Of course, for people who have spent their whole lives in an organization—that is, in a hierarchical order—it is difficult to imagine that things don’t have to be reduced to the principle “I’m the boss—you’re an idiot.” By the way, I should note that for a Ukrainian, it is almost impossible to avoid corporate employment; it follows him everywhere, and the state tells him directly that organizational life is the only legitimate form of activity. Of course, this is partly an excuse for a miserable dream of a miserable order, but only partly.
To illustrate the diversity of orders, let me quote Vladimir Khitsenko: “When discussing how authority, responsibility, and subordination are distributed in organizations, one can distinguish two polar ways of structuring them: hierarchy and heterarchy. The crew of a small military vessel, all of whose actions are regulated by instructions within a system of strict subordination, illustrates the first approach. A football team, where each player, following the rules of the game and reading the situation, can take initiative for the benefit of the team, is a heterarchical structure. It is clear that in a complex and rapidly changing game situation, strict subordination to the team captain or coach would be utterly counterproductive. Such a team would be doomed. Returning to the military vessel, we note that in an emergency, in an extreme situation, in the struggle for the crew’s survival, they would violate instructions, show initiative, heroism, and resourcefulness. It makes sense that in the navy there is an order: ‘Every man for himself,’ meaning the breakdown of hierarchy.”