Are we wired to be hierarchical?

Humans are animals, metaphorically I mean. The word “animal” is important because animals are biologically wired to be hierarchical. In the famous Orwellian satire, Animal Farm, there was a distinct hierarchy! Napoleon the huge Berkshire pig, the boar was the leader followed by other pigs, dogs and horses! I believe that we as humans?often unconsciously rearrange the world into arbitrary hierarchies to make sense of the world, maintain our beliefs, and feel better.

My first memory of doing this was while working (part time) in a car garage in Calcutta when I was 16 or 17. My elder brother’s way of helping me to learn about how a car works and its constituent parts. One particular (regular) customer would come into the garage and treat everyone who worked there poorly. He’d drive up in his fancy car, park it in a way that inconvenienced others, and quickly dash in to get something repaired. He'd rudely comment and raise his voice telling everyone to hurry up and often show off his expensive possessions like the watch, or his branded T-shirt. One day when he was waiting for me to attend to fixing the headlamps in his car, he told me to “hurry and not be slow a like donkey (the lowest in the Animal Farm hierarchy!) because he doesn’t have all the time to waste in the world.” I’ll leave my reply out but let me just say this, that was my last day there!

He organized his unconscious hierarchy by money and status. Those were the ways he kept the score to come out on top. He wasn't the only one that did this. We all do this all the time. In fact, we do it several times a day. We constantly organize the world in a way that lets us come out on top.

I remember at home that night thinking that while I might not have his status, at least I wasn't like him. And at that moment I rearranged the world in such a way that I, the unemployed -to be an undergrad soon- without a job, a car, or a Rolex watch, got my comfort by putting humility and good manners right at the top. That kept me preserved! Changing the reference point made me feel better. Rearranging the world wasn’t conscious and neither was my reaction. What I said is less important than the fact that I said it without thinking. I reacted without reasoning, just like an animal.

Once you see this idea, you can’t unsee it. It’s everywhere. You see it politically on the left and right, in food choices, in the way advertisers communicate the products or brands on TV and of course in our possessions. You see it in the books you buy, trips you take, and subtle words people use when gossiping. You see it in values, beliefs, education, in people and in the larger society!

While we don’t always need to come out on top, we often organize the world in a way where we are always better than someone else or at least in peace with ourselves!Arising from the need to have our self-concept intact? When someone infringes on our unconscious sense of hierarchy it triggers an instinctive, animal-like, response!

Are we not??Hopefully being conscious of it now, we may not be that eager to prove our superiority to ourselves! And let life be!

Shubho Bijoya!