I am conducting some personal studies about the evolution of human society, however, I am not a sociology expert and I have a question:
Has someone already been hypothesized that exists a link between the human instinct for survival and the pyramidal structure of society?
I will explain better my question with a simple example:
Before the rise of civilizations the man who can defended himself from the attack of animals, the bad weather etc… was the one who survive.
Since the human being starts to become sedentary the structure of human society become to assume a pyramidal structure (for ex: at the top there is the king, then the priests etc etc… up to the slaves)
In this new environment (which is very different compared to the hunter-gatherer society) the one who is on the upper part of the social ladder is the one who has more chance to survive (A king has more chance to survive compared to a slave).
Has someone already hypothesized that the human instinct of survival is the reason why the structure of human society is pyramidal?
I hope to have been clear with my message and with the example that I made. If you have more questions let me know.
Thanks in advance for those who will reply to my question! :)
A king had a better chance of survival than a slave, but no better than a mere freeman. In early antiquity the kings who ruled the city-states were also the commanders of the armies (the most hunted man on the battlefield). Many were also targeted for assassinations. I don't want to contradict you, but I think it might help you to make a statistic of the average life span of the rulers of the ancient East (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia), possibly a statistic of the death cases.
Pyramidal structure also appears in prehistoric human groups. It is proven by the anthropological studies done on the tribes of Africa, Amazonia, Polynesia, Melanesia, etc.
I don't know if anyone else has floated your hypothesis or anything like that, but I think the pyramid structure is part of human nature. Even in the most egalitarian groups, where there is no notion of material private property, there is still a leader.
I find it hard to believe that the pyramidal structure appeared at the same time as private property and sedentarism.
The key to survival of a group is cooperation and a sharing or dividing of tasks. Social cohesion is the glue that ensures the group thrives. It requires a certain number of people for a group to survive (about 17 to 20 I think). The idea that a leader is required is a Western notion. Many societies and civilizations managed without a designated king or ruler. For example, despite what early colonists (and later anthropologists) in Australia thought they observed, there was often no designated king (always a man?) for bands and tribes here. A corollary is that a single 'strong' individual will not survive long on their own. I think that these ideas are closely related to Darwin's ideas of the survival of the fittest, which is the core belief of evolutionary theory. These epistemological underpinnings need some serious unpicking. Some scientific studies are finding that rather than evolution, nature rather de-volutes, that is every generation something is lost rather than gained (at a chemical and biological level). Of course, it is hard to shake the notion that 'we' are the latest and best iteration of the human race.
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