True or False: Dear Dr. is most morally bankrupt trek episode evar

I'm using the smiley when it's appropriate.

And horatio83 claiming he's not supporting a 'moral relativism' position when he is blatantly supporting such a 'moral relativism' position (which is: morals don't apply to this group - ANY group - because 'it's not their way') IS a WTF claim, deserving of smileys.

 

It's here:
http://blip.tv/sf-debris-opinionated-reviews/ent-dear-doctor-review-5896615

And it's pure gold. The guy pretty much buries it.

I especially liked one of the user comments:

 

Trip asked this question (it is obviously more complicated, the cogenitor would not have been able to answer your simple question as it was not even aware of being a slave; Trip had to show to it what it hasn't known yet to make it realize that it is a slave) but was unable to realize it materially for the cogenitor which made it, having realized that these new-found possibilities can never be realized, commit suicide.

Just going around and asking abstract questions that create empty dreams and cause suicides is not ethical behaviour. If you really wanted to help the cogenitors you'd have to help them in their emancipatory struggle. You'd need agents that can penetrate the security measures just to be able to reach the cogenitors and talk with them, not to mention providing them with the material means they need in their struggle. You have to fight (obviously peacefully) against a whole planet.

These are the radical implications of ethics I wrote about in my last post. Abstract ethics and half-assed efforts do not suffice.

 

I really wouldn't know, I stopped following this dicussion 3 pages ago when you chimed in and had your little buddy moment with BillJ.

 

Talk about another self-righteous guy.

 

Interesting perspective, but that is one person's opinion. Other people, obviously, disagree with that assessment. Each person here gets to have an opinion, whether it is that Archer/Phlox was right, that they were wrong, or something in between. There is no correct answer here, no matter how invested you are in your own opinion.

HopefulRomantic has asked everyone very nicely to tone it down. I am not feeling so nice, so listen up. Enough with the personal attacks, the grudges dragged in from other discussions, and the general disrespect. If you have something new to add, feel free to do so -- civilly. If you've made your point once or several times already, then move on. Any more ad hominem shots will get infractions for trolling. Clear? Good.

Carry on.

 

I always thought that the great thing about the Prime Directive is that it is complicated and messy, that it makes you feel uneasy and think again and again and again about it.

 

As said, Trip made a morally defensible choice, but hugely uninspired one.

The Congenitor was a sex slave; but a VERY important sex slave for her masters.
If she would have known how to 'play her cards', she - and all others like her - could have been free within mere years.

And she WANTED to be free. She made a choice - to die rather than live as a slave.
You know what, horatio83? It was HER CHOICE to make; when she knew a little more, she considered her life as cattle worse than death. And before, just because she didn't knew enough to realize just how miserable her existence was, does NOT mean she was not utterly miserable.

I have little sympathy for her masters' unrealised benefits; I have little sympathy for slavers in general.


Why was Trip's behavior uninspired? He naively thought the Congenitor would be free immediately and gave her far too naive hopes. He should have prepared her for a lenghtier struggle, not give her such foolish expectations.
Trip needed to read more history.
And because he was naive, it ended with a tragic suicide rather than the liberation of a third of a species from slavery.

 

So, you're saying the Federation should tolerate the enslavement of the Menk, but, should be found guilty of Genocide for providing the Genetic cure for the Valakians? Actively supporting the enslavement of one race by saving another? You honeslt don't see the hypocrasy of that position? If you're going to interfere, you have to interfere in both situations, if you're going to ignore one, you need to ignore both. Taking the Valakians side is no less immoral than taking the Menk's side, IMHO.

 

So - you responded to me while having no idea about what I was discussing?
Yeah...

 

Yep, you'd have to help both or none. If you apply human ethics galaxy-wide you cannot play pick and choose, you'd have to cure the Valakans and liberate the Menk. Folks who argue against the PD ignore the latter.
Or you stay out and help neither (at the cost of the other) which is obviously what I am arguing for

Not that I have to, Phlox showed neatly that we we perceive as enslavement is a symbiotic relationship. On other worlds (like our own) one sentient species might have killed the other, here they found a stable and peaceful relationship. Precisely because we lack Phlox' view, precisely because we only know our own history and cannot perceive this as anything else but slavery we have no right to interfere on either side.

 

Instead of going at him ad hominem, you could have at least tried to offer some kind of valid counter argument.

He pretty much destroyed the pseudo-scientific foundations on which the whole (so-called) "dilemma" was based. And once that is out of the picture, the rest crumbles by itself.

 

Free them of what exactly? By Phlox's account they're currently nothing more than intelligent chimps who, may, make an evolutionary leap in a thousand years. You going to make sure that the Valakians put them in zoos' and in forests?

I just re-watched this episode and they don't offer a single reason to save the Valakians other than human stupidity. That, my friend, is the writer leading you to their preferred moral conclusion.

I think the SFdebris (Maximum Strength-Fuck Off! is comic gold) review really says it all, you don't evolve to die. Evolution is about adapting to your environment to survive.

 

Ah, OK, I got lost, I guess. I thought you were one of the ones calling inaction with the cure Genocide, and then to see you advocating we can't impose our values against slavery on other cultures, it was confusing.

 

I wonder if there are any episodes or books that actually look at both sides of the Prime Directive?

 

I think that all good Prime Directive episodes offer both perspectives. In Dear Doctor it is the human vs. the Denobulan perspective (and despite personally totally siding with Phlox I really would have loved to see the original ending where Archer did not adopt Phlox' suggestion and helped the Valakans), in Cogenitor you sympathize the entire time with Trip and in Pen Pals they decide to help the little girl. I am sure there are more such PD episodes but these are the only ones which come to mind.

 

Then there hasn't been a truly good Prime Directive episode yet.

 

Why don't you say then immediately that you want to see an anti-PD story?

I might be a hardcore PD advocate but gee, I rather take one of these controversial stories that shows both perspectives than something one-sided which just reinforces my opinion. Being challenged via the dialectics of a story is more fun.

 

I want a balanced Prime Directive story.

 

I loved the shit out of "Who watches the watchers".