Free The State Of The Art by Iain M. Banks

going to be, but it might progress. You're turning your back on every advance we've made beyond where they are now, and you're insulting them as well as the Culture.'
    'Oh, pardon me.' He rocked forward on his haunches, hugging himself.
    'The only way they can go - and survive - is the same way we've come, and you're saying that's all shit. That's refugee mentality, and they wouldn't thank you for what you're doing. They would say you're crazy.'
    He shook his head, hands in his armpits, still staring away. 'Maybe they don't have to take the same route. Maybe they don't need Minds, maybe they don't need more and more technology. They might be able to do it by themselves, without wars and revolutions even ... just by understanding, by some ... belief. By something more natural than we can understand. Naturalness is something they still understand.'
    'Naturalness?' I said, loudly. 'This lot'll tell you anything is natural; they'll tell you greed and hate and jealousy and paranoia and unthinking religious awe and fear of God and hating anybody who's another colour or thinks different is natural. Hating blacks or hating whites or hating women or hating men or hating gays; that's natural. Dog-eat-dog, looking out for number one, no lame ducks ... Shit, they're so convinced about what's natural it's the more sophisticated ones that'll tell you suffering and evil are natural and necessary because otherwise you can't have pleasure and goodness. They'll tell you any one of their rotten stupid systems is the natural and right one, the one true way; what's natural to them is whatever they can use to fight their own grimy corner and fuck everybody else. They're no more natural than us than an amoeba is more natural than them just because it's cruder.'
    'But Sma, they're living according to their instincts, or trying to. We're so proud of living according to our conscious belief, but we've lost the idea of shame. And we need that too. We need that even more than they do.'
    'What?' I shouted. I whirled round, took him by the shoulders and shook him. 'We should be what? Ashamed of being conscious? Are you crazy? What's wrong with you? How can you say something like that?'
    'Just listen! I don't mean they're better; I don't mean we should try to live like them, I mean that they have an idea of ... of light and shade that we don't have. They're proud sometimes, too, but they're ashamed as well; they feel all-conquering and powerful but then they realize how powerless they really are. They know the good in them, but they know the evil in them, too; they recognize both, they live with both. We don't have that duality, that balance. And ... and can't you see it might be more fulfilling for one individual - me - who has a Culture background who is aware of all life's possibilities, to live in this society, not the Culture?'
    'So you find this ... hellhole more fulfilling?'
    'Yes, of course I do. Because there's - because it's just so ... alive. In the end, they're right Sma; it doesn't really matter that a lot of what's going on is what we - or even they - might call “bad”; it's happening, it's there, and that's what matters, that's what makes it worthwhile to be here and be part of it.'
    I took my hands off his shoulders. 'No. I don't understand you. Dammit Linter, you're more alien than they are. At least they have an excuse. God, you're the fucking mythical recent convert, aren't you? The fanatic. The zealot. I'm sorry for you, man.'
    'Well ... thank you.' He looked to the sky, blinking again.
    'I didn't want you to understand me too quickly, and -' he made a noise that was not quite a laugh '- I don't think you are, are you?'
    'Don't give me that pleading look.' I shook my head, but I couldn't stay angry with him looking like that. Something subsided in me, and I saw a sort of shy smile steal over Linter's face. 'I am not,' I said, 'going to make this easy for you, Dervley. You're making a mistake. The biggest you'll ever make in your life.