that wouldn’t really be a hierarchy because there’s no authority involved. if you’re deferring to someone’s skill, that’s not authority, because you have the freedom to do that and it is voluntary. you or the other people can leave that association at any time.
a hierarchy is, as CrocodilloBombardino@piefed.social so sufficiently just put it, “an institutional set of involuntary command/control relationships”.
This really seems like it only makes sense in the context of contrived definitions of “authority” and “hierarchy”. Expert Authority (authority deriving from an individual’s expertise in a particular field) is a well-established and widely recognized concept.
“Hierarchy” does not inherently imply that the relationships are involuntary. If you want to call such structures “involuntary hierarchy”, knock yourself out, I’ll agree with everything you say against them. But voluntary hierarchies are still hierarchies by the actual definition of the word, and when the structure is based on expertise (judges, teachers, trades experts, administrative coordinators, etc) they are extremely effective.
Redefining words to exclusively refer to the most negative aspects of the common definition is bad rhetoric, intellectually disingenuous, and ineffective at spreading a message. Like I said, if you would like to be specific, and append an appropriate adjective to existing words to refer to a particular subset of a concept (involuntary hierarchy, arbitrary authority) you’ll have much more luck convincing those who know what the base words mean.
It’s the problem that occurs when a term that is being used in a narrow more academic context makes contact with people who use it in a more colloquial conversational sense. Neither definition is “wrong” really, it’s just very confusing unless clarified, and becomes a problem when both sides refuse to understand that context comes into play here.
when a term that is being used in a narrow more academic context
That’s not really what I see happening though, these aren’t academic terms, academia uses the “colloquial” definitions. This is a niche in-group co-opting words, changing their definitions, and using them as jargon.
Wrong, it’s how the term is used in a lot of anarchist literature because precisely defining what they mean by “hierarchy” is important for discussions about it. So yes, it’s a bit of out joint with Standard English usage of the term, that doesn’t make it wrong. They aren’t being obscurantists, or trying to fuck with you by using hyper specific terminology to trick you into thinking they mean something else. Also words can’t be “co opt’d”, different groups use them differently all the time, it’s a normal feature of all languages don’t be an ass about it.
Again, no. Anarchist literature is an in-group. Do you consider the conservative definition of “homosexual” meaning “homosexual child groomer” to be correct as well?
Again, “involuntary hierarchy” is a fine and accurate term. Generalizing that term to just plain “hierarchy” is in-group jargon. The fact that many anarchists use it that way doesn’t make it any more correct than conservatives using “homosexual” to mean “homosexual child groomer”.
This isn’t an “in-group”, you aren’t being excluded, they aren’t trying to obscure what they’re talking about. They’ve come to an understanding that when THEY say “hierarchy” they mean something different, stop trying to assign some devious motive to it. I get why it annoys you when an anarchist SHOULD know they’re talking to people unfamiliar with that usage, or act difficult and refuse to acknowledge that the term means something different in general usage. That doesn’t ALL anarchist do that, or even that those that DO are trying specifically to fuck with you.
The reasons behind the specific definition is pretty complex, but you have to understand, when anarchists are talking about these systems they don’t want to spend a whole page PRECISELY explaining what they mean every single time. Many writings are translated from other languages, or written in english by people who aren’t native english speakers, “jargon” here is kinda necessary for ease of communication. Are you gonna get mad if you hang out with some electricians don’t understand what the hell they’re talking about when they start using technical terminology?
They’ve come to an understanding that when THEY say “hierarchy” they mean something different
Like Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass? He wasn’t supposed to be a role model, that was an illustration of twisted, insane logic.
when anarchists are talking about these systems they don’t want to spend a whole page PRECISELY explaining what they mean every single time
Who said anything about a whole page? It’s one word. If anarchists can’t add one extra word to clarify, and instead have to define “thing” to mean “a specific bad version of thing” then they deserve to be misunderstood and disregarded.
Are you gonna get mad if you hang out with some electricians don’t understand what the hell they’re talking about when they start using technical terminology?
I’m not the one getting mad here, but what electrician jargon is comparable? This isn’t a case of just using a word in a context-dependent way, this is imposing a biased connotation to strengthen a particular agenda.
Like a homophobe defining “homosexual” as “homosexual child groomer”, or an anti-semite defining “Jew” as “greedy Jew”, or a misogynist defining “men” as “rapist men”. This doesn’t ease communication, it obfuscates it. It’s a single adjective, a laughably small price for effective communication.
No one is discussing whether it’s a “good” definition, just that it’s understandable, this isn’t a disagreement on the “moral rightness” of whether to define hierarchy that way, just that it’s intelligible and consistent.
Also, actually fuck off comparing anarchists having a specific definition of hierarchy to homophobic bullshit, that is entirely in bad faith and I KNOW you know that.
I know it’s semantics (er…is it diction?) and at the end of the day pretty pedantic, but this is the first time I’ve seen the suggestion that hierarchy necessitates authority, and that authority necessitates compulsion (or an institution, or a command/control relationship). I mean yeah, they definitely have those connotations, for sure. And maybe in the context of anarchist theory, this is their functional definition.
But in a general sense, we still have hierarchies that are completely outside of the realm of social organization, like top down hierarchical categorization of…things…right? Like, stuff? And similarly, we have authorities that aren’t necessarily relevant to compulsion, like an authority on a particular niche subject. I guess we’re compelled to believe them, but, I dunno…
I’m kinda thinking out loud here. But I guess if I met, say, a master woodworker, and she was guiding me through building a bookshelf, I’d still say she is the authority over my actions, even if I decided to do something contrary to her commands. For sure, she has the right to tell me how to build the bookshelf – she is the expert, I recognize the authority over me in this matter – and she retains the authority even if I defy her. Idk maybe I’m talking about a different definition of authority.
here’s my reply to another comment like yours:
This really seems like it only makes sense in the context of contrived definitions of “authority” and “hierarchy”. Expert Authority (authority deriving from an individual’s expertise in a particular field) is a well-established and widely recognized concept.
“Hierarchy” does not inherently imply that the relationships are involuntary. If you want to call such structures “involuntary hierarchy”, knock yourself out, I’ll agree with everything you say against them. But voluntary hierarchies are still hierarchies by the actual definition of the word, and when the structure is based on expertise (judges, teachers, trades experts, administrative coordinators, etc) they are extremely effective.
Redefining words to exclusively refer to the most negative aspects of the common definition is bad rhetoric, intellectually disingenuous, and ineffective at spreading a message. Like I said, if you would like to be specific, and append an appropriate adjective to existing words to refer to a particular subset of a concept (involuntary hierarchy, arbitrary authority) you’ll have much more luck convincing those who know what the base words mean.
It’s the problem that occurs when a term that is being used in a narrow more academic context makes contact with people who use it in a more colloquial conversational sense. Neither definition is “wrong” really, it’s just very confusing unless clarified, and becomes a problem when both sides refuse to understand that context comes into play here.
That’s not really what I see happening though, these aren’t academic terms, academia uses the “colloquial” definitions. This is a niche in-group co-opting words, changing their definitions, and using them as jargon.
Wrong, it’s how the term is used in a lot of anarchist literature because precisely defining what they mean by “hierarchy” is important for discussions about it. So yes, it’s a bit of out joint with Standard English usage of the term, that doesn’t make it wrong. They aren’t being obscurantists, or trying to fuck with you by using hyper specific terminology to trick you into thinking they mean something else. Also words can’t be “co opt’d”, different groups use them differently all the time, it’s a normal feature of all languages don’t be an ass about it.
Again, no. Anarchist literature is an in-group. Do you consider the conservative definition of “homosexual” meaning “homosexual child groomer” to be correct as well?
Again, “involuntary hierarchy” is a fine and accurate term. Generalizing that term to just plain “hierarchy” is in-group jargon. The fact that many anarchists use it that way doesn’t make it any more correct than conservatives using “homosexual” to mean “homosexual child groomer”.
This isn’t an “in-group”, you aren’t being excluded, they aren’t trying to obscure what they’re talking about. They’ve come to an understanding that when THEY say “hierarchy” they mean something different, stop trying to assign some devious motive to it. I get why it annoys you when an anarchist SHOULD know they’re talking to people unfamiliar with that usage, or act difficult and refuse to acknowledge that the term means something different in general usage. That doesn’t ALL anarchist do that, or even that those that DO are trying specifically to fuck with you.
The reasons behind the specific definition is pretty complex, but you have to understand, when anarchists are talking about these systems they don’t want to spend a whole page PRECISELY explaining what they mean every single time. Many writings are translated from other languages, or written in english by people who aren’t native english speakers, “jargon” here is kinda necessary for ease of communication. Are you gonna get mad if you hang out with some electricians don’t understand what the hell they’re talking about when they start using technical terminology?
Like Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass? He wasn’t supposed to be a role model, that was an illustration of twisted, insane logic.
Who said anything about a whole page? It’s one word. If anarchists can’t add one extra word to clarify, and instead have to define “thing” to mean “a specific bad version of thing” then they deserve to be misunderstood and disregarded.
I’m not the one getting mad here, but what electrician jargon is comparable? This isn’t a case of just using a word in a context-dependent way, this is imposing a biased connotation to strengthen a particular agenda.
Like a homophobe defining “homosexual” as “homosexual child groomer”, or an anti-semite defining “Jew” as “greedy Jew”, or a misogynist defining “men” as “rapist men”. This doesn’t ease communication, it obfuscates it. It’s a single adjective, a laughably small price for effective communication.
No one is discussing whether it’s a “good” definition, just that it’s understandable, this isn’t a disagreement on the “moral rightness” of whether to define hierarchy that way, just that it’s intelligible and consistent.
Also, actually fuck off comparing anarchists having a specific definition of hierarchy to homophobic bullshit, that is entirely in bad faith and I KNOW you know that.
I know it’s semantics (er…is it diction?) and at the end of the day pretty pedantic, but this is the first time I’ve seen the suggestion that hierarchy necessitates authority, and that authority necessitates compulsion (or an institution, or a command/control relationship). I mean yeah, they definitely have those connotations, for sure. And maybe in the context of anarchist theory, this is their functional definition.
But in a general sense, we still have hierarchies that are completely outside of the realm of social organization, like top down hierarchical categorization of…things…right? Like, stuff? And similarly, we have authorities that aren’t necessarily relevant to compulsion, like an authority on a particular niche subject. I guess we’re compelled to believe them, but, I dunno…
I’m kinda thinking out loud here. But I guess if I met, say, a master woodworker, and she was guiding me through building a bookshelf, I’d still say she is the authority over my actions, even if I decided to do something contrary to her commands. For sure, she has the right to tell me how to build the bookshelf – she is the expert, I recognize the authority over me in this matter – and she retains the authority even if I defy her. Idk maybe I’m talking about a different definition of authority.
No True Scotsman would ever have a hierarchy!