posted on Apr, 2 2009 @ 09:38 AM
My opinion about how power hierarchies formed:
Although still in existence today, over 5,000 years ago, most peoples around the world were living in small consanguineous groups of no more than 70,
more or less. This amount of people was good because it allowed for loyalty and group cohesion.
I come from a big family with over 30 first cousins, many of which I go 5 years or more without speaking to (or seeing). Back then, 70 people in your
"extended family" was pretty reasonable for everyone to know one another.
As time progressed and developments in technology came about, it allowed for more permanent settlements to grow and the population of these "tribes"
to stay put and store food and develop a plan for more stability in survival.
Even in families, a hierarchy of power comes about; maybe the father figure, maybe a mother figure (depends on the culture).
So, here's my thought. As these tribes started to grow beyond a size that was more passively socially managed, there started to emerge power
struggles within family groups. Not to mention, external pressures on power and making decisions for the group - things like competing with other
"tribes" for resources. As groups encountered one another, I'm sure they weren't always situations in which the weaker of the groups was wiped
out. Sometimes, the other groups were assimilated (probably after wiping out those in the assimilated group that could threaten the power structure of
the other tribe's controlling patri- or matriarch).
As time passed, power continued to merge and centralize and modern societies started to form. In post-Roman Europe, we know that the Germanic tribes
(Suebi, Goths, etc.) took over provinces formerly held by the Romans...well, what if powerful dynastic bloodlines used strategic alliances to help
break up the empire from within, merging their bloodlines with the invaders and again centralizing powers?
So what is the conclusion? The people we see today as those who rule the world - those disgustingly wealthy CEOs and royal families - may be the
result of an ever narrowing power struggle. We, as the regular slave-people who live on this planet, are conveniently out of the know when it comes to
their family lines, which could very well go back to original kings and warlords in our history books...it's not like they are going to make an
account on "Ancestry.com" to let the ignorant masses know how much control they've had and for how long.
I first thought of this when I learned that Bush and Kerry (in '04) had common ancestors if you went back to the 1700s. Coincidence? Or is that just
the way it works when it comes to power, money and politics and are these people indoctrinated from a young age that "they" are the powerful elite,
etc., etc.
I don't know about you, but I can tenuously link my family back to the immigrants that came to this country in the 16, 17, 18 and mid 1900s (each
century per ethnicity that I'm made up of).
How much you want to bet that these families have records that go back to recorded writing systems. They know their lineage and there is power in that
- not quite sure why...