‘The Diamond Age’ (1995) by Neal Stephenson
With succession in the news it might be interesting to consider a novel which shows a world where succession is the norm.
Ostensibly a sequel to Stephenson’s ‘Snow Crash’, ‘The Diamond Age’ is really an answer to 'The Camp of the Saints’. In the near future a group calling itself New Atlantis (from the Francis Bacon novel) is one of numerous phyle, or tribes, that have formed since the demise of national governments (encryption having made taxes un-collectable).
New Atlantis had its genesis in 1992 when a Korean boy adopted by Midwestern parents contrasted L.A. rioters with his Iowa neighbors dealing with massive flooding. He rejects egalitarianism. He becomes a founder of a nanotechnology company, an endeavor suited to his methodical, stubborn nature.
He and other tech billionaires form a tribe with dress, language and morals based on the Anglosphere’s Victorian era. All members are Christian and virtually all are white (the Korean’s descendents carry only a hint of their grandfather’s ancestry, such as straight dark hair). Other tribes form around equally distinct cultures like Nippon and are considered organic. Artificial phyle formed around a political system such as Shining Path are a source of much bother. Those without phyle are thetes and suffer directionless lives.
Nell is a thete girl, mother named Tequila and father named Bud. Her brother Harv, who guttersnipes at the edge of a New Atlantan colony in China, steals a wireless electronic book created for the better sort of young person. It is a primer which will raise up a Victorian lady. The Victorians know of the theft, but as an experiment pay the expense of an actress to read all the stories in the primer, tailored to Nell’s situation and intelligence. The lessons begin with survival skills such as how to hide from her mother’s boyfriends and encouraging a diet of rice, fish and vegetables. Who knows what mischief will come from this?
This novel is called racist. Stephenson anticipated this and included many things to avoid the charge. A Korean Equity Lord. A low-rent phyle in London based on the most loutish elements of British chav and American white trash culture. Bud, Nell’s father, a white thug who preys on blacks, his brief career ended when put to death by a Chinese court. Characters who insist culture is everything while race and inherited intelligence are piffle. Lots of clever and principled non-whites, particularly Asians. (But no neo-cons. Which may explain why Samuel Goldman did not include the novel in his American Conservative article, ‘10 Sci Fi and Fantasy Works Every Conservative Should Read’, while including the inferior yet neo-Victorian-free 'Snow Crash’.)
But despite these efforts it is happily racist. Not only did New Atlantans save themselves from third world hordes, they became the dominant group and did so by radically reforming themselves. Nell observes a neo-Victorian with sword coolly dispatch a gaggle of neo-Boxers and realizes the great strength of the Atlantans was their near perfect emotional repression. They were not excited by events. They were not swayable by messianic figures. They did not have lisping fits over election results because they held no elections. They were Roman Stoics. They were the Greek Phalanx.
New Atlantis allies include Uitlanders (English-speaking South Africans) and Middle Americans (Sam Francis smiles). Together with other sensible phyle they enforce a Protocol which prevents certain elements from behaving the way certain elements tend to behave.
It might seem New Atlantis is a cross between steampunk cosplay and crunchy granola utopianism. But Atlantans aren’t attendees or exhibitors at Dragon Con in Atlanta, though the sort of people who ‘Con’ at Atlanta and elsewhere might one day be Atlantans.
Is it worth reading, at 499 pages? Yes, but mostly because it has been read by many others who may be challenged and intrigued by the questions, ‘What phyle would you choose to live in?', and 'What follows this, our corrupt Georgian Age?’
With succession in the news it might be interesting to consider a novel which shows a world where succession is the norm.
Ostensibly a sequel to Stephenson’s ‘Snow Crash’, ‘The Diamond Age’ is really an answer to 'The Camp of the Saints’. In the near future a group calling itself New Atlantis (from the Francis Bacon novel) is one of numerous phyle, or tribes, that have formed since the demise of national governments (encryption having made taxes un-collectable).
New Atlantis had its genesis in 1992 when a Korean boy adopted by Midwestern parents contrasted L.A. rioters with his Iowa neighbors dealing with massive flooding. He rejects egalitarianism. He becomes a founder of a nanotechnology company, an endeavor suited to his methodical, stubborn nature.
He and other tech billionaires form a tribe with dress, language and morals based on the Anglosphere’s Victorian era. All members are Christian and virtually all are white (the Korean’s descendents carry only a hint of their grandfather’s ancestry, such as straight dark hair). Other tribes form around equally distinct cultures like Nippon and are considered organic. Artificial phyle formed around a political system such as Shining Path are a source of much bother. Those without phyle are thetes and suffer directionless lives.
Nell is a thete girl, mother named Tequila and father named Bud. Her brother Harv, who guttersnipes at the edge of a New Atlantan colony in China, steals a wireless electronic book created for the better sort of young person. It is a primer which will raise up a Victorian lady. The Victorians know of the theft, but as an experiment pay the expense of an actress to read all the stories in the primer, tailored to Nell’s situation and intelligence. The lessons begin with survival skills such as how to hide from her mother’s boyfriends and encouraging a diet of rice, fish and vegetables. Who knows what mischief will come from this?
This novel is called racist. Stephenson anticipated this and included many things to avoid the charge. A Korean Equity Lord. A low-rent phyle in London based on the most loutish elements of British chav and American white trash culture. Bud, Nell’s father, a white thug who preys on blacks, his brief career ended when put to death by a Chinese court. Characters who insist culture is everything while race and inherited intelligence are piffle. Lots of clever and principled non-whites, particularly Asians. (But no neo-cons. Which may explain why Samuel Goldman did not include the novel in his American Conservative article, ‘10 Sci Fi and Fantasy Works Every Conservative Should Read’, while including the inferior yet neo-Victorian-free 'Snow Crash’.)
But despite these efforts it is happily racist. Not only did New Atlantans save themselves from third world hordes, they became the dominant group and did so by radically reforming themselves. Nell observes a neo-Victorian with sword coolly dispatch a gaggle of neo-Boxers and realizes the great strength of the Atlantans was their near perfect emotional repression. They were not excited by events. They were not swayable by messianic figures. They did not have lisping fits over election results because they held no elections. They were Roman Stoics. They were the Greek Phalanx.
New Atlantis allies include Uitlanders (English-speaking South Africans) and Middle Americans (Sam Francis smiles). Together with other sensible phyle they enforce a Protocol which prevents certain elements from behaving the way certain elements tend to behave.
It might seem New Atlantis is a cross between steampunk cosplay and crunchy granola utopianism. But Atlantans aren’t attendees or exhibitors at Dragon Con in Atlanta, though the sort of people who ‘Con’ at Atlanta and elsewhere might one day be Atlantans.
Is it worth reading, at 499 pages? Yes, but mostly because it has been read by many others who may be challenged and intrigued by the questions, ‘What phyle would you choose to live in?', and 'What follows this, our corrupt Georgian Age?’
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