Utopia, a poll (with other completely unconnected question)

[andrewducker]

"The Culture" in this case refers to the space-faring civilisation in Iain Banks' awesome series of novels.

[Poll #1792224]

Comments

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I don't think the issues are explored much or in much depth in the Culture books so we're both guessing.

I'd agree that they aren't exactly explored but we aren't ever shown sentimental attachment to property and we are often shown people with no property whatsoever how just pick up things as they need them. We are also shown that family attachments are much weaker and less sentimental, particularly with respect to children.

Rich men used to kill each other over social slights in many cultures.

True but at all times in history the culture of rich men has been tiny so a social slight was out of all proportion. The Culture is vast, it isn't a competitive, hothouse environment and such slights carry much less weight.

IIRC the Culture in origen is not so very different from us.

So what? There is no point in projecting cultural attitutes from pre-scarcity times onto the current world. The connection through origin is irrelevant.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I'd agree that they aren't exactly explored but we aren't ever shown sentimental attachment to property and we are often shown people with no property whatsoever how just pick up things as they need them

We're not shown that sentimental attachments aren't present. We never see anyone picking up someone's hairbrush from their bedside table and using it or scribbling a shopping list on a love poem given to someone else.

True but at all times in history the culture of rich men has been tiny so a social slight was out of all proportion. The Culture is vast, it isn't a competitive, hothouse environment and such slights carry much less weight.

Also, poor men have killed each other over social slights. When property is meaningless because abundent or totally absent status seems to become much more important.

So what? There is no point in projecting cultural attitutes from pre-scarcity times onto the current world. The connection through origin is irrelevant.

My point with the behaviour of rich men is that rich men represent as close as we've been to a post-scarcity society and they seemed to spend quite a lot of time and energy fighting each other over status issues, cutting each other dead in public, writing literature, discovering things and demanding credit for it or otherwise boosting their social standing.

So I think it a not unreasonable assumption that status continues to matter (and status is seen to matter in a number of ways in the Culture literature). I think if status continues to matter it not an unfair working assumption that some unique objects will retain sufficient importance to an individual that it becomes, in Culture terms, criminally rude to be messing with them.

But only criminally rude if you are not considered attractive, socially successful and well connected.

BTW did you mean to use the word current?

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

My point with the behaviour of rich men is that rich men represent as close as we've been to a post-scarcity society

I guess my whole comment boils down to the fact that I think this is completely untrue.

BTW did you mean to use the word current?

Yes. It perhaps isn't very elegant but it does the job, even if "contemporary" would have been better.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I guess my whole comment boils down to the fact that I think this is completely untrue.

I'd be interested in hearing more about that.

Yes. It perhaps isn't very elegant but it does the job, even if "contemporary" would have been better.

I'm a bit confused by the use of current here.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in hearing more about that.

Well, I'm not sure what else there is to say. On the one hand, we have a very small amount of rich men who have a lot of property in a society where most people have very little. On the other hand, you have a huge amount of Cultureniks who all have a functionally infinite amount of property. How can the former be any model for the latter?

I'm a bit confused by the use of current here.

If you want me to explain it to you, you'll have to tell me what is confusing you.