Reflection: Look to Windward

I came up with the idea during class but it kind of stuck with me: this notion that, what we really see in the Culture with its pseudo-immortality is not a definitive continuation of life. The idea of posterity, however, has been eradicated--you will live on, in some form, and so the creation of art, the productivity, is virtually gone. These people no loner have to work toward a future because they know that they will be in that future, and post-scarcity means that no one has to support themselves. But these future avatars--will they be us?

The first thing I thought of was Dune. In all six books, the only consistent character is Duncan Idaho, but, having been killed in the first book, he has returned as a ghola, a clone of a dead man. By the end of the second book, he has recovered, somehow, the genetic memory of the first Duncan Idaho. In the fourth, we have yet another Duncan, revived by the same process, in the fifth--you guessed it, another Duncan, but this one with the memories of all the other Duncan gholas (gholae? I don't know). So while Duncan Idaho of Heretics of Dune is the culmination of centuries of different Duncans, he is not the original, and that means that the Duncan who first died on Arrakis ended when he died. Ghola Duncan is him, but he is not ghola Duncan.

A similar situation comes up, in a different way, on the show Caprica. My understanding of BSG et al. is rather diffuse, given that I'm working my way through the second season, but one of the things they talk about in Caprica is the creation of avatars. Prior to her death, Zoe Graystone creates an avatar of herself composed entirely of her memories, her data, her personality. When Zoe dies in a tragic accident, this avatar is all that remains of her--but is it a person? It thinks, it apparently feels--which is proven in some pretty upsetting ways, thanks to Daniel Graystone's colossal ruthlessness--but it is not, in effect, the same Zoe who stepped on a train and died. And the Zoe avatar becomes the first Cylon--who definitely believe that they have souls. The monotheist cult to which Zoe belonged believes that the virtual Zoe is proof that life goes on--but is it true?

Yesterday we sat around and talked about what would be best in an alien-human interaction. I didn't contribute, mainly because I've been thinking it through all semester and I'm still not sure I've come up with an answer. It would be nice if we had someone like Ender circa Speaker for the Dead, a man so empathic that he is capable of understanding something totally alien. But remember--the only reason that Ender works so hard toward some kind of reconciliation with the piggies is because he knows the terrible consequences of xenocide. A lot of people suggested Lem's conclusion, which was pretty ambiguous. Frankly, I'd want the Doctor.

I swear, it's not because of David Tennant. But in The Christmas Invasion, the Doctor essentially uses an infinite understanding of other cultures to peacefully repel an alien invasion by the Sycorax--and when the Prime Minister then chooses the Schmittean option, and destroys the alien spaceship, the Doctor becomes livid, and threatens to take down her entire government. But we won't ever get anyone like the Doctor, because he's an alien enamored with Earth. So who do we send?

Do we send Tomas, the guy who basically agreed to disagree with the Martian? Emilio, the linguist? Do we send a brilliant but ruthless empath like Ender? Maybe Marjorie? I frankly don't know. At all. I agree with Stephen Hawking: whatever happens, it won't be pretty, so we should probably hope it doesn't happen. Ideally, though, we'd try to make some sort of understanding rather than kill each other, but as Graff says, species are wired to survive. It creates an odd occasion of mutually assured destruction.

Live long and prosper

I would like to discuss the concept of immortality as it is portrayed in “Look to Windward.” Personally, I do not believe the system described in the book ensures immortality and I agree with Phil. Memories and personality is not consciousness. Each individual mind has its’ own consciousness, which, at the moment of death, ceases to exist. Yes, an exact copy of the consciousness can be imprinted, but it is not the same consciousness and never could be. Instead, think of the system like the pony express. One horse rides to one checkpoint carrying the same rider, who takes a different horse at the checkpoint and continues on. The rider (aka the memories and personality) are the same, but the horse (aka the consciousness) is left behind. Thus, if I were a citizen of Culture I would be a bit more hesitant about going lava rafting. Concerning an artificial heaven, how can something synthetic be comparable to the supernatural or an article of faith? A synthetic heaven is a heresy and a substitute. For this reason, how can one’s faith be affirmed by it?
As a final note I would like to thank everyone for a wonderful semester and you all have my best wishes. As I stated in class, I’d like to end on a good note. Although many of the stories we read are discouraging concerning first contact, I’d like to warn against a self fulfilled prophecy. If humans go into a first contact scenario with the belief that we will make erroneous mistakes and are doomed to disaster we will ultimately fail. Instead I say chins up. Yes, mistakes will be made and conflicts will ensue, but humanity is not defined solely by a capacity for evil, but by a capacity for good as well. This world is filled with Emilios and Picards. Let us not limit ourselves with generalization about human weakness, but strive to break our highest expectations.

Substantive on Look to Windward

I found Andrew’s substantive on Look to Windward to be though provoking and raised two important points for me. One was that the novel is unique in providing us with a post-scarcity society and the second was that the Culture is not conflict immune. To me, these statements raise questions on the nature of conflict. One may say that because the Culture is a post-conflict society, their impetus for war is not based on economic causes. My answer to this is twofold. For one, the Culture might be driven into conflict by a society plagued by scarcity and requires resources. My second statement is that although scarcity has been eradicated by the Culture, base desires have not. Humans have a tendency to want what they cannot have, and although most demands have been meet, this does not ensure satisfaction. There is a reason why our society is plagued by phenomena such as “conspicuous consumption” and “affluenza,” and that is that many humans simply want more. Thus I doubt there is such a thing as a post-scarcity society. Yes, perhaps a general level of wellbeing can conceivably be obtained, but as humanity expands it will come into contact to new kinds of goods. Wars have been fought over oil and opium, why not Romulan ale and dilithium crystals? My other feelings on conflict are that even if an enemy is not an existential threat, they may be a threat to one’s ideology or position. If the Culture were conquered by a civilization that viewed synthetics as unprivileged citizens, it would threaten not only the power of the Minds, but the ideological basis of equality in the Culture’s culture.
One thing that intrigued me about the culture was there tolerance for various forms of alien life. Citizens of the Culture seemed blasé and nonchalant about non-human species within their society. Where there was intolerance and conflict was with groups that did not vibe with the egalitarian beliefs of the culture. This I found very interesting… that an advanced society discriminated not on appearance, but on values and culture. Although it was refreshing to see so many sentient groups come together, it was disheartening to think that discrimination does not become extinct but evolves. In America, for example, discrimination seems to jump from group to group: women African Americans homosexuals, illegal immigrants. This is not to deny the existence of racism or sexism, but one cannot deny that such issues have moved out of the limelight in the face of other forms of intolerance. Perhaps one day we can live in a world where the only intolerance is of those who willingly hate and negatively discriminate against others.

Reflection: Look to Windward

Look to Windward presents a weird problem for us in this social science fiction class. Until now, we've dealt with encounters with the other under certain social parameters. We've know that things are limited in the worlds we've explored. Sure, some beings have been more powerful than us or somewhat incomprehensible, but they've been somewhere within our sphere of interaction. They were capable of being interacted with, and that in itself is worth noting (the obvious exception to this is His Master's Voice, but we'll leave that by itself for now). But the Culture? They've gone beyond scarcity, and gone beyond typical conventions that hold humans back. And we're still faced with huge societal questions.

If we can't blame problems on our natural state of scarce resources, and notably death itself, then we've reached the end - we can't blame our natural need for material goods and survival on our conflicts. Admittedly, Culture doesn't really have too much internal conflict. There doesn't seem to be an ounce of racism (we covered in class just how damn diverse they are), and in general they seem accepting of outsiders (see Ziller). But they haven't escaped their origins - they still have some about of conflict with the other. Chelgrians, while not exactly capable of wiping out Culture, are certainly in conflict with them! It seems as though conflict with the other is inevitable, even if you take out factors which limit human potential. Moreover, we suspect that the Mind overlords of Culture made the mission possible by backing the Chelgrians. Their own internal elements are turning against them.

The pessimistic view of Look to Windward is that conflict is inevitable - it cannot be contained despite how many resources you have and if you can conquer death. Can we imagine a situation where Culture wouldn't be involved in conflict? There's precedent in the book for other peoples making conflict with Culture, but being retaliated against severely - so even if Culture remains insular, there's probably not a great chance they'll completely avoid conflict with others. And their current system still has that margin of error, that 1% chance that things will go wrong.

But even if Culture isn't conflict immune, it shows us something - obviously conflict really isn't as common as it is today in their world. Even if perfect peace can't exist, there is still some kind of peace that is present in their lives. Whether or not Culture's peace is the kind you want is up to the reader. If we bear in mind that these kinds of conflicts are inevitable for us as humans, perhaps we can better learn to avoid them. PTJ left tonight with a call to humility, not a call to end conflict with the other once and for all. We must be humble as we tread into the universe, and recognize that which makes us human makes us capable of great conflict, but also makes up capable of great peace.

Substantive: Look to Windward

Okay, let's get straight to the point about Look to Windward right now. It's not really about post-scarcity technology or aliens from another world getting revenge. It's about Americas activity abroad functioning as a "world police" entity. All of this is too obvious in the book - Culture's decadence rings of America, from the extreme sports to the fashion flings which seem pass as soon as they arrive. Chel, on the other hand, seems to be the "other" to America. Seeing as though the novel was written for Gulf War veterans, the Chel can't NOT be designed around a Middle Eastern nation or people. In the end, it appears to be a tale of a terrorist attack against America (or the West in general, seeing as though Banks is Scottish).

This isn't to say that Look to Windward isn't worthy of an in-depth analysis - it simply just has a generally more obvious analogy to the real world. We've gone over in class what the moral implications of interference has on other people. Culture, on the whole, seems to have the opposite policy of the prime directive - interference whenever possible. And who could blame those humans? We saw how those on Chel have a caste system so severe a member of a higher caste can throw a lesser person of society off a cliff and not suffer the consequences! That seems like a pretty clear-cut travesty to me. But we face the same problems here on Earth! Should the US interfere in countries that we feel will benefit from our own culture?

The message of Look to Windward is pretty clear cut in that regard, too. Culture started the war with Chel, and the Caste War, because they helped and armed the lower castes. It might of been benevolent to Culture, but it meant the deaths of many. Banks shows that this kind of help isn't only deadly, but it forms groups that attempt to retaliate against you! Quilan wouldn't have a motive to destroy Masaq if his mate hadn't been lost in the war. The war created the kind of person Quilan had to be in order to kill himself in that way. And that is freakishly like the world we live in, where the United States, functioning almost just like Culture, is creating wars and interfering, only to create people who want to kill US citizens from an act we see as benevolence. The message is obvious: interference doesn't always work.

Substantive: Look to Windward

"Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved."

When reading Look to Windward, these words kept rebounding and rebounding through my head. Anyone who has been exposed to Steven Moffat's writing (incidentally, another Scotsman, although his realm is mainly television) knows that he can do some scary things with very common ideas. One of the concepts he comes up with (in the Doctor Who episode Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead) is that people--their hopes, their dreams, their lives--can be preserved in technology. When the Library starts going to hell, the computer literally saves everyone in it--by placing them in its hard drive. It creates a weird kind of stinted immortality, preserved in the body of a large computer, who essentially coordinates scenarios for its various inhabitants in a way that is eerily Matrix-esque.

I thought about this during Look to Windward because of the Chel concept of an afterlife, which they have apparently made literal with the advent of the SoulKeepers, with the Sublimed Chelgrian-Puen as gatekeepers to a literal afterlife. And yet, there seems to be something in that that is...less than ideal. Someone in the book makes a comment about how nothing can happen in eternity as it would not therefore be eternity. Which means that this Chelgrian heaven is probably pretty boring. No wonder Quilan craves oblivion.

I've also been thinking about what Andrew posted above (I know this says Saturday, but that's because I started it last night). Having spent a semester in Scotland (and believe me, Iain Banks is everywhere in the University of Edinburgh bookstore) I thought Andrew's note about the Culture representing American imperialism was particularly apt, but not getting at the entire picture. I'm all for being wary of biographical fallacy but one of the general feelings one gets in Scotland is a sense of proud isolationism combined with a brutal wariness. It's very hard being treated as England's satellite nation, and it's something they've struggled with since the Acts of Union. There's a particular insistence in Scotland that what combining into a United Kingdom has essentially done is leave Scotland neglected in favor of English interests, to the extent that the group in power now in Scottish parliament is a secessionist group known as the SNP:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8553367.stm

I'm wondering if maybe some of what Banks is showing us in the contrast between the humans of the Culture and the nature of the other species has something along these lines, or if it is merely a commentary on the horrific decadence of Western culture in general. While he does seem to criticize Chelgrian culture for being exceptionally caste-devoted, the one person (Ziller) who seems so adamantly against it isn't much of a hero and in fact turns out to be fairly annoying.