Middle-Easterners in "Discovery"

[Jedi_Master]

What exactly do you find silly?
People have been celebrating birthdays in one form or the other for thousands of years. Various statues of The Buddha have been made for thousands of years. The list goes on and on. Culture does change, but significant cultural touchstones don't change over a few centuries.

 

[Tallguy]

If a person can't find positive aspects in a term so purposely broad as "Middle-Eastern Culture" I don't know how to help.

That's not what I meant. I'm saying does the other culture get to pick what is good and what is bad or does the actual culture get to pick what is good and what is bad?

Someone from the middle east (for example) would probably have a very different set of what is "good" about life in the United States than I would. "It's not a bug, it's a feature." And vice versa.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Or his parents are from the Middle-East, but immigrated to Cuba for the vibrant job market and world class schools.

Or they immigrated to Cuba from the Middle-East because a certain world power bombed their home and killed the rest of their family.

 

[Nakita Akita]

What exactly do you find silly?
People have been celebrating birthdays in one form or the other for thousands of years. Various statues of The Buddha have been made for thousands of years. The list goes on and on. Culture does change, but significant cultural touchstones don't change over a few centuries.

Celebration in one form or another.
Like I said, have the person mixing "culture"
A Buddha statue, next to say a menorah holding insence.
Surely you can imagine that a person from biblical times would be confused about stuff we do now.
I think it would be more interesting that way.
Im sure we all think that we are acting in a traditional way, which is ludicrous because often things chsnge for all sorts of reason and a new tradition is begun.

 

[Nakita Akita]

Or they immigrated to Cuba from the Middle-East because a certain world power bombed their home and killed the rest of their family.

But that would have been 400 years ago.
Can any of us know for certain about or forefathers from 400 years ago?

What was your great,great,great,great, great , great, great, great, great, great, aunt really like back in 1618?

 

[BillJ]

The show is being made for 21st century audiences. So the characters need to be something the viewer can relate to.

 

[Fateor]

As most Earth customs have lasted for thousands of years, I can't see why things would take such a left turn that they would go away entirely or be put in some kind of blender.

The reasons certain customs have lasted as long as they have is because of something called "cultural isolation" that with the advent of global communications and mass media can't really exist any longer outside of tiny isolated third world communities.

Fact is it's fully believable that over the next few hundred years most of the different customs and cultures will disappear.

 

[cultcross]

The reasons certain customs have lasted as long as they have is because of something called "cultural isolation" that with the advent of global communications and mass media can't really exist any longer outside of tiny isolated third world communities.

As someone who has travelled fairly widely within the mass media connected 'first' world, that simply isn't the case. Cultural differences and customs have survived into the digital age quite successfully. Small town America, the British West Country, Brittany, Hawkes Bay, Venice, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, will all have significantly different customs, cultural norms, languages, dialects, and religious and political demographics. While it is likely that ease of transport will mix these over time, it is equally likely that it will lead to multiculturalism, the co-existence of cultural identities in the same locations, rather than homogeneous monoculture. Britain was far more monocultural when my parents grew up than it is now. My mother considered spaghetti bolognese radically ethnic. I had homemade Thai curry for dinner with ingredients from a local Tesco.

 

[Tenacity]

Having characters with mixed up, indistinct, meaningless cultures is the opposite of the way I would want the show to be.

 

[cultcross]

The last thing I want is another Chakotay. Pick-and-mix 'ethnic' cultural tropes which don't add up together or make sense.

 

[Kor]

The show is being made for 21st century audiences. So the characters need to be something the viewer can relate to.

This is why we will never see Roddenberry's Vision (tm) of "New Humans" in televised or cinematic Trek.

Kor

 

[Longinus]

This is why we will never see Roddenberry's Vision (tm) of "New Humans" in televised or cinematic Trek.

I think TNG did that pretty well.

 

[Kor]

I think TNG did that pretty well.

Except that everybody wore clothes and there were no love instructors.

Not to mention some of the biotech augmentation described in the TMP novel.

Kor

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

But that would have been 400 years ago.
Can any of us know for certain about or forefathers from 400 years ago?

What was your great,great,great,great, great , great, great, great, great, great, aunt really like back in 1618?

That's funny. You didn't give the same answer to @Tenacity 's post where she mocks Cuba's job market and school system... in the year 2200...

Or his parents are from the Middle-East, but immigrated to Cuba for the vibrant job market and world class schools.

...In fact you liked it.

 

[Longinus]

Except that everybody wore clothes and there were no love instructors.

True, that certainly was unfortunate. (I'm kinda serious, people always bring this up when they want to point out how ridiculous Roddenberry's 'vision' was. It would be refreshing to see future people who are not so repressed about nudity and sexuality than modern Americans.)

 

[Mudd]

The show is being made for 21st century audiences. So the characters need to be something the viewer can relate to.

Yep. The culture that produced Kirk and McCoy was, as far as could be told from the TV series, identical to an idealized mid-20th century America as the progressive writers imagined it. They ate the same foods, celebrated the same holidays, admired the same people, spoke the same idiomatic American English, etc...

 

[Markonian]

It would be refreshing to see future people who are not so repressed about nudity and sexuality than modern Americans.

Our society is so focused on publicising everyone's body. There can also be value in privacy and a healthy sense of propriety. I don't need to be in a state of undress to feel liberated.

 

[Noname Given]

Yep. The culture that produced Kirk and McCoy was, as far as could be told from the TV series, identical to an idealized mid-20th century America as the progressive writers imagined it. They ate the same foods, celebrated the same holidays, admired the same people, spoke the same idiomatic American English, etc...

Yes..almost if they wanted the show to be relatable and entertaining first; with social commentary coming second...but, but, that's NOT STAR TREK!.....

 

[Jedi_Master]

TransAtlantic travel has been possible for what.... 400 years?

And the Brits still spell "color" the wrong way.
Maybe in 400 years they will get it right?

That's a future worth living for.

 

[Kor]

Yes, Kirk and McCoy munched on brightly colored nutrient cubes and magenta lettuce so that the 20th century American audience could relate to them.

Kor