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A dialectical critique of hierarchy

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[In Power Relations and State Formation, edited by Thomas C. Patterson and Christine W. Gailey, pp. 155-69.
Washington, D.C.: Archeology Section/American Anthropological Association, 1987.
Original pagination is cued in square brackets.]

A Dialectical Critique of Hierarchy

Carole L. Crumley
University of North Carolina
Epistemology
Fascination with the idea of structure is both long-standing and deeply rooted. By structure I
mean a recognizable pattern of organization in something composed physically or
sociohistorically of interdependent parts. Thought and act conflate structure with order; as long
as some pattern may be recognized we assume that things are running smoothly and that change,
if it comes at all, will be gradual. Even morally and politically unacceptable structures are
tolerated because their palpable existence guards against the even more fearful unknown. In this
century widespread German acquiescence to the Nazi government is a powerful example of how,
for a majority of individuals, any order is often more acceptable than no order.
If structure and order are considered interchangeable, then chaos and disorder are
similarly conflated. In so doing, we create a conceptual field in which structure serves as a
metaphor for stability and familiar patterns are reproduced and exchangedas communication
between generations and within and among social groupsexplaining to a great extent the
essential conservatism of human activity. In the material aspects of our daily lives, these
reassuring repetitions of structure are visible and frequently acknowledged and celebrated. The
patterns by which we recognize social relations, while the subject of the cluster of disciplines
termed the social sciences, are both less well understood and more metaphoric than the terms and
forms which distinguish quilt patterns or electronic circuitry.
This is not to say that our metaphors for social relations are not also reproduced and
exchanged, for indeed they areconsciously or unconsciously. My point is that if we are to
bring to the level of consciousness our underlying assumptions about one structure or another in
order to inform practical choice, we must first thoroughly explore the meanings and implications
of various kinds of structures.
Distinguished from structure, that untrappable beast process stalks the periphery of our
empirical investigations, earning anew its associations with chaos, with change, and ultimately
with death or entropy. Despite decades of attempts in anthropology and [156] elsewhere to find
a means by which we might study process, a clear success has eluded us. This is because it is the
relation between structure and process which is the proper focus of study. It behooves us to find
ways to study structural change.
A first task is to explore the implications of certain hidden meanings in our collective
misunderstanding of the matter (Figure 1). Structure in state societies like our own is not
equated simply with order but with rank order: the ubiquitous structural image is that of
hierarchy. I have defined hierarchical structure elsewhere (Crumley 1979:144): "on the basis of
certain factors some elements of . . . structure are subordinate to others and may be ranked."
Hierarchy offers the subliminal and the conscious assurance that order prevails against chaos and

that energy is being expended to prevent the entropic slide.

[NEGENTROPY
ORDER
STABILITY
STRUCTURE
HIERARCHY

ENTROPY
CHAOS
CHANGE
PROCESS
HETERARCHY]

Figure 1. Metaphors and Their Antonyms

Bracketed for Analysis

The most compelling examples of our willingness to see structure as hierarchical are in
characterizations of social class. In a brilliant analysis, Stanislaw Ossowski (1963) has
chronicled a long history of popular and scholarly notions of class relations. Beginning with
Biblical sources and their echo in subsequent formulations from the Great Chain of Being
through contemporary social science theory, Ossowski argues that such ideas are constructed and
disseminated for the benefit of identifiable vested interests. The imagery is ponderous but
effective: one speaks of "marrying up" or "beneath oneself" and of "climbing the social ladder."
Of course, not all social scientists have envisioned a hierarchy of social relations; a small number
have experimented with other structural forms (see, e.g., Berreman 1981; Bteille 1981; Cancian
1976; Fallers 1973; and Freidel 1986). The difficulty has come in conceptualizing what those
other forms might be.
The representation of socially constructed reality as given to humans by nature is the
essence of the art of myth making (Barthes 1973). It is, then, ironic but [157] predictable that
instead of exploring the structural forms of nature and applying insights gained thereby to the
study of human relations, we undertake the inverse: we see hierarchy everywhere in nature (e.g.,
Allen and Starr 1982; O'Neill et al. 1986; Pattee 1973; cf. Ricklefs 1987). Here, too, there have
been exceptions, most notably in the area of artificial intelligence. Although his work has been
much cited for other reasons, Warren McCulloch (1945) should be known best for offering an
alternative order (in the unadorned sense). This structure he termed heterarchy. He suggested,
quite rightly, that the human brain, while reasonably orderly, was not organized hierarchically.
This understanding facilitated the study of the brain and solved major problems in the fields of
artificial intelligence and computer design.
How can it be that such a seminal contribution to psychology, physiology, and technology
has not been rapidly adopted in a broad social science context? Qui bono? In this circumstance,
one might expect a variety of scholars to seize upon the idea of heterarchical social relations and
contrast it with elements in the history of the study of social class. The handful of social science
scholars mentioned above hardly approaches expected numbers. This suggests that we have
indeed exposed an underlying assumption about how human relations might be characterized.
David Clarke (1972) terms such ubiquitous, unexamined assumptions "controlling models."
I suggest that such unconscious adoption of hierarchy-as-order is endemic to what is
termed complex society. In contrast, the "savage mind" of those whose societies are not ranked
(not "complex") defies logic, linearity, history. This is not, of course, considered a lamentable

genetic or, for that matter, permanent condition. Australian aborigines or !Kung foragers may be
infected quite easily with a desire for tinned sardines and whiskey, or, more correctly, be
confined to reservations where hierarchical social relations are inescapable and commodities
ubiquitous. Thence it is only a matter of the proper incubation time and circumstance; the old
value of egalitarianism and the social relations which maintain it come under full assault
(Leacock and Lee 1982). Without the familiar patterns of social and material life in which to
find meaning and solidarity, the individual finds little solace. Anthropological research in the
middle years of this century has documented the pitiable state of affairs to which members of
such cultures are reduced: with practical options (e.g., economic, social, political action)
curtailed, the only adaptive field is cognitive.
The variety of adaptive cognitive strategies is considerable, ranging from madness
(Fanon 1963) through revitalization movements such as the Ghost Dance [158] (Mooney 1965)
and "enlightened cooperation" (Elkin 1951) to enthusiastic participation in and competition for
the rewards of hierarchical society. New patterns eventually become familiar, and the learning of
them frequently offers a sense of accomplishment. Anthony Wallace (1965) has termed the
process by which this new state of mind is achieved "mazeway reformulation." Inasmuch as the
so-called state level of organization is more common, we might say that there is a state state of
mind (Diamond 1974). If this is so, it is not surprising that the kind of order we recognize is
hierarchy and that it is so difficult to imagine, much less recognize and study, other structures
which are not hierarchical.
How, then, might other kinds of structures, other metaphors of order, be discerned and
examined? Mindful of the need to focus on the relation between structure and process, I thought
it best to begin thinking through this knotty question with examples embedded in a natural
mosaic: the landscape. My work in settlement and land use was sparked by this question in the
early 1970s, when a hierarchical marketing model, Central Place, dominated studies of the
human use of the earth. The variety south Burgundy (France) offered in physical and
sociohistorical structures (Marquardt and Crumley 1987:10) and their overlapping, rather than
nested relations (Crumley 1976:68, 1979:143-145, 164) offered a practical laboratory for the
generation of a new way of thinking about order. We set about studying the structure(s) of a
single region through time, and were soon engaged in multiscalar as well as multitemporal
analysis. Effective scale (Crumley 1979:164-165, 1985:176; Marquardt and Crumley 1987:10) is
the scale at which structure among elements is perceived and pattern is recognized. Thus, the
location of places sacred to Celtic deities in Burgundy, while plainly patterned (springs, high
places) and predictable, is recognizable as a mosaic of physical and sociohistorical structures in a
particular relation to one another. Collectively we term this patterned order heterarchy,
following McCulloch (1945) and M. Minsky and S. Papert (1972; Crumley 1985). Structures are
heterarchical when each element is either unranked relative to other elements or possesses the
potential for being ranked in a number of different ways.
It is fairly easy to imagine how various physical structures such as climate, vegetation,
topography, and geology might be patterned without being characterized as hierarchical. It has
become common in environmental studies to refer to patterned mosaics of vegetation
("patchiness") or patterns of summer thunderstorms. It is considerably more difficult, however,
to discard the notion that the so-called Dark Agethe period in Western Europe after the
collapse of the Roman Empirewas not a descent into hell. [159]

Sociohistorical structures include class, inheritance, descent, political liaisons and interest
groups, defense, trade, laws and the administrative units through which people draft and enforce
them; in short, sociohistorical structures are political, legal, and economic. To argue that none of
these things existed in recognizable, patterned form after the fourth century A.D. and before the
Renaissance is to prove my point: that hierarchy is a controlling model in complex society.
What changed was the effective scale, of both our own perceptions and those of the
people of the times, as well as very real changes in the extent of trade, the pattern of marriage
alliances, and the form ofand attitude towardgoverning authority. Despite considerable
necessity on the part of some to adapt to changed conditions, it has been argued elsewhere
(Crumley and Marquardt 1987) that a range of relations, including the patron-client bond in
many rural agricultural areas, remained in place for a millennium or longer. Most important for
understanding the use of physical and sociohistorical structures in Burgundy or elsewhere is that
their interpretationsaesthetic, symbolic, religious, ideologicaldetermine and mutually define
landscape. Change in the order of importance of certain structures and, ultimately, their
modification and replacement, is both an adaptation to the physical environment and a resolution
of conflict and contradictory interpretation s of the meaning of sociohistorical structures
(Marquardt 1985:67-68).
How is this research applicable to the study of social relations? Most importantly, it
literally grounds the study of societal structures and relations, Removed from linguistic and
spatial abstractions allowed by the hierarchical perceptions of social class, it requires us to
determine whether various conceptualizations are acted out spatially through intentional and
unintentional modification of the surroundings. Is it possible that a "state state of mind" leaves
its mark on the landscape? Is there spatial evidence that documents the emergence of the
concept of hierarchy? Are there examples of "complex" societies that are not social hierarchies?
Is the emergence of complex societies truly evolutionary, that is to say, reversible? For that
matter, just what is complexity? Answers to these questions may well be found in the application
of the concept of hierarchy to both historically known and contemporary societies.
In the next section, I offer a critical sampling of recent thought on the subjects of
complexity and social inequality.
[160]
Critique
Following Peter Blau (1977:9), Randall McGuire, in "Breaking Down Cultural Complexity:
Inequality and Heterogeneity" (1983:93), explores complexity through the relation between
inequality, viewed as differential access to resources, and heterogeneity, "the distribution of
populations between social groups," i.e., variations in ethnicity or religion. For both Blau and
McGuire, inequality refers to vertical social relations, that is to say, ranked or hierarchical
relations. This is a rather unfortunate misunderstanding of the term inequality, despite its long
history in the sociological and anthropological literature (Berreman 1981; Bteille 1969; Cancian
1976; Fallers 1973; and see Ossowski 1963). Ruefully, the misunderstanding is equivalently
long-lived. Lloyd Fallers (1973:299) attempts to correct this by noting that inequality seems
more straightforward and less culturally biased than some other possibilities. He remarks that
Louis Dumont (1970:19-20, Appendix A) prefers hierarchy, but to Fallers that term "suffers from

the same defects as 'stratification.' It implies a particular pattern of inequality: that of an

organizational chain of command" (1973:299, emphasis added).
The insistence of those researchers in seeing all differentiation of power relations as
hierarchical has a variety of implications. First, as Fallers (1973:5) argues, inequalities of power
can be understood only in their cultural context, with reference to their meaning to those
involved; for example, aggregated rankings, such as income and education, while important
aspects of inequality in some societies, may be irrelevant as sources of power in others (Crumley
and Marquardt 1987). Second, and more disturbing, the inability even to think of power wielded
and maintained in the absence of hierarchy implies an alarming lack of both imagination and
powers of observation. Finally, and most horrifying, the effect of this epistemological error in
sociological theory has been to enshrine this single, hierarchical image of social organization in
the popular consciousness. The advantages to capitalist society of such a metaphor, particularly
in association with some Horatio Alger-like mystique of "rising through the ranks" (e.g., Fallers
1973), should be obvious.
McGuire conflates complexity with order (1983:911) and by implicationthrough the
misunderstanding of inequalityorder with hierarchy and hierarchy with power. Increased
complexity, then, is positively correlated with hierarchization (1983:107). Complexity and
hierarchy are defined in terms of one another.
Gregory Johnson, in "Organizational Structure and Scalar Stress" (1982), also has
equated complexity and hierarchy, albeit by a rather different route. He argues that group size
determines decision making [161] effectiveness, and that effectiveness is maintained despite
increasing numbers of individuals through the emergence of successive levels of leadership.
Although scale is nowhere defined, I assume that Johnson would define scale(s) as recognizable
levels of decision making, that is, to use his terms, nodes of information exchange, collection,
and distribution.
I have several difficulties with Johnson's analysis. The use of studies of group dynamics
borrowed from sociology and management theoryeven when counterbalanced with less than
convincing !King examplesseems a particularly inappropriate means by which one might
model behavior with reference to decision making; both participants' and researchers'
expectations would ensure the emergence of a hierarchy. Such a severe bias would render crosscultural comparison useless. This also troubles Johnson (1982:395), and he admits that "human
groups with little or no evidence of internal hierarchy are very common in the ethnographic and
archaeological record." He muses that such groups "must have some mechanism to overcome
the scalar-communications stress problem that does not involve what we would normally
recognize as hierarchical organization" (1982:396).
Given the origins of Johnson's models for decision making and administrative structure, I
am troubled by his emphasis on the structure of decision making rather than the decision making
process. Although in prehistory such ephemeral proceedings are often lost to us, we are quite
regularly comforted by the presence of evidence for the decision itself. Boundariesmilitary,
religious, ethnic, commercialand connectionsthe venerable archaeological preoccupation
with tradeand their shifts through time reveal changing conceptions and appropriation of the
environment and fluctuations in the influence of vested interests. Concentration on the decision
making process by considering its physical consequencesa shift in boundaries, for example
as the resolution of conflicts of vested interests of alliances to mutual advantage in a larger

political arena would, as Colin Renfrew (1986) suggests, offer considerable insight. An
emphasis on process would reintroduce the importance both of the individual and of history in
studies such as the ones under discussion, which seem strangely lacking of the human element.
Johnson's terminology also poses a problem. He defines simultaneous hierarchy, in
which "system integration is achieved through the exercise of control and regulatory functions by
a relatively small proportion of the population" (1982:396). Sequential hierarchy is described
(1982:403) as the "hierarchical organization of a nonhierarchically organized group" (emphasis
added.). This means, one supposes, that periodic decisions to move or to divide the group are
seen as "hierarchical moments" in an otherwise [162] nonhierarchical order. He finally
confesses, "Evidently something in our anthropological concept of hierarchy is
lacking" (1982:403). Despite certain problems with his analysis, Johnson has, in my opinion,
pinpointed a central issue to which an adequate solution must be found: the role of time in the
definition of complexity.
Clive Gamble, in "Hunter-Gatherers and the Origin of States" (1986), also addresses the
issue of complexity, although unlike Johnson, he resists the temptation to see hierarchically
ordered states as the only cultural systems that might be termed "complex." Along with Barbara
Bender (1978), he suggests that "the so-called simple societies of the hunter and gatherer might
have possessed similar organizational principles to those of states" (1986:29), examining how
ties of variable commitment and duration are established and maintained.
Gamble's underlying argument, that complexity must be identified both synchronically
and diachronically, is all the more satisfying for his examples: he discusses the importance of
alliances (synchronous social complexity) and scheduling (diachronous social complexity).
Figure 2 illustrates his metaphors and their complements, bracketed for analysis.

[CHANGE

DIACHRONY

TIME

SCHEDULING

VARIATION

SYNCHRONY

SPACE

PACKAGING ALLIANCES]

Figure 2. Gamble's (1986) Metaphors and Their

Complements Bracketed for Analysis

It would seem that Gamble has all of the elements of a critique of hierarchy, but he fails
to address and examine critically the central epistemological question, namely, is hierarchy
complexity? As a result, he follows Johnson into a terminological morass (1986:44-45), losing
sight of a way to integrate his ideas about organization and complexity.
Finally, Renfrew, John Cherry, and their colleagues (1986) have considered in depth the
importance of alliances (Gamble's synchronous social complexity) through what Renfrew terms
"peer polity interaction." Problems of integration with the archaeological evidence, particularly
in the absence of documentary sources, while of concern, are not as relevant to this discussion as
certain other questions they raise.
As Cherry (1986:23) points out, there remains no assurance that hierarchies of control
may be inferred from site sizes or their inferred territories. Elsewhere in the volume Jeremy

Sabloff (1986:113) warns that Classic period Mayan data, while remarkably complete in many
respects, offer no evidence for the [163] dominance of some centers over others.
Both Cherry (1986:24) and Anthony Snodgrass (1986:58) are concerned that peer polity
interaction is more descriptive than dynamic; in other words, it fails to address effectively what
Gamble would call diachronous social complexity. More importantly, Cherry (1986:44) and
David Braun (1986:125) call for the interaction to be in a sense reversiblethat it does not
inevitably lead to increasingly complex social formations. I have the impression that in these
discussions complexity refers to the physical size of the arena of action. As Cherry (1986:44)
comments,
A more appropriate approach would be to treat [aggression, competition, ambition]
as recurrent features of human behaviour, and then to consider the circumstances
in which that kind of behavior might be favoured.

Discussion
Despite considerable differences in approach, McGuire, Johnson, Gamble, and some of the
authors in the Renfrew and Cherry volume attempt to "break out" complexity from notions of
progress deeply embedded cultural evolutionism in general and the study of the state in particular
(Diamond 1974). These authors would seem to concur that all societies are (at least periodically)
complex and that the notion of complexity itself should be further disassembled into its
component elements. The very definition of the word complex"hard to separate, analyze, or
solve"1suggests not only a certain endlessness to the task but also general acceptance of
normative distinctions between simple and complex, based on culturally and individually
variable abilities to recognize pattern. Indeed, it would seem that the difficulty of the exercise
has led each author to search for alternative ways of thinking about differences among societies,
but all remain reluctant to address the underlying assumptions of their definitions.

Implications
What is most powerful about the concept of heterarchy is its indeterminacy, its potential, its
sense of movement carried to all dimensions. Its alter/other quality unseats rank, answers
dogma, alters meaning. It is, quite simply, dangerous. It is not ranked power, it is counterpoised
power. In the multiscalarand here I use scale in the sense of dimension, not in Johnson's sense
of leveldialectical relations between ranked and counterpoised power one apprehends process.
The ultimate in complexity is not hierarchy but the play between hierarchy and heterarchy:
across space, through time, and in the human mind. I now turn to three [164] examples of this
dialectic: spatial, temporal, and cognitive.
Spatial. Heterarchical physical structures abound in the natural world. Lava marks an
ancient volcanic event; recently deposited river gravels lie beside it, the two now linked both
spatially and temporally. They are structures with rules and order, they have histories, and
process is frozen in them for us to read. We recognize pattern in rock strata, in soils, in
vegetation, in climate. There exists a rich domain which could guide our attempts to find new

structures, new recognitions in social relations. Although systems theory represents an earlier
attempt of this sort, it suffers from many of the same criticisms leveled against peer polity
interaction: functionalist circularity, positivist hierarchization.
Pattern recognition is most robustly developed in the spatial dimension, and because of
the strength of this material grounding it is the logical basis for temporal and cognitive studies of
the relation between hierarchy and heterarchy. In Burgundy we have studied the dynamic
relation of physical and sociohistorical structures through changes in the landscape. These shifts
in pattern, both material and cognitive, have been traced for the past two thousand years
(Crumley and Marquardt, eds. 1987).
Temporal. While notions of scheduling and diachronous social complexity begin to
address the questions under discussion, a variety of examples at different scales and in various
domains of analysis would be of great assistance. A single example, drawn from a more "macro"
spatial field and taking up questions of changing function and meaning follows.
The periodic purging of "foreign cults" from imperial Rome is well documented. Despite
a polytheistic milieu, the Roman state was concerned that subversive challenges to authority be
repressedparticularly those which were both political and religious in nature. The
heterarchically organized religious movement called Christianity was perceived as particularly
dangerous, a politically active revitalization movement led by a charismatic whose crucifixion by
the state only fueled resolve.
A heterarchical organizational structure enabled Christianity to survive the collective
action of a number of vested interestsadministrative, religious, and military hierarchies
working in concert. When Roman power waned due to an increasing inability to integrate a
variety of heterarchical elements, both those within the Roman central state apparatus and those
appended to the Roman state through conquests, the structure of Christianity became
increasingly hierarchical. Although I am not a scholar of Church history, it would appear that an
analysis of the Church from the standpoint of its organizational structure(s) and changing
strategies [165] of negotiation and alliance would offer a key to its longevity in Western culture.
Cognitive. Perhaps the most provocative feature of the dialectical relation between
hierarchical and heterarchical structures is that from the standpoint of perceptionthe observer's
or the participant'sthey may coexist in a complex relation. An example from David Freidel's
(1986) analysis of warfare, status, and sacrifice in Classic Maya society illustrates this relation.
The genesis of the royal line at the site of Palenque (Mexico) was the birth of triplets, the
first- and second-born of which were heroic twin brothers; the third was not represented as
human except when living rulers impersonated him on ritual occasions. Collectively, these
triplets are termed the Palenque Triad (Berlin 1962; Kelley 1965; Schele 1976), which certainly
deserves more of an explanation of their complicated iconography than space or expertise
enables me to offer. Briefly, however, the twins are born of the sacrificed head of their father,
who spits on the hand of their mother and impregnates her. In hell the twins sacrifice and
rejuvenate one another, and in practice Maya rulers sacrificed their sons and brought them back
to life as their brothers. Freidel (!986:98) interprets the iconography as follows:
This cycle of sacrifice and rebirth allows brothers to stand in relationship to one
another as parent to child. It was this lining up of brothers into a hierarchical
relationship that allowed the Maya royalty to claim direct descent from them. . . .

The transformation of a statement of brotherhood, a basically egalitarian idea,

into a statement of hierarchy allowed the Maya elite to celebrate the existence
of elite status overtly. . . . At the same time, the principle of brotherhood was
maintained as the relationship between dynasties within the Maya lowlands.
This was a reiteration of equality at the inter-polity level, tied to a charter of
inequality within polities. (emphasis mine)
This use of ritual and symbol to maintain legitimacy through the simultaneous reiteration
and denial of hierarchy is not all that rare. The Athenian state, medieval Europe, and many
Western democratic constitutions enshrine in one dimension and contradict in another. Such
profound structural contradictions, both of dimension and of scale, eventually may offer us a
means to study both process and complexity.
[166]
Conclusions
I am suggesting an explicitly material, historical, cognitive strategy for the study of differences
and similarities among human groups. I employ the term "strategy" in Perry Anderson's (1984)
sense, and hope that I can stimulate strategic thinking and strategic discussion in bringing
process into historical analysis. Since I propose a strategy for study rather than hypotheses for
testing, I am, for the moment, free of the responsibility for an exhaustive examination of either
complexity or the state. I simply suggest thatlike structureboth are metaphors, not models,
and we must examine them as such.

Note
1. The definition is taken from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary.

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