Reactionary Consensus I: Hierarchy

In a post a couple days ago, I asked what can Catholic Traditionalists, Ethno-Nationalists, and Techno-Commercialists, assorted Particularists and non-brain-dead PUAs agree on? In answer to that question, I identified key ideas in what might coalesce into a Neoreactionary Consensus. This is Part One of what I hope to be a ten part series expanding upon that bulleted list.

The first broad area of agreement is hierarchy — a system of rank (formal or informal) within a social group under which the rights and duties of each member are (at least broadly) understood (explicitly or implicitly) by all group members.

Synopsis:
Reactionaries affirm that hierarchy is not only natural, but almost purely beneficial to group success. Hierarchy is not merely not evil, but an enabling trait of civilization. Since hierarchy is adaptively advantageous, it is easy to see why reactionaries believe it to be part of the law of nature or nature’s god or both. Public policies that ignore hierarchy as fundamental to human nature, or worse attempt to subvert it by artificial means of social leveling are foolish at best and likely to be catastrophic for human flourishing.

Proposition Η₁—The Naturalness of Hierarchy :

Humans, like many of their (presumed) near biological relatives, live in societal groups in which hierarchy arises naturally, almost always without ideological bases or triggers.

Hierarchy is a brute fact of human nature, everywhere observed. But why? The Marxist avers that hierarchy is little more than exploitation: a way for those on top to get to the top and stay on top, whilst collecting proceeds from those on the bottom. He might further suggest that, in order to promote and stabilize hierarchy, those who dominate spin large narratives to justify their place in society, and if you the net loser in this game don’t believe the narrative then you are not quite a good person.

In a classic case of projection, the ideologue (believer of the Marxist meta-narrative) sees ideologies (competing meta-narratives) under every rock. But is this a parsimonious explanation? Is it even close?

No. Hierarchy arises almost without exception within families. The lack of it would be indeed a strange exception, and interpreted my most as extremely dysfunctional. Somebody has to be the boss. And the wisest or strongest or least impulsive or most experienced individual will probably be it. Extending out from families, authority structures must exist within communities. Who arbitrates property disputes or punishes crime? Who makes decisions the community as a whole? Just as a head of household responsible for its proper ordering and function, so must a community have some leader to carry out that responsibility on behalf of all members.

Hunting parties require cohesion and cooperation. Bands of warriors require yet more of the same. As agriculture develops in human societies, bringing about a division of labor, and concentrations of human population arise in large cities and states, ever more complex hierarchies are required to manage an increasing number of levels and areas of oversight, to keep contention to a minimum, and by these to increase the productivity of burgeoning nations.

Proposition Η₂—The Benefits of Hierarchy:

Hierarchy is essential to all but the most trivial of human relationships, avoidable only with great awkwardness, and usually serves the best interests of everyone in the common good.

I use the term “essential” in its Aristotlean-Thomistic sense, i.e., that hierarchy is one of the things without which there would not be a personal relationship at all. Consider the dystopic equalism portrayed in A Brave New World. Children in such a world are portrayed, prophetically, as being preternaturally lonely.

In the real world, even relationships purported to be “between equals”, e.g., brothers of the same rank in arms, there is usually still an implicit hierarchy between each of them, and sensed by all. In addition, the very notion of brothers in arms, carries with it a hierarchy that makes them brothers, an authority structure above and possibly below, that gives them their very identity as brothers. Without a clear chain of command, group cohesion and loyalty, and a sense of purpose that transcends purely individual satisfactions, a fighting force (so-called) would be quickly wiped out by superior forces who better possessed such attributes.

Hierarchy could only arise naturally if it conferred some adaptive advantage to social groups that possess it. Since hierarchy exists, and is universal in human societies, this is proof enough that it is, at least for the society at large, beneficial. Even low ranking members of the hierarchy are likely to benefit by enhanced group success, even if the spoils of success are not shared equally. The Marxian hermeneutic which posits hierarchy as a source of conflict is therefore absurd. More hierarchical societies succeed largely because of the cooperation, cohesion, and adaptibility it engenders. Even Jesus points out that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Proposition Η₃—The Irrepressibility of Hierarchy:

Hierarchy is pretty much the opposite of anarchy. But hierarchies will still develop in anarchical systems, as water flows down hill.

In the absence of a coach, and in the absence of pre-defined roles, boys of nominally equal status, say a freshman gym class, will arranging themselves hierarchically, with relatively little interpersonal friction to participate at a team sport, so as to maximize the team’s chance of winning. For most males (and possibly for most humans in general) the reward circuitry of the brain is wired such that the pleasure of the team winning is greater than the pleasure of getting individual glory.

As with the case of a family unit, somebody has to be boss. If you keep ejecting or killing bosses, someone will still have to be it. He will probably be the one who killed the last boss. Leaders of uncommon stupidity or incompetency may deserve to die in some circumstances. But to kill them off on the ideological principles that anarchy is pure and hierarchy evil is simply lunacy. In most cases, group morale and thus cohesion will suffer, and with it adaptive fitness. In a harsh human adaptive environment, the fierceness and bravery that helps you defeat competitors cannot be turned toward your fellow tribesmen. Hierarchy may be seen as an adaptive algorithm that optimizes between competing human hind-brain instincts.

Conclusion
The Cathedral accepts hierarchy as necessary, of course, but not as natural. Hierarchical ranks, where they must exist, are determined therefore by purely rational and meritocratic methods such as credentialing, awareness course completion, and years offered in service to Cathedral interests. Hierarchies erected outside these artificial boundaries are immediately suspect as potential (likely?) cloaks for malevolent intent and vicious exploitation. This hermeneutic of suspicion extends therefore to nearly every hierarchy in human experience, most of which, and the most necessary of which, have few if any of the meritocratic safeguards deemed appropriate by Cathedral Planners. Thus the Progressivist Regime justifies bureaucratic overreach into families, into voluntary organizations such as churches or Boy Scouts, into business hiring and firing practices, into local commerce, and into local schools and governments.

The reactionary sees such overreach as fundamentally hostile to human nature. For every one actual abuse of power in natural, unregulated hierarchies thwarted by bureaucratic control, 99 of them will have their social cohesion broken by an exogenous Marxian hermeneutic. Natural and proper and profitable functions will fail contributing yet more social pathology, justifying ever more rationalized, meritocratic central planning.

A consensus among reactionaries is that hierarchies are perfectly natural, almost always beneficial, and therefore contribute massively on net to the common good, including adaptive fitness. They should at least be left alone, if not actively promoted. Any public policy which attempts to artificially eliminate, ignore, or level natural rankings within mediating institutions, is foolish at best, and almost surely destructive to the common good, including adaptive fitness.

What do Catholic Traditionalists, Ethno-Nationalists, Techno-Commercialists, assorted Particularists, and non-brain-dead PUAs think about that?

[…continue to the next installment: Reactionary Consensus II: Deep Heritage]