Genuine question to those who see Picard as a dystopia-what are the elements that make it show and are there any other examples of those behaviors in past Trek?
Production Quality Of Picard
- Thread starter TRON JA307020
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They're not sure, but they'll know it when they see it.
What's your evidence? How is the Federation in Picard worse, than the land grabbing, genocide enabling, treaty breaking federation of TNG?
He's actually saying that TNG is more dystopian, though I don't know if that was his intent.
I got confused and mixed them up XD
Thanks for pointing it out.
There was no casual (human) smoking on TNG, no eye gore, no broken characters. In PIC, people are messed up, as they all pointed out in their premiere interviews and comic con panels.
None of those things are dystopian though, so you are misusing the word. A dystopia is very literally a state of totalitarianism and injustice. All those things you describe would be dystopian if the society enabled those things to happen without recourse for justice. Bjayzl could have been arrested by starfleet and made to stand trial and imprisoned for example. In dystopia, there would have been no justice for Icheb. Also the broken characters in Picard are not broken because of the society as a whole but because of individual circumstance. Picard may feel that Starfleet betrayed it's ideals by not aiding the romulans, but the fact that he can question federation policy and not be imprisoned in antithetical to a dystopia. Raffi is a drug addict, but the fact that she can get help quite easily and chooses not to is yet another sign that Picard isn't dystopian. Rios is broken because of something Commodore Oh did, not something that the Federation or Starfleet did, so again, not dystopian. Jurati is also broken because of something Oh made her do. Seven is broken because a criminal killed her surrogate son for profit, it wasn't the state that killed Icheb, so not dystopian.
True, but there was chest gore in "Conspiracy."
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell.
I dunno if I agree with that assessment.
I mean, when TNG starts, Jean-Luc is a 59-year-old man with severe intimacy and commitment issues. Geordi has some deeply internalized misogyny and acts like a goddamn incel who imagines he's a "Nice Guy." Worf is caught between two worlds, and then he has this messed-up relationship with K'Ehleyr, and then he is just the worst father we've ever seen in Star Trek: harsh and neglectful, clearly unable and unwilling to give Alexander the kind of love and support he needed.
Like, TNG as a narrative doesn't always acknowledge that these guys are kind of fucked up. But they're kind of fucked up.
I know you tend to lean towards the right. But my point is the argument that Raffi failed - and became poor - due to her own bad choices is fundamentally the same argument that conservative people use regarding poor people today. I suppose the difference is we're supposed to believe in the case of the Federation a "perfect meritocracy" has now formed, whereas in the present we still have a lot of work to do? I'm not 100% sure to be honest.
Speaking personally, I don't really believe in free will. We don't have a say in our DNA, in the place we are born, and our neurochemistry. As far as neuroscientists can determine, our brain unconsciously makes decisions that the conscious part of the brain later rationalizes. Because of this, I don't believe in personal responsibility as it's commonly portrayed - I think it's basically arbitrarily punishing people based upon who they happened to turn out as being. But I recognize that Star Trek has had a very spotty relationship with the sciences over the years, and has some fundamentally fantastic elements within it (like mind/body dualism) meaning perhaps free will does exist within the fictional universe, and personal responsibility means something.
Here's my thing and ultimately this may be a place of difference-I don't think people become poor because of their own choices always, and that society can do work to help improve the lives of all. That said, in my experience, forcing therapy upon a person who is not willing or engaged does not yield the best outcomes. I personally believe in removing as many barriers to getting help as possible. That's why I work for a community mental health agency that doesn't charge clients who have Medicaid. Finding resources and removing barriers is a part of the job. But, I have noticed that ordering a person to treatment doesn't mean that the person has any investment in participating.
I won't go to far in to personal choice, since that's obviously a different. I personally believe that the only thing I can control is my own actions and my own choices.
Now, as for Raffi, in Star Trek, where resources are supposedly infinitely available, I cannot see any other argument but her own self-determination. I do not see how she could be forced in to treatment and see success and still respect self-agency.
Even if we fundamentally disagree on the nature of free will there is still an element of choice because we know that Raffi has access to other resources.
Setting aside whether or not free will exists...
I think your point about the idea that people into poverty purely through their own bad choices being a right-wing rationalization for present-day economic oppression is well-taken.
I would say that one of the basic conceits of Star Trek is that economic oppression has been genuinely eliminated, and that any existing levels of economic inequality are negligible -- nobody starves, nobody lacks for shelter, nobody lacks for medical care, etc.
With Raffi... I would say that her living conditions are frankly not that terrible, in spite of her pretensions. There's no indication she lacks for food or health care; she's clearly able to afford to obtain whatever drug it is she's vaping; she has access to the planetary internet; she has adequate shelter; she clearly was able to afford to move her shelter into the California desert; etc. To me, it seems like her living conditions are a function of her wanting to go "off the grid" as much as possible, but I would suggest that the United Earth welfare state seems to be working in her case -- the only health problems we see in her are genuinely self-inflicted (alcohol abuse, etc.), and she genuinely seems to not want further medical care. So her whole "you have better living conditions than me because of your family chateau" really does strike me as an attempt to deliberately alienate someone who's reaching out to her rather than a genuine indictment of economic inequality on Earth.
And I think further evidence that economic inequality in the UFP is minimal and does not extend to the level of economic classism or oppression, is Dahj's living conditions. We see her apartment in "Remembrance" and "Maps and Legends." While it's certainly not opulent, it's nothing to sneeze at either! When we meet Dahj, she appears to be an unemployed recent university graduate, yet she lives in an apartment that would easily go for over $2,500/month in real life major metro areas today. So that strikes me as a strong indication that there's a United Earth welfare state out there making sure even people who are unemployed have comfortable living conditions.
So, while I would be really wary of PIC using the "she's only living like that because of her own bad choices" line because of that idea's similarity to right-wing arguments rationalizing economic oppression in real life -- I really do think Raffi's example is probably a function of her own choices, and that even then she doesn't seem nearly as badly-off as her angry words make it sound.
So, does the smoking automatically equal dystopia? O_o
Also, for broken characters what about Lwaxana Troi's blocking out a painful event, Yar growing upon a colony with rape gang and her mother killed over groceries? Do those count?
From most Utopian to least Utopian, I'd go:
TNG
TOS
PIC
DS9
I'm not including VOY because it's in the Delta Quadrant, ENT because it's Pre-Federation, and I think DSC will ultimately have more seasons in the The Future than in the 23rd Century, so I'll hold off on that too.
At this point I don't see how. Picard deals with things we have seen in Trek before, in one way or another.
In what way?
It's a step backwards from a more enlightened society (Ex Post Facto, Little Green Men, Time's Arrow).
Which of those were ongoing current issues dealt with in most or all episodes, and which were part of 1/178 episodes?
I don't see it as the step backwards that others do. I think it is a sign that Federation society is a living and breathing society that has its ups and downs.
Since PIC season 1 was basically one episode in comparison to TNG I don't see the issue. The problems in those episodes don't disappear because the episode ends.
What people mean when they say Picard is "dystopian" is that they don't like that it contains realistic depictions of flawed human behavior, and they'd rather see the sheltered, homogenized world of TNG where everyone was apparently perfect and had no negative attributes (despite plenty of on-screen evidence to the contrary).
Because CBS and Kurtzman don't understand Gene's Vision. And that's always a good argument/point to make when you're trying to rationalize a Star Trek opinion.
Because CBS and Kurtzman don't understand Gene's Vision. And that's always a good argument/point to make when you're trying to rationalize a Star Trek opinion.
In TNG specifically, the human characters don’t have current day vices. They don’t smoke, drink, buy stuff, have material possessions (their quarters are pretty much interchangeable). They don’t swear, they are supposed to be more evolved, they are rational and reject the supernatural. They don’t play load music even! They don’t really argue with one another, or shout. Culturally, they all seem to like Shakespeare and classical music. We never hear contemporary music or art. They work because they want to, they seem to be able to quit when they want to.
As the series and spin off shows progress, these characteristics are played down. It’s very hard to write as it limits drama.
Using the classic definitions of the words; a "utopia" is considered to be an idealized and desirable pinnacle of a society whereas a "dystopia" is a society that is frightening or undesirable. It is completely possible to argue that, from our current perspective, TNG represents a society that is actually dystopian in nature.
For clarity, I don’t subscribe to this interpretation. I feel that ST:PIC depicts a less desirable view of the future. The general aesthetic of the show is darker. By our standards, it’s a more believable view of the future. People still have vices, they still bicker, kill, enslave, discriminate on racial grounds (treatment of Romulans), there is still money and by implication, rich and poor.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture...ot-that-boldly-goes-where-nobody-wanted-it-to
As the series and spin off shows progress, these characteristics are played down. It’s very hard to write as it limits drama.
Using the classic definitions of the words; a "utopia" is considered to be an idealized and desirable pinnacle of a society whereas a "dystopia" is a society that is frightening or undesirable. It is completely possible to argue that, from our current perspective, TNG represents a society that is actually dystopian in nature.
For clarity, I don’t subscribe to this interpretation. I feel that ST:PIC depicts a less desirable view of the future. The general aesthetic of the show is darker. By our standards, it’s a more believable view of the future. People still have vices, they still bicker, kill, enslave, discriminate on racial grounds (treatment of Romulans), there is still money and by implication, rich and poor.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture...ot-that-boldly-goes-where-nobody-wanted-it-to
Yeah, I think that Picard portrayed a more realistic future. If you look back on human history, technology advanced and opened up new possibilities but human nature stayed the same. We went from spears to machine guns, from wooden huts to steel skyscrapers, from chariots to self-driving cars, but we still fight wars, steal, discriminate, kill, exploit etc... It would make sense that the future would continue that trend. So yeah, technology might advance to the point where we eventually invent replicators and warp drive, and build starships, but human vices and wars and such might might still exist in some form or another. Sad but probably true. It's we are drawn to utopias. They inspire us to strive for something better, to be better. But are they completely realistic? Probably not.
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