice some sexual division of labor, the division is not
strict, and often manifests as different functions in the same activity,
with women and men working together, to care for children or gather
food. The Mbuti minimize gender, and except for distinguishing between
mothers and fathers use non-gendered familial labels (e.g. sibling,
instead of sister) and pronouns. The Mbuti traditionally form exclusive
and even lifelong partnerships for raising children, but Mbuti
“marriage” does not prohibit extra-marital sex or love.
One of the most important Mbuti rituals might be termed “gender-fuck” by
North American anti-oppression activists. It starts as a game of
tug-of-war, with the men on one side and the women on the other. But as
soon as one side starts to win, a member of the winning side switches
teams, and pretends to be a member of the opposite sex, to restore the
balance. By the end of the game, everyone has changed their gender
multiple times, and they all fall down laughing, having exorcised gender
tensions (Turnbull, 1983).
The Mbuti are also an age-equal society. They provide a field of
autonomy and a role of importance to each of the five recognized age
groups: infants, children, youth, adults, and elderly. Each age group
holds a voluntarily recognized power over the others, and it is the
healthy symbiosis of the different groups that makes for a well
functioning Mbuti band. The youth, for instance, are regarded as
defenders of justice, and it is their function to call out problems or
conflicts within the group. The adults, though they have substantial
influence as the providers of sustenance, are also criticized as being
the main sources of akami, “noise” or conflict, within the group. The
role of the elderly is to reconcile conflicts.
Though the embryonic forms of patriarchy and gerontocracy exhibited by
some hunter-gatherer groups are harmless compared to hierarchical
dynamics in accumulation-based civilizations, the combination of the two
systems is a critical milestone in the rise of hierarchical social
organization. That historical combination, which almost certainly
predates the development of agriculture, marks the first dynamic
hierarchies. The permanent division between men and women is bolstered
by the aged hierarchy, which bestows privilege over time, in return for
cooperation with the hierarchical system. An elite minority, male
elders, hold disproportionate influence and the beginnings of political
power. Meanwhile, the promise of eventual inclusion into the elite
encourages younger males to cooperate with the hierarchy. Females, too,
are more likely to cooperate with their own disempowerment; even though
they will never ascend to an elite role, they can still win an elevated
status as they grow older by participating with the hierarchy.
It seems gerontocracy also makes possible a rudimentary form of policing
in stateless society. The age grades that the Mbuti use in a libertarian
way become tools for political authority in many West African societies,
such as the Ibo (stateless horticulturalists), that subordinate young
people to old people. Youth, instead of being autonomous defenders of
justice, play a policing function by enforcing the will of the age group
above them, thus turning the diffuse sanctions (collectively held
enforcement mechanisms) characteristic of anarchy into something closer
to the centrally controlled sanctions of the state (Barclay, 1982). This
becomes possible in a culture where older people are seen as legitimate
leaders and younger people seek to win their favor. Within this context,
the concept of lineage becomes increasingly important. The segmentary
lineages of many stateless West African tribes appear to open an
effective path for the development of government. The “Big Man”
leadership evidenced in many simple patriarchies, forager or
horticultural, is too unstable to permanently institutionalize political
power (an aggressive, strong, or capable man invites competition and
resentment, loses these qualities with age, and cannot pass them on to
any chosen successor). But segmentary lineages in which each grouping —
the family, the sub-clan, the clan — is headed by a leader, the father
of the lineage (a concept that requires only patrilineality and
gerontocracy), political control over a large population begins to be
centralized by a pecking order of leaders, from minor to major;
leadership becomes hereditary; and prestigious lineages that have won
leadership of the larger structures (clans or the tribe) take on an
innate leadership quality: a superiority is believed to run in their
blood.
The question remains, why did some human groups develop these forms of
hierarchy, while others did not? Patriarchy is often attributed to men
winning influence from their role as warriors or providers. But many
hunter-gatherer and horticultural groups did not practice warfare, and
there is no clear delineation of peaceful political strategies always
being practiced by the gender-equal or malineal groups. Neither is there
a correlation between men’s role as providers and their role as
patriarchs. Patriarchy was as developed or more developed in societies
where women provided most of the food, for instance the Aranda, than
among groups like the Aché, where men provided roughly 80% of the diet.
On the contrary, patriarchy seems to be a possible result among any
human group (contemporary activists should take note) that does not
specifically organize to prevent patriarchy. Gender distinctions are an
obvious axis for conflict within human groups, and overcoming conflict
must be a constant activity in any society. The development of
patriarchy is not inevitable, or natural, it is simply convenient — for
those who wish to gain social power, and take the easy way out of
dealing with group problems.
Social practices and institutions to prevent or resist the development
of patriarchy have been manifold. They range from gender-leveling
rituals like those practiced by the Mbuti, to the ritualized collective
action, including all-night insult sessions and possible property
destruction, practiced by Igbo women against male culprits who have
violated a woman’s rights or infringed on the women’s sphere of economic
activity (Van Allen, 1972).
Stages of patriarchal development described by Gerda Lerner (1986)
include removing women from the divine, most pronounced in the
monotheists’ development of a single male God; creating the cultural
myth that women are spiritually or mentally incomplete, as in
Aristotelian philosophy; and authoring laws or social mores that govern
women’s sexuality, as in Hammurabi’s code.
I would add that the first and most important stage of patriarchy is the
conceptualization of rigid gender identities. Riane Eisler (1987) and a
number of other liberal feminists, in a sincere attempt to liberate an
anti-patriarchal history, have resurrected a number of Mediterranean
societies dominated by female fertility symbology and marked by less
stark class and gender divisions, as evidence of a pre-patriarchal past.
Unfortunately, their scholarship still leaves us with an essentialized
gender binary in which women’s source of social power is their ability
to make babies. In fact, male cooptation of female fertility symbols was
a common stage of development in many patriarchal societies. From the
Anasazi to the Minoans, male priests recently in charge of religious
structures, used, and even wore, yonic symbols as a mark of their power
(Donald and Hurcombe, 2000). This occurred in tandem with
agriculturalists’ cooptation of the fertility of “Mother Earth.”
One of the earliest known forms of resistance to essentialized notions
of gender was artwork, among hunter-gatherers as well as
horticulturalists and early agriculturalists. Dating back thousands of
years, San rock-art, as well as paintings and figurines from all across
the world, frequently contained androgynous figures, encouraging a
fluidity to the concept of gender by blurring the distinction or
presenting figures that simultaneously exhibited exaggerated female and
male characteristics (and often, also the characteristics of other
animals). Eisler herself, inhibited by an essentially patriarchal lens,
misrepresents her own research, neglecting to mention that the majority
of Neolithic figurines in her samples are not female, but androgynous.
Agriculture and civilization did not create hierarchy in human groups,
nor did hierarchy lead to the creation of civilization, as evidenced by
the existence of egalitarian horticultural and agricultural societies.
Rather, hierarchy is a result of a people’s social strategies, but
agriculture and other technological progressions allow nascent
hierarchies to become much more complex, authoritarian, and violent.
Even worse, the military advantages that inhere in agriculture — such as
higher population density, disease resistance from living with animals
in sedentary communities, and metal tools — allow civilization’s more
developed hierarchies to be spread by expanding nations and conquering
armies.
To increase our understanding, it would be helpful to know how
agriculture developed. It is important to realize that the development
of agriculture was not inevitable or universal. Although the vast
majority of societies today sustain themselves through some form of
agriculture, agriculture’s preeminence is largely a result of population
expansion and military dominance by agricultural societies. Perhaps as
few as five societies independently developed agriculture in all of
human history (in the Middle East, China, sub-Saharan Africa, the
Yucatan, and the Andes). This is not to say that agriculture is an
unlikely invention; many hunter-gatherer groups demonstrate a knowledge
of agriculture but choose not to practice it. Offsetting its military
advantages, agriculture was accompanied by a marked decline in human
health, which has been sufficiently described elsewhere. Agriculture was
often an unpopular invention, spreading through much of Europe less than
a mile each year (Diamond, 1992).
In the best-studied example, the Middle East, agriculture developed
earliest in the highlands of the Levant, east of the Mediterranean. The
process appears to have begun 12,500 years ago, when climatic changes at
the end of the Ice Age led to a significant increase of wild-growing
cereals and nuts. Natufian hunter-gatherers in the region practiced a
simple forager strategy, meaning they gathered and hunted a wide range
of plant and animal foods, without specialization, for a diverse diet.
After the explosion of cereal and nut populations, the Natufians adopted
a complex forager strategy, specializing in the high-energy, easy to
gather grains and nuts (Henry, 1989). Accordingly, they went from being
nomadic to semi-sedentary, with more permanent dwellings where food
could be stored, and seasonal abundances could be exploited. It was a
simple matter of economics: they had the opportunity to get by with less
effort, so they took it.
However, complex foragers are rare compared to simple foragers, because
the complex forager strategy is less adaptive. Complex foragers are more
dependent on a small range of foods, and thus vulnerable to the vagaries
of climate and other natural changes, and also more sedentary, thus
unable to spread out their ecological impact. 10,000 years ago, the
climate changed again, and the territory of cereal and nut populations
began shrinking. The complex foragers were faced with a choice: adapt to
changes in the environment by reverting to a simple forager strategy, or
artificially preserve the abundance of their key foods by saving and
planting the seeds. Some groups did choose to become simple foragers
again, while others developed horticulture and agriculture.
These early farmers were afforded new opportunities. In sedentary
communities, they could more easily domesticate animals, develop larger
and more complex tools, and create permanent dwellings and property.
They could domesticate and manage crop species by storing and replanting
seeds with favorable characteristics. They could develop irrigation to
grow and harvest beyond the capacities of the local climate. They could
store food for times when their staple crops were not in season, cutting
out their need to forage. They could use their surpluses to support
artisans and others who would not take part in farming. They could raid
the stores of neighboring communities in times of scarcity, creating
warfare as we know it.
The critical choices of these early agriculturalists, which have
affected all of human history since then, would have been profoundly
influenced by the social strategies practiced by each particular group.
In all likelihood, some of the bands and communities involved in the
early development of horticulture and agriculture were egalitarian, like
the Mbuti, and others probably practiced patriarchy, or gerontocracy, or
both. Patriarchal groups, living in monogamous households, would have
been more likely to develop notions of individual property.
Gerontocratic groups, by discouraging the role of youth in challenging
the status quo, would have been more likely to tolerate and
traditionalize social iniquity. Groups with an elite of elder males
would have been more likely to develop economic disparities, because the
majority in such groups were doing more work and enjoying poorer health
than their forager or horticultural ancestors, but those with
decision-making authority, the elite, were enjoying the fruits of the
surplus.
Though the hierarchies that were in existence before the development of
agriculture were insubstantial, and even the groups with dynamic
hierarchies, like the Aranda, still exhibit a culture of
anti-authoritarianism, these choices took place over centuries, and no
one at that time would have known the disastrous consequences of
choosing slightly more authoritarian, capitalistic, or warlike
strategies. However, over time the massive military advantages that
accrued to societies practicing more complex forms of agriculture
(having weapons, soldiers, twice the population of your neighbors) meant
that just one community pursuing an aggressive strategy could force its
neighbors into a sort of arms race, by presenting them with the choice
of developing their technologies to stay competitive, fleeing the area,
or being overrun, and killed or turned into slaves.
Communities already led by an elite, who would lose the least and
benefit the most from warfare and increased production, were certainly
more likely to try and out-compete or dominate their neighbors. It was
certainly no contradiction for a community to practice horticulture or
agriculture and still retain a culture of consensus, communalism, and
ecocentrism, but such communities would not have participated in the
arms race, and they would have been conquered, allowing for the
ascendancy of the culture of domination and accumulation, and the
proliferation of the arms race. That is what has been happening ever
since.
The meaning of this history for anti-authoritarians today is that
domination- and accumulation-based civilizations spread not because of
any freely chosen assurances of material improvement, but because of the
military advantages, and the imperative to dominate, hardwired into such
civilizations. Though it was easy for domination-based civilizations to
subjugate surrounding societies, another historical survey could clearly
show that these civilizations are quite vulnerable to the internal
tension that arises from the antagonism the subjects reasonably develop
towards the power structures that dominate them. Recent history shows
clearly enough that the military advantages inherent in domination-based
civilization do not apply to internal rebellions (provided the rebels
have a minimum access to broad support and technologies in the range of
firearms and explosives). Whatever occurs after the fall of Authority, a
broad cultural remembrance of the dangers of allowing oppressive
hierarchies to take root can help prevent a recurrence of the mistakes
made by human groups 10,000 years ago, at a time when they could not
know the full ramifications of their actions. Oppressive hierarchies are
not inherent to any material modes of existence human beings would
choose to inhabit (as distinguished from modes that were forcefully
implemented from the top, as appears universally to be the case with
Western-style industrialism). Rather, oppressive hierarchies allow
technologies to become oppressive, and technologies define the range of
complexity which those hierarchies can develop. The hierarchies
themselves, which foster their own reproduction (in part through the
development of technologies that are implicitly oppressive), fall within
the range of possible human behavior, but can be prevented when
understood as a threat to human freedom and wellbeing. The questions of
what to do with this understanding in the present day — which
technologies can be kept, which can be reformed, and which must be
discarded, as well as the question of how these new material modes (most
likely different modes for different bioregions) will interact with our
efforts to prevent hierarchy — remain to be explored and answered.
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New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
from Prehistory to Present. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000
Collins, 1995.
University of Philadelphia Press, 1989.
Hunters and Gatherers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
University Press, 1986.
Philadelphia: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1983.
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