Hierarchy

So for example because the identity of professions may have social ranking associated with them in terms of the worth of the individual, there is a relationship to self-worth. For those on the lower end of the socio-economic scale, hierarchal ranking can produce life experience lacking in self-esteem and be demeaning. Since everyone desires a sense of pride about who they are no matter what their economic or social status, the situation is created in which the various levels of hierarchal strata become pitted against each other in the justification of their own credibility by the minimization of others.

An alternative to this singular and limited identity may be the concept of an archetypal personage where the individual has an identification with more universal attributes than merely physical characteristics. This concept has traditionally been manifest in spiritual or religious venues, in which the individual may take on personality attributes which are more universal in character, patterned after the attributes of God, as the individual may define themselves as a child of the Holy Father. In sectarian terms the individual may develop an inner character and identity based upon more general attributes which involve the development of the self, as a character which transcends time and space such as artist, humanitarian, writer, philosopher or historian. The individual may take on a new and different perspective of the self, in which the person becomes grounded in a character based on universals which transcends the prevalent attitudes of the current cultural place and age. Ordinary affairs of everyday life which may involve hierarchal relationships may be viewed as role playing, in which the individual adopts the perspectives and attitudes necessary to accomplish what is necessary based upon the dynamics of the particular thing that needs to be done.

HIERARCHY (7 OF 7) DISSERTATION PAGE