> But one of my hobbies is “oppositional reading” – deliberately interpreting
> novels counter to the obvious / intended reading. And it’s not so clear to me
> that the Culture is all it is cracked up to be.
It's not clear to me that reading the Culture series as an "ambiguous" utopia is counter to the intended reading. There is a multitude of instances in the books that show clearly the downsides of living in a utopia where every possible want is met. The drudgery and boredom of living in a "perfect" world is a constant theme throughout the stories. In one tale, the entire crew of a spaceship deliberately infect themselves with the common cold just to feel something. In another story, people turn off their safeguards and go rafting on a lava stream, causing themselves intense pain and even dying, only so they can finally experience some real excitement.
> In Excession, it’s explained that Minds do rarely drift far enough to go rogue
> and are destroyed by the Culture. In other words, these superhuman minds have
> not solved alignment, and they cannot/will not inspect each other to determine
> misalignment before malicious action is taken.
The Culture doesn't even seem very interested in dealing with minds that do go rogue. In the same novel - Excession -, the GSV Grey Area openly violates Culture ethics, and nobody (or noship) seems to feel compelled to do anything about it.
In Surface Detail there is some discussion of "slap drones", assigned to follow troublemakers around and prevent them from getting into mischief. It is explicitly stated that even a misbehaving ship may receive this treatment. I think the Grey Area's hobby was regarded more as a repulsive violation of cultural norms than an actual crime.
the gsv sleeper service had an entire other ship/Mind basically acting in this role (a rotating assignment/volunteer position), complete with human crew/residents
the grey area/meat fucker was a small, uncrewed, and demilitarized(?) ship/Mind that, while morally repugnant to the culture's sensibilities (or at least most other Minds'), no one considered significant/dangerous enough to give the same treatment
> The drudgery and boredom of living in a "perfect" world is a constant theme throughout the stories.
You can of course interpret the novels however you like, but that absolutely wasn't Banks' intention when he wrote the series. See the quotes from other comments.
> In one tale, the entire crew of a spaceship deliberately infect themselves with the common cold just to feel something.
Or they just do it because why not? If you'd never been ill, you'd probably be curious as to what it felt like.
> In another story, people turn off their safeguards and go rafting on a lava stream, causing themselves intense pain and even dying, only so they can finally experience some real excitement.
I think in the story the lava-rafters were having a great time, and they were fairly unusual... and people in our culture risk pain and death doing sport just to feel excitement. In the Culture they just have additional options, such as rafting on lava.
Most of the Culture citizens were happy enough with their exploration, art, travel, genetically-enhanced sex, implanted drug glands, games, sports, and so they never got around to lava rafting.
Besides they have the right to go to sleep and never wake up if they are not happy.
> In one tale, the entire crew of a spaceship deliberately infect themselves with the common cold just to feel something.
I mean, I'll sometimes take a mild poison for fun, too (that's what alcohol is). I don't think, in a circumstance where you could just have it go away when you're bored of it, that recreational common cold thing is _that_ weird.
> In another story, people turn off their safeguards and go rafting on a lava stream, causing themselves intense pain and even dying, only so they can finally experience some real excitement.
A little under a thousand people attempt to climb Mount Everest every year. About 3% of them die while doing this. That's way, _way_ worse odds than the lava rafting people were getting. It's just an extreme sport. And, like, presumably it was a minority interest, just as dying halfway up a mountain is today; most people would not be lava rafting.
Things like these show that people of Culture are still people with at least as much variety as modern humans. Not species tightly bread for conformism. At least no higher levels of conformism that humanity currently displays.
I did a lot of thinking after that and now regret my actions.