Controversies between fans based on misunderstandings

I suppose it is possible that the political entity now known as United Earth went through a number of name changes before it became a truly global government.

 

Beverly's choice of Australia for her example seemed completely arbitrary and free of any deeper meaning to me.

 

Timo has a way of interpreting things in the exact opposite way they were intended. He's previously described Kirk as one of the greatest movie villains in Star Trek history.

--Sran

 

Agreed. She was just speaking about a "what-if", nothing more.

 

Thank you.


Plus I never understood why it would be Australia anyway. I know its 150 years in the future, but if western countries like the US and UK can become absolute best buddies with Burma, China, North Korea, Pakistan, Laos, Sudan, Somalia and everywhere else, I don't see why Australia couldn't join in!

 

Not to mention changing her whole personality.

I choose to explain it thus (read Amanda's dialogue first):

I don't care why the IDIC was originally created. Star Trek itself was created as a way to make money. Should we dismiss it all just for that reason? Personally I think the philosophy behind the idea of IDIC is a positive one, and the fans who choose to adopt it seem a lot more considerate of their fellow fans and people in general. For some people it's a good way to help them examine what prejudices and judgmental attitudes they may be harboring that they could rid themselves of and become better people as a result.

Or they could be going through a phase in their history where hypocrisy is socially acceptable. After all, there's plenty of that going on right now in our daily lives.

 

It's as if I said "What if, say, Connecticut decided to secede from the Union?" That doesn't mean Connecticut ever actually seriously considered doing so.

Crusher's phrasing makes it pretty clear that she picked Australia largely at random: "Well, think about Earth. What if one of the old nation states, say Australia, had decided not to join the World Government in twenty one fifty?" (Link)

 

Well, actually, it did. In fact, it hosted the Hartford Convention, which in December 1814 and January 1815 discussed how to get out of the bad war the United States had gotten into, and New England secession was one of the options considered, though not (apparently) with great enthusiasm.

 

Depends who the Prime Minister is at the time, doesn't it. If Tony Abbot The Third is in charge, then chances are good we'll probably be a safe haven for all the British royals who've been kicked out their own country...

(Oops, little bit of topical politics there for you ladies and gents. Move along now, nothing else to see here. )

 

Whilst it is likely a random choice, it's ambigious enough to say that one or more countries might have been considering whether or not to join the World Government in 2150.

 

Regarding Vulcan's lack of diversity, we've seen a black Vulcan, and in ENT it was shown there had been a prejudice against use of psychic abilities, which presumably was overcome at least by TSFS. So it's possible there is diversity in Vulcan culture which just isn't visible to outsiders. Anyway, the IDIC represents an ethical ideal, not necessarily the actual state of an entire planet's society.

 

But it's not a novel concept that originated with Star Trek either. The phrase, maybe. But the idea "diversity=beauty" of "the infinite diversity of creation" is very very old. It's a core teaching of Buddhism for one, and it also shows up in other scifi works that predate Star Trek, in C.S. Lewis "Space Trilogy" the concept is known as the "Great Dance".
And when you really boil it down it is just "It takes all sort to make a world" nicely rephrased.

Vulcan skin could come in all colors of the rainbow and it would still not necessarily make them culturally or personally diverse. In my eyes the Vulcans of TNG and everything after it, at the very least, are the personification of conformity. They are so uniform that they even all share the same hairstyle. Even their names are incredibly uniform with that, rather silly rule of males starting with S and ending with k and all females starting with "T' ".

Vulcan woman at the hairdresser, looks down at her "IDIC" rubber bracelet: "I think I have a bowl-cut again!"

 

Or Vulcans feel no need to make themselves conspicuous by their appearance; they are beyond such vanity.

 

Not sure if implying that Tuvok is transgender or if they just ran out of S names and had to move up in the alphabet by his time...

 

Great catch!
I think the general rule was that Vulcan males start with S and end with K. My friend told me it had something to do with their prophet's name being structured like that and linked it to (Christianity influenced) Western Society naming most of its children after saints or people int he Bible. Though maybe that was just fanon or something from the novel verse and he told me also that the reason Saavik was made half-Romulan was because her name doesn't start with "T' " and was not judged "Vulcan enough"

Hey, maybe Tuvok was from a culture on Vulcan that did not or no longer followed that custom (an actual sign of cultural diversity?) . Or maybe his parents were rebellious individualists (by Vulcan standards).


Also i want to apologize for putting IDIC down earlier. My (very arrogant, very close minded) point of view was, because it originated from a TV show it is not a "proper" philosophic concept, because philosophic concepts come from books and scholars and yadda yadda yadda.
Then I realized how close minded my reason for dismissing it was...
If anybody gains meaning/strength from IDIC, then please accept my apology for being so dismissive. As long as something works dor people and helps them improve themselves it's valuable and relevant no matter if it originated from a 5000 year old stone relief or a comic book that was published yesterday, I realize that now.

 

The actual source of this idea was a TOS production memo reproduced in The Making Of Star Trek.

Pretty sure Bob Justman wasn't entirely serious about it... (y'know, names like "Spirk" were sort of a giveaway...)

 

Ah I see, thanks for that, so it was not entirely serious. I'm glad because it always one of those things that I found very silly about the Vulcans. I will talk about it again with my friend when I see him next.

 

Inconspicuous. Even less conspicuous.

 

This presupposes that Crusher is in the habit of having false things pop in her head. Why on Earth would anybody presuppose such a thing?

If you wanted to pose the hypothetical question "What if nation X didn't join the Second World War?", and you weren't an ignoramus, why would you choose to say "What if the United States didn't join WWII in 1944?", when it's well known that it had already joined in 1941? Or "What if New Zealand didn't join in 1939?", when it's well known that all of the Commonwealth joined?

There is zero chance that Australia was a UE member prior to 2150, as per Crusher's informed argument. Zero, that is, unless Crusher is ignorant in Earth history. And if she were, why would she pick an example that puts her completely out of her depth?

As far as we know, Aussies could be among the first. But as far as Beverly Crusher knows, and clearly tells us, they were not.

Timo Saloniemi

 

To be serious for a moment (which I wasn't earlier ), we don't know a lot of detail about the world Star Trek was in post-disaster, nor the speed to which the "world government" rose.

As somebody who lives in Australia, and knows what this place is like and the sheer geographical boundries that come from living here, I can totally buy the idea that a post nuclear-winter Australia could have become very isolationist (or perhaps more accurately 'self-sufficient'), largely for geographical reasons. If the so-called "World War III" (or whatever it was) of Star Trek's pre-history hit the planet so badly that humanity needed to rebuild in the wake of it, and that it may have cut off many parts of the world from each other in a geographical sense as well as a political sense, then I'd say chances are pretty good that Australia will have built up a fairly self-sufficient society, and as an Australian I find it very plausible that we could be one of the last countries to sign up to such an agreement as a "world government", especially if it were presented to us as a 'fait accomplii' by countries mostly in the northern hemisphere.