While this may be an effective and appropriate critique of certain Western religious attitudes, it is so heavy handed in its blanket condemnation of any notion of verticality, of any notion of the development and evolution of consciousness, that it rejects, however unintentionally, most of Buddhism as well. Snyder, in this passage at least, implies that all notions of the evolution of consciousness lead inevitably to the rejection of nature and the 'natural' by an oppressive hierarchy of 'Spiritual Darwinists'. But what is the developmental dimension of Buddhism if not a teaching of the evolutionary transformation of consciousness? The very definition of Buddhahood asserts the developmental realisation of a higher ethical sensibility expressed as compassion for all of existence.

I readily share Synder's concern to avoid any world-denying dualism that sets spirit off against nature. My concern is that his solution is too drastic. His cure may be as bad as the disease, in that it compels the Western Buddhist to renounce not just the worst of Western religion, but also the best of Buddhism, even as Snyder advocates the latter as one of the few established alternatives to the former available to us. What is it that is being overlooked here? I suggest that Western Buddhists can resolve this problem within our own cultural history only to the extent that we openly acknowledge and affirm the way in which the developmental aspect of Buddhism is hierarchical, while simultaneously continuing to criticise the specific hierarchical forms that have clearly misshaped Western attitudes towards nature and the environment.

It is thus central to my argument to establish that there is, in fact, a crucial difference that distinguishes the Buddhist conception of verticality or hierarchy from those forms of hierarchy that have dominated Western cultural history. Only once that difference is clear will I be able to argue my central thesis that we need to actively endorse this Buddhist notion of developmental verticality precisely for the sake of better environmental ethics, just as we strive to abandon the most familiar Western notions of hierarchy for the very same reason. The difference is not immediately obvious, however, and even the reader who is sufficiently sympathetic to consider that there might be a difference is no doubt wondering why I would choose, even insist, on contaminating whatever I have to say by using this dreaded 'h-word' when I could just as easily have conformed to the prevailing cultural taboo and surreptitiously slipped in some more innocuous synonym for 'hierarchy' when speaking of the vertical dimension of Buddhism. While it is true I could thereby avoid the risk of being dismissed as hopelessly atavistic even before I get to make my case for the difference, there is a reason why I have chosen not to do this, one which I hope will soon become clear.

The first task, however, is to distinguish the two fundamentally different forms of hierarchy. Thinking, for the moment, not just historically but more theoretically in terms of a Weberian 'ideal typology,' I am suggesting that there are two forms of human practice that are sufficiently related one to the other to fall under the same general designation of 'hierarchy,' even though their respective outcomes are nonetheless diametrically opposite.

THE HIERARCHY OF OPPRESSION

TO ILLUSTRATE the two types of hierarchy we can imagine each form encompassing again both a developmental and a relational dimension of human experience, each of which we can plot on an x-y graph similar to the one we considered above. It is important to note the difference in what we are graphing now however. Before, in Fig. 1, we were noting the relative emphasis given to the developmental versus the relational dimension of the Dharma in different forms of Buddhism, whereas now we shall be using the same axes to explore a rather different issue. In the next two figures we shall be plotting the relative balance between the developmental and relational dimensions of our existence in each of two different models of hierarchy. In each of these two figures, the further away from the centre point we move horizontally (in either direction) the greater is the degree of interrelatedness. And the further we move up the vertical axis, the greater the degree of developmental progress. We shall see, however, that what constitutes vertical movement differs drastically in each of the two cases, and it is that difference that makes all the difference.

The first type of hierarchy or hierarchical structure we can designate a 'hierarchy of oppression'. We can understand its distinctive mechanisms by imagining superimposed on our x-y axes a triangle or a cone rising from a wide base to a single point at the apex (see Fig. 2). Imagine now that, as we move up the vertical axis, each horizontal section of the cone corresponding to the present vertical location represents a circle of interrelatedness. By 'interrelatedness' here I mean not just any sense of relationship, but specifically an understanding of the sense in which all beings share a communality of interests. The nature of a 'hierarchy of oppression' is such that as one advances vertically, one's 'circle of interrelatedness' becomes increasingly smaller. This is so because one advances in a hierarchy of oppression by exercising one's control over and domination of all those below. And as a result of one's vertical progress, one necessarily becomes less and less aware of one's interrelatedness with them.