There are plenty of descriptions of life inside The Culture; they essentially spend their time partying and finding increasingly complex ways to entertain them

There are plenty of descriptions of life inside The Culture; they essentially spend their time partying and finding increasingly complex ways to entertain themselves in an environment free of danger or responsibilities. Banks does depict plenty of members of the Culture as really shallow individuals, but their lives are not totally without conflict (largely emotional and intellectual), and there are plenty of people who decide they want to actually take on some sort of responsibility (like those who join contact), and people in the Culture are given that opportunity if they ask for it. One of the great things about the way Banks depicts the Culture is that within the bounds of the Culture’s morality people are free to live any way they choose, and even outside of those bounds they are free to form splinter groups that live differently (like the Zetetic Elench).