Hierarchy Blindness

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I've never been able to tolerate those who use their rank as a substitute for substance.

anytime all people are not seen as equal in value or say-so, there is harm. if everyone agrees that john doe will lead the hunt just for today for purposes of efficiency and john doe listens to the hunters in the back of the group because he knows he can't see behind him as well as they can, there is minimal harm. also, a two-year-old who wants to eat the whole cake for supper needs to be comforted that his wishes won't be granted but healthily accedes to hopefully wiser parents who offer him veggies.

A good leader listens to his people before he decides something. There are diffent kinds of connections between men. In strong connections like groups of warriors loyality towards each other becomes the most important thing.

For claiming a leader ship in a connection of warriors you need to be more than just the biggest and strongest guy who just wants the biggest part of the cake. You need to be loyal and honest like s**t towards the others.
Loyality means everybody has to risk anything for the group and especially anything to protect the leader but he expects from the leader to be even much more this way than all others and to risks anything for protecting everybody of his group. For being accepted as the leader it isn't enough to be the just strongest guy. You have to be self-confident, risky, honest and loyal, quite self-less, rather bright, must be able to read the way that guys are who want to attent the group aso.
This makes some of us aspies to really great natural leaders. But being unable to show emotions towards women in a way that women get is the price of this. I guess this has developed because women always try to approach the leaders much more then all other men. Only very few girls are totally direct.

I'm quite aware of various hierarchies (I know who the manager, celebrity, general or rich guy is)--thus not "blind." I just don't care much about them, nor does a person's social rank affect the way I act toward him or her--thus "indifference."

That way are many of us. But most of us are blind for the importance that hierarchies have for NTs. For NTs exist even a hierarchy for being allowed to be late. If it comes to this I'm often claimed the top of the hierarchy without being aware of this.
There are lots of women who try to approach men just because they are on top of the hierarchies. That's even the main reason why NTs are so much into hierarchies and social state.

All of this makes me wonder whether human hierarchy has any benefits. After all, it's pretty ingrained in most people, and it seems it always has been. This smacks of strong natural selection in favour of groups who have leaders. Yet when I look, I can't see any evidence that leadership in the modern world does more good than harm. Is it just a matter of a small number of ruthless parasites exploiting the rest of us, or are we somehow better off as a hierarchy?

Hierarchies concentrate the power and resources to the one on the top of the hierarchy. For this hierarchies are able to act as a big strong unit which is much more powerful than single humans are. They are required to fight against strong enemies or to get big things done. Whether they are a good thing depends on the people on the top of the hierarchy and if they care the interests of all other people or only their own. Selfish people on top of a hierarchy are a big problem for the rest of the people who are a part of the hierarchy. It's also the biggest problem of all of the current societies.

You make a great point. I agree with you. Like you said, I'm aware of what hierarchies are. The manager example you give is excellent because I think most any adult in a workplace is aware of what a manager is and what a manager is in relation to subordinate employees.

But, also like you, hierarchies don't impress me and never have. I'm respectful of the position as needed (e.g. being respectful of a manager), but I don't fawn over, envy, "bow down to" or place on a pedestal the person. Many humans seem to desire to lord their positions over others and I'm very strongly turned off by that. Instant turn off for me. I have no desire to fraternize with people who find hierarchies to be important. No adulation from me at all.

That is the is main problem of ape style hierarchies. The good thing is that even most NTs don't really like them. Thats why they are much weaker then cooperative unions of people which are basing on trust and where the guys like to be a member of it.

I still don't understand the mechanism by which a hierarchy would be more powerful than an egalitarian group, though I've not ruled out the possibility. I guess there may be some advantage in having one leader issuing a timely command so that the group acts in synch for a particular operation which otherwise might not be so precisely co-ordinated. I'd be interested in seeing descriptions of particular tasks that would work better when done in this way.

Assuming such tasks exist, though, they are still only specific tasks and I'm not sure that would logically justify any individual calling all the shots. Of course it gets rather more complicated than that because a hierarchy is composed of tiers - usually an overarching leader commanding a number of sub-leaders who each command their own group of peasants or whatever, so there isn't really one individual calling all the shots. I guess the tier system is a characteristic of a large group. presumably impossible in a small one and essential in a large one, if the large group is to have a leader at all - without the sub-leaders then communication and discipline would be too hard to maintain and people would be making their own decisions.

Talking of large groups, that may be where the trouble starts in the whole leadership thing. The leader could personally know everybody in a small group and they could know him, so the human trait of empathy might stand a better chance of damping down the risk of him becoming corrupt. But in a large group, he is set apart from his people, and as (s)he become out of touch with them, and so has little empathy with the peasants. It's all rather complicated and I've not had time to think it all through, but three further muddled thoughts I have are:
(1) that small groups can be either egalitarian or authoritarian.
(2) there's a school of thought in the communes movement that an egalitarian group can often function quite well provided it doesn't grow above a certain size, when the system tends to break down - apparently people become more competitive in larger groups.
(3) the trade unions are said to have worked a lot better when they were small entities. When they grew, it was no longer possible to decide things by a simple show of hands, so they elected representatives who then became a self-interested group and ceased to represent anybody but themselves.

The Myers-Briggs personality tests sorts individual into 16 different personality types. These are determined by binary combinations of 4 letter types.

This trait sounds very much like an INTJ trait.

INTJs are known as the "Systems Builders" of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability. Whatever system an INTJ happens to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause; both perfectionism and disregard for authority may come into play, as INTJs can be unsparing of both themselves and the others on the project. Anyone considered to be "slacking," including superiors, will lose their respect -- and will generally be made aware of this; INTJs have also been known to take it upon themselves to implement critical decisions without consulting their supervisors or co-workers. On the other hand, they do tend to be scrupulous and even-handed about recognizing the individual contributions that have gone into a project, and have a gift for seizing opportunities, which others might not even notice.

INTJs are one of the rarest personality types, accounting for approximately 1.5 percent of the population. Some INTJs describe themselves in the following way “We choose to be ourselves and not care what others think. Intellectually being an INTJ is fun as hell! When presented with relevant, challenging, and coherent problems/books/ideas then we go crazy theorizing! In some ways the INTJ is a mixture between a seasoned professor and a observant fun-loving child.” “our logic is almost never wrong” “If suddenly something captures our attention, we just have to know each and everything about it.” “We are self confident individuals who know our strengths and weaknesses.” “Ideas are our forte. We identify with our ideas.” “INTJs can usually be quite good at accepting constructive criticism, if the INTJ respects the person giving the criticism.” “Things like authority, rank, and seniority mean little to most INTJs. For better or for worse, if I think someone is wrong, I will say so, whether they be a colleague, a teacher, or the CEO of the company. What matters most to many INTJs is getting the correct solution; it doesn't matter who produces it.” “ I prepare thoroughly before giving a formal presentation.” “utter earnestness, sincerity, and thoroughness. And a systems-oriented, big-picture mind.” “We usually see things from a million perspectives.” “We can stay alone for a loooong time: because there is a party going on inside our heads. A 100 voices talking, debating with each other about the best course of action around something.” “I felt very alone and ostracized as a child and youth because I didn't value the same things other kids did, didn't act the way they did, was consistently at the top of any scored intellectual activity (which always makes you less popular), didn't know how to gain the acceptance of my peers and didn't quite have a language to describe these feelings to my parents or others.” “Super Human Analytical Skills. I rely on this instinct often and it serves me well. Usually my snap decisions and judgments are spot on and brutally harsh.” “I learn quickly, sometimes intuitively. I can ride a motorcycle, go to sleep, play a computer game or otherwise ‘turn off’ active thinking, and come back and sit down and know exactly how to solve extremely complex problems. It's not that I didn't think about it, but instead my mind thought about it for me.” “ I’m hardly ever bored, because there are worlds, inside worlds, inside worlds in my own head.” “I am also an intensely private person. Most of the time even my closest friends and family don't know exactly what I'm thinking about or feeling because I prefer to keep it to myself.”

i'm an infj. i hold leaders to a higher standard and respect them only if they live up to it.

Most of here are INTJ or INFJ. I'm INTJ too. But I'm nearly an ENTJ because only 53% introverted. viewtopic.php?t=355899&start=165

There exist a poll for the stats:
viewtopic.php?t=326851