Sudden Stories about Power & Organisation

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Turnip Hierarchy

A group of people - this is a true story about materialism - found an island where they learned to grow turnips. It went well until they lost their crop to thieves who came in the night - both animal and human. Ok, so we need a night shift.

Many years later (or soon enough), a young boy lay on the floor of a dark and dirty room, trying to sleep, mind racing. He was hungry, but he drew his blanket warm around him and used the time to wish he was somewhere else, maybe even someone else, like a Day-Shifter. You could tell them right away because they looked like Gods and had more turnips.

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Power and Rising High Tones

'Empty your pockets. That's right. I'm going to handcuff you but you're not under arrest, just detained, ok?'

'What did I do?'

'Go over there and sit down, ok?'

'Well no, not really. You have pulled me off the bus and handcuffed me and I don't know why so I'm not ok. Not really.'

'Don't give me that. You're lucky I don't shoot you now. Like I said, we'll get to you.’ He turned away. ‘Ok.’

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State of Nature

I am afraid, as there is no sense, no authority and no safety. The emergency services and the food are gone and all around is noise, theft and violence. Thomas Hobbes said in 1641, that in such 'a State of Nature...,' there is a 'war of all against all.' He got that from translating Thucydides' Civil War in Corcyra, written five hundred years before Christ, which recounts how they buried people alive in the city walls.

In a State of Nature, groupings rapidly emerge: familial, neighbourly, ethnic, religious, gangs and more. Hobbes called these 'defensive cooperatives,' and watched them compete with each other in the scarce environment. Groups range from strongly hierarchical and based on fear, to others that are more open, drawing their strength from a common understanding and a sharing of skills. When writing Lord of the Flies, William Golding read Hobbes. So that's Thucydides, Hobbes, Golding all the way down to me.

I have read about the State of Nature; but now it's here. As Boswell said, 'fear concentrates the mind wonderfully.' I am unaccustomed to being afraid, and woefully unprepared for what is coming.

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The Cycle of Hierarchy

The pattern by which hierarchies of power rise and fall repeats itself across history in a most amusing way. As Polybius pointed out two thousand years ago, it is a simple cycle, dumbly repeated across time amid suffering at every turn. You see it in empires, armies, governments, institutions, businesses, offices, teams and families and it's always been like that. At first, hierarchy emerges 'naturally' (i.e. a lot) as WE need special skills and the division of labour, so we agree to give up some freedoms to survive. Then again, and 'naturally', comes the corruption, the defensive separation and the growing incompetence of elites, followed by their 'natural' demise.

'Rome fell,' Machiavelli concluded; 'So what hope is there for the rest of us?' Laughter? The Cycle of Hierarchy spins and we never did learn to manage it well. Now we have no time to learn.

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