“Chaxu geju” and the Notion of Hierarchy in Chinese Culture

A re-reading of Fei Xiaotong' s notion of “ chaxu geju” , especially its exploration on the vertical and hierarchical aspect of social structure , may help us better understand the characteristics of Chinese society and culture as well as the universal implications of indigenous social theories.In Fei' s theory , chaxu guju is a multidimensional structure , containing both the vertical and firm order of social hierarchy and the horizontal, elastic, ego-centered relational distances .Most of the existing scholarly accounts only consider the latter while overlooking the former, which leads to a serious misunderstanding of Fei' s original thought.The maintenance of chaxu geju relies on the reproduction of the social hierarchy , which has to be realized through the mechanisms of moral norms, resource allocation , punishment and rewards, and social mobility.Chaxu geju negates the universal equality of the individuals in the sense of personhood, denies the necessity of balancing rights and duties, and eventually results to the construction of a special kind of personhood in Chinese culture , coined by the author as “ chaxu renge”.

?阎云翔；

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