Hierarchy and Authority (Part 2)

In my previous post on hierarchy, I mentioned that some commentators on Benedict’s Rule think Americans will be troubled by Benedict’s vision of hierarchy. I made a simple case that Americans have an ambiguous relationship with hierarchy. Our history seems to indicate that we want to escape the confines of hierarchy while still enjoying the sorting and streamlining work it can do for us. We love and hate it.

So, Benedict’s thoughts on authority and how to delegate it throughout a hierarchy may be troubling to us, but they are also intelligible. They challenge us to think carefully about order, stability, and harmony — common goods that no healthy society can fail to strive for. 

Chapter 21 of the Rule is an unassuming one — just seven short verses. In it, Benedict follows the biblical examples of Moses (Ex 18; Deut 1) and the Apostles (Acts 6), recommending that larger communities select “brothers of good reputation and holy life” to share the abbot’s leadership burdens (21:1,3). These “deans” shouldn’t be chosen according to the seniority system that determines rank throughout the community. Rather, deans should be chosen according to personal merit and wisdom so that they can adequately care for the members of the community (21:2,4).

This is an interesting — potentially flexible — innovation in what is otherwise a rigid structure. The strictly ranked hierarchy remains a tool for stability and order. But Benedict is willing to flout rank in order to assure that each member in the community is properly cared for by someone with the requisite gifts. Hierarchy, then, is not an absolute value. In such hierarchies, the words “rank” and “place” do not have to mean domination. “Staying in your place” — a phrase often loaded with negative, classist connotations — can mean that each member has a place in which to stay.

I would love to live and work in hierarchies that could be trusted to accommodate the individual who needs care. Such hierarchies could teach me that I too have the responsibility to accommodate the community, which is in need of my personal gifts. In other words, when the individual and the community are healthy, it’s easy to see how they need each other. But in our America, it is too easy to be cynical about this co-dependence. Conservatives worry about hyper-individualism, and progressives worry about oppressive hierarchies. They both worry for good reasons: many of us do not live and work in healthy communities. Sometimes, it feels like the stable order of the American empire is beginning to fade.

In Benedict’s time, as the stable order of Rome faded, a place to stay was a significant good to offer others. In fact, given the human craving for stable order, a place to stay is among the most important goods Benedictine communities have ever offered others.