[csneeky]

Yes, as far as life is concerned I do.

Everything we or other life forms do comes from an attempt to make an improvement. Be it selfish or altruistic, it is always to alter some state of the world for a perceived benefit.

But our competence varies. So we all fall on some spectrum of competence in any given endeavor no matter how small. From this variation and rank we can derive hierarchy.

This transcends all species and their traits.

[metaphorm]

there is such a thing as variation, and there is such a thing as varying degrees of fitness for some particular configuration [of whatever] in some particular environment [wherever and whenever]. that does not automatically imply hierarchy. that is an intellectual construct of your own mind. Hierarchy is a human social structure that you map onto all of nature at your own peril.