Hierarchies are the problem!
To oppose capitalism, oppose the mindset that props up capitalism.
Dr. Jordan Peterson, one of the most famous psychologists in the world, preaches conservative ideas to millions of men all over the world. Because Peterson is (a) a capitalist and (b) an anti-feminist, he inevitably bases his arguments on the idea that hierarchies are good.
After all, if you don’t believe hierarchies are good, you can’t defend an economic system that depends on exploiting the poor or a patriarchal gender system that depends on exploiting women.
“There is little more natural than culture. Dominance hierarchies are older than trees,” Peterson argues. “The part of our brain that keeps track of our position in the dominance hierarchy is therefore exceptionally ancient and fundamental.”
Unlike Peterson, Dr. Harriet Fraad isn’t just a psychologist; she is an accomplished psychoanalyst, having authored numerous distinguished academic books and articles. She is an expert on psychology, political science and feminist theory. Peterson, by contrast, has literally nothing notable in his career when it comes to contributions to psychology, political science and other intellectual disciplines. His writing oeuvre consists entirely of right-wing talking points and/or the “Academia, here I come!” pseudo-intellectual nonsense skewered in a famous “Calvin & Hobbes” comic.
For these reasons, I turn to Fraad’s arguments. Please bear in mind that the purpose of these quotes is NOT to simply rebut Peterson’s pro-hierarchy arguments. Peterson is part of the right-wing media empire that gets propped up with billions in donations.
“There is a ranking and there is throughout society, and the idea is what is most efficient for capital production” is better for society as a whole, Fraad told me for this article. “And that’s a very different emphasis from, ‘Okay, let’s work together because we’re all people.’ Everywhere, it’s a ranking system. ‘Who’s better than you? Which paper is better? Which school is a better one to come from, rather than honoring all jobs?’”
To illustrate her point, Fraad pointed to the American health care system.
“You can look at a hospital setting for example,” Fraad said. “The doctors are treated better than the person who scrubs the floor, even though a filthy hospital will communicate disease. And yet those people wear a different color uniform in the hospital and they’re paid much, much less because the doctor ‘brings money into the hospital.’ The doctors are the ones who bring clients in so they get the most money and are considered kind of as royalty. Whereas the people who make the hospital work, whether they’re the nurses who do the work to get, keep the patients okay and give them their meds and care for them, or the nurse’s aides who do a lot of that work or the cleaners, they’re all important, but everyone has a different color uniform and there’s a strict ranking. “
Fraad then connected this belief in hierarchical thinking to the patriarchal philosophy espoused by Peterson and other conservatives.
“Women are the assigned carers of society,” Fraad explained. When I told her that I know many neurodivergent women who face persecution in the workplace because they display autistic traits (such as intensity, directness, being hyper-organized and being socially awkward), she connected this to the broader ways in which women are exploited.
“We’re the caregivers giving free emotional caregiving and we’re expected to be emotive and compassionate and empathetic,” Fraad said. “And so if we come out very directly rather than softening our approach, we’re thought of as aggressive and there’s a real difference. Women are brought up to give the free labor of emotional labor to their families and their husbands or their lovers. They’re expected to be the social connectors making it easier for their husbands to relate to their relatives and his children.”
In short, hierarchical thinking dooms women to be “expected to be the domestic servants that make everything clean and nice for everyone, the caregivers, the unpaid and undervalued caregivers of the society.” It is even inculcated in us as children, from the very start of our lives.
“On the issue of the family, children grow up in a dictatorship,” Fraad said. “Parents have the option of taking their needs into consideration or not. Child development is not a mandatory subject of study in school. Parents would have to be sensitive to children’s needs because children cannot articulate their needs in words Most parents cannot do that either!”
In short, the enemy is hierarchical thinking. We need to start all political reform movements by acknowledging this pattern of behavior is fundamentally toxic.
Back Seat Socialism
Back Seat Socialism is a column by Matthew Rozsa, who has been a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently, he is writing a book for Beacon Press, “Neurosocialism,” which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism - the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual - can be an important organizing principle for the left.