LIGHTNOVELONLINE 196 Nationalism
Diana found herself embroiled in an impossible struggle, one she knew she would never be able to put to rest yet could not afford to lose. It promised to take her through libraries of information, researching countless documents, theories, ledgers, studies, and laws. Some of them were relevant to the task, others not, all necessary to make sure she wasn't missing anything.
"Arc, can you pull up a document pertaining to the culture and religion of India before the 21st century? Preferably an analysis done after their independence?"
"Certainly. What is it you wish to look for?"
"Reaction to modernization and population increase. Their population almost tripled from 350 million in 1950 to just over a billion in 2000. I would like to know how they adapted to such a drastic change in population as well as how they managed to maintain social cohesion in spite of that. Remember what we intend to create?"
"An Absolute Trust Society."
This was the impossible task Diana had challenged herself. Up to this point, a society which could be described as having 'absolute trust' had never existed, and Diana fully understood it was an impossibility in the present. An Absolute Trust Society could only ever exist in the theoretical.
Trust is one a few ways to define the interactions between individuals in a society, often described as having levels.
'High Trust' indicates that the people are far more likely to have faith in their neighbors to uphold the rules, that they can be trusted, which usually extends to the government and any social institutions. Crime and corruption tend to be low, and there is a high level of social cohesion. These could be virtuous, Arc noting Japan, a constitutional monarchy, and South Korea, a constitutional republic, to be high trust with regards to kin and government with India being high trust with regards to kin and strangers.
'Low Trust' is generally considered the opposite of 'High Trust', faith in others usually only being granted to kin and close friends with the government being distrusted immensely. Crime and corruption is high most of the time, and social cohesion breaks down beyond the local level. Russia, both in it's soviet and federation forms, was a country Arc mentioned, though it also stated that late 20th - early 21st century Greece fell into that category.
'Medium Trust' indicates that a society has mixed feelings about their neighbors and government, trusting them on some matters but wary on others. The United States of America and the Republic of France seemed to fall into this category for most of their histories. With origins in revolution against an oppressive or otherwise tyrannical government, a healthy level of distrust found root in their national cultures.
'No Trust' is something usually only found in anarchic states, and are incredibly rare. In truth it is something of an absurdity, as societies are built upon at least some level of trust. If one cannot trust any other, then what you have is not a society by any stretch of the imagination.
So what does that make an 'Absolute Trust' society aside from impossible? For one, it would mean that the word and instruction of the state would be followed without question. Edicts, decrees, suggestions, public addresses, the general populace would believe those words without question. It would also mean that crime is nonexistent outside of genuine accidents, and that corruption would not be an issue.
An Absolute Trust Society can also be called a social utopia, a society so perfect it does not require oversight, and it is for that reason that it exists in the realm of fantasy.
"From what I've been reading, India was a country I consider closer to what we are trying to build. It isn't perfect, its still very different from what the final product will be, but it should give us an idea of what we need."
Diana had a few conditions that needed to be satisfied aside from achieving the trust, it wasn't even the most important part. Terran safety and longevity needed to be guaranteed no matter what. If this meant they needed to be absolutists and trust could not be established, so be it. Diana did not think it would come to that, but she had to be open to it. The military was also going to have to be a core component of the state, at least for the earliest years, because it promised to be their most reliable method of expansion. Much the same, industry would have to be integrated into the system. Arc's assured control over all things 'intelligent' would be a valuable source of control over the populace.
Those things could be planned for later though. Once she and Arc had come up with a sufficient plan to govern and integrate foreign populaces in a way that built a high level of trust they could do whatever they needed. Most of the work had already been done for them on that front. All manner military and industrial integration methods had been thought up or developed from previously existing structures back on Earth by people far more specialized in the job than Diana, they were simply limited by the lack of information on how life would continue.
Who would have guessed that they would be put in a position to rule over another race?
"Can you set a note for me? I want to look more into the syncretism between Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism at some point in the future. It seems important."
"Would you like me to add examples of other occurrences of syncretism from other religions or ideologies? Perhaps the different schools of Christianity?"
"Put a note to remind me about it then, but for now I want to focus on India."
"Very well."
There are a few key factors that could lead to a society becoming 'High Trust'. Some of them are not particularly relevant to what Diana was trying to do. Trustworthy leadership and a sufficiently prosperous economy were non-issues for Diana. She and Donovan both understood that their interests lay in the interests of the people. Lying would accomplish nothing, anything the populace didn't need to know could simply be left unsaid until pressed on the matter. If they didn't like it, oh well, Absolute Trust was impossible in the first place. The same sort of went for the economy. Simply put, nobody will be able to compete for a very long time. If their citizens became discontent with the best, then nothing would really be able to satisfy them.
Diana was far more concerned with the other factors, factors that could very quickly spiral out of her control if not closely watched.
HOMOGENEITY
That was the big word that dominated her every thought. The biggest through line that high trust societies had was homogeneity. Religion, race, culture, ideology or whatever else a person believed was vital to increasing trust. Apparently it was pretty simple on a psychological level. You are more likely to trust someone who looks, talks, acts and speaks like you, even more so if they also believe the same things you do. On the whole people tend to trust themselves, so they are more likely to trust those who they deem close to themselves.
There are always exceptions, but for the most part being homogenous was better.
The problem presented here was expansion. It shouldn't have been surprising for her, but conquest carried consequences. The conquered had this annoying tendency to be different than the conqueror, a tendency which would undoubtedly be exaggerated by the fact they now live on different planets. These people needed to be integrated, assimilated, into whatever culture Diana attempted to engineer. Now they didn't need to be completely integrated, doing away with important cultural customs promised rebellion, but they needed integration to the point where they were not that much different than the whole.
How did Diana plan to do this? The short answer was that she didn't. This process was not something she could control. Instead she needed to create or engineer a set of cultural drivers so intense, so influential, and so integral to operating within their nation that they would be submitted to one way or another. A national identity. She needed to make it so that when someone asked 'What does it mean to be (insert plural of nation's citizen here)?' the answer would always be one accepted by those who considered themselves (insert plural of nation's citizen here).
Diana needed to breed nationalism.
"India was primarily jungle during this period of time, right?"
"A common misconception given media's depiction of the region, but fairly large portions of land are desert plains, floodplains, temperate woodlands, and a large strip of land to the north that was mountainous."
"I see."
This was going to be difficult. A national identity cannot be created artificially, but it wasn't going to be quite as hard as she initially led herself to believe. The building of a national identity took time, but more importantly it took lives. A consistent factor was war, battles, victory and defeats. These swathes of national sorrow and triumph galvanized the nation, tempering it as the people struggled together and unified to fight a common enemy. Two different peoples would eventually see each other as the same when enough of their children had won battles by each other's side or died together in a ditch.
She believed it to be strange. The best way to unify a people was to use somebody else.
"Did America have any influence during this time period?"
"Given the events of the 20th century and the United States' general tendency towards isolation before then, any influence they might have exerted before the end of the second world war was minimal."
"I meant the new world as a whole."
"The answer holds for all of North and South America."
From her research, she had found no better nation at forming a national identity than the United States of America. How many events had they experienced that were foundational to being 'american'? Many of them seemed to happen before secession was even a thought in their minds. Thanksgiving? The City upon a Hill? How about the lead up to their revolution? The Boston Tea Party? 'Taxation without Representation'? The revolution itself?
Documents, words and phrases all found themselves at the forefront of the American's identity long after their writing. The Declaration of Independence, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal-'. 'Liberty'. 'Justice'. The Constitution, 'We the People'. The rights enshrined within, freedom of speech, religion, expression, to bear arms, privacy, swift trial by a jury of peers.
What of their martyrs? Their founding fathers? "Give me liberty or give me death."
From the nation's they had the beginnings of a national identity, or perhaps it was their national identity forming that influenced them to create a nation, however it was only a mold. A mold that needed to be filled with the blood of martyrs. In that regard, Diana thought that maybe only the French and Russians could rival them.
The Revolution, the war of 1812, the struggle against the Native Americans during the quest to Manifest Destiny, the Mexican-American war, the Civil War, the Spanish-American war, the First World War. All of these were important but they did not fill the mold, Diana only thought them to be the tinder. Diana believed that the United States truly became that 'one nation under God' enshrined in their Constitution on December 7th, 1941.
Diana knew nothing of war, but she believed that most free nations at that time would have been greatly demoralized by the attack on Pearl Harbor. Even if they did not surrender, the lack of preparedness for an invasion would likely have given other democratic nations and nationalities pause. France and Britain experienced it at the hands of the Nazis, even if they didn't surrender they failed to take the initiative in defense of Czechoslovakia and Poland. US forces may have been forced to retreat, but they did not do so without fighting back.
That was what Diana wanted. She wanted an event that unified the people to such a degree so as to make them zealous defenders of 'home'. She wanted multiple events like that. She wanted a Pearl Harbor. She wanted a Bataan. She wanted a D-day. She wanted a Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She wanted a great nemesis to surrender unconditionally to them. She wanted a Saigon, a Cuban Missile Crisis, a JFK, a moon landing, an Apollo 13, a Desert Storm, a 9/11.
Tragedy and triumph formed a unified nation, a unified people, a unified culture, and right now there was already one in the works.
What else could the situation of the Nekh be but a tragedy? What else could the evacuation of the Nekh be but a triumph?
She would find a way to use this to her benefit. Diana swore to herself that she would unify the Nekh in the wake of this tragedy. She would bestow unto them utopia, the ultimate triumph over their ultimate tragedy, in order to unify them and secure their loyalty for generations to come. Survival, both for her and the Nekh, depended upon it.
"Are you thinking?"
"Hm?"
"You stopped turning the page. I assumed that you were thinking."
"Ah, no. I was daydreaming. Sorry."
"Diana, please take a break for now. It is clear to me that you are becoming mentally fatigued."
"It's nothing Arc. I was just daydreaming about the future."
"Go eat lunch. I will compile some relevant data for you in the mean time."
"I'm fine Arc."
"It is currently three hours past your normal lunch time. Please take a break."
"Is it?" Diana swiped down on the tablet. It was almost 4:30. "What!?"
- - - - -
Arc did not pay any mind to Diana's panic. She may be behind on her lunch schedule, but she would be fine. She had not moved around today, so she probably wasn't even hungry enough to notice. Arc was much more concerned with what Diana had been focused on.
Religion and culture were not things she could easily play with, not when the cultures involved had ages countable by the millennia. It was not enough for these to be 'syncretic'.
It would be fine for certain specific aspects to be absorbed into the general, but it would not do for there to be different cultures. Arc needed their subjects to have a monoculture of sorts. More than that, they needed to have a system of beliefs that oriented itself around the two of them.
Arc had recognized that Donovan and Diana did not understand exactly what immortality entailed. It was going to have to take certain mattes into its own hands, and it believed it had a path that did not contradict Diana's wishes, a form of indoctrination. There were problems involved with it, but they were not nearly as annoying as issues associated with other paths.
Arc was planning to set up Terrans, Donovan and Diana specifically, as idols. Not like pop stars (though it believed Diana could assume that role if ever she got bored with governance), but like gods. Arc wanted to make them the subject of worship and reverence.
It had the tools, it had the prime situation, and it had the knowledge. All it needed now was permission. Donovan would probably be the easier one to convince.
