gnosticheresy_2 wrote:There is always seems to be a hierarchy in any human interaction, and with that hierarchy seems to come the threat of physical violence. And that is always present in face-to-face interactions, no matter how much the participants wish otherwise.
Agree, with qualification: I think monocutural hierarchies are neccesarily violent - many rich man/pretty women will assume they're at the top of pecking order and arc up at any defiance or disregard of their assumed rank, cos they feel threatened by other sources of rank, e.g. elder, intellectual, skill-based, and don't want to recognise them. But if multiple hierarchies can co-exist, and the dominant-paradigm alpha's have the sense/hear useful feedback to not hog the limelight and to support rank for others, then everybody can get a piece and violence can be made if not absent then at least much more distant.
gnosticheresy_2 wrote: Maybe one way to neutralize it is for all participants in any interaction to explicitly acknowledge that this hierarchical ordering is going on - humour is the best way imo, humour that depreciates the self to the benefit of others, rather than humour that depreciates others to the benefit of the self.
Ya ya absolutely, and mustn't it be the high-ranked/more powerful individual who starts the disarmament?
E.g. as an adult trainer, i look out for something i don't know in the first class with a group, so i can point it out, "i don't know, does anyone else here know how to..?", and everybody relaxes. How to defuse or share rank between genders is not always so simple..
