Can we make the Culture…real?
Since completing the feature length doco Hippies With Guns : The Culture of Iain M Banks I’ve been planning a commentary to follow up
debating if we can make the Culture real
Left wing politics has always been animated by the belief that “a better world is possible”
which means not just a bit more pay to work in the same factories
but a fundamental transformation of society
The Culture is, for my money, the best and most complete vision of what a transformed society might look and feel like
Iain conjured this vision with tremendous power for millions of readers. I would argue that the Culture novels have done more to keep the left alive in the UK then anything else
So the question of whether the Culture can be “real” is a more serious political question that it might seem
I don’t think we can build a GSV perhaps ever. But we do already live on a General Systems Vehicle. Maybe we should give it a Culture name…The Currently Infested By Capitalists?
And we might never build a Mind. But we have half built a global cybernetic intelligence that might be very Mind like…if we’re smart about raising it not to behave like us.
I don’t know when this commentary will happen but it is in the works.
Meanwhile, watch Hippies With Guns
Damien Walter 