The Dissatisfaction of Utopia in Iain M. Banks's Culture Novels

Sammanfattning: The Culture is a utopian civilization that features in the science-fiction novels of Iain M. Banks that has some claim to be as comprehensively satisfactory and universal in its appeal as possible. After sketching out a space of mechanisms by which fictional utopias can maintain their civilization and prevent themselves from collapsing, I situate the Culture in this space. By close reading of five novels, I then clarify two items: the purpose (or lack thereof) the Culture and its citizens can find within the society; and the extent to which the Culture derives its reason for existence from the external wretchedness of less enlightened societies. Using an analogue of Kant’s categorical imperative, I attempt to expose the Culture to its own justificatory logic, and determine if it withstands the onslaught. Specifically, I consider the limiting case where the Culture insistently and consistently works towards the realization of its implicit purposes, and whether this leads to contradiction. Alongside this literary analysis, I highlight and develop thought-experiments and scenarios taken from or inspired by these novels that present interesting parallels to the contemporary world, for the purpose of incorporating these into lesson plans for upper secondary education. Finally, I outline three educational plans based on this material, one more intense than the others, to suit the different demands of the syllabus for upper and lower-level courses of English.