Command without conclusion

Or, a never-ending hierarchy.

In a hierarchy, there are levels of authority, with commands coming down from a few higher authorities to many subjects.

For example, people might be organized into communities, which are subject to counties, which are subject to states or provinces, which are subject to a federal government.

In my dissertation, I wrote about two hierarchies (early in Chapter 5): 

• the instance hierarchy (every object is an instance of some class), and 
• the inheritance hierarchy (every class inherits from another class)

At the top of every hierarchy, there has to be something to stop the upward path, lest it go on forever (which means that this post is unique to this blog in that it is actually about defeating its own title rather than supporting it).

In the programming language that I described in my dissertation, the two hierarchies end (looking in the upward direction) in different ways:

• the instance hierarchy ends with a tight loop; Class is an instance of itself
• the inheritance hierarchy ends with null: the Object class inherits from nothing

Returning now to the first example, communities of people. Here is a possible list of ever-higher authorities: the federal government might be subject to a planetary government, which might be subject to a solar system government, subject itself to a galactic government, and so forth, on up to a government of the entire known universe.

In the case of the United States of America, the federal government is subject to what? Some possible answers:

• a world government, such as the United Nations, or some new world order^*
• God, i.e. "their Creator" speaking of the people
• the people

These possibilities reflect some of the different ways that a hierarchy can end. 

First we have the way outlined in an earlier paragraph (which ultimately ends with null (as with the Object class of my dissertation) since we know of nothing that contains the entire known universe). 

The second option, supported by the phrase, "one Nation under God," is an option in which authority ends with a self-sufficient being (like the Class of my dissertation). 

The third option, supported by the phrase, "of the people, for the people, and by the people," is a very different way, a very large loop.

Now that I have the (hypothetical^**) reader thinking in terms of a hierarchy of government, I can present my own views. I am absolutely opposed to the view that our nation is subject to any other government. Yes, we support (and host the headquarters of) the United Nations. But, no, we do not take direction from them and are not subject to that organization.

Since we are created (whether you believe this to be by a personal God, some ineffable supreme being, or mindless random evolution), the second option holds some appeal. Some of the definitions of Creator, though, do not allow for appeal to the higher authority (and the one that does historically requires belief in a Prophet (which would not be tenable in today's secular society)), so I do not prefer this option.

The United States of America has a constitution which describes a very limited federal government, with all but a few roles given to the states, and ultimately answerable to the people.

Indeed it is a very loopy hierarchy. Communities are answerable to the people as well as to their county, Counties are answerable to the people as well as to their state. States are answerable to the people as well as to the federal government. Finally, the federal government is answerable to the people, and not to any international organization: neither the WHO, the world bank, nor even the world court. We, as a nation, stand independent above all other creatures, and yet we expect our nation to serve and answer to its people.

Notes:

"lest it go on forever" A hierarchy can conceptually go on forever, such as the one described by Douglas Hofstadter, who invented a recursive acronym for GOD Over Djinn, which behaved as an infinite hierarchy (in a hypothetical world).

"the programming language that I described in my dissertation" is also named by a recursive acronym, TOOL Object Oriented Language.

^* The link is to a page treating "new world order" as a conspiracy theory! However, some theories are actually true^*** and there are books written to support the absolute reality of a new world order (such as Slaughter's eponymous book on the subject).

^** As claimed in this earlier post.

^*** Proponents of the theory of evolution can certainly relate to this notion that some theories are actually true.