Center and Edge--

This is just a response to the last couple posts about oral knowledge. As I've been commenting on everybody's posts I realized I was writing the same things as I have a couple times before ("it's interesting that cultures rise and fade, why do they do this?" sort of thing), then realized why I was on that one-track train.  As I've read these posts, I can't help but think back to Orson Scott Card's Children of the Mind. In the afterward of the story, he comments on an idea sparked by a Japanese writer, Kenzaburo Oe: some nations are at the center of the world, while most fall into the hole of being an edge nation.

The concept of center and edge nations is, at its base, not that complex of a concept. If you think back through history, there are numerous examples of both sides of this coin. The Mongols had the initiative to take over China, then be swallowed up; the Turks pushed and destroyed the last of the Romans but were pushed again to the edge of European culture. On the other hand, you have nations like Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China. (Before Islam came around) Each proved time and time again that no matter the conqueror (especially Mesopotamia: think Babylon, Persia, Assyria at the least), they swallowed up those who took them over.

What makes a nation center or edge? I think Orson Scott Card puts this better than I do, so I'll just block quote his commentary here:

Center People are not afraid of losing their identity. They take it for granted that all people want to be like them, that they are the highest civilization and all else is poor imitation or transient mistakes. The arrogance, oddly enough, leads to a simple humility - they do not strut or brag or throw their weight around because they have no need to prove their superiority. They transform only gradually, and only by pretending that they are not changing at all.

Edge People, on the other hand, know they are not the highest civilization. Sometimes they raid and steal and stay to rule - Vikings, Mongols, Turks, Arabs - and sometimes they go through radical transformations in order to compete - Greeks, Romans, Japanese - and sometimes they simply remain shamed backwaters. But when they are on the rise, they are insufferable because they are unsure of their worth and must therefore brag and show off and prove themselves again and again - until at last they feel themselves to be a Center People. Unfortunately, that very complacency destroys them, because they are not Center People and feeling doesn't make it so. Triumphant Edge People don't endure, like Egypt or China, they fade, as the Arabs did, and the Turks, and the Vikings, and the Mongols after their victories.

 He goes on to talk about how America became a center out of a lot of edge peoples, but the main points are in the above paragraph. How does this relate then to the transfer of knowledge, especially orally? In Amanda's comment on Kody's post here, she comments about how much more difficult it is to pass down an oral tradition. Because of the lasting culture that is left by center people on the world, oral knowledge through these hard-set, strong foundation cultures is much more accessible and easier to come by. The fading of cultures seems to coincide almost exactly with the ideas expressed in the comments on Kody's post. Oral knowledge (knowledge in general, but oral knowledge especially) seems to follow paths away from the edge towards the "center" of the world.

I'll try and relate this to my civ, the Celts, to give a better understanding of what I mean, especially in regards to oral systems. The Celts lived on the England mainland for the time they existed. Just the name of the island should end up giving away what kind of culture the Celts had brought up: an edge. First, you can see the connections between the Celts and the Vikings; military-based cultures that pretty much focused on nothing save battle. Second, the Celtic language, when enveloped by Latin, ended up losing its speakers to the Latin-based English language. The edge culture of the Celts ended up moving towards the center oral culture of the time, which were the Romans. Almost immediately after the first Roman invasion, archaeological evidence shows the Celts trading with the Romans and using their currency. Today, the Celtic language population has dwindled to a very small number. Some claim it was a language "murder" because the people just did not care about the Celtic language.

EDIT 10/7: This didn't get that much feedback so I've bumped it up and beefed it up a little.