Why Assistance Groups Fail: Hierarchy and What That Means, by Vagabond

Teams are hierarchies, including those whose purpose is to make through Bad Times. But to really understand hierarchy in depth I’ll defer to and recommend E. G. Burlingame and Jordan Peterson to define the ‘big hierarchies.’ The question is the parameters of hierarchy: this post concerns cultural/programming issues affecting your and my groups. Therefore, the point of writing is to bring to light certain factors that can prevent a mutual assistance group from forming in the first place or destroy it soon after.

Think of these influential currents as ‘background programming’ that permeates almost everything and everybody to some degree, whether you like it or not, because it’s almost automatic and has been highly, highly repetitive.

Look at competition, for resources, a mate, or status within a group. Competition is good because it makes you strive to do better but it needs to be moderated – if competition is unbridled, ‘trust’ becomes impossible. As in winner-take-all America where silver is ‘best loser’, humiliation of the ‘loser’ and giant ego narcissism destroys trust within “The Team.” And at that point ‘The Team’ ceases to exist.

Yes, hierarchy exists as a Rule of Life as Peterson and Burlingame eloquently write about. Most fundamental and basic to human experience is tribal (technically it would be ‘the band’- a small group of families and individuals) in which you have an overall leader, a council of elders, and content experts in which others with special abilities assume leadership for a period while performing those tasks. So, to some degree everybody gets a piece of the pie, some validation, some fame – some rewards.

Ideally the less able (according to the dictates of the Tribe) follow the more capable but are not treated like garbage, slaves, or semi-humans. If the leaders and more able have character, a code, a value system – things work. Or else those seen as less able become perceived as ‘less overall,’ even to the point of becoming deplorable bug-people who DESERVE to be maltreated, and eventually non-people who DESERVE to be eliminated so as not to offend the sensibilities of the Elite.

To distill that thought, the Big Problem arises as it always does, when a ‘content expert’ decides he or she is a Superior Being because he has received rewards in praise, money, girls, or ‘whatever’ and therefore becomes Omniscient and All-Powerful, deserving of worship. (For Biblical people, reread Genesis; a certain former angel did the same and started all this.)

Less ideally, you get what we always get – a certain cabal of the Darwinian- fit, deceitful and ruthless – dividing up the spoils”:  1 for me, 1 for you. Oh wait – 2 for me, 1 for you. Time passes. EVERTHING for me, NOTHING for you.

Enter revolution and war.

Enter the challenges to the prep group. Those few that seem to really ‘get it’ work something along these lines: they strike a balance among the group members, at once respecting family and personal property, while finding interchange and sharing of resources and abilities with different members acting as content experts and leaders in their respective domains.

American culture being what it has become breeds failure in a tribal sense, and why? The atomization of everybody from all real community caused in great deal by the righteous indignation that started decades ago with the legal profession suing everybody for everything which led the Grievance Economy in which it is financially profitable to make trouble where none existed. The corollaries of this cannot be overstated.

Look at the effects and perceived benefits, all of which penalize forgiveness, diplomacy, and working things out.

Remember anyone, when swing sets were on playgrounds? Let’s say little Jimmy was swinging and fell off. His birthing person – Karen – is UPSET. More than that, zer is OFFENDED! How dare the school not have SAFETY SWINGS for ‘everyone’? She complains. She fusses and compulsively tells her tale again, again, and again. She gets on a campaign of character assassination of the school, settings, and playgrounds in general. Someone must PAY. Karen has like-minded friends. They join the campaign. She sues. They sue. They get press. They harangue the local legislators. Her friends’ kids badger the legislators’ kids. As a group they harass and dox everyone who doesn’t see it EXACTLY as they do.

And after the lawsuits, safety compliance the school is now saddled with, damages, and general ill will swings are banned in the entire district, Karen gloats for a day and takes more meds, and Jimmy becomes a little entitled dip-sh*t who will one day sue somebody too. And, every normal kid gets fatter and more risk averse.

Generalize the process, multiply by 100,000,000 and check the results, everywhere.

We know this SOP all too well in all its forms and levels.

But the worst part, after the suits are settled, the swings are banned, playground time is replaced by Drag Queen Story Time, and people are fired from their jobs is:

TRUST IS BROKEN.

Maybe ‘dissolved’ is a better word because now, no one can truly trust anyone, really. Or if you do, it takes a LOOOOONG time to develop.

Next, we have the reduction of every American interaction to a scripted transaction. “Your call is important to us” as you wait for 2 hours. “Sorry, we can’t do anything because of our policy” as you arrive at the airport and your flight has been cancelled ‘due to the weather’ as you look at the sunny day outside, as well as at your destination.

All lies, all the time. So, nobody communicates with anyone; some forget how, and others never learn or want to.

Then, note how trash-talking has morphed into obligatory humiliation. Note “comedy” – and HELL NO it’s not funny, it’s designed to hurt and can be categorized as sadism of fashion. So, why interact of compete with people on that level if the whole experience is just crappy? (Given that some very few have the steel cajones to deal with it happily, but not so the average – BUT VALUABLE regular guy). You need not look farther than social media to prove this out. Yet to be good at it gets you likes! It makes you money. You can be an influencer to tell all young men they are crap, and the way to ‘man up’ is to be a better abuser than the guy next to you, ‘cause girls really like that. Problem is – many do.

In other words, cruelty is now a commodity to bring at least some kind of ‘feeling’ to a drug and screen dead population.

Enough diagnosis of some of the issues reaving the FUSA.

Somewhere the solution lies in sanctioning the right level of competition – enough to increase motivation to a superior level yet short of dog-eats-dog. At least part of the answer lies in Community. Kinship, both by blood and by friendship, and deep friendship at that.

And, to develop teeth: developing not just ‘defense’ mechanisms internally and externally, but attack mechanisms if so needed. As any martial artist of any style knows, even with the best defense something always gets through. Ergo, let YOUR ‘something’ get through THEIR defenses; efficiently and effectively.

This is really about hierarchy, finding one’s place in it. All the endless megajoules of energy of PTB expend to prove ‘equity/equality proves the point. If they quit expending the energy propping up an anti-natural narrative and forcing it, the narrative would fall to earth under the natural effects of gravity. Reality doesn’t have to be ‘forced,’ does it?

To “Community” in it’s real form, with hierarchy, with respect, with vigor, capability, as well as fangs, claws, intellect and will to make work.