We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, August 7, 2010

On the Persistence of Hierarchy

by Kenneth Couesbouc from State of Nature (UK). 

I haven't had time to read this thoroughly, but it appears to offer some very unique and fascinating perspectives about the age-old struggle between the owners of property and workers and their governing systems which depended upon hierarchy to insure the dominance of the former.

He concludes with this statement with which I very much agree:

The historic coincidence of a tottering pyramid and a free web of words is a very rare opportunity that must not be squandered.



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