6 ms·

>this kind of Utopian life isn't terribly interesting for the plot of a novel If it's not interesting to read about, are we sure it'll be interesting and enjoy

>this kind of Utopian life isn't terribly interesting for the plot of a novel If it's not interesting to read about, are we sure it'll be interesting and enjoyable to live that way? Why do we find conflict interesting to read?

rsj_hn 6y ago
I don't think it's that we find conflict interesting in and of itself. What we find interesting to read is things that reveal some truth, especially about human nature, and especially if this truth is non-trivial. The long standing trope is that Utopia is impossible not because of technical limitations, but because of deep truths about human nature. This goes back to the Old Testament -- e.g. the tower of Babel - the first attempt to build a utopia -- dissolved into conflict. Or perhaps the Garden of Eden was the first attempt, and that also broke down. People have been trying to build Utopias ever since, and usually these projects become object lessons revealing some kind of human flaw that is incompatible with utopia. In every utopia there is a snake, and that snake is some aspect of our nature that destroys the utopia or forces us out of it.
- taylorius 6y ago
  But if we aren't running the utopia (as in Banks' Culture), then a lot of the problems can be side stepped.
  - rsj_hn 6y ago
    So I think the point is that utopia is incompatible with human nature, so we would not do well in that environment anymore than an animal wouldn't do well in a zoo. Yes, an external environment can be imposed on people which goes against human nature, but it turns into hell, not heaven. Of course here I am talking about real life. What happens in novels is up to the author, but then readers will detect a false note if they really believe utopia is utopia, so to speak.
- hermitcrab 6y ago
  >The long standing trope is that Utopia is impossible not because of technical limitations, but because of deep truths about human nature. This goes back to the Old Testament -- e.g. the tower of Babel - the first attempt to build a utopia -- dissolved into conflict. It wasn't internal conflict. It (supposedly) caused by 'God'. From Wikipedia: "God, observing their city and tower, confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world."
doikor 6y ago
For the same reason why bad stuff happening/violence/etc sell so much better in news to the point that our news organizations bring bad news to the front with such a craze for clicks/views (advertising money mostly) that if one just reads the news and not look at actual statistics/numbers one would think we are living in the most violent/deadly time ever existed for humans. In reality in the western nations at least it is the safest/nicest time to live than ever before and tomorrow will most likely be better than today (barring climate change I think) For whatever reason we just find conflict/violence captivating as long as it is not happening to us or our close friends/family
flir 6y ago
"May you live in interesting times"
- zabzonk 6y ago
  Hence "The Interesting Times Gang" - a bunch of even more Special Special Circumstances ships.
Baeocystin 6y ago
>Why do we find conflict interesting to read? Overcoming adversity is literally what life does, from smallest to largest. I'd be genuinely surprised if, evolved survival machines that we are, some kind of difficulty to dedicate our thinkmeats to overcoming wasn't a necessity for a healthy life.
- kbutler 6y ago
  Analogous to the hygiene hypothesis - that too clean an environment causes the body's immune system to respond inappropriately, causing autoimmune disorders, etc. And maybe the Culture books are really an exploration of that idea.
vidarh 6y ago
I'd change the above to suggest it's not interesting for the plot of a scifi novel. And I'm not even sure I agree with myself about that either even just as I've written it. The first point being that there's an infinite number of interesting stories you could tell about ordinary people living ordinary (to them) Culture lives doing all kinds of exciting things. There'll still be conflict - just different kinds. E.g. people will still fall in love with the same person, or grow to hate someone they once loved over petty little things, and a myriad other things that would produce conflict. Just not about material wealth etc. But many of these stories would only notionally be scifi in terms of setting. Writing a scifi novel set in the core of the Culture would be harder than setting it on the edges. You'd lose a whole lot of sub-genres. No cyberpunk or military scifi for example. But you could still find stories where the scifi setting matters. Part of what makes the 'edges' of these utopias easier to write about, though, is that you get to write about them as someone peering in. It justifies more world-building and explanations that helps relate the stories to our reality. A lot of stories about utopias are in a sense travellers tales - all the way back to Thomas More's original book Utopia, for which the concept is named. And as with More's Utopia, it's easier for us to relate when there are ambiguities and cracks. Not least because pretending there are none is difficult given people have different ideas about what is ideal. With respect to Banks, for example, I regularly come across people in discussions who have trouble dealing with the fact that Banks was a very outspoken socialist, at one point endorsing the Scottish Socialist Party, and who find it hard to come to terms with a socialist describing a society such as the Culture as an ideal to aspire to. To some people that in itself somehow mars the Culture for them. And incidentally a lot of the time when people try to imply the Culture is not an utopia, they try to find authoritarianism lurking in the shadows, but forget that for every imagined slave-driver, for example, the Culture canon describes whole sub-civilizations of billions of people freely and peacefully not just dissenting but deciding to leave the Culture over political disagreements without any attempt to use force to hold them back. Any perceived authoritarianism in the Culture exists only in so far as its citizens willingly continues to choose to subject themselves to it. And that last point brings it back around to the question you asked: If it's not interesting and enjoyable to live that way, nothing in the Culture prevents you from packing your metaphorical bag and leaving, be it alone, with a group of friends, or seceding with a whole Orbital to forge another path. That, to me is the strongest evidence that whatever musings we might make, in universe the Culture must be a pretty decent place to live, or it'd disintegrate with people forming their own little fiefdoms. So we might well speculate about whether or not we would like to live in it. But Culture canon is that trillions of citizens choose to stay despite having all the material wealth and practical opportunity to leave if they want to. If it's a cage, it's extremely gilded. At the same time, we know people can leave because we also know the Culture is not perfect for everyone, because some people have left the Culture fully or partially. But the very existence of a continuum - the Culture Ulterior consisting of factions that are mostly separate but still nominally Culture - also helps drive home that we're not talking about a centrally ruled empire, but a sprawling decentralised culture, and there's an infinite variety of levels of "leaving" too.
filoeleven 6y ago
The human experiences and human interpersonal conflicts that exist within the universe of the Culture (and do not involve being a member of Contact or Special Circumstances) are already well-covered by many, many stories that do not need the Culture, or sci-if in general, as a backdrop to be told. Money (and therefore jobs) and death are two of the biggest differences between that universe and ours. I cannot off the top of my head think of non-SF fiction or memoirs/biographies where these two things don’t have some bearing on the story, but there are plenty where they are not central to it. Many fascinating stories could be wrapped in the Culture mythos without compromise. In exchange, IMO, you’d have a lot more personal experiences of people pursuing and achieving the things they are interested in doing with a lot fewer roadblocks along the way. The juicy parts are still juicy; they just achieve much higher levels than they could when “I had to work a shit job and compromise myself for 10 years to save up enough to do X.” That person may not bother writing about it; they’d just tell their friends over drinks (or on a forum when it came up!) because finding personal fulfillment would be more normalized than it is here and now. I think that’s a good thing.
kybernetikos 6y ago
I'm pretty sure that a big part of the reason 'Special Circumstances' exists is to productively employ those who struggle to be satisfied with low-conflict existences.

rsj_hn 6y ago

I don't think it's that we find conflict interesting in and of itself. What we find interesting to read is things that reveal some truth, especially about human nature, and especially if this truth is non-trivial. The long standing trope is that Utopia is impossible not because of technical limitations, but because of deep truths about human nature. This goes back to the Old Testament -- e.g. the tower of Babel - the first attempt to build a utopia -- dissolved into conflict. Or perhaps the Garden of Eden was the first attempt, and that also broke down. People have been trying to build Utopias ever since, and usually these projects become object lessons revealing some kind of human flaw that is incompatible with utopia. In every utopia there is a snake, and that snake is some aspect of our nature that destroys the utopia or forces us out of it.

taylorius 6y ago
But if we aren't running the utopia (as in Banks' Culture), then a lot of the problems can be side stepped.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  So I think the point is that utopia is incompatible with human nature, so we would not do well in that environment anymore than an animal wouldn't do well in a zoo. Yes, an external environment can be imposed on people which goes against human nature, but it turns into hell, not heaven. Of course here I am talking about real life. What happens in novels is up to the author, but then readers will detect a false note if they really believe utopia is utopia, so to speak.
hermitcrab 6y ago
>The long standing trope is that Utopia is impossible not because of technical limitations, but because of deep truths about human nature. This goes back to the Old Testament -- e.g. the tower of Babel - the first attempt to build a utopia -- dissolved into conflict. It wasn't internal conflict. It (supposedly) caused by 'God'. From Wikipedia: "God, observing their city and tower, confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world."

doikor 6y ago

For the same reason why bad stuff happening/violence/etc sell so much better in news to the point that our news organizations bring bad news to the front with such a craze for clicks/views (advertising money mostly) that if one just reads the news and not look at actual statistics/numbers one would think we are living in the most violent/deadly time ever existed for humans. In reality in the western nations at least it is the safest/nicest time to live than ever before and tomorrow will most likely be better than today (barring climate change I think) For whatever reason we just find conflict/violence captivating as long as it is not happening to us or our close friends/family

flir 6y ago

"May you live in interesting times"

zabzonk 6y ago
Hence "The Interesting Times Gang" - a bunch of even more Special Special Circumstances ships.

Baeocystin 6y ago

>Why do we find conflict interesting to read? Overcoming adversity is literally what life does, from smallest to largest. I'd be genuinely surprised if, evolved survival machines that we are, some kind of difficulty to dedicate our thinkmeats to overcoming wasn't a necessity for a healthy life.

kbutler 6y ago
Analogous to the hygiene hypothesis - that too clean an environment causes the body's immune system to respond inappropriately, causing autoimmune disorders, etc. And maybe the Culture books are really an exploration of that idea.

vidarh 6y ago

I'd change the above to suggest it's not interesting for the plot of a scifi novel. And I'm not even sure I agree with myself about that either even just as I've written it. The first point being that there's an infinite number of interesting stories you could tell about ordinary people living ordinary (to them) Culture lives doing all kinds of exciting things. There'll still be conflict - just different kinds. E.g. people will still fall in love with the same person, or grow to hate someone they once loved over petty little things, and a myriad other things that would produce conflict. Just not about material wealth etc. But many of these stories would only notionally be scifi in terms of setting. Writing a scifi novel set in the core of the Culture would be harder than setting it on the edges. You'd lose a whole lot of sub-genres. No cyberpunk or military scifi for example. But you could still find stories where the scifi setting matters. Part of what makes the 'edges' of these utopias easier to write about, though, is that you get to write about them as someone peering in. It justifies more world-building and explanations that helps relate the stories to our reality. A lot of stories about utopias are in a sense travellers tales - all the way back to Thomas More's original book Utopia, for which the concept is named. And as with More's Utopia, it's easier for us to relate when there are ambiguities and cracks. Not least because pretending there are none is difficult given people have different ideas about what is ideal. With respect to Banks, for example, I regularly come across people in discussions who have trouble dealing with the fact that Banks was a very outspoken socialist, at one point endorsing the Scottish Socialist Party, and who find it hard to come to terms with a socialist describing a society such as the Culture as an ideal to aspire to. To some people that in itself somehow mars the Culture for them. And incidentally a lot of the time when people try to imply the Culture is not an utopia, they try to find authoritarianism lurking in the shadows, but forget that for every imagined slave-driver, for example, the Culture canon describes whole sub-civilizations of billions of people freely and peacefully not just dissenting but deciding to leave the Culture over political disagreements without any attempt to use force to hold them back. Any perceived authoritarianism in the Culture exists only in so far as its citizens willingly continues to choose to subject themselves to it. And that last point brings it back around to the question you asked: If it's not interesting and enjoyable to live that way, nothing in the Culture prevents you from packing your metaphorical bag and leaving, be it alone, with a group of friends, or seceding with a whole Orbital to forge another path. That, to me is the strongest evidence that whatever musings we might make, in universe the Culture must be a pretty decent place to live, or it'd disintegrate with people forming their own little fiefdoms. So we might well speculate about whether or not we would like to live in it. But Culture canon is that trillions of citizens choose to stay despite having all the material wealth and practical opportunity to leave if they want to. If it's a cage, it's extremely gilded. At the same time, we know people can leave because we also know the Culture is not perfect for everyone, because some people have left the Culture fully or partially. But the very existence of a continuum - the Culture Ulterior consisting of factions that are mostly separate but still nominally Culture - also helps drive home that we're not talking about a centrally ruled empire, but a sprawling decentralised culture, and there's an infinite variety of levels of "leaving" too.

filoeleven 6y ago

The human experiences and human interpersonal conflicts that exist within the universe of the Culture (and do not involve being a member of Contact or Special Circumstances) are already well-covered by many, many stories that do not need the Culture, or sci-if in general, as a backdrop to be told. Money (and therefore jobs) and death are two of the biggest differences between that universe and ours. I cannot off the top of my head think of non-SF fiction or memoirs/biographies where these two things don’t have some bearing on the story, but there are plenty where they are not central to it. Many fascinating stories could be wrapped in the Culture mythos without compromise. In exchange, IMO, you’d have a lot more personal experiences of people pursuing and achieving the things they are interested in doing with a lot fewer roadblocks along the way. The juicy parts are still juicy; they just achieve much higher levels than they could when “I had to work a shit job and compromise myself for 10 years to save up enough to do X.” That person may not bother writing about it; they’d just tell their friends over drinks (or on a forum when it came up!) because finding personal fulfillment would be more normalized than it is here and now. I think that’s a good thing.

kybernetikos 6y ago

I'm pretty sure that a big part of the reason 'Special Circumstances' exists is to productively employ those who struggle to be satisfied with low-conflict existences.