Isn’t it though?
I mean if humanity has evolved beyond things like every base flaw and such that means the only conflict point has to be the noble savages.
Spoilers Everyday life on earth
- Thread starter robau
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I mean if humanity has evolved beyond things like every base flaw and such that means the only conflict point has to be the noble savages.
At the end, they still 2 sexes; Male and female, LOL. Even our nature on Earth still more creative in term of reproduction way than Star Trek writers about genders.
That's true for lots of fiction. Real life is often far more complex, far more nuanced, far more bizarre, than writers can imagine.
The line was just crossed.........don't cross it again. Totally inappropriate. Warning for trolling. Comments to MA.Well, she’s a woman, so....
Sorry for the double post. But, this is something that has stood out to me pretty much since my friend try to get me in to TNG. The way humanity is portrayed isn't optimistic but condescending. 20th century humans were treated, at times, as "noble savages."
And, the reason why it concerns me is because it reminds of how missionaries and colonization would treat natives. I'm certain that many who espouse the "evolved humanity" ideal would state that it isn't the intent, but it isn't far away from what could happen. Reminds me of the opening of Serenity (the film), where students are discussing the reason why the Independents (the Browncoats) were fighting. River offers this:
RIVER
People don't like to be meddled
with. We tell them what to do,
what to think, don't run don't
walk we're in their homes and in
their heads and we haven't the
right. We're meddlesome.
TEACHER
River, we're not telling people
what to think. We're just trying
to show them how.
It doesn't sound very foreboding, until you run across someone who doesn't think like you. And TNG didn't help matters, at times, with quotes like this: RIKER: Well, from what I've seen of our guests, there's not much to redeem them. It makes one wonder how our species survived the twenty-first century. (Episode: The Neutral Zone).
In hindsight not one of Picard's best episodes.
Sorry, that is the wrong answer. Thank you for playing and please come again. If the various Andorian genders each play a separate, distinct and necessary role in the reproductive process, then they are separate and unique genders
That made both our time and Picard's time look bad.
And how do we feel about our slave owning and witch burning ancestors?
Once again starfleet computer security is lacking. Lets hope a Romulan or Ferengi doesn't manage to board the ship, perhaps being invited on and put in state quarters for a trade negotiation over a wormhole.
Yo
Slave owning and witch burning are very different from being greedy and wanting to acquire financial wealth and material possessions.
Perhaps. Yet the latter is really a root cause of great deal of suffering too. You very easily judge the sins of the past generations, yet see nothing wrong with the way we do things now. And still you take offence when Picard does the same.
I don’t take offense.
I am saying it’s fundamentally dishonest and boring to say that Star Trek is about exploring the human condition, among others, yet try and eliminate fundamental aspects of humanity and making humans effectively perfect is both lazy and boring
And I find it lazy and boring if a show set in future is basically just modern humans with rayguns. Exploring the human nature in the context of scifi or fantasy allows upending some of the normal assumptions, which in turn allows showing things from an angle more mundane setting couldn't. If you want to just explore modern humans and their culture as they currently are, then there's no need to waste all this money for the space props, just make a show set in the modern times.
Okay so what should Star Trek explore with humanity if the basic flaws of humanity have been overcome entirely?
We? I can't speak for anyone else but me.
I think its tragic that people were so mired in fear they did harm to fellow humans. I think it demonstrates that humans are capable of great evil, as well great good. And I think Trek benefits when it recognizes both aspects of humanity.
Pretty much...my ancestors were Irish immigrants who lived a quiet life in Ohio raising cows and farming grain until the Civil War after which they moved west.
They haven't though, not completely. Merely certain current expressions of them. For example I don't think desire for material possession is some sort of basic human need, at least not in a way it is expressed in our society. It is result of scarcity, people being afraid that if they do not have enough they will be in trouble (which obviously often is true) and us many ways linking wealth and success. In a society where those things are not true, out current expression of greed could not really exist, and it would indeed be highly unrealistic if it did. But what things are valued then, and are there some excesses related to them?
Besides, it is silly to ask what sort of stories can tell with such premises in the place. It is exactly not a mystery, they did seven years of TNG after all. Seemed to work pretty damn well.
And they do! As often as great tragedies and follies of the past are lamented, are pioneers, innovators and luminaries of the past lauded.
I think you'll find that the "basic flaws of greed/etc" being overcome story premise died in S1/S2 of TNG and was completely in the grave by S3.
Coincidentally around the same time that Gene himself went into the grave
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