• _cryptagion [he/him]@anarchist.nexusOP
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    4 months ago

    no, that wouldn’t really be a hierarchy because there’s no authority involved. if you’re deferring to someone’s skill, that’s not authority, because you have the freedom to do that and it is voluntary. you or the other people can leave that association at any time.

    a hierarchy is, as @CrocodilloBombardino@piefed.social so succinctly just put it, “an institutional set of involuntary command/control relationships”.

    • howrar@lemmy.caBanned
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      4 months ago

      because you have the freedom to do that and it is voluntary

      So what’s the agreed upon definition of “having the freedom” and “voluntary” here? Because even under an authoritarian government, you can technically go against the authorities, but there will be consequences to doing so. What level of consequences do we consider to be acceptable for these purposes? Or is it not a question of level of severity of the consequences?

      An example of what I’m thinking of is a situation where you defer to someone else for their expertise because maybe they’re the only doctor available who can treat your illness, so you need to do as they say to get better. If you refuse, then you die. Is that voluntary? I can choose to die, so the “freedom” is there, but the consequences are severe.

      • onoira [they/them]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        where you defer to someone else for their expertise because maybe they’re the only doctor available who can treat your illness, so you need to do as they say to get better.

        you have the right word for it: expertise (see my other comment).

        it becomes a hierarchy if the doctor involuntarily hospitalises you or uses the courts to force you to undergo the treatment; the power (force) to do that is authority. so long as you still have the power to challenge or otherwise discuss the prognosis, it is not a hierarchy, especially if the treatment is gratis and libre.

      • for_some_delta@beehaw.org
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        4 months ago

        Illegal actions are always available. States use violent consequences to coerce legal choices. Someone might say the Kent State massacre was an acceptable consequence for violating the rules of the state.

        The set of legal and moral actions are not one to one. Any moral deference of autonomy needs to be consentual. There are times I would choose death instead of the doctor. For example, unpayable debt would make death an acceptable outcome.

        Autonomy is about power to take an action. Heirarchy is about power over the actions of others. Anarchy is an individual and social philosophy.