The ability of hierarchies to influence and shape many aspects of today’s society is often overlooked. Hierarchies such as formal education, technology and even Wall Street impact our society through promises such as becoming a successful individual in today’s world if you follow their ideal path. They are gradually becoming powerful outside influences due to their ability to steer people away from their interests and sometimes ambitions. Not only do they have the ability to change the course of an individual’s life, they also have the capability of influencing or manufacturing one’s “smartness” In the article “ Biographies of Hegemony” by Karen Ho, the author discusses with the reader how Wall Street, a powerful hierarchy defines what…show more content… Twisting the definition of “smartness” to fit a hierarchy’s main objective gives them the power over people. For example, although the green haired girl as described in Davidson’s article was passionate and brilliant at drawing, she still failed most of her tests because her “special skills show up nowhere on her compulsory EOG state tests”( 63). Students such as her are labelled failures because they don’t fit the formal education denotation of “smartness” which requires her to score well on her tests. The ability to differentiate the smart from the less smart though reveals the significant influence of hierarchies such as formal education have on individuals. Similar to the formal education system, Wall Street also coined it’s own idea of “smartness’ to fit it’s main objective, which is recruiting Ivy league students into wall street careers. Even though students may score good grades in school, students are entailed to have a “naturalized and generic sense of impressiveness and elite pinnacle status” (Ho) in order to be considered smart on campus. Failure to attain this impressive and elite look makes you less smart. The compatibility of technological machines and artificial smartness constructs an idea of “smartness” that is false. Similar to Wall Street replacing the idea of “smartness” with “eliteness”, technological machines become “smart” when they attain the ability to convince humans that human emotions can be substituted with robotic emotions. As Turkles states, “At the singularity, everything will become technically possible including robots that love”(460). At this point, technology as a hierarchy has shape individuals behaviour our in society towards each other. Although individual’s will connect more through internet, we will also be isolated and seek more human
