{"id":33652,"date":"2018-04-23T06:51:09","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T11:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=33652"},"modified":"2018-04-23T06:51:37","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T11:51:37","slug":"hierarchy-climate-change-and-the-state-of-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=33652","title":{"rendered":"Hierarchy, climate change and the state of nature"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hierarchy, climate change and the state of nature<\/a><\/h3>\n

We can start building new tools for a democratic and ecological society once we understand hierarchy as the central problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Sumerian Standard of Ur is 4,600 years old, showing the king in the top middle, standing taller than any other figure. Image: Wikipedia<\/a><\/figcaption>
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We briefly mentioned the problem of hierarchy as the shared root of many systems of oppression in our\u00a0first column<\/a>\u00a0two weeks ago.\u00a0\u00a0In this article, we want to expand on the meaning of hierarchy\u2014a system of obedience and command backed by the threat of force\u2014and ground it in history. If we are to understand what we face and avoid reproducing it in building a new society, the social roots of hierarchy deserve a more thorough exploration.<\/div>\n
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In Western society, there are two prominent \u2018origin stories.\u2019 One is that of the Hobbesian \u2018war of all against all,\u2019 in which humans are innately vicious and violent, and only the introduction of strong authority could keep people\u2019s natural state in check.<\/p>\n

The other story is that prior to the existence of civilizations, humans lived in egalitarian and mostly peaceful bands enjoying the natural abundance of nature. In this version, it was only with the development of agriculture and centralized societies that we fell from grace and became the violent and hierarchical creatures we are today.<\/p>\n

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The destruction of our environment is not some natural, vicious drive of humanity, but something that emerges from the very inequalities created by hierarchy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Both stories share an assumption that pre-civilization humans can be painted with a broad brush, and that hierarchy \u2013\u00a0whether good or bad \u2013\u00a0can be traced to a natural evolution point in human history.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hierarchy, climate change and the state of nature We can start building new tools for a democratic and ecological society once we understand hierarchy as the central problem The Sumerian Standard of Ur is 4,600 years old, showing the king in the top middle, standing taller than any other figure. Image: Wikipedia We briefly mentioned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,7],"tags":[12824,141,204,234,16814,19891,19892,11323],"class_list":["post-33652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-aaron-vansintjan","tag-climate-change","tag-democracy","tag-ecology","tag-hierarchy","tag-katie-horvath","tag-mason-herson-ford","tag-uneven-earth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33653,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33652\/revisions\/33653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}