Power, Wealth And Death: Hierarchy And Superiority In Society

At this exact moment, if you have food to eat and if you are not in a danger of any diseases, then you have better life than half of the earth’s population. Since the beginning of human journey on earth, hierarchy emerged as a part of the social life of people that no one could avoid. This paper will discuss the ideas about hierarchy of the two famous historians who are Jared Diamond and Yuval Noah Harari. The following question will be tending to answer “Why does hierarchy exist and how does it emerged in the first place?”

Based on the reading of Diamond in his book “Germs, Guns, and Steel”, we can detect that hierarchy was an investable matter that came along with our nature development. Diamond argues about the reasons behind the superiority of some humans in the past over the others and white European is his example of this superiority. Also, environment is the main reason for him as he says that climate change and geographical areas enabled some locations for adopting some types of crops and encountering new sources of foods like marine areas. So, increasing in food resources will increase the number of people and it will make them to have more experience. Also, interaction between people were more in Europe because of the bigger continent and they were not isolated like some parts of Americas. As a result, these interactions increased knowledge and also created immunity toward many diseases.

Agricultural revolution was another major reason for becoming superior because when food increased so as the interaction between people that lead to form larger tribes and groups. Although agriculture occurred in some other parts of the world, but we can say that Europe and Eurasia in general were the first to do farming which gave them larger number of tribes and groups with enough knowledge. Also, cultural experience and encountering new matters increased the knowledge of people and made the European to have more experience about life, and it made them to create stronger weapon form stone, wood, and steel. Also, it made them to be more active in the form of creating more food productions, and trying to have more babies in order to have larger families and community. To sum all that, we can tell that professor Diamond basically tell us that nature and environment were the main reasons behind the superiority of some people over others in the past.

Based on the reading of Harari in his book “Sapiens”, we can see a clear picture of hierarchy that emerged along with the emergence of humanity. Cognitive revolution is the major phenomenon that separated human from the other species which led to our superiority. To be more clear, he argues that human could communicate among each other and tell various sentences which led them to think, work and cooperate with each other in order to form larger tribes and groups. Moreover, religion is good important factor for the people to form a larger tribes and groups, as the people of the same ideas and beliefs came along with each other and lived together in harmony. These factors were all controlled by the brain of human which told them to do some sort of actions, as a result our habits were controlled by our brain. Agriculture Revolution was another reason for human to be separated from the other species and become superior over them. Human started to work together and form larger numbers of tribes and groups; larger numbers of tribes and groups were resulted of the invention of writing and more communication. More babies were born because they had more foods which lead the number of family members to be larger. Many crucial battles and massive killings happened because of the larger number of family members and the increased hierarchy that emerged as a result of the large amount of food and enough experience that some families had while the other families did not. Another major factor for human uprising and becoming superior was the emergence of science, rational thinking and questioning that led to the invention of many technologies that were made to make better life for humanity. However, professor Harari does not think that science brought peace to humanity, but instead, people started to use these technologies to overcome some others.

By looking at the two readings of both Diamond in the book of “Germs, Guns, and Steel” and Harari in the book of “Sapiens”, we can tell that hierarchy always existed even before we become superior over the other species. Back to the Diamond reading, he mentioned that white European had more goods “Cargo” than the others that made them to have more power and become so powerful. If we ask, why should Europe has more resources and foods than Americas? The answer will be just like the Diamond says in his reading, because of their environment that helped them. So, for sure Europe will be stronger with larger number of tribes and groups with good experience over Americans like Incas. To explain more, the case of Maori and Mariori is an example of this as the large groups and tribes of people who have more experience attacked smaller groups and enslaved them, so we can tell that the environment created this hierarchy in which some people were at the top like European while the others were below them. To give more example, Spain when invaded America and attacked Incas is another good example of power distribution as they were stronger and have horses than them. What Harari argued about religion and beliefs is another reason for hierarchy. People who have different religion and thinking did not come along with each other and this will lead to many conflicts as we witnessed many conflicts in the past. To be more clear, Holocaust is an example in which many Jewish people were killed by Nazis. I can tell that these are all the matter of our brains that controls our actions just like Harari argued. When we started to think and have our own belief, hierarchy always existed because people started to find ways to become stronger and have more power over the others.

Moreover, social and gender hierarchy always existed as professor Harari argued that women always were in a lower rank than men and this still exist in today’s society. At a point we are not different from animals, to explain more, hierarchy existed as large mammals may attack others and ruled the earth. To be more clear, when human came to power and ruling the earth, they started to kill animals and even other humans.

Summing all that, we can tell that hierarchy is a natural thing that always existed in our life and it grew up more and more by time. What we read was a very small portion about hierarchy that exists nowadays in our life. Professors Diamond and Harari in their readings “Germs, Guns, and Steel” and “Sapiens” tried their best to tell us what happened in the past to have this present. They told us about the superiority of human and they end up like the way they are. At any point of life, class always existed in which some people or even animals were at the top while some others have lower ranks. What matter is what we do, hierarchy will remain in our lives and we cannot avoid it.