By an 'expectation' of work, I was thinking more of societies where, like the culture everything is provided and work is effectively a hobby, as opposed to less advanced or altruistic societies where work is a necessity to put food on the table so to speak. I find Banks' concentration on characters on the fringe of the culture part of the charm as it expresses an opinion that while a paradise-like society might be utopian, to get 'life' and drive there needs to be a little (or more) conflict.
I was thinking a lot about how his characters choose to manifest and seeing that as their identity and it made me wonder if people would still identify as disabled and choose that 'body-form' whilst allowing effector fields and the like to overcome a lot of the practical issues.
As you say, setting a story in that universe would say little about disability and identity today and the life choices people have to make. I must re-read William Gibson's "The Winter Market" which has a character with a degenerative condition 'going silicon' and transposing their personality into a virtual construct. Each time I read it, I feel differently about it. Half of me dislikes it as it posits a future where the enabling technology (a carbon fibre exo-skeleton) still hampers as much as it enables (causes pressure sores) and the only way the character can earn a living and remain productive is to cross over. But that fact the she has the choice and elects to do this strikes me as positive too.
I grew up reading the 'classic' American rayguns and bugs SF and didn't see the eugenic agenda in the background, even in less gung-ho stuff like Asimov but I never really identified with any character and that's what I think's lacking in SF, that diversity of voices. As you said about autism, there are things that could be done to make everyday life easier but total removal would be a 'disowning' of who one is. Non-disabled authors, either though ignorance, mis-placed benevolence or eugenic beliefs, still stick to the medical model and think that we want technology to 'cure' us. I'd like a better prosthesis but don't want to regrow a leg and foot.
I suppose it falls to those disabled people who can write, to try and develop their voices and move us into the SF mainstream.
no subject
I was thinking a lot about how his characters choose to manifest and seeing that as their identity and it made me wonder if people would still identify as disabled and choose that 'body-form' whilst allowing effector fields and the like to overcome a lot of the practical issues.
As you say, setting a story in that universe would say little about disability and identity today and the life choices people have to make. I must re-read William Gibson's "The Winter Market" which has a character with a degenerative condition 'going silicon' and transposing their personality into a virtual construct. Each time I read it, I feel differently about it. Half of me dislikes it as it posits a future where the enabling technology (a carbon fibre exo-skeleton) still hampers as much as it enables (causes pressure sores) and the only way the character can earn a living and remain productive is to cross over. But that fact the she has the choice and elects to do this strikes me as positive too.
I grew up reading the 'classic' American rayguns and bugs SF and didn't see the eugenic agenda in the background, even in less gung-ho stuff like Asimov but I never really identified with any character and that's what I think's lacking in SF, that diversity of voices. As you said about autism, there are things that could be done to make everyday life easier but total removal would be a 'disowning' of who one is. Non-disabled authors, either though ignorance, mis-placed benevolence or eugenic beliefs, still stick to the medical model and think that we want technology to 'cure' us. I'd like a better prosthesis but don't want to regrow a leg and foot.
I suppose it falls to those disabled people who can write, to try and develop their voices and move us into the SF mainstream.