popular culture?

Discussion in 'General Trek Discussion' started by JoeZhang, Jan 7, 2013.

  1. TheGoodNews

    TheGoodNews Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I'd think Roddenberry's idea was that human civilization had matured above and beyond the Bread and Circuses of today, or as Guy Debord called it "the Society of the Spectacle."

    From the Situationist International anthology:

    "The future will only contain what we put into it now."

    "The Golden Age was the age when gold didn't reign."

    "Commodities are the opium of the people."

    "The more you consume, the less you live."

    "Are you a consumer or a participant?"

    "You will end up dying of comfort."

    "Boredom is counterrevolutionary."

    "In the decor of the Spectacle, the eye meets only things and their prices."

    Data, on regarding television: "That form of entertainment didn't last beyond the year 2040." I keep thinking Roddenberry meant more than just holodecks with that statement.
     
  2. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

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    Maybe Data forgot to mention, after 2040 people got their entertainment solely from the internet.

    I think in 1987 television was considered strictly light entertainment, there was nothing like Sopranos or Breaking Bad, there were mostly network sitcoms and procedurals. So saying we got tired of that is just an extension of saying we stopped caring about frivolous distractions.
     
  3. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Or perhaps at that time, TV became *part of* the Internet. Which it pretty much already is, right now.
     
  4. R. Star

    R. Star Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Pft, I'm holding out for futuristic wifi where you can download movies directly into your brain!
     
  5. Garrovick

    Garrovick Commander Red Shirt

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    Well, there were a number of references to the sport of Parrises Squares on TNG and VOY, and it seems to be fairly widespread in the Federation, at least. Given how entrenched sports are in our pop culture now, I'd think they will probably still be a part of it in the 24th century.

    Also, there's always Marauder Mo!
     
  6. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I would really like to know exactly what kind of sport Parrises Squares is, and how it's played. All we know is:

    - The rhythm of the game depends on having exactly four players on a team.

    - There's a ramp.

    - There's an "ion mallet", whatever the hell that is.
     
  7. TheGoodNews

    TheGoodNews Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Roddenberry was probably trying to remain intellectually and maybe even philosophically consistent. The absence of the monetary system in his future vision should presuppose the absence of its main technique for self-perpetuation in the public consciousness (i.e. pop culture/media-consumerism/idolatry). I mean I don't think Roddenberry envisioned Black Fridays or Paris Hilton for his future humanity.

    "The Spectacle is capital accumulated to the point where it becomes image." Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle.
     
  8. robau

    robau Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    A future without celebrities sounds awesome. They can start by no longer airing the obscene Academy Awards circle jerk.
     
  9. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    I don't know. The celebrities of the future may not be movie stars and pop bands and such, but there are bound to be colorful, exceptional individuals whose exploits, accomplishments, and/or scandals attract public interest. That's pretty much a constant throughout human history. Look at Cleopatra or Lord Byron or Mark Twain or Charles Dickens or Houdini or Nellie Bly or Buffalo Bill or whomever. Can't imagine that will have changed by Kirk's time.

    Indeed, according to "Amok Time," Spock had already become something of a living legend on Vulcan, which is why T'Pring did not want to marry him. Guess she didn't want the spotlight of being the wife of a celebrity!

    And I imagine Lenore Karidian generated lots of press. Think about it: glamorous actress-turned-murderer tries for comeback after being "cured" by advanced 23rd century psychiatry. The tabloid headlines practically write themselves! :)
     
  10. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    She could go on the the Real Housewives of ShiKahr.
     
  11. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Hah!

    Forget T'Pring. Lwaxana Troi certainly acted like a celebrity--and would be reality-show gold!
     
  12. Gary7

    Gary7 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I distinctly remember the bridge of the Enterprise NCC-1701B in Generations, when Captain Kirk entered. Captain Harriman said "I just want you to know how excited we all are to have a group of living legends with us on our maiden voyage." And the video journalists certainly behaved in kind, sticking the cameras in the face of Kirk at pivotal moments. Kirk certainly seemed like a celebrity there.
     
  13. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    According to Peter David's New Frontier novels, both Kirk and Spock puplished their memoirs after leaving Starfleet. I'd love to read those! (hint, hint, Pocket Books)

    The Enterprise-B's Captain Harriman read about Kirk's missions in grade school. And the NX-01 Enterprise crew were doing lots of silly PR work in early episodes (photos of Archer in the captain's chair, making recordings for school kids, Archer writing a foreward for someone's book etc), so these people are somewhat in the public eye.
     
  14. WillsBabe

    WillsBabe Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Are you saying that Breaking Bad and The Sopronos aren't frivolous distractions? TV these days is no less "frivilous" than it was back then, don't kid yourself.
     
  15. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Foster's adaptations of the animated series were supposedly excerpts from Admiral Kirk's memoirs.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2013
  16. Arpy

    Arpy Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I wonder if there aren't psychiatric disorders for holosuite...not addiction...psychosis? Where one creates so many more interesting worlds in the holosuites, ones very close to the real one but skewed every so slightly wherein their life is happier, that they lose touch with what's the real world and what's their own concoction. I imagine it might be something like living in a Philip K. Dick novel. What if Deckard was a human in a holosuite thinking he was an android fooling himself that he was a human? Come to think of it...TNG's "Frame of Mind"'s not that far off.
     
  17. TheGoodNews

    TheGoodNews Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    "The question of the use of technological means, in everyday life and elsewhere, is a political question. Out of all the potential technical means, those that actually get implemented are selected in accordance with the goal of maintaining the rule of a particular class. When one imagines a future such as that presented in science-fiction, in which interstellar adventures coexist with a terrestrial everyday life kept in the same old material poverty and archaic morality, this implies precisely that there is still a class of specialized rulers maintaining the proletarian masses of the factories and offices in their service; and that the interstellar adventures are nothing but the particular enterprise chosen by those rulers, the way they have found to develop their irrational economy, the pinnacle of specialized activity.

    .....

    For classical capitalism, wasted time was time that was not devoted to production, accumulation, saving. The secular morality taught in bourgeois schools has instilled this rule of life. But it so happens that by an unexpected turn of events modern capitalism needs to increase consumption and "raise the standard of living" (bearing in mind that that expression is completely meaningless). Since at the same time production conditions, compartmentalized and clocked to the extreme, have become indefensible, the new morality already being conveyed in advertising, propaganda and all the forms of the dominant spectacle now frankly admits that wasted time is the time spent at work, the only purpose of which is earn enough to enable one to buy rest, consumption and entertainments -- a daily passivity manufactured and controlled by capitalism.

    If we now consider the artificiality of the consumer needs prefabricated and ceaselessly stimulated by modern industry -- if we recognize the emptiness of leisure activities and the impossibility of rest -- we can pose the question more realistically: What would not be wasted time? Or to put it another way, the development of a society of abundance should lead to an abundance of what?"

    Conscious Changes in Every Day Life by GuyDebord May 1961.

    Roddenberry must've taken notes. But a lot of writers have infrequently contradicted what Roddenberry presented in the series. Probably through their own discretion due to time constraints and fear of alienating the viewers by making things too unfamiliar or complicated. At least he got William Shatner to kiss Nichelle Nichols on prime time.

    "We've eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We've grown out of our infancy." Capt. Picard.
     
  18. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

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    More likely a question of personal desire, market forces and consumer safety.

    This is the most foolish and arrogant thing that ever came out of Picard's mouth. They still have personal possessions. They still exhibit wants.
     
  19. robau

    robau Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    They still have possessions but they aren't treated as a need. There is no Black Friday in the Utopia where a mass of humanity shove each other for cheap cellphones.
     
  20. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Picard was probably just bullshitting Lily for her own "good".