Rhizome Theory (1980) is Jeff Vail‘s theoretic solution to the core, problematic dogma underpinning civilization‘s Empire-pining barbs and law-abided barbarisms: heirarchy, whose solution is nonhierarchic rhizome. More simply, this theory suggests a causal chain of catastrophe — that the catabolic collapse of civilization is caused by civilization; that civilization, itself, is caused by heirarchy (and hierarchy’s entrenchment); and that, therefore, the replacement of hierarchy with nonhierarchic forms of non-governance, self-governance, and local resiliency prevents the manufacture of civilization, that prevents the manufacture of catabolic collapse of civilization.
2000—2009.2000—2009.By addressing the single, formative cause — hierarchy — of the single, malformed problem — civilization — of our halberd-shapen, green-divested lives, Rhizome Theory adheres to the First Percept of civil, non-violent solution; that, perceptively:
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Civilization is the root.
Dare we strike it, civilly?
The rhizome is that portion of a plant whose horizontal stem or root system spreads outward, in horizontal lattice, from that plant. Nonhierarchical offshoots of the mother plant crop up across the horizontal lattice; no centralized decision maker, control point, or other single tyranny of force or artificial, swayed law is needed. In this lawless, anarchic way, the rhizome acts as a foundational metaphor for a distinctly different, uniquely attractive way of life — predicate on horizontal cooperation (not vertical competition), horizontal simplicity (not vertical complexity), and horizontal candidacy, publicity, and information-sharing (not vertical confidentiality, privacy, or secrecy).
The rhizomatic society is seeded with sharing, trust, and eager decencies. Would that we could say the same of the present society.
Hierarchy, here, is a pyramidal Ponzi scheme whereby:
If you examine your own life, you may find that you are not the primary beneficiary of this scheme; and that, indeed, the purblinding balance between violence and affluence has begun to favour the former moreso than the latter, insofar as you are concerned. (This should be of some personal concern, of course.)
These two trends are rarely reversed; and where reversed, only momentarily so as to grant a dispensatory reprieve. In the United States, which enjoys the most enthusiastically self-enforced hierarchy of the geopolitical moment, this reprieve manifests itself as the Algerian belief in the “rags to riches” mythology: that any man or women, possessed of sufficient self-possession, passionate intensity, and intensely hard-work, can aspire to a higher assignment in the social apparatus of hierarchy. This is, of course, simply a myth — which the (increasingly landless) commonality, of their own whimsied volition, propogates on behalf of the (increasingly landed) aristocracy. This is, of course, sociocide: social suicide on an epic, national scale.
This reprieve often functions as a “safety valve,” serving to ameliorate, mitigate, and otherwise defuse the politico-socio-economic volatilities inherent in all hierarchies. Hierachy, of the instabilities inherent in any condition of enforced obeisance, from which the few are fed on the mighty detriment of the many, are volatile; and always, unless carefully sluiced into safer, subtler channels of pat non-violence, erupt in colorful violence.
Hierarchy is a treed taxonomy of evil, when taken to its thralled extrema: viral meme-engine of deforestating, machine-instating cloacal.
We know its branches! We know its root. We’ve hacked, parlayed, and played its Earth’s excision game. —But hacks, cunning parlance, and cutting, clever plays were not enough to cease that glut.
We know the branches. We know the root! Now, let’s strike by living the change we wish to see in the world. That begins today; and rolls, unfurling freedom’s love, until the newborn glint of gleeful, hinting tracklessness and forest-nested song of our rhizomatic tomorrow.