Pecking Orders, Hierarchies, Cabbages and Kings

A while back, it was probably over a year ago and thus the information in this post may be out of date, I listened to a lecture on dominance. Dominance is an interesting word. Basically it means have influence of power over another person. 

It seems to me that influence over and power over might be referring to two different things - a hierarchy versus a pecking order. Some people are interested in dominance/power. I am not really, it is sort of boring as so much has been written about it.  

Power refers to the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events. The sentence used to explain power was -  "she had me under her power", which seems to suggest that to some degree the "powerful person" is using her "power" to serve her own interests. 

Influence, on the  other hand, refers to: the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself. A synonym, on the other hand, seems to be less self-interested, but perhaps not.

Anyway, the deeper you try to figure this out, the more confusing it gets, as influence can be defined by power and power by influence. I, however, wonder if they are not quite different things and maybe the dictionaries are not precise enough.

Here is what I wrote, long about, about hierarchies, as nearly everyone agrees that the  these terms have something to do with rank - the person at the top of a hierarchy has influence or power over the person below. 

Anyway, here is how I tried to explain it: long ago

The Maternal Hierarchy

Mammals are distinguished by a ranked relationship; offspring are subordinate to, or dependent upon, a mother who guides, while offspring follow. The prolonged immaturity of human and primate offspring reflects not only their dependency, but also the mother’s responsibility. The survival of offspring depends fundamentally on this long-term ranked relationship. The first human hierarchy, or ranked relationship, was that between the mother and her child. Humans appear to respond to such hierarchies and form them often. This hierarchy, which is part of kinship systems in many parts of the world, not only  “provides the child with a blueprint for the parameters of most anticipated social interaction” but, as Tonkinson (1978: 12) described among the Mardujara of Australia, it allows children to learn “the norms of appropriate kinship behaviors…without over-coercion from adults.”

Mothers have seldom been seen as shedding light on human hierarchies, despite the fact that as early as 1651, Hobbes (1946:131) recognized that the first human ranked social relationship was that between a mother and her child. He wrote that “in the condition of mere nature, where there are no matrimonial laws…the right of dominion over the child depends on [the mother’s] will.” While Hobbes then ignored this ranked relationship, he implied that mothers used their influence to promote the survival of their offspring and to encourage their offspring to cooperate with her and with each other.

Although Hobbes used the word “dominion,” a more appropriate term to use when speaking of the mother-child relationship may be hierarchy (Steadman 1997). Hiero, the root of the word, is a Greek word meaning sacred or keeper of sacred things; archos means to rule or lead. Hierarchs were leaders of religious groups or societies and obligated not only to supernatural beings (often ancestors), but also to the people whose servant they were said to be. Hierarchy, rather than implying exploitation, may imply generosity, obligation, and even subordination (Santos Granero 1991: 229; van Baal 1981). A hierarch is defined by service, not merely by rights. Hierarchs, like ancestral mothers, are obligated to those who are older, one’s ancestors, and those who are younger, one’s descendants or metaphorical children.

The association of high rank and duty or obligation is not confined to hierarchs living in the classical world. According to Barrera Vásquez (1980: 343-344)

Maya hieroglyphic script talks about ‘lineage authority’ using the Yucatex Mayan term kuch, which refers to burden, such as a burden that is carried on a tumpline against one’s back, a burden of conscience, a responsibility, an obligation, or the authority of an office.

The higher ranked individual, in a hierarchy, is a servant to the lower ranked individuals. To paraphrase van Baal (1981: 114), the higher a person’s position in the hierarchy of power, the more is expected, the greater are the obligations.

The exploitation of subordinates, often assumed to be a privilege of rank, is true of a pecking order, not a hierarchy. A pecking order is distinguished from a hierarchy in that the individual at the top has dominance or rank, but no obligations to the one(s) at the bottom, just as the one at the bottom has no influence over the one at the top (Steadman 1997). Pecking orders are impersonal and competitive: hierarchies are personal and involve a vertical form of cooperation. Pecking orders do not imply cooperation in any form: accepting one’s fate because one has no choice, or knows that death would be the consequence of making a choice, is not a form of cooperation.