I found this article challenging, but so right on the crucial questions about constructing alternative political structures. The writer is an academic who uses some very specialized concepts, but uses them in an attempt to shed light on the crucial questions for our time. The questions, of course, have immediate relevance for the evolving social-political situation in Egypt.
...few revolutions remain leaderless—which is exactly why it is very important to understand that the diffused nature of this revolution is hardly an inoculation against the emergence of this dynamic [the tendency for non-hierarchical structures to evolve into hierarchical ones]; in fact, it might even contain the seeds of extreme hierarchy.I think it is imperative for the human race and its survival that this species must quickly learn how to construct inclusive democratic systems of governance. We have lost a valuable insight since we left the small hunting and gathering societies: our survival depends on the contributions of everyone and upon our natural setting, the planet, for our survival. We must show respect to all human beings and live in harmony with the environment if we are not to self-destruct through wars, famine, climate change, and resource exhaustion.
The main barrier, as I see it, is all the cultural baggage we've inherited since the beginning of the agrarian era that bestowed to us hierarchical systems to organize our societies. It has now become almost second nature for us to move toward such systems.
