I guess i got to read them more. I only read Player of Games and Consider Phlebas and my take away was that they have what’s almost a paradise but it’s still fucked up.
A common mistake readers make is that they believe the Vavatch orbital is Culture. It’s very definitely not, so all the unsavory stuff going on there isn’t a reflection of the Culture. Not Damage, not the Eaters (they hate The Culture!), and so on.
Use of Weapons, Consider Phlebas, and to a lesser degree Player of Games are mostly outsider perspectives of The Culture, so that warps judgement a little too.
IDK if Iain Banks could have made it clearer that Vavatch is non-Culture. I guess us only knowing drones and orbitals from The Culture made some readers conflate the two societies despite their extreme moral differences.
The Culture doesn’t believe in non-interference. But it’s not “CIA shit” if they’re actually doing it to influence a society to become better rather than just pretending that that’s the goal in order to take their oil.
Yeah because some of these pitches would have been actually morally OK reasons for intervention if they would have been the true reason.
If Saddam Hussein would have been a crazed madman with weapons of mass destruction that he was ready to use on a whim, intervention would have been the right thing to do. That’s why they used that lie, to make it look better.
But I get it: there are gray zones and other Culture novels dive into them. There’s a peace faction as a response to the Idrian war, and so on.
I guess i got to read them more. I only read Player of Games and Consider Phlebas and my take away was that they have what’s almost a paradise but it’s still fucked up.
A common mistake readers make is that they believe the Vavatch orbital is Culture. It’s very definitely not, so all the unsavory stuff going on there isn’t a reflection of the Culture. Not Damage, not the Eaters (they hate The Culture!), and so on.
Use of Weapons, Consider Phlebas, and to a lesser degree Player of Games are mostly outsider perspectives of The Culture, so that warps judgement a little too.
IDK if Iain Banks could have made it clearer that Vavatch is non-Culture. I guess us only knowing drones and orbitals from The Culture made some readers conflate the two societies despite their extreme moral differences.
I also only ‘read’ as an audio book so i might missed a few details. I was not even referring to Vavtch. But the cia shit they pull in PoG.
The Culture doesn’t believe in non-interference. But it’s not “CIA shit” if they’re actually doing it to influence a society to become better rather than just pretending that that’s the goal in order to take their oil.
But that is just their idea of better.
And yours. And mine. And everyone else’s who isn’t a fascist who wants to oppress other people.
I guess i cant not see the parallels of a lot of US intervention in 3rd world countries. Because those where pitched in much the same way.
Yeah because some of these pitches would have been actually morally OK reasons for intervention if they would have been the true reason.
If Saddam Hussein would have been a crazed madman with weapons of mass destruction that he was ready to use on a whim, intervention would have been the right thing to do. That’s why they used that lie, to make it look better.
But I get it: there are gray zones and other Culture novels dive into them. There’s a peace faction as a response to the Idrian war, and so on.