Star Trek and Liberalism....

An interesting take on Star Trek and the changes in Liberalism: http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/15/how-star-trek-explains-the-decline-of-liberalism/

 

There are a couple of minor/inconsequential details I found to be off, but it seem very well written and the conclusions are right on. Certainly had Picard nailed.

 

As a conservative, watching the evolution of Star Trek since my childhood in the 80s has been interesting. Obviously most of the writers are left-wing, and even if they do not consciously imbue their scripts with a left-wing message it still shows in their base assumptions. (There are some good conservative messages in there now and then too.)

What is interesting though is what some might call a "Whig" view of history, that is, that history is progressing linearly toward a Utopian future, as defined by the left wing. Star Trek certainly fits that view. The Federation is extremely tolerant of various cultures (except 20th century humanity), disease, war, and hunger are a thing of the past on Earth, mankind exists in a sort of perfect socialism where every base need is taken care of, greed is gone, there is no corruption at the top, and money has been eliminated. This is, in a way, the ideal expression of the left-wing view of the world - that mankind will evolve to be better, more altruistic.

It would have been interesting to see the writer address DS9, which took Roddenberry's perfect Utopia of TNG and showed the seams, the shades of grey. DS9 shows a universe where faith is a real motivating force, one where war is sometimes unavoidable.

 

Meh, it appears to me as more an article about navel gazing, how good things "used to be," and some really shallow bullshit on the new movies. I read the entire article, and want my 11 minutes back.

 

I found the essay to be brimming with insights and valuable perspective.

Regarding the section on the two newest movies, I thought that was the least important part of what he had to say. The big thing was to trace the philosophical change from early TOS, to the third season, and then to Star Trek VI.

 

Eh, it lost credibility with me when it started making up things about the new films. It's one thing to disagree or have a stance on the philosophy of the new films, but it's another to ignore everything and make up your own because you don't like them. That makes the rest of the article suspect, which I already felt it was because of its intense navel gazing, and constant lamenting about how the new liberalism is essentially wishy-washy dream theater.

 

The author is clearly a vintage Trek fan who doesn't care about the Abramsverse. But that doesn't make him wrong about the "classic cast" franchise.

It seems more fair to say that you believe in the new liberalism and he doesn't. There is no "navel gazing" in the essay. He cites objective, visible-to-everyone, Trek-based evidence for all his conclusions.

 

That doesn't make it any less navel gazing. It's clearly an example of "look how better things were," which is an entirely subjective point of view when looking at a television show, while dismissing newer iterations as something not worth genuine study.

 

Again, you disagree with him about which brand of liberalism is preferred. I get that. But he isn't saying that television or Star Trek was better in the old days. He's saying that the underlying philosophical assumptions of the writers were different. And he backs it up with a look at the actions and dialogue of the characters.

 

His problem, is he tries to use TOS, TNG, and NUTrek in an attempt to plot a trend... well, those three versions of Trek, only offer three datapoints, and NUTrek is limited to only 2 stories across 4 hours, so that datapoint should be thrown out.

But even what we see in TNG is far more representative of Classical Liberalism, as opposed to Neo Liberalism.... People just get hung up on the idea that a post scarcity society where the concept of wealth is a bit of an outdated archaism is somehow Socialist....

 

Agreed. It's an excellent article the provides a lot of food for thought. For those who see the ideological thrust of Trek as fundamental to its DNA, the degree to which it has drifted away from its original mission-statement raises questions as to how relevant the brand truly is going forward (outside of nostalgia and its superficial trappings).

After all, it seems like people's vision of the future is decidedly more apocalyptic than utopian these days. Witness the failure of Tomorrowland to refashion Space-Age utopianism for a pessimistic society.

Once you throw that out, what's left? Pew-pew, Kirk bedding aliens, and Uhura nagging Spock.

 

Well, I for one don't watch Star Trek for political bullshit or intellectual stimulation or exploration of whatever. I just watch it because it's entertaining, no matter what era, or who did it.

 

I got as far as his screed against Insurrection before I had to give up before I threw up. While he makes some interesting points worth at least discussing, keep in mind that The Federalist is a neo-libertarian/conservative rag and slants everything from that point.

He rails against the Baku voluntarily giving up "the rat race" of "modern" (in Federalist context read: "laissez faire capitalist") society for a far less materialistic but far more human lifestyle.

If the author of this screed were a true libertarian, he would approve wholeheartedly of Picard's defence of the Baku's right to live their lives on their planet on their terms, so long as they harm no other in doing so.

Instead he rants about Picard's "racism" when he refers to greedy exploiters like Quark as "people like you", and bemoans the fact that the Federation won't let Quark and his ilk put up 5,000 time-share units around the beautiful Baku lake.

I might go back and finish the article another time out of sheer morbid curiosity...once my gorge settles.

 

As I said elsewhere, this article is clickbait using "Star Trek" to denounce liberalism, and doing hula hoops to prove its shaky points, written by someone with ties to right-wing, libertarian organizations. Nothing more, nothing less.

And this discussion might be better suited for TNZ because I can see it devolving quickly into political lines of "I'm right, you're wrong." (Or another "I like/dislike the new Abrams movies, and I'm right and you're wrong" thread.)

 

+1

 

The author Sandefur indicates that he has no idea what "Errand of Mercy" is about. He really spectacularly missed the point of it.

"Errand of Mercy" is not about the freedom-loving Federation saving the pacifist Organians from the totalitarian Klingons. Rather, it's about the Organians saving the Federation and the Klingons from deploying weapons of mass destruction on each other. The apparently pacifist Organians really turn out to be the ones on the titular errand of mercy.

The episode doesn't portray the Organians as pacifists in order to demonstrate to us how right the Federation is in being freedom-loving. Rather, it has the Organians pretending to be [merely simple, primitive] pacifists* in order to provide us with an object lesson in how wrong both the Federation and the Klingon Empire are. It's pretty much a given that the Klingons are wrong, but it's easy to miss (apparently) that the Federation is in the wrong too. Kirk thinks he so right, right up to the point that Ayelborne points out to Kirk that he's marching off "to wage war" and "to destroy life on a planetary scale."

So, that's a big whoosh, there. Sandefur would hammer on how Star Trek was ostensibly and simplistically just saying that Totalitarianism Is Bad, without comprehending that Star Trek was also saying that killing millions in the name of freedom is Very Bad, too.

* - Edit - In clarification, I mean that the Organians are pretending to be only simple, primitive pacifists who can put up no resistance to the Klingons. The Organians are, of course, opposed to war, but they are hardly incapable of resisting. Nor do they need the Federation's help to be saved from the Klingons.

 

Ideologies aside, it seems that whenever intellectuals, academics, etc. write about Trek, they tend to butcher things just to support their preconceived notions. It's as if they think they don't have to pay as much attention to accuracy and detail when writing about popular culture.

And this was no exception.

Kor

 

But as these things go, he got a LOT of on-screen details right. No one can deny that he's watched the show a lot.

 

Well the article doesn't take long to go off the rails....

Kirk of course is completely unaware for a large portion of the episode that the Organians are immensely superior beings who could care less about what some childish race wishes to impose on them, and would be perfectly content to let the Klingons strut about and posture - because true peace requires all parties to shed their pride and hubris.

But - yes freedom and such.

 

I'd say I found merit in roughly half of the article. Perhaps because it's the last part, I felt it painted the new films with a particularly broad brush.

It does have some worthwhile points to make about the Klingons and their culture, points which have even come up in the novels on occasion.

I don't think it's entirely unwarranted to say that there is somewhat of a change in perspective from TOS to TNG...but, I mean, we all know that already, right?

I think it's a shame, and possibly suspect, that the other series are left out of the discussion. ENT might have been a particularly interesting study, given that it is the most recent series but in-universe predates TOS and is rather obviously informed by current events with regards to the third season.