It seems like everyone is saying that the root cause is economic scarcity, but the Cultural Revolution's destruction of pluralistic status hierarchies deserves a large part of the blame.
Before the rev, your social standing in China could be judged by dimensionS (plural emphasized): lineage, academics, religion, business reputation, regional identity...
The Cultural Revolution tore each of those dimensions down, by design, for teh purpose of creating a new single dimension (politically sanctified identity).
The main issue with doing this to a Chinese culture, specifically, is that now the concept of face - already extremely important culturally - becomes basically everything. Every social interaction becomes zero-sum because there's only one thing to compete over.
In a pluralistic status culture, you can lose face in one domain and maintain it in another.
The Cultural Revolution removed that defensive buffer.
IN the past couple decades, China has added a second dimension, wealth. But it's hardly a real axis due to wealth being easily achievable through party alignment. In other words, the two dimensions are entangled. I doubt a principle component analysis would find them to be separate domains.
In any case, the younger Chinese generation who has access to global online subcultures, international credentials, professional specialization, etc., is recovering the pluralistic status axes. So... well, I could write my predictions, but that wasn't the point of my comment, so I'll end it here.
My prediction is that the pluralistic axes will come back to China, but they will be superficial and strictly controlled. The recovering axes will be aesthetic and consumptive such as fandoms, hobby subcultures, fitness, foreign credentials... They will give young people somewhere to hold face when the main ladder rejects them.
Notably, these axes will be different from the pre-1949 ones: lineage, religion, and reputation came from institutions that were alternative sources of authority. The 2021 crackdowns on fan clubs and gaming showed the state will regulate any subculture that starts organizing people outside the approved channels. So I expect a split: people with exit options (e.g., overseas degrees, foreign income, portable skills) get a real pluralistic status life, while everyone else stays on the single entangled axis, where competition likely intensifies as the pool narrows to those who cannot leave.
As this progresses, we basically just watch to see if any new axis produces its own gatekeepers not credentialed by the state. I'm guessing every one instead gets an official association within a few years of reaching noticable scale.
clove · · focus · HN ↗
Before the rev, your social standing in China could be judged by dimensionS (plural emphasized): lineage, academics, religion, business reputation, regional identity...
The Cultural Revolution tore each of those dimensions down, by design, for teh purpose of creating a new single dimension (politically sanctified identity).
The main issue with doing this to a Chinese culture, specifically, is that now the concept of face - already extremely important culturally - becomes basically everything. Every social interaction becomes zero-sum because there's only one thing to compete over.
In a pluralistic status culture, you can lose face in one domain and maintain it in another.
The Cultural Revolution removed that defensive buffer.
IN the past couple decades, China has added a second dimension, wealth. But it's hardly a real axis due to wealth being easily achievable through party alignment. In other words, the two dimensions are entangled. I doubt a principle component analysis would find them to be separate domains.
In any case, the younger Chinese generation who has access to global online subcultures, international credentials, professional specialization, etc., is recovering the pluralistic status axes. So... well, I could write my predictions, but that wasn't the point of my comment, so I'll end it here.
ksymph · · focus · HN ↗
clove · · focus · HN ↗
My prediction is that the pluralistic axes will come back to China, but they will be superficial and strictly controlled. The recovering axes will be aesthetic and consumptive such as fandoms, hobby subcultures, fitness, foreign credentials... They will give young people somewhere to hold face when the main ladder rejects them.
Notably, these axes will be different from the pre-1949 ones: lineage, religion, and reputation came from institutions that were alternative sources of authority. The 2021 crackdowns on fan clubs and gaming showed the state will regulate any subculture that starts organizing people outside the approved channels. So I expect a split: people with exit options (e.g., overseas degrees, foreign income, portable skills) get a real pluralistic status life, while everyone else stays on the single entangled axis, where competition likely intensifies as the pool narrows to those who cannot leave.
As this progresses, we basically just watch to see if any new axis produces its own gatekeepers not credentialed by the state. I'm guessing every one instead gets an official association within a few years of reaching noticable scale.