If interested in the answer without the backstory, scroll down to the last paragraph.
One of my favorite science fiction series is the Culture series written by Ian M. Banks, who through his inimitable imagination created such amazing worlds and set such a high bar in describing advanced civilizations, their world-building and the dilemmas they face, that I haven’t seen anything like it since then.
In the Culture series there are 10 novels, which are related to each other indirectly, they have no chronological order, the action takes place in different places, but they are connected by a common belonging to a meta-civilization called Culture.
In the fifth book of the series, part of the narrative is devoted to another meta-civilization called Zetetic Elench that has split from the Culture due to worldview differences.
The Culture tries through its agents in visible and invisible ways to “culturally” (sometimes not so much) capture other less developed civilizations, guiding their development, while at the same time remaining unchanged itself.
Zetetic Elench prefer to change constantly, absorbing aspects of the civilizations and technologies they encountered. Their modus operandi is to understand rather than overpower.
The concept itself interested me and I wanted to know what exactly these words meant, if they meant anything at all, since Mr. Banks, through his imagination, has made up many things that have no equivalents in our daily lives and do not exist in nature.
In this case, it turned out that these words are present even in English, which came there from Ancient Greek:
elench (logic) – that part of an argument on which its conclusiveness depends; that which convinces or refutes an antagonist; a refutation.
zetetic (philosophy) – proceeding by inquiry or investigation.
The combination of these two nouns, slightly deliberately altered, in my understanding means “the seeker of truth through questioning and refutation“. It symbolizes a dual commitment to critical thinking (Elenche) and an insatiable curiosity (Zetetique).
