John wrote:
~
~ I now think the McCulloch heterarchy structure is an
~essential component of hierarchy genesis, and perhaps coexistent in all
~*adaptive* social hierarchies. This would allow the evolution of viable path
~dependence since otherwise the evolution would be locked in to its earliest
~manifestations which may not be adaptive.
~
>>From the PCP Dictionary:
HETERARCHY - a form of organization resembling a network or fishnet.
Authority is determined
by knowledge and function
HIERARCHY (l) A form of organization resembling a pyramid. Each level is
subordinate to the
one above it. See HETERARCHY. (Umpleby) (2) An organization whose
components are arranged in levels from a top level down to a bottom level.
(Arbib) (3) A partially-ordered structure of entities in which every entity
but one
is successor to at least one other entity; and every entity except the
basic entities
is a predecessor to at least one other entity. (Rogers) (4) Narrowly, a group
arranged in order of rank or class; we interpret it to denote a rank
arrangement
in which the nature of function at each higher level becomes more broadly
embracing than at the lower level. (Iberall) <<
So, heterarchies emerge based on function and then form the basis of a
hierarchy, for social control purposes, which relies on sanctification?
~>Stafford Beer makes a careful distinction between the peck order "who bosses
~>who" type of hierarchy and the recursive hierarchies that operate in
~>cybernetic systems. I think any discussion of hierarchies should take this
~>into account. "Boss" type hierarchies maybe just parts of heterarchies (in
~>the McCulloch 1943 use of the term where C eventually dominates A).
~>Basically boss type hierarchies are just not very interesting and the
~>systems which express themselves in their terms usually dont function that
~>way anyhow.
Are "boss" hierarchies more or less primitive than more generalized
hierarchies? Are they closer to the underlying heterarchy, ie X bosses Y
because X has knowledge that Y needs?
How are general hierarchies *more* interesting? Because roles get confused
and intermediaries come into the picture? Does the sanctification process
move the system away from a mostly functional structure, and if so, to what
end? Is this the way that more "words" are written into the system's
"vocabulary"?
~>>>
~>>> It is important to keep in mind that especially in hierarchy, that each
~>>> level is "sanctified" in respect to those below it. The trappings of this
~>>> sanctity are perhaps the most essential elements of the hierarchy, even
~>>> above and beyond the actual "content" or "messages" that travel
~through it.
~>>
~>>
~>>> Is this sanctification an emergent property of hierarchies? Is it
~>>> essential? If so, in what important ways do the trappings of
~>>> "heterarchies" differ? that is, what tells an actor that an incoming
~>>> "message" is from either (1) a "superior" or (2) a "colleague". How is an
~>>> order distinguished from a cooperative effort?
~>>>
~>>> And how do these play together?
~>
~>I think anthropologist Roy Rappaport (U of Mich) is the 1st person to study
~>and spell out the mechanics of sanctity in control hierarchies in his work
~>on the Tsembaga Maring of Papua New Guinea. These people do not have any
~>form of a "boss" hierarchy -- no chiefs, "big men", etc. no one can *order*
~>other people to do anything. Yet their whole system functions as a 3 level
~>control hierarchy which is embodied in the long ritual cycle.
OK, I can follow that in the abstract, though some basic information on
what the levels are and how they work might be illustrative...
~>At each
~>metasystemic level messages between subsystems are sanctified by being
~>"certified" through ritual relation with the "unverifiable unquestionable
~>truths", and in this way social coherence enhanced (lying and error
~>minimised or otherwise controlled).
So how does this demonstrate heterarchy or general hierarchy? And which is
being demonstrated?
~> He argues that the emergence of state level
~>organised religious systems is better understood as a process of
~>desanctification and recourse to cohersion, which is of course just what the
~>boss-order hierarchy expresses -- the weakening of homeostatic control in
~>hierarchies.
Totally lost. I would imagine the process of cohesion to reinforce
sanctity. Isn't it building and cementing the social acceptance of the
"dogma"? How is DEsanctification involved here? Likewise, what WAS being
controlled that is now more weakly controlled? The consensus about the
givens of the religion?
~>
~John Earls
~jearls@pucp.edu.pe
~Pontificia Universidad Cat=F3lica del Per=FA
Sorry if these questions are too basic....
Paul
---------------------------------
"Information is entropy."
- Jean Baudrillard