66th Edward H. Hume Memorial Lecture, Hierarchical Egalitarianism, Xiang Biao

The Council on East Asian Studies is pleased to present the 66th Edward H. Hume Memorial Lecture in Chinese Studies. Xiang Biao (Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany) presented "Hierarchical Egalitarianism: Social Differentiation and Totalization in China" on September 21, 2026.

Many young people in China today are highly critical of social inequality which they believe determines almost everything in their lives. At the same time they accept hierarchical systems, such as the ranking of universities, companies and regions, and strive to fight their way up within the hierarchies. This contradictory consciousness, “hierarchical egalitarianism,” reflects a paradoxical situation in contemporary Chinese development: the society becomes less equal but more homogenized, unified around a single hierarchy and a narrowing set of competitive pathways. But the contradictory consciousness itself could become an element of “non-identical” (Adorno) within the tendency of totalization, and therefore a starting point for change.