A Liberal’s Guide to Conservative Ideals: Hierarchies

Understanding the Necessity, Utility, and Dangers of Structure

Cultural and economic hierarchies have been a feature of human society for as long as any structures with value systems have existed. Long before the idea of capitalism was embedded into Western ideals, Mesopotamian populations exhibited class structures evidenced on the value of items buried with their dead. Once people decide that any item or characteristic is valuable, they create a hierarchy based on the valuation of that item or characteristic. A small portion of any group are the tallest, smartest, most creative or talented. Conserving the structure of these hierarchies benefits the few with those characteristics and can dispossess the majority. So why would anyone want to maintain such a seemingly unfair structure? The answer is value. We need structure in order to collectively agree on what is valued and point people in the right direction.

Individual people and the societies in which they live place value on things to include individual characteristics of people, and things. It can be easy to understand if you use a common example. Take artistic talent. In a hierarchy that puts those with the most artistic talent at the top, and those with less low on the hierarchy, the lower end of the spectrum would be full of…