How far can imaginary hierarchies be replaced, and what will be the end of them?

Homo sapiens formed herds to protect themselves from external threats, which over time gave rise to a hierarchy between the ruling and the ruled. In modern societies, ideologies are reinforced through multiple channels, such as the media, and require multiple perspectives and critical reception to overcome.

 

Since the birth of Homo sapiens, they have formed groups to protect themselves from external threats. They realized that being part of a social group was much more conducive to their well-being than being alone, so they stayed together. The size of the herd continued to grow, and to manage it efficiently, Homo sapiens organized vast cooperative networks within and outside the herd. However, most network structures were not based on equality. At some point, a dominant group emerged, and they established a hierarchy throughout the herd. The subordinates accepted this hierarchy and the discrimination that came with it, and a perverse structure was created in which the surplus produced by the many subordinates fed the few rulers. In order to maintain their power by reinforcing the hierarchical order of their own group, the ruling class injected an imagined order into the group.
An imagined order is a socially constructed value or ideology that is strong enough to make group members think alike. This order has become so deeply embedded in the lives of homo sapiens that the only way for an individual to become independent of it is to leave the group. In modern society, this order is called ideology. Today, the influence of a particular ideology on our lives is much greater than in the past. As the world has become increasingly integrated, the power of universal ideologies has grown, and individuals are constantly influenced by them wherever they go. Because these orders are already socially and culturally structured, the characteristics of the group have a profound effect on the characteristics and identity of the individual.
By the power of imagined order, each individual’s power is determined by their position in the group. In this article, we’ll focus on status-assigned identities, which are the source of class systems and the social discrimination they create, among other ideologies. There are four main types of these identities There are four main types of identities: those related to gender, such as biological sex, gender, and sexual orientation; those related to ethnicity, such as nationality and race; those related to wealth, such as the amount of money an individual owns; and those related to religion. For each of these identities, society creates an ideology that privileges certain characteristics over others.
Modern society still privileges certain groups of people for these four identities. Historically, there have been small fluctuations over time, but no matter how equal the sexes have become, men still have an advantage over women, and heterosexuals have an advantage over people of other sexual orientations and are less discriminated against. Nationalities from developed countries have an advantage over those from developing and less developed countries, and Westerners and whites have an advantage over other races, including blacks. The wealthy have economic power over the poor, and when it comes to religion, Christians have an advantage over people of other faiths. Surprisingly, there is very little evidence for why these traits are favored over all others. It’s just an arbitrary trait that’s been chosen in an imagined order and decided to have an advantage.
If we look at gender-related identities, for example, it is not at all natural for a group of men to be stronger than a group of women. In Sapiens, Yuval Harari cites strength, aggression, and survival strategies as reasons for this, but even he admits that there is a lack of evidence to support this. In the movie “The Imitation Game,” genius mathematician Alan Turing figured out how to crack the complex code of Germany’s communications machine known as Enigma, which led to the Allied victory in World War II. This man who contributed his immense talents to the survival of his country and its people did not fare well in his later years. He was abandoned by his country and sentenced to imprisonment for being homosexual. He was ordered to undergo chemical castration with hormone therapy and eventually committed suicide. His intellect contributed immensely to the country, but he was unable to overcome socially constructed discrimination.
In this way, society has a strong influence on the formation of an individual’s identity, as arbitrary characteristics of certain groups can give them an advantage over others. In order to come up with a way to overcome this socially constructed hierarchy, let’s first look at how an individual comes into contact with ideology.
When a homo sapiens is born, it is first exposed to the ideology of its society by its parents. As they grow up and become capable of learning, they are next exposed to ideologies through education, and on a larger level, they are influenced by governments and religions. However, a much larger influence on our values than all of the above is the media. In the modern world, the media has become an integral part of the social fabric, reinforcing and shaping ideologies. Some people who have the power to reinforce certain ideologies, i.e., the ruling class of a group, utilize these media to reinforce the ideology they want. A powerful example of this is the Bud Light beer commercial.
In this ad, a man shouts one word, “Dude!” in several different situations to portray the stereotypical masculinity that the company strives for. For example, a man is sitting on a couch when another man walks up and sits down next to him, pressing up against him. The man who was originally sitting frowns and yells “Dude!” as the later man looks embarrassed and sits away from him. The obvious meaning of Dude in this scene is to go to the side, but what Bud Light wanted to convey through this scene is an ideology about sexual orientation: that touching between men is taboo. In another scene, a man takes milk out of the refrigerator, sniffs it, and yells Dude because it’s spoiled. On the surface, of course, he’s yelling Dude because it smells bad, but the underlying message is a gender-role ideology that says it’s not a man’s job to organize groceries like milk in a timely manner.
Subconsciously, we naturally develop a stereotype of the typical male when we watch these ads. In the example above, Bud Light is euphemistically using Dude to suggest that men’s gender roles are arbitrary and that men’s sexual orientation is pigeonholed. When we watch this ad, we naturally accept the ideology behind the message the company is trying to convey. In a column for Slate magazine, John Swansburg wrote that the ad gave Bud Light an edge in the industry over other alcoholic beverage companies like Miller Lite and Silver Bullet. This is because the ad doesn’t just appeal to a small group of wealthy people, but to a very generalized audience. As the protagonist of the ad is subjected to “male-on-male touching” and smells “the foul odor of milk,” viewers feel compassion for him. By doing this, Bud Light successfully shows us that they empathize with the world that ordinary people live in. In the end, by eliciting our empathy, the ad once again reinforces stereotypical male gender roles. As the effects of the media continue to accumulate, the members of the group are gradually persuaded by the ideology that the media is trying to convey.
Over the course of history, the imagined order, or ideology, at the core of a society has changed, most notably as societies have abandoned the imperialism of the past and turned to the globalism and liberalism of today. In order for the old imagined order to collapse, the new imagined order must be more powerful than the old. When a new ruling class, having overthrown the old ruling class, embraces the new imagined order and spreads an ideology based on it in order to completely destroy the power of the old ruling class, the members of the group can feel the effects of the new ideology. However, modern ideologies have not yet been able to overcome the imagined hierarchies that pervade society. Compared to the past, a stronger imagined order has emerged.
Having examined how ideologies emerge and how individuals’ exposure to them reinforces and legitimizes them, let’s consider how we can change the existing hierarchy. As we’ve seen, the most powerful factor that can change the core ideology of a society is the media. Historically, the ruling class has been able to utilize media to reinforce their vested interests and consolidate their position. Even if we limit ourselves to the Korean society, the ruling class has strongly controlled the media in the past. Fortunately, as modern society gradually developed and expanded in scope, many media outlets began to appear. Therefore, the first thing an individual needs to do to overcome hierarchy is to take a critical view of certain events based on a much wider variety of media than before, and to take a subjective view of them through a critical lens. The influence of parents and education, another factor in ideological reinforcement, cannot be ignored. Therefore, individuals, whether they are in the position of a parent or educating others, need to pass on the correct ideology based on the perceptions they have subjectively received through the media. These individual efforts may seem weak to influence society as a whole, but they must precede all other measures to overcome hierarchy because they are fundamental to the social structure.
Eventually, a more powerful imagined order must emerge to overcome the hierarchy that is being reinforced by the current ruling class, which requires a new leader to claim it and a ruling class to support it. For the new order to be just, unlike the existing hierarchy, it needs a leader who is both just and powerful. The collective efforts of the individuals mentioned above will eventually become visible as the efforts of the society as a whole will gradually become visible, and an outstanding leader with both leadership and character will be born. This leader will then be obliged to spread the new ideology he or she believes in, and the most effective way to do so will be through the media, as it has been in the past. But if this new ruling class also becomes corrupt over time and imposes a new hierarchical order to pursue its own self-interest, the members of the society have the power to reject it, recalling the ideology of justice, and replace the imagined order once again. This invisible force always exists, so members don’t have to assume that the current situation will continue into the future, and they don’t have to succumb to the hierarchy and conform to it.
As the imaginary order, or ideology, is constantly being replaced, some people may worry that there will come a moment when this order will lose its power and social anarchy will arise. However, I believe that if there is anarchy in society, it will be the result of the fact that order is no longer needed, rather than the lack of order causing chaos. I believe that as we go through the process of ideological shifts, a stronger and more just imagined order will constantly emerge to overcome the previous imagined order, and I believe that we can achieve this through our individual and societal efforts.