As for Jay's suggestion,
>Could we possibly be so (ethnocentrically?) optimistic as to
>imagine that hierarchical social relations do indeed have some
>connections to quasi-feudal relations of production, and that
>hierarchical traditions, and the values that support them in
>cultures like Japan and Hong Kong may change as economic
>relations begin to become less rigidly stratified?
I am somewhat amused by the naivete that might be read into
a message by Jay -:) While there may well be a re-ordering of
the upper echelon, I doubt that the heirarchy will flatten as
a result. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suppose that the complementary
relations made possible by social stratification are somehow
ecologically stabilizing, as Bateson & Meade suggested (where
they contrasted "complementary" with "symmetrical" relations of
social exchange, which prove de-stabilizing
(schismogenic) in any competitive situation) --
I would much appreciate losing this argument to some other one.
- Judy
Judy Diamondstone
diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Rutgers University
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