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The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks Alan Jacobs

CNN: Would you like to live in the For purposes of comparison, it might Culture? be noted that the main page on Iain M. Banks: Good grief yes, heck, Jane Austen is a little shorter and yeah, oh it’s my secular heaven....Yes, with fewer links to other Austen- I would, absolutely. Again it comes related pages. Yet there are certainly down to wish fulfillment. I haven’t far fewer readers of Iain M. Banks done a study and taken lots of replies than of Jane Austen. How are we to across a cross-section of humanity to account for this discrepancy? find out what would be their personal We had best begin by doing a utopia. It’s mine, I thought of it, and better job of identifying Iain M. I’m going home with it—absolutely, Banks. This is one of the two names it’s great. under which the fifty-five-year-old Scotsman writes, the other being Iain he Wikipedia pages devoted Banks. A subtle difference to be sure, to , a fictional but one which the author maintains Tcivilization created by the consistently: approximately half of Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, are his twenty-plus are science fabulously extensive. The main arti- fiction, and these are published with cle is about nine thousand words the middle initial; the other half long, and contains links to more are, roughly speaking, realistic nov- than thirty other pages that provide els in contemporary settings, dotted more detail on the various aspects of with various proportions of horror, Banks’s imaginary world. (I would humor, and satire, and these are not be at all surprised if Banks him- published uninitialized. He has also self, in the writing of Culture nov- written, lyrically, about whiskey in els, consulted Wikipedia to ensure : In Search of the Perfect consistency with his previous work.) Dram (2003).

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. Alan Jacobs

Among his nov- found a way to opt out of the physical els, seven (plus a handful of short universe altogether: these are called stories) deal with the Culture. The the Sublimed.) The Culture is just Culture itself is not strictly speak- one among these many civilizations. ing a world but rather a civilization The detail with which Banks has within an imagined universe. Banks imagined these societies—seeing envisions a number of civilizations in them as different paths by which our galaxy having the technological evolution might produce highly intel- sophistication to cross vast tracts of ligent life—and the care with which space for purposes of colonization, he has thought through their pos- exploitation, war—the usual imperi- sible relations with the Culture help al activities—though some are insu- to build the reader’s sense of a sub- lar and xenophobic and resist contact stantial fictional world. But most with other peoples. (Some have even of Banks’s world-building energies

THE CULTURE Iain M. Banks has written six novels explicitly about the Culture, as well as one that may involve the Culture. In addition, a book of his short stories includes a handful about the Culture, plus an essay called “A Few Notes on the Culture.” The editions listed below are the paperbacks most readily available in the United States; in the United Kingdom, the entire series is available from Orbit.

Novels About the Culture: (1987) (1996) Orbit ~ 514 pp. ~ $12.99 Spectra ~ 512 pp. ~ $7.99

The Player of Games (1988) Look to Windward (2000) Orbit ~ 391 pp. ~ $12.99 Out of print in the U.S.

Use of Weapons (1990) (2008) Orbit ~ 512 pp. ~ $12.99 Orbit ~ 624 pp. ~ $14.99

Possibly About the Culture: Short Stories: (1998) (2001) Pocket ~ 415 pp. ~ $22.95 Night Shade ~ 188 pp. ~ $14.95

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks have gone into designing the Culture the Culture, its great AIs: their outra- itself: its wildly varying geographies, geous names, their dangerous senses of its language, its social order, its bio- humor. Is this what gods would actu- technologically enhanced citizens. ally be like? The intricacy of these designs is what Banks: If we’re lucky. furnishes all those Wikipedia pages. inds are artificial intelligences World-building writers do what of almost infinite scope and they do in part from sheer love of M power, and they govern the worlds in invention. But it is in the nature of which inhabitants of the Culture live. world-builders to be philosophers A few of these worlds are planets, but as well. That is, the best of what far more often Culture citizens live Tolkien called “secondary worlds” on Orbitals—vast rings, each “like a are extended commentaries on and god’s bracelet,” that orbit stars and critiques of this world: they are mir- rotate in order to produce appropri- rors cunningly placed so we can see ate gravity—and on great interstel- the back of our universe—aspects lar ships. (Tens of millions of people of our being that are normally hid- may live on a ship; tens of billions den from us. Every major secondary on an Orbital.) The Mind of the ship world is to some degree polemical, or Orbital controls its every func- ideological. tion and monitors every inhabitant The philosophy of Banks’s Culture to ensure contentment. The Minds is that of Liberalism—Liberalism are fully sentient and have their own writ not just large but as large as personalities; they manifest them- possible. The Culture is, as one selves to Culture citizens through commentator has written, a “liberal android avatars and through “termi- Utopia”; but like all Utopias, it con- nals”: everyone has a terminal at all tains its dark places and puzzles, and times, which he or she can use to ask perhaps even the seeds of its own questions, place orders, give infor- critique. However, it is impossible mation, relay messages, and so on. to understand either the Culture’s Citizens can tell the Minds to leave philosophy or its limitations without them alone, to cease monitoring their first understanding the technology conversations, and it appears that the that makes the Culture possible: the Minds do so, at least temporarily; technology of the Minds. there are no HAL 9000s in Banks’s fictional world—no Mind ever harms Science Fiction Weekly: Excession a person, though in one strange is particularly popular [among your case in Look to Windward (2000), a novels] because of its copious detail Mind decides to destroy itself. But it concerning the Ships and Minds of only does so after ensuring that the

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. Alan Jacobs

Orbital it governs is taken care of by Suppose you murder someone, its chosen successor. Gurgeh continues: you will then be It is through the work of the Minds— “slap-droned,” which means that a in their overwhelming resourceful- drone—a small sentient robot, con- ness and, perhaps, wisdom—that the nected to the Mind—“follows you Culture possesses its most interesting around and makes sure you never feature: it is what Banks has called do it again.” And since the drone’s a “post-scarcity” society, in which constant presence reminds people everyone has everything he or she of what you’ve done, you “don’t get wants. A Culture citizen can live in invited to too many parties,” which any environment, under any climate, means “social death.” In the Culture in any kind of dwelling, and can wear “social death” is the death that really any kind of clothes and own any counts, since people otherwise tend imaginable objects. Sexual prowess to live as long as they want to. and pleasure are ensured by genetic Banks acknowledges that—among modification and precisely infused people, drones, and even Minds— drugs: glands secrete at the citizens’ there will occasionally be resistance commands to produce whatever mood to the Culture’s way of doing things, or energy is needed. The Culture but he emphasizes that these cases has no laws, and nothing that we will be extremely rare. The Culture would call a government. All power offers every possible distraction to remains in the hands of the omnipo- the troubled mind, and of course tent and omnibenevolent Minds. As everyone’s glands secrete the proper Banks himself has written, “Briefly, mood at will. It’s difficult under such nothing and nobody in the Culture is circumstances for rage and resent- exploited.” ment to become habitual. In The Player of Games (1988), Perhaps more important even an outsider to the Culture named than these forces is the power of Hamin wonders, “Didn’t the Culture Marain. Marain is the language of forbid anything?” the Culture, a synthetic language invented by Minds to shape the con- Gurgeh [the novel’s protagonist] sciousness of its users in appropri- attempted to explain there were no ate ways. In The Player of Games a written laws, but almost no crime drone notices significant changes in anyway. There was the occasional crime of passion (as Hamin chose Gurgeh’s personality when, instead to call it), but little else. It was dif- of speaking Marain, he spends almost ficult to get away with anything all his time speaking the language anyway, when everybody had a of a less sophisticated and morally terminal, but there were very few upright people, the Azad. A little motives left, too. later in the book Gurgeh realizes

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks that he is playing the favored game the names so frivolous? There’s some- of that people, also called Azad—an thing of the iron-fist-in-the-velvet- almost unimaginably complex game glove about many of them. The Minds of quasi-militaristic strategy, sort of may be perfectly benevolent to the like Risk in several dimensions—“as Culture’s citizens. But not everyone the Culture,” that is, by setting up his in the galaxy belongs to the Culture. game board according to a model of And that’s where Contact comes in. non-hierarchical and highly distrib- uted authority. But he begins to play I’m not convinced that humanity this way only after he spends some is capable of becoming the Culture time speaking Marain. (Banks has because I think people in the Culture worked out some of the key features are just too nice—altering their genet- of Marain, especially its orthography, ic inheritance to make themselves rela- which gives people who like making tively sane and rational and not the Wikipedia pages still more to do.) genocidal, murdering bastards that we Language, entertainment, hor- seem to be half the time. mones—all of these resources are —Banks to Wired magazine (1996) overseen by the Minds, who in gen- eral take an ironic attitude towards ontact is the organization with- their own outrageous power. We Cin the Culture that deals with see this especially in one of the everything and everyone that is not most treasured features of Banks’s the Culture. There is a famous short universe, the self-naming of the story by Ursula K. Le Guin called Minds that control ships—that, in a “The Ones Who Walk Away from sense, are the ships. Every reader of Omelas” in which she imagines a Banks will have favorite ship names; perfect society whose perfection is here are some of mine: Prosthetic contingent upon the suffering of a Conscience; No More Mister Nice Guy; single child locked in a closet and So Much for Subtlety; Of Course I Still deprived of every comfort. Contact— Love You; Attitude Adjuster; Lightly more specifically, the wing of Contact Seared on the Reality Grill; I Blame the called Special Circumstances—is Parents; You’ll Clean That Up Before Banks’s version of that closet. You Leave; Experiencing a Significant (Though Le Guin had forgotten Gravitas Shortfall. it when she wrote her story, there The last is one of a series, apparent- is an anticipation of her conceit in ly developed in response to the com- Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, ment by some figure from another when Ivan asks his brother Alyosha civilization that the Minds, given their whether he would accept a world that vast responsibilities, shouldn’t be so is perfectly harmonious except for frivolous in their self-naming. But are the sufferings of one innocent child.

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. Alan Jacobs

One might also cite in this context a equivalent of black holes, where bitter ongoing joke in Balzac’s Père the normal laws—the rules of Goriot: early in the novel the young right and wrong that people imag- social climber Eugène de Rastignac ine apply everywhere else in the is asked—quite hypothetically— universe—break down; beyond those metaphysical event horizons, whether he would cause an elderly there exist...special circumstanc- “Chinese Mandarin” to die if by that es.” She smiled. “That’s us. That’s death he could purchase social success. our territory; our domain.” Then, periodically and as his fortunes wax and wane, Eugène assesses the “To some people,” he said, “that health of his imaginary Mandarin. might sound like just a good At times the poor fellow seems to be excuse for bad behavior.” very near his last breath.) Sma shrugged. “And perhaps they Consider this conversation from would be right. Maybe that is all (1990) between Diziet it is....But if nothing else, at least Sma, a Special Circumstances agent, we need an excuse; think how and Cheradenine Zakalwe, a man many people need none at all.” who is being adopted, as it were, into The liberal conscience at its self- the Culture. “The life here seems... soothing work! idyllic,” Zakalwe says at one point. In the one Culture story that refers Everyone has told him that Special to our planet, “The State of the Art,” Circumstances is doing necessary Sma is among a group of Contact work for the Culture; but, he says, “I representatives who visit Earth in get suspicious when everyone agrees the year 1977. After a period of care- about something.” What if Special ful investigation, Sma argues—in Circumstances really isn’t “fighting the official report that constitutes the good fight”? Sma replies, most of the story—that the Culture “We think we’re right; we even needs to intervene to clean up the think we can prove it, but we can mess that human beings are mak- never be sure; there are always ing of our world. Were such an arguments against us. There is intervention to take place, Special no certainty; least of all in Special Circumstances would spearhead it. Circumstances, where the rules However, one of her colleagues finds are different.” the Star Trek television series almost the only redeeming feature of Earth “I thought the rules were meant civilization and recommends that the to be the same for everybody.” whole planet be destroyed. Special “They are. But in Special Cir- Circumstances would handle that as cumstances we deal in the moral well.

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The role of Special Circumstances, Contacted is more or less like that then, is to implement the Culture of The Lord of the Rings or George Minds’ decisions about how to handle R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and other sentient beings, and those deci- Fire series: what we would call a sions are shaped overwhelmingly by “medieval” warrior society. The con- a single criterion: How close is a trast between these fierce men (and given civilization to the values and sometimes fiercer women) and the priorities of the Culture itself ? If it urbane hyper-technologized Culture is intransigently opposed to those agents is a delightful one. But, while values and priorities then perhaps it the plot hinges on the possibility that had best be destroyed before it causes the whole world will be destroyed, significant mischief—which is what if it does survive there’s really no happens to the Idirans, a civilization question about what will happen to whose war with the Culture is the the local civilization: it will become primary context for the first Culture Cultured. When the Culture decides novel, Consider Phlebas (1987). Here to mentor you you will be mentored we have a conflict in which all wings quite thoroughly, even (or especially) of Contact play a role because of the if you’re the kind of society that fans scale of the problem. In order to pre- of epic fantasy nostalgically tend to vent this fanatically religious society long for. So Much for Subtlety indeed. from imposing its repressive ideals So it turns out that the closest on other parts of the cosmos, the analogue we have to the Culture’s Culture virtually destroys the whole foreign policy is that of the United Idiran culture and a great deal else, States in the recent Bush administra- including fifty-three planets and half tion: just as President Bush wanted a dozen stars. to spread the good news of American But that is the worst-case scenario. democracy to the rest of the world, If a civilization reached by Contact and was willing to put some force contains even a few hopeful seeds, behind that benevolent imperative, so then that world can become a candi- too the Culture. The Culture is neo- date for mentoring—whether it likes conservatism on the greatest imagin- it or not. able scale. This may seem more than Mentoring—in this frankly, blunt- a bit self-contradictory on Banks’s ly paternalistic version—is the pri- part, given his politics: as he writes, mary theme of Matter (2008), the digressively, in his book on whiskey, most recent Culture novel. It is not one of Banks’s better efforts, largely I look at Dubya and just see... because it is overloaded with person- a grotesquely under-qualified- nel, but it is built on the wonderful for-practically-anything daddy’s conceit that the civilization being boy who’s had to be greased into

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. Alan Jacobs

every squalid position he’s ever that subordinate figures dislike but held in his miserable existence that are for the best. Given the wis- who might finally be starting to dom of the Culture’s Minds, don’t wake up to the idea that if the they, better than any of the rest of us, most powerful nation on Earth— know what’s in our own best inter- like, ever, dude—can put some- est? Perhaps. But Banks, for all his body like him in power, all may warm praise for the Culture, occa- not be well with the world. sionally plants a seed of doubt. But there’s no necessary incon- Consider the Culture’s relations sistency. President Bush—doubtless with a civilization called the Chel- grians. (The history is told as part of Banks will love this point—is not a the backstory to Look to Windward.) Mind; and the American model of The Chelgrians evolved on their democracy is not that of the Culture. home world from fierce predators The Culture, Banks seems to think, and still retain predatory appearance deserves to be expanded throughout and, to some degree, personality. the known universe, and the Minds Their social order was an exception- can presumably be relied on to man- ally strict caste-based one, and when age that expansion in the best pos- Contact began clandestinely observ- sible way. ing them, its Minds decided that But “best possible” is not perfect, this structure was a near-absolute because the universe is not perfect— impediment to the Chelgrians’ or, more to the point, even the most “development”—and so Contact sur- powerful civilizations within it are reptitiously intervened to create a deeply flawed. And so when they movement devoted to wholesale cul- come within the scope of the Culture’s tural reconstruction along more lib- power, sometimes there’s nothing for eral and egalitarian lines. The results the Minds to say but No More Mister were a civil war in which billions of Nice Guy and Of Course I Still Love Chelgrians died, which in turn led You. As yet another Culture ship the Culture to own up to its behind- tells us, It’s Character Forming. Banks the-scenes manipulations. has yet to mention Culture ships Why was the wisdom of the called It’s In Your Own Best Interest or Culture’s Minds not sufficient to We’re Doing This For Your Own Good foresee this mess? No explanation is or This Will Hurt Me More Than It given. Indeed, the Minds of Special Will Hurt You, but surely they’re out Circumstances are surprised fairly there. often in these novels—in The Player And maybe all this is true. Some- of Games they seem to realize from times paternal figures— paternal cul- the start that they don’t have the tures, even?—really do take action political situation on Azad figured

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks out. There are only two inferences the Chelgrian has been killed—no I can make here: either Banks is one to be terrorized by the terror being careless or he is suggesting weapon. Again, Banks could just be that even an intelligence capable of nodding here, and enjoying himself handling the everyday affairs of an to a troubling degree, but he’s an Orbital containing thirty billion peo- awfully smart writer. Could it be that ple is still not smart enough to figure there is something less than utterly out what sentient beings will do in benevolent in the Culture’s paternal- response to conflict. One hopes the ism? Could it be that in the pecu- latter is the right inference; but if it liar world of Special Circumstances is, it suggests that the power of the something has gone wrong? What Minds is largely the power of con- happens when Minds of near-infinite trol: they can predict and deal suc- power become malicious, sadistic? It cessfully with the behavior of those doesn’t bear thinking of. who speak their language and use their drugs, but have limited ability Philosophically, the Culture accepts, to manipulate others. generally, that questions such as “What And there’s a still more disturb- is the meaning of life?” are themselves ing event at the end of Look to meaningless....In summary, we make Windward. The most repulsive char- our own meanings, whether we like acter in that book is a Chelgrian, it or not. a kind of hit man working for the —Banks, “A Few Notes on the Chelgrian opposition to the Culture. Culture” (posted to the Usenet group At the end of the book the Culture rec.arts.sf.written in 1994) sends its own assassin—an artificial but at least partly sentient “terror ne might protest that I have weapon,” which temporarily takes Odevoted too much attention to the shape of a female Chelgrian and Special Circumstances and too little is therefore referred to as “she”—to to the blissful lives of countless bil- track him down. When the assassin lions of Culture citizens. But this finds the Chelgrian she murders him, is what Banks does: Contact plays and does so in a way that is aston- a leading role in all of the Culture ishingly gruesome. Banks describes novels, if for no other reason than this killing in vivid detail, but never because Contact is where the conflict offers a reason for the assassin to is, and conflict is where the stories torture her victim and to stay “for are. But there’s more than simple a while” to observe his dead body expediency here. It seems Banks is in the ocean, as he makes a point of encouraging us to ask the Omelas saying she does. There’s no one else question: What price are you willing around, no one even to know how to pay, in the coin of suffering for a

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. Alan Jacobs few, in order to gain the permanent has it, being Lightly Seared On The contentment of billions? Reality Grill. My impression is that Banks is But as we turn to life within the straightforwardly utilitarian in these Culture we learn that its residents matters, and an advocate for real- tend to crave contact with that dis- politik. I mentioned earlier that tinguished grill themselves—the Matter contains multiple echoes of smell of charring reminds them that fantasy literature, and there’s an they’re alive. In Look to Windward, especially intriguing parody of the a Chelgrian composer named Ziller end of The Lord of the Rings in the visits a Culture Orbital, where a novel’s epilogue. After one of the great concert premiering his newest heroes sacrifices himself to save his piece of music is being planned—and world, Holse, his more-or-less faith- people desperately want tickets. Now ful servant—a rather more sardonic in one sense this is strange, because, and self- interested character than as we are told, Sam Gamgee—returns to his home to assume a new role as local political the level of accuracy and believ- leader. But he has been installed in ability exhibited as a matter of his high place, which he clearly very course by the virtual environ- much enjoys, by the Culture. (“I don’t ments available on demand to any Culture citizen had been raised doubt I shall be most affectionately to such a pitch of perfection that remembered by later generations and it had long been necessary...to will probably have streets named introduce synthetic cues into the after me, though I shall aspire to a experience just to remind the sub- square or two and possibly even a rail ject that what appeared to be real terminus.”) There’s no pretense that really wasn’t. Holse is particularly sharp or dis- cerning, much less committed to the So any of the billions of residents common good, but from the Culture’s of that Orbital—even those living point of view he will get the job done, tens of thousands of miles away from and the very strong suggestion is the concert venue—could experience that the new Culture-dominated gov- the magnificent music just as viv- ernment will be greatly preferable to idly as those in the stadium itself. the previous one. In an ideal world Nevertheless, in this culture without we’d have something better than this money, where everything one wants paternalism, but the people of Special is available upon request, people are Circumstances—and Banks himself, so desperate to get seats at the sta- it seems—understand that we don’t dium that they resort to reinventing live in the ideal world. Coming to money. So says the Orbital’s Mind grips with this is, as the ship name itself through one of its avatars:

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People who can’t stand other Early in the novel Gurgeh cheats people are inviting them to din- in order to win a game—it seems ner, booking deep-space cruis- that even the Culture hasn’t figured es together—good grief—even out a way to make real the Caucus- agreeing to go camping with race from Alice in Wonderland: “All them. Camping!...How wonder- have won and all must have priz- fully, bizarrely, romantically bar- es.” Winning is a scarce commod- baric of them! ity, which is, generally speaking, the Why have they become so barbar- point of a game. Gurgeh speaks of ic? Because, as Banks explains, “there a game he has sitting in his house: was, for almost everybody occasion- “This is foreign. [It comes from] ally and for some people pretty much some backwater planet discovered just a few decades ago. They play perpetually, an almost inestimable this there and they bet on it; they cachet in having seen, heard, smelled, make it important. But what do we tasted, felt or generally experienced have to bet with?” Note the implica- something absolutely and definitely tion that betting on a game somehow for real, with none of this contempt- makes it important—there’s at least a ible virtuality stuff getting in the hint here that the Culture struggles way.” Contemptible virtuality stuff. to make anything really important, So it turns out that, “for almost at least according to its own self- everybody occasionally and for some understanding. people pretty well perpetually,” the But perhaps its self-understanding perfect simulation of reality does is somewhat incomplete, or even self- not erase the boundary between deluded. Gurgeh can’t make winning the real and the virtual but rather a game important by betting on it, intensifies it, and makes the real but his pride in being a skilled player ever more desirable. And such desire of games is what leads him to cheat— in turn re-creates scarcity in this to avoid losing to an adolescent girl, allegedly post-scarcity society: the hardly more than a child. Winning stadium where Ziller’s composition is scarce; being pre-eminent among will be premiered contains only so game-players is scarcer still. And many seats, which means that it’s other experiences too: through much quite possible to want and not get of the book Gurgeh is deeply attract- one. (The Mind rather mournfully ed to a young woman who isn’t sexu- explains to people that there will ally interested in him, and what’s be no room to dance.) A very un- to be done about that? No doubt an Culture experience. utterly convincing simulacrum of a The Player of Games is more sub- sexual experience with her could be tly concerned with such experiences. arranged—but Gurgeh would know

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. Alan Jacobs such “contemptible virtuality stuff ” and again on objects of unfulfilled for what it is, and would despise it. desire. He is aware that the very Perhaps, then, there’s no such thing language of the Culture is a subtle as a society without scarcity—a soci- but immensely powerful training in ety without loss or longing. As we “correct” ideology. have seen, Banks claims that in the To some extent these oddities are, Culture there are “very few motives like the dominance of Contact, the left” for crime. But there are some. inevitable consequence of the decision There always will be some. to write novels about the Culture. It is not possible to come up with stories CNN: In the Culture’s post-scarcity as such about people who are perfectly society, where no one needs for any- nice and can have everything they thing, you’re removing a lot of the want instantly. But one might also struggle around everyday life. Is that say that people of whom no stories not removing the point of life itself ? can be told are not really people in Banks: I think a lot of the struggle is any sense recognizable to us; and the kind of pointless and is in itself bor- lives that they experience are not lives ing. The struggle for existence for most in any sense recognizable to us. In people most of the time, especially in a this sense the conceit of Ursula K. Le post-agricultural, industrial society, is Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away a bit of a grind. People have to work from Omelas” is more complex than it very hard and awfully long hours for seems at first to be: yes, it asks us what not a great deal of money: if you don’t, price we would be willing to pay for you get virtually nothing. Life’s not perfect happiness and social harmony; much fun, frankly, so I’d quite happily but it also may suggest that that one trade in that struggle. poor miserable child in the closet cre- ates meaning for all the others—gives hat I find fascinating about their contentment a necessary con- Wthe anatomy of the Culture textual frame. Maybe those residents novels is the dissonance between of Omelas who do not walk away, who Banks’s straightforward statements accept the necessity of the child’s suf- about the Culture and certain recur- fering, are all the happier because they rent features of the stories he writes. see the contrast between that child’s Banks talks about how “nice” the life and their own. Culture is, and yet we see hidden cru- This is a worrisome thought: that elties and open desires for universal even the happiest of lives, or especially domination. He clearly envisions the the happiest of lives, depend on the overcoming of scarcity as the signal existence of conflict and suffering achievement of the civilization made somewhere. This is a darker view of by the Minds, and yet he focuses time the human condition than one which

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks simply affirms that contentment only built to be a utopia, but like all uto- comes in its truest form after strug- pias it remains an ambiguous one. gle or suffering are overcome. But The same is true, then, of the in either case, it seems we are more Culture. Banks would “trade in [the] wrapped up in “that struggle” than struggle” that characterizes our lives Banks wants to admit; and it seems in this our decidedly non-utopian that his novels themselves acknowl- world, but the passages from his nov- edge what he would prefer not to. els that I have called attention to An early edition of another Le show that there is a trade to be made: Guin novel, The Dispossessed (1974), Banks knows that not all struggles featured the tagline “The magnificent are boring or pointless, as do the citi- epic of an ambiguous utopia”; those zens of the Culture who try to restore last three words eventually found unpredictability and drama to their their way to the title page of some lives. Indeed, the very existence of later editions. This, Le Guin’s fin- Contact and its Special Circumstances est novel, also concerns scarcity and unit expresses this need for struggle, its management: the planet Anarres as Banks himself has written: is organized as a set of anarchistic communes with no central govern- The average Culture person— human or machine—knows that ment. All goods are shared more or they are lucky to be where they are less equally, which is not only the when they are. Part of their educa- philosophical choice of the society’s tion, both initially and continually, founders but is practically necessary comprises the understanding that because on such a barren planet, so beings less fortunate—though generally inhospitable to life, any no less intellectually or moral- alternative would lead to the deaths ly worthy—than themselves have of many. You could say that the scar- suffered and, elsewhere, are still city of goods is what makes Anarres suffering. For the Culture to con- work. But no environment and no tinue without terminal decadence, social organization, it turns out, can the point needs to be made, regu- eliminate pride, the desire for control larly, that its easy hedonism is not of others, or the jealous suspicion some ground-state of nature, but of excellence. The largely capitalist something desirable, assiduously worked for in the past, not neces- planet Urras is more hospitable to sarily easily attained, and requir- the scientific brilliance of the story’s ing appreciation and maintenance protagonist, Shevek—more welcom- both in the present and the future. ing of his innovative thought—but its rank inequalities and stratifica- So Banks is willing, even eager, to tions disgust him. Anarres is in the trade our world for the Culture—but end preferable, though flawed. It was he recognizes that trade as a wager,

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. Alan Jacobs the kind of wager that people can’t thought for societies on the path to make within the Culture itself, and he Utopia—or for those of us living in doesn’t know precisely how it would Utopia’s galactic neighborhood. turn out. (Even the best Minds, as we have seen, can’t predict the future.) Alan Jacobs, a New Atlantis contrib- And he makes it perfectly clear that uting editor, is a professor of English a society without internal struggles at Wheaton College. His blog Text will need always to generate external Patterns—on reading, writing, and ones. That is to say, Utopia requires technologies of knowledge—can be found enemies. This is not a comforting at TheNewAtlantis.com.

58 ~ The New Atlantis

Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information.