“Both of these nations were born in barbarian times,” said Hikari. “Are you saying that no nation can become a Center nation now?”
“I don’t know,” said Wang-mu. “I don’t even know if my distinction between Edge nations and Center nations has any truth or value. I do know that a Center nation can keep its cultural power long after it has lost political control. Mesopotamia was continually conquered by its neighbors, and yet each conqueror in turn was more changed by Mesopotamia than Mesopotamia was changed. The kings of Assyria and Chaldea and Persia were almost indistinguishable after they had once tasted the culture of the land between the rivers. But a Center nation can also fall so completely that it disappears. Egypt staggered under the cultural blow of Hellenism, fell to its knees under the ideology of Christianity, and finally was erased by Islam. Only the stone buildings reminded the children of what and who their ancient parents had been. History has no laws, and all patterns that we find there are useful illusions.”
“I see you are a philosopher,” said Hikari.
“You are generous to call my childish speculations by that lofty name,” said Wang-mu. “But let me tell you now what I think about Edge nations. They are born in the shadow — or perhaps one could say, in the reflected light — of other nations. As Japan became civilized under the influence of China. As Rome discovered itself in the shadow of the Greeks.”
“The Etruscans first,” said Peter helpfully.
Hikari looked at him blandly, then turned back to Wang-mu without comment. Wang-mu could almost feel Peter wither at having been thus deemed irrelevant. She felt a little sorry for him. Not a lot, just a little.
“Center nations are so confident of themselves that they generally don’t need to embark on wars of conquest. They are already sure they are the superior people and that all other nations wish to be like them and obey them. But Edge nations, when they first feel their strength, must prove themselves, they think, and almost always they do so with the sword. Thus the Arabs broke the back of the Roman Empire and swallowed up Persia. Thus the Macedonians, on the edge of Greece, conquered Greece; and then, having been so culturally swallowed up that they now thought themselves Greek, they conquered the empire on whose edge the Greeks had become civilized — Persia. The Vikings had to harrow Europe before peeling off kingdoms in Naples, Sicily, Normandy, Ireland, and finally England. And Japan –”
“We tried to stay on our islands,” said Hikari softly.
“Japan, when it erupted, rampaged through the Pacific, trying to conquer the great Center nation of China, and was finally stopped by the bombs of the new Center nation of America.”
“I would have thought,” said Hikari, “that America was the ultimate Edge nation.”
“America was settled by Edge peoples, but the idea of America became the new invigorating principle that made it a Center nation. They were so arrogant that, except for subduing their own hinterland, they had no will to empire. They simply assumed that all nations wanted to be like them. They swallowed up all other cultures. Even on Divine Wind, what is the language of the schools? It was not England that imposed this language, Stark, Starways Common Speech, on us all.”
“It was only by accident that America was technologically ascendant at the moment the Hive Queen came and forced us out among the stars.”
“The idea of America became the Center idea, I think,” said Wang-mu. “Every nation from then on had to have the forms of democracy. We are governed by the Starways Congress even now. We all live within the American culture whether we like it or not. So what I wonder is this: Now that Japan has taken control of this Center nation, will Japan be swallowed up, as the Mongols were swallowed up by China? Or will the Japanese culture retain its identity, but eventually decay and lose control, as the Edge-nation Turks lost control of Islam and the Edge-nation Manchu lost control of China?”
Hikari was upset. Angry? Puzzled? Wang-mu had no way of guessing.