One of the most destructive myths is the idea of ‘top-down’ vs ‘bottom-up’. Human groups and societies have…

One of the most destructive myths is the idea of ‘top-down’ vs ‘bottom-up’. Human groups and societies have no tops or bottoms. Implicit in the belief that they do is also a belief about how groups behave, that is also wrong. /1

The belief says that ‘top-down’ means directions or orders or power descend from the top of a hierarchy, and are then followed by everybody below. And ‘bottom-up’ says groups of people direct action and thought, *as* groups. /2

This misunderstands how groups of people behave, and the physical reality of social interaction. It misunderstands the relationship between individual and collective, most fundamentally. /3

Just as there is no top and no bottom to any group, there is also no individual and no collective, as two distinct things. Our entire politics and even much of our intellectual life wallows in these illusions. /4

Groups are made up of individuals. But once in a group, individuals don’t suddenly become automatons, shed of all agency. Individuals CHOOSE to be in groups. It is the MOST fundamental social act humans do. /5

They choose what I call a team in social team sports, or what Will Storr calls a ‘status game’. A group or team is still just individuals. But individuals *delegating* certain things, to some members of that group. /6

Delegation is not surrender, it’s an active agency. Individuals give authority to some member(s) of the groups (up to about 5% usually, max), who then have higher status than the rest of the group. A simple empirical example. /7

If you join the local football club, say because your kids play football. That club will usually have a governance structure. A president perhaps, a treasurer, a secretary, etc. Those positions are filled by other parents usually, people just like you. /8

A small handful of people. Like I say, about 5% max of the entire group. They become the ‘top’ of the group. You’re now the ‘bottom’. But do they just give ‘top-down’ orders now, which everybody else blindly obeys? /9

Hilarious. Every single group any of us has been a member of doesn’t function like that. Much of it is a constant pushback at decisions made. The ‘top’ positions are under constant assault. Their *delegated* authority (from us) is always provisional. /10

But don’t fall for the ‘democracy’ fantasy that this means the rest of us in the club, the ‘bottom’, are some coordinated agency acting against the ‘top’ either. We’re all still just individuals. Opposition to the top is always driven by other individuals in the group. /11

Challenging the status of the current top. ‘The people’ is a nonsensical myth of groups of individuals somehow spontaneously thinking and acting in simultaneous concert. How did that ever become a belief? It’s not physically or even logically possible. /12

Within every group there are rivals for positions on the group’s status hierarchy. Provisional victories are achieved, that hierarchy can stabilise. But it’s a dynamic stability. Always shifting. It’s why you can never really predict elections. /13

Animal Farm was a meditation on this process. Of how those who speak for the people are always just trying to establish some new status hierarchy. But beware. This absolutely is NOT to say we should have status-free groups. That’s the myth of ‘the people’ again. /14 https://t.co/tS0QkwXCCf

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with status. It’s quality, we have better or worse pilots or teachers, or whatever. Those values create hierarchies, and should. It’s social progress, it’s how we don’t always have to do everything ourselves. That’s what delegation is. /15

Our modern age has an intrinsic hatred of the whole idea of hierarchy, because we have these deep misunderstandings about tops, bottoms, individuals and groups. Hierarchy does not, ever, separate authority from ‘the people’. /16

We are all of us, always, in charge. The people who lead us are just one of us, too. Delegated authority, by us, to do certain things. There are no tops, there is no vantage point that allows you to control others. That control is always delegated, to a leader. /17

And that’s not some ‘the people’ acting, that’s all of us as individuals acting. There’s no binary here. Individuals form groups, which are made up of nothing but those individuals. Groups are individuals acting in particular delegating ways. /18

It’s quite accurate to see a group like a phase of matter. Water is still water when it’s liquid, ice or steam. Similarly groups are a (literal, physical) phase of individual life, individuals acting in group-like ways. Delegating. But always as individuals. /end

Picture credit: https://t.co/DQ9lWBiXnu