this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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All of that is the fruit of people living for generations under oppressive hierarchical power structures.
Just like we can’t say humans “naturally are greedy” we also can’t say they “naturally will give themselves over a ‘populist leader’”.
In less hierarchical societies, people naturally are more skeptic of authority and populism.
Like when the North American native peoples of the North East first encountered Europeans, and couldn’t possibly understand how the sailors had “bosses” who “told them what to do”. The idea of following a leader like that didn’t make much sense to them at all.
Jumping in with a curiosity question. Can you give an example of an effective, non-hierarchical, society. Particularly one able to remain stable above Dunbar number for humans (around 150-200 members). I've not heard of any groups that have remained stable beyond that, which don't lean on the "super-tribe" mentality (with it's inherant us vs them). That tends to collapse towards authoritarianism of some sort, at least when something of value can be extracted from it.
The Zapatistas in Chiapas. The Hill peoples in eastern India. Rojava in Kurdistan. The vast majority of native peoples in Asia and the Americas before colonisation. The pirate societies, and related to that the Zana-Malata of Madagascar.
I suggest you to also read some of the articles and books by David Graeber. Like any. Egalitarian societies were his specialisation.