Critical Perspectives | What is Cultural Hierarchy?

What is a cultural hierarchy?

Hierarchy is a system that can be seen to be visual, contextual and [or] conceptual. A basic example of hierarchy systems with in our human culture is that shown in Maslows diagram
'hierarchy of needs'. This diagram demonstrates an ideological structure of an organization of priorities, from the basic necessities of human life such as food and water, to the more complex aspects of human personality such as creativity and problem solving. This system implies that we depend on the larger, lower sections on the pyramid and the higher, smaller sections are attributes that should be aspired to.

                             
A culture is seen to be represented by the arts and other examples of human intellectual achievement that is considered collectively (i.e. publicly) and therefore directly linked to exhibition and publication to be seen by people. Hierarchy may be represented as a languor age system in which members of an organisation or society (or different defining features of organisations) are ranked accordingly to relative status or authority.


A similar hierarchy system can be seen in architecture through  buildings such as the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain. This clearly has been designed by a highly skilled architect that would have attended a highly acclaimed university and therefore sat in a higher social class. Buildings like this are made as one of's being much less common than simply designed everyday buildings made for common uses.
These buildings are made from more expensive and luxurious materials than simpler designed everyday houses and offices. This luxury would only be affordable by people who were already sitting in higher social cultures, and there fore another hierarchy of architecture is created through wealth.

In comparison, the well known mass produced furniture retail company 'ikea' targets their products towards a different social group. Ikea designs their products to be accepted in a society where people aspire to have their homes look like those of a higher class, but in an affordable was that people accept and live with.