Diamond Age or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

When Nell and Fiona showed up at seven o'clock the next Saturday morning, they were astonished to find Miss Matheson waiting for them at the front of the classroom, sitting in her wood-and– wicker wheelchair, wrapped up in a thermogenic comforter.

The stacks of books, paper, and fountain pens were not there, and their names had been removed from the plaque at the front of the room. "It's a lovely spring day," Miss Matheson said. "Let's gather some foxgloves."

They went across the playing fields to the meadow where the wildflowers grew, the two girls walking and Miss Matheson's wheelchair carrying her along on its many-spoked smart wheels.

"Chiselled Spam," Miss Matheson said, sort of mumbling it to herself.

"Pardon me, Miss Matheson?" Nell said.

"I was just watching the smart wheels and remembering an advertisement from my youth," Miss Matheson said. "I used to be a thrasher, you know. I used to ride skateboards through the streets. Now I'm still on wheels, but a different kind. Got a few too many bumps and bruises during my earlier career, I'm afraid."

. . .

"It's a wonderful thing to be clever, and you should never think otherwise, and you should never stop being that way. But what you learn, as you get older, is that there are a few billion other people in the world all trying to be clever at the same time, and whatever you do with your life will certainly be lost-swallowed up in the ocean-unless you are doing it along with like-minded people who will remember your contributions and carry them forward. That is why the world is divided into tribes. There are many Lesser phyles and three Great ones. "What are the Great ones?"

"New Atlantis," Nell began.

"Nippon," said Fiona.

"Han," they concluded together.

"That is correct," Miss Matheson said. "We traditionally include Han in the list because of its immense size and age-even though it has lately been crippled by intestine discord. And some would include Hindustan, while others would view it as a riotously diverse collection of microtribes sintered together according to some formula we don't get.

"Now, there was a time when we believed that what a human mind could accomplish was determined by genetic factors. Piffle, of course, but it looked convincing for many years, because distinctions between tribes were so evident. Now we understand that it's all cultural. That, after all, is what a culture is-a group of people who share in common certain acquired traits.

"Information technology has freed cultures from the necessity of owning particular bits of land in order to propagate; now we can live anywhere. The Common Economic Protocol specifies how this is to be arranged.

"Some cultures are prosperous; some are not. Some value rational discourse and the scientific method; some do not. Some encourage freedom of expression, and some discourage it. The only thing they have in common is that if they do not propagate, they will be swallowed up by others. All they have built up will be torn down; all they have accomplished will be forgotten; all they have learned and written will be scattered to the wind. In the old days it was easy to remember this because of the constant necessity of border defence. Nowadays, it is all too easily forgotten.

"New Atlantis, like many tribes, propagates itself largely through education. That is the raison d'être of this Academy. Here you develop your bodies through exercise and dance, and your minds by doing projects. And then you go to Miss Stricken's class.

"What is the point of Miss Stricken's class? Anyone? Please speak up. You can't get in trouble, no matter what you say."

Nell said, after some dithering, "I'm not sure that it has any point." Fiona just watched her saying it and smiled sadly.

Miss Matheson smiled. "You are not far off the mark. Miss Stricken's phase of the curriculum comes perilously close to being without any real substance. Why do we bother with it, then?"

"I can't imagine," Nell said.

"When I was a child, I took a karate class," Miss Matheson said, astonishingly. "Dropped out after a few weeks. Couldn't stand it. I thought that the sensei would teach me how to defend myself when I was out on my skateboard. But the first thing he did was have me sweep the floor. Then he told me that if I wanted to defend myself, I should buy a gun. I came back the next week and he had me sweep the floor again. All I ever did was sweep. Now, what was the point of that?"

"To teach you humility and self-discipline," Nell said. She had learned this from Dojo long ago.

"Precisely. Which are moral qualities. It is upon moral qualities that a society is ultimately founded. All the prosperity and technological sophistication in the world is of no use without that foundation-we learned this in the late twentieth century, when it became unfashionable to teach these things."

"But how can you say it's moral?" said Fiona. "Miss Stricken isn't moral. She's so cruel."