From Hierarchies to Rhizomes

We could be emancipated, finding new life and vitality there, embracing chaos and confusion as they are.

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Perhaps because of the recent technological leap in deep learning and neural network systems like AI, it seems we have increasingly focused on decentralized and flat-organizational relationships while considering hierarchical, tree-like, authority-cascading ones as something obsolete.

While, of course, both are important perspectives for us to understand relationships, the focus tends to lean towards either/or. This choice reminds me of the difference between the human body structure and brain cell synaptic neural networks.

The former seems pretty universal — hierarchical and well-structured in the relationships among parts and wholes; moving from one to another in straightforward directions. In this situation, there is usually one or a few specific command and control centers, a certain authoritative entity that can be shared and cascaded. It’s traditional and, if anything, conventional. Most of the “old” type organizations and relationships are based on this perspective.

The latter is quite the opposite. There is no explicit center, no specific authority that the rest…