1. Societies have always had their hierarchies, with some group perched at the top. 社会一直都有等级制度，有些群体居于顶端。
2. In the classic, more widely accepted alternative ultimately derived from Weberian sociology, hierarchies of causes are treated as historically specific. 在经典的、更被广泛接受的、最终源自韦伯社会学的替代理论中，原因的等级被视为历史上特定的。
3. In modern companies and democracies, power is increasingly diffused and traditional hierarchies are being undermined, making soft power ever more important. 在现代企业和民主国家，权力正日益分散，传统的等级制度正被削弱，这使得软实力变得更加重要。
4. While the need to rank historical causes in some order of importance may seem obvious to most historians, such hierarchies raise serious philosophical difficulties. 虽然对大多数历史学家来说，根据重要性对历史原因进行排序的必要性似乎是显而易见的，但这种等级制度引发了严重的哲学难题。
5. Indeed, several studies based on private-sector firms find that women' s mobility prospects improve, rather than decline, as they climb upward in corporate hierarchies. 事实上，一些基于私营企业的研究发现，随着女性在企业等级制度中的上升，女性的流动前景有所改善，而不是下降。
