CULTURE
Are Some Cultures Just Better Than Others?
The right and wrong ways to compare cultures
Neal Stephenson’s novel The Diamond Age takes place in a near future when nation-states have mostly disappeared, replaced by voluntary societies called “phyles.” Major cities like Shanghai, that once belonged to countries, are now carved up into “claves” (short for “enclaves”) belonging to the different phyles.
Some phyles are based on things like ethnicity, language or religion. There’s the Celestial Kingdom, for example, a phyle with cultural roots in Confucianism and Han ethnic identity. But phyles can also be based on ideas. That’s the case with the Neo-Victorians, who draw inspiration from 19th century British culture.
One of the Neo-Victorians’ leading lights is Equity Lord Finkle-McGraw, who at the beginning of the novel ruminates on his conviction that “while people were not genetically different, they were culturally as different as they could possibly be, and that some cultures were simply better than others.” But is that true? What assumptions about the meaning of the word “better” are built into that question?
In our world, nation-states are often comprised of many overlapping cultures. Consequently, the machinery of the state can work to subsidize or throttle different…
