Tuesday, July 24, 2007
HIERARCHY VIII
Thomas L. Friedman, NEW YORK TIMES
Inspired by Thomas L. Friedman’s documentary and then after having found his home page in the Internet I decided to write a new post to my blog about the problems between Islamic world and the USA. Actually, it is not only Arabic or Islamic world that has problems with America and it appears as if they hated America. They usually say - in order to protect their feelings – sentences like these: You should not look down on us; America should not push everybody in the world around as it pleases etc. About the Twin Towers attack on September 11, they usually say: I do not agree, but it had to be done, it is good that America got a punch in the nose, and some other similar expressions. These are sentences that I have heard not only from the mouths of Islamic people, or some poor people, but I have heard exactly the same sentence on Czech TV, said by university graduates.
At that time I said that this is normal reaction of somebody who feels as a loser compared to a winner. Always when somebody is the first one, he is alone, and everybody wants to beat him. If it does not work then, at least such people then express their approval for actions made by somebody else. It is like: it is good that he was killed or, it is good that he was taught a lesson, etc.
Now I know that I was absolutely right. Only today I call it slightly differently, I say that it is the problem of hierarchy. What I mean is the relative feeling of one’s own position in the human heap. This is valid for every group and for every individual, and it is also valid for competition for position in hierarchy among groups, in this sense also among nations, states, or religions.
Therefore, if somebody says sentences like the ones above, we can immediately recognize that he feels inferior but would like to be at our level or even higher.
The total problematic of hierarchy is extremely simple, no one likes to be the last one, usually people do not have to be absolutely the first ones, only few are like that, and even such people admit, that the strength of positive emotions when winning is smaller than he negative emotion that emerges when losing. The reason for this might be found in evolutionary psychology, together with genetics and epigenetics. Most probably, we have this unpleasant feeling of being the last one or losing - which is not the same exactly but causes the same feelings - because the last animal in a herd have usually been always eaten up by some predator. And of course, we do not want to be eaten up.
What is so tremendously complex is the multitude of forms of appearance, forms in which this feeling demonstrates. It can be always something a different sentence. Typical example might be: you are not better than me, or Do you think you are something special?, or much more complex signals as when making better moves in chess you may laugh about the other player and giving him advices what he should do, and in this way play your card of momentarily superiority.
Basically the number of such displays of superiority is endless, and this makes it so difficult to understand that. Then next problem is that very often people do not want to call this phenomenon by its proper name because it might be “politically incorrect”.
Inspired by Thomas L. Friedman’s documentary and then after having found his home page in the Internet I decided to write a new post to my blog about the problems between Islamic world and the USA. Actually, it is not only Arabic or Islamic world that has problems with America and it appears as if they hated America. They usually say - in order to protect their feelings – sentences like these: You should not look down on us; America should not push everybody in the world around as it pleases etc. About the Twin Towers attack on September 11, they usually say: I do not agree, but it had to be done, it is good that America got a punch in the nose, and some other similar expressions. These are sentences that I have heard not only from the mouths of Islamic people, or some poor people, but I have heard exactly the same sentence on Czech TV, said by university graduates.
At that time I said that this is normal reaction of somebody who feels as a loser compared to a winner. Always when somebody is the first one, he is alone, and everybody wants to beat him. If it does not work then, at least such people then express their approval for actions made by somebody else. It is like: it is good that he was killed or, it is good that he was taught a lesson, etc.
Now I know that I was absolutely right. Only today I call it slightly differently, I say that it is the problem of hierarchy. What I mean is the relative feeling of one’s own position in the human heap. This is valid for every group and for every individual, and it is also valid for competition for position in hierarchy among groups, in this sense also among nations, states, or religions.
Therefore, if somebody says sentences like the ones above, we can immediately recognize that he feels inferior but would like to be at our level or even higher.
The total problematic of hierarchy is extremely simple, no one likes to be the last one, usually people do not have to be absolutely the first ones, only few are like that, and even such people admit, that the strength of positive emotions when winning is smaller than he negative emotion that emerges when losing. The reason for this might be found in evolutionary psychology, together with genetics and epigenetics. Most probably, we have this unpleasant feeling of being the last one or losing - which is not the same exactly but causes the same feelings - because the last animal in a herd have usually been always eaten up by some predator. And of course, we do not want to be eaten up.
What is so tremendously complex is the multitude of forms of appearance, forms in which this feeling demonstrates. It can be always something a different sentence. Typical example might be: you are not better than me, or Do you think you are something special?, or much more complex signals as when making better moves in chess you may laugh about the other player and giving him advices what he should do, and in this way play your card of momentarily superiority.
Basically the number of such displays of superiority is endless, and this makes it so difficult to understand that. Then next problem is that very often people do not want to call this phenomenon by its proper name because it might be “politically incorrect”.
# posted by Dalibor @ 4:52 PM 
