[ExI] Iain M Banks' Culture Novels [WAS Re: Usages of the term libertarianism]

[Richard Loosemore]

Stefano Vaj wrote:
> On 20 May 2011 18:01, Richard Loosemore <rpwl at lightlink.com> wrote:
>> I find Banks' Culture to be an excellent vision of the only stable society
>> of the future, if what we want is a future in which we don't live in log
>> cabins, spending every minute of our time collecting tolls from anyone who
>> comes within breathing distance.  Frankly, I choose starships over log
>> cabins.
> 
> Interesting.
> 
> I find the Culture an abherrant positive spin on a Brave-New-Worldish
> scenario projected on a galaxy scale...
> 
> (Controlled, enslaved) technology at the service of stagnation and
> uniformity is much more of a threat for indefinite becoming and
> diverse posthuman change than any neoluddite dreams.


This is really quite astonishing.

You have managed to see the Culture idea through your own preferred 
prism .... but your prism is so powerfully distorting that you have come 
out with conclusions that are almost the diametric opposite of (a) what 
was intended by the author, and (b) what pretty much everyone else 
thinks is an 'obvious' interpretation.

So, where others see a believable, stable, relatively pleasant future, 
you see it as:

> an abherrant positive spin

.. on something hideously bad!

And you relate it to Brave New World, a novel that was intended to be a 
dystopia -- a deliberate expression of revulsion against optimism -- and 
which is ridicuously unbelievable and abhorrent if considered as an 
analysis of the real future.  There is simply no basis for mentioning 
BNW, except to try to slur the Culture by association.

You then refer to the intelligent machines - the Minds - with the words:

> (Controlled, enslaved) technology

... which actually makes me think you may not have read the novels, 
because the Minds are *anything* but controlled and enslaved!  They keep 
each other in line, but within extremely broad limits.  In fact, I can 
hardly imagine a less controlled and enslaved technology.

And finally, as Keith pointed out, it almost beggars belief that you 
would describe the Culture as filled with "stagnation and uniformity". 
What more would you want, in the way of non-stagnation?  There is 
nothing about the idea of the Culture that enforces uniformity:  GSVs 
and Orbitals, for example, are described as having their own 
personalities which influence the kind of human cultures that accrete on 
them.

"...much more of a threat for indefinite becoming ... than any 
neoluddite dreams"??  Now, I am sorry, but that is just silly.




Richard Loosemore