The Whole and the Part

and their relationship to a burning world

My inaugural Substack article dived into the newly-controversial waters of 'mass psychosis' and the question of whether 2020 and 2021 saw the world enter into that dangerous condition. Before I return to that unanswered question, allow me today a brief digression:

How does the whole relate to the part? From this innocent question, I propose, comes much of the intensifying chaos and conflict spreading through the world. The relation of the individual to the wider society for example is more and more discussed, and with growing angst. So is the relation of the nation-state to the process of globalisation. Entangled with both, and much more besides, is a more generalised issue of 'hierarchy vs flatland'.

Sorry...?? What was that last one?? Well, let me explain myself:

Hierarchy, according to some, is the bringer of all injustice, oppression and exploitation. And the bringer of nothing good at all. Its opponents strive for an idealised 'flatland', perceived as a unified, egalitarian wholeness. An all encompassing network structure, in which nothing is higher or lower than anything else and nothing is better or worse than anything else. (Except that 'network' is better than 'hierarchy'). This is no small issue, and it turns out once again to be about the part and the whole. That is, specifically, how should the parts best be organised into 'wholes' - via networks or via hierarchies?

As old ways of doing things are increasingly breaking down, there is a scramble to define new visions and new ways. Those, inevitably, involve questions of structure: The nation state. An integrated world. Individuality. Collectivism. And Hierarchies vs. flatlands. We frequently seem however, in danger of paving the road to hell with good intentions: When we don't have a common understanding of what is meant by all the aforementioned terms, I wish to argue, we risk doing unnecessary damage to society and creating great suffering.

There is only so much one can take on in a brief Substack post, so it is mostly 'hierarchy and flatland' I'm going to look at here. I'll touch just a little on individual/collective, and the nation-state/globalisation, but for the most part those will have to be expanded upon another day. From the beginning, let's acknowledge that the enemies of hierarchy are not entirely wrong: Hierarchical structures can be very useful to oppressors. And certainly, let's be in favour of making the world less rigid, more participative, more adaptive. Who but a tyrant would not be? The 'flatlanders' however, are not entirely right either. 'Hierarchy' is 'baked into the world'. Even the companies which like to promote the new flat world have CEO's and management structures. The political parties which want 100% equality in everything still have leaders, and believe in government telling the population what to do (quite a lot) and even enthusiastically and frequently using force in that when persuasion fails. But why does hierarchy exist at all? Why does it sometimes become pathological? What alternatives exist should we feel inclined to abandon it? Can those alternatives also become pathological?

Perhaps many people, when they protest that an organisation or a situation is 'too hierarchical', don't really mean that it is too hierarchical. Perhaps more precisely the concern is situations in which some people have powers and advantages over others which they shouldn't rightly have. That, as I shall aim to show, is not identical with 'hierarchy'.

In times of great transition, and of consequent instability, there are more opportunies for the manipulative to seek advantage - which they can do both through hierarchies and other means. And there is also more motivation and inclination for others to challenge them on it.  Hence the issue: Too much authoritarianism, too much bureaucracy, too much of people assuming control over what everyone else can, can't and must say and do. Not enough equality. And people wanting change. 

Here's the thing however: There is no guarantee at all that the idealised 'flatland' would be free of similar pathology. Nor of heinous manipulation: Networks tend to develop 'super-hubs' – elements (people or organisations, or even servers on the internet) with disproportionate influence. Historian Niall Ferguson¹, though broadly a fan of the versatility and openness of networks (as am I), nonetheless warns that networks of past and present are in reality profoundly inegalitarian. By way of example he refers to a couple of dozen or so super-powerful and networked individuals, with relationships formed in even fewer institutions – he cites the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Goldman Sachs, The World Economic Forum, The Clinton Global Initiative, and the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York – who exercise immense influence across the globe. And he also mentions less legal examples, such as those involved in insider trading and rate-rigging. Since networks (as Ferguson acknowledges), are often more influential than hierarchies, the inegalitarian nature of them can certainly be a source of problems. Furthermore, while networks are often able to overthrow hierarchies, they also have the capacity to rapidly transform into hierarchies themselves, and often do.

In another notable analysis of the issues, philosopher Ken Wilber² (who also likes the many benefits of networks, but sees limitations in the arguments of the flatlanders, and ridicules the idea of trying to somehow get rid of hierarchy) draws attention to what is lurking unseen in flatland: Its two-dimensional surface frequently covers over unacknowledged forms of hierarchy, subtle forms of reductionism, and other undesirables. Moreover, the architects of any given 'flatland' always specifically exclude certain things from their version of 'wholeness': Since there is no such thing as any 'ultimate wholeness' (because everything always has a greater context of some kind, whether physical, intellectual, psychological, historical, or whatever else) those who seek to define one can never do so directly from reality, but only from ideology. Such falsely 'wholistic' flatland networks, he warns, easily develop affinities with 'totalising social agendas'.

The reason that hierarchies, on the other hand, have existed forever, is that they create provisional and functionally useful 'wholes': Letters can combine into words, thence paragraphs, chapters and books. Atoms can combine into molecules, cells, tissues, bones and organs, and thence people. Such hierarchical structures (companies too) give rise to levels of functionality which would not exist otherwise. As such, they are fundamental to evolution. The key word here however, is 'provisional': Ultimate wholeness can no more exist in a hierarchy than in a network.

Hierarchies then, become pathological when some element within them assumes a dominatory power which does not rightly belong to it, and seeks to deny that there can be any context superior to its will. And networks become pathological when the many individual actors within them (the same ones who become too powerful in pathological hierarchy) are repressed from any capacity for independent action at all, in favour of some variation of 'lowest common denominator' ideology.

This brings us back around to the individual and the collective. The 'individual', it seems, also has enemies – in those who see the very word as automatically associated with selfishness and egotism. Yet it can just as well be interpreted as 'the capacity to think for oneself', and to manifest unique talents – qualities that have a lot to do with the world being resilient, and continuing to evolve. The view that 'individuals are necessarily egotistical' really doesn't stand up. Nor does either side in the 'individual/collective' debate have monopoly on 'good intent': Well-intentioned 'individuals' (willing to disagree honourably, whichever side of the political fence they come from) are certainly as capable of caring about society and doing good as those who are pre-occupied with putting certain 'universal beliefs' beyond dissent, and obliging everybody else (other people, and other nations) to conform with them.

The push to abolish nation states in favour of a global flatland meanwhile, may backfire badly when the resulting world government turns itself into the daddy of all hierarchies. How likely is that to be egalitarian? By all means, let's acknowledge that some forms of nationalism are ugly. But the concept is not exclusively negative. Surely it is better for some decisions – and quite a lot of them - to be made more locally than others? And is it so bad for people - regardless of their actual nativity - to manifest team spirit, and the will to achieve things together, on the basis of the country they call home? Is not the cultural heritage of countries (again irrespective of the mix of people living in them at any given moment) the reason most of us hunger to travel, and see different ways of thinking, living, building and organising?

What of business? Tom Friedland's book, 'The World is Flat'³ celebrates the internet's achievement of (allegedly) creating a level playing field for businesses across the world. I will just suggest that this is a ridiculous claim given all the other unequal factors at play – within the internet and without.

Hierarchies and networks then, can both become pathological. Both can be used to enable manipulation and coercion, and neither left nor right are averse to using them that way. Both have been around for ever, for the simple reason that both have important functions. Most people, and most organisations, simultaneously belong to both networks and hierarchies, which often interpenetrate each other: Within any hierarchical organisation, unofficial networks exist, based on friendships, or meetings at the coffee machine. Across hierarchies, networks exist, as professionals from different companies meet at the pub or the golf course. Conversely, within any network, unofficial hierarchies emerge when individuals are informally recognised as having a kind of power which is not to be crossed.

It is tempting to find villains like hierarchy (or the nation state, or the free agency of the individual) to be eradicated and 'promised lands' (flat ones) to move toward. But trying to eradicate that which is fundamentally part of the world, instead of focusing on the real issues (integrity, participation, and genuinely new vision, as opposed to simply demons to attack) will throw as much fuel on the fires of confusion and conflict as do the attempts currently in progress to legislate the way that people speak and think.

Messing with such complex and necessary parts of the inexhaustible and indefinable whole is playing with fire. And there is surely enough fire in the world already.

1. The Tower and the Square, Niall Ferguson, 2017

2. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Ken Wilber, 1995

3. The World is Flat, Thomas L Friedman, 2011