Aging & Wisdom Quote by Iris Chang

The dry little “Of course” does a lot of work here: Chang is preempting American innocence before it can even take the stage. She’s writing against a reflexive national myth that treats class as an Old World disease, something Europe “had” while the United States supposedly offered fresh air and meritocracy. By framing the U.S. as “a very young country,” she nods to that self-image, then punctures it in the same breath. Youth didn’t erase hierarchy; it just altered the timeline.

Her phrasing is careful, almost surgical. “They weren’t as pronounced” grants the listener a comforting half-truth, the kind people use to keep believing the ladder is open to anyone with grit. Then comes the pivot: “but they quickly evolved as well.” The verb “evolved” is sly, because it implies inevitability rather than conspiracy. Class isn’t presented as a single villain or policy choice; it’s a system that emerges, adapts, and hardens as wealth accumulates, institutions stabilize, and social sorting finds new justifications.

Context matters because Chang’s work often circles the gap between American ideals and American behavior, especially when the nation is describing itself to itself. This line reads like a historian’s insistence on comparative honesty: yes, the U.S. didn’t inherit aristocratic titles, but it produced its own stratifications fast, in forms that could hide behind the language of opportunity. The subtext is warning and diagnosis at once: a country can be new and still replicate the oldest patterns on earth.