"Most of us define ourselves hierarchically and don’t even know it.

It's hard not to.

 School, advertising, the entire materialist culture drills us from birth to define ourselves by others’ opinion. Drink this beer, get this job, look this way and everyone will love you.

High school is the ultimate hierarchy. And it works; in a pond that small, the hierarchical orientation succeeds.

There’s a problem with the hierarchical orientation, though. When the numbers get too big, the thing breaks down. In Massapequa High, you can find your place. Move to Manhattan and the trick no longer works. New York City is too big to function as a hierarchy. So is IBM. So is Michigan State. The individual in multitudes this vast feels overwhelmed, anonymous. He is submerged in the mass. He is lost.

We have entered Mass Society. The hierarchy is too big. It doesn’t work any more.

In the hierarchy, the artist looks up and looks down. The one place he can't look is that place he must: within. "