Like many societies finding their hitherto unquestioned customs and ethical assumptions impacting squarely with the breathtakingly sophisticated summed morality of a meta-civilisation inestimably older, vaster and by implication wiser than themselves, the Sichultia became highly protective of their developmental foibles, and refused to mandate away what some of them at least claimed to regard as one of their defining social characteristics and a vital and vibrant part of their culture. Not all Sichultians agreed with this, of course; there had always been opposition to the very idea of Indented Intagliation, as well as to the very notion of a political-economic system configured to allow such options – a few deranged ruffians and degenerate troublemakers even took issue with the primacy of private ownership and the unfettered accumulation of capital itself – but most Sichultians accepted the practice and some were genuinely proud of it.

— Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #9)