Was Star Trek Wallowing In Arrogance, Or...?

[Patrickivan]

It's been suggested that various incarnations of Star Trek have been nothing short of white men taking over the proverbial world.

That those in the Star Trek universe imposed their morality on a whim feeding nothing more then their own desires to conquer the universe.

I susbscribe to a different point of view. One were the intent from the start was one of honourable intent. To Seek Out New Life and New Civizations. To Bodly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before!

Those words were meant to be inspirational. It was meant to set an example showing that humanity was more then it's sum. It was part of the universe and all that occupied it.

Joining the Federation wasn't about the Federation impossing it's moral values. It was voluntary to join. For like minded cultures to seek friendship with one another and form a strong union. And like many cultures, when they join one another, some aspects of those cultures remain the same and independent, and some assimilate various aspects of those cultures, thereby making a new culture in a sence.

It wasn't about conquering or impossing values. There may have been instances where sometimes that happened, but really, that Starship Captain is out on his own for the most part and has to make some hard choices. But for the most part, the point was to grow in a positive way.

Now who is to say who's point of view is right? It really all depends whose side you're on, doesn't it?

Here are the comments from the Trek Art Forum that prompted me to start this.

Nerys Ghemor wrote:
You know, that really IS one of my biggest Trek pet peeves right there. The ARROGANCE! And Cell's repudiation of that attitude...AWESOME.

Hawku wrote:
Yeah, I noticed that too. It felt like there was a bit of arrogance in later years of Trek.

Patrickivan
I don't want to take away too much from these fun comics. But trek was always arrogant in a sense. But that arrogance was based on the belief that humanity can be better then it's past. And really, what the fuck is the matter with that?

Nerys Ghemor wrote:
Thinking that you're perfect is what's the matter, and being blind to your own moral hypocrisy.

Herkimer Jitty wrote:
Working to better yourself is fine, but claiming your evolved sensibility is the only evolved sensibility is definitley arrogant. Supremely arrogant is the idea that you can meddle with cultures before you make "official first contact", which feels too eerily like a cold war maneuver to me, rather than something some evolved Federation types would do out of the kindness of their hearts.

There's a "spreading our culture across unknown lands" aspect to Trek in its many incarnations that I find unsettlingly imperialistic.

patrickivan

This arguement is for another thread. I'll start one because really, I find your positions to be precariously balanced over bullshit.
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[BillJ]

Patrickivan:
But that arrogance was based on the belief that humanity can be better then it's past. And really, what the fuck is the matter with that?

Herkimer Jitty wrote:
Working to better yourself is fine, but claiming your evolved sensibility is the only evolved sensibility is definitley arrogant. Supremely arrogant is the idea that you can meddle with cultures before you make "official first contact", which feels too eerily like a cold war maneuver to me, rather than something some evolved Federation types would do out of the kindness of their hearts.

There's a "spreading our culture across unknown lands" aspect to Trek in its many incarnations that I find unsettlingly imperialistic.

patrickivan

This arguement is for another thread. I'll start one because really, I find your positions to be precariously balanced over bullshit.

These are the three comments that hit closest to home for me.

There's nothing wrong with humanity believing it can be better than it was in its' past. But where do you draw the line when dealing with other cultures. We see humanity flaunting its' moral superiority over and over in both the micro and macrocosm.

In Reunion, we see Picard place a permanent reprimand on Worf for his actions in regards to the death of his mate. Even though Worf acted in a completely legal manner within his culture. This shows a lack of respect for the values of Worf's culture. He received a reprimand because he didn't act within the bounds of the prevailing human morality.

Then we watch as Starfleet allows entire worlds to fall simply because they were in the 'wrong place at the wrong time' in their evolution. It's like allowing a newborn infant to get hit by a car because it simply doesn't understand or know of the impending danger.

 

[Anwar]

But they do that from their own experience. No aliens came and stopped WWIII from happening on Earth, so where do THEY get off going around and doing the same for others when they go through troubles?

I do agree that the arrogant attitude can get grating sometimes, but I suppose considering all the good they do and no one ever gives them any respect for it that it IS somewhat deserved.

TOS did this too, but they mitigated it somewhat by having there be plenty of Godlike aliens to condemn them as permanent barbarians (Spock did this too, but given how the Vulcans used to be far worse he's an incredible hypocrite).

 

[BillJ]

But they do that from their own experience. No aliens came and stopped WWIII from happening on Earth, so where do THEY get off going around and doing the same for others when they go through troubles?

But see you're talking about an industrialized world that has both the means and possibly the know-how to combat both internal and external threats. I'm talking about worlds that haven't had that opportunity to reach that stage.

I sure in the hell hope that if an alien saw an asteroid about to hit 15th century Earth, he'd take a few moments and help us out.

 

[BillJ]

I do agree that the arrogant attitude can get grating sometimes, but I suppose considering all the good they do and no one ever gives them any respect for it that it IS somewhat deserved.

So their suppose to receive accolades for doing the things their own moral code says their suppose to do?

 

[Anwar]

What, you don't think heroic acts should earn even a small amount of respect from others because in general we're all supposed to be heroic?

 

[BillJ]

What, you don't think heroic acts should earn even a small amount of respect from others because in general we're all supposed to be heroic?

Once you start expecting it (or were expecting it from the beginning)... then your doing it for the wrong reason. I help people out because I want too, not because I'm expecting some type of validation after the fact.

 

[Anwar]

That's not what I meant, but I can see why you'd think it. I don't mean that the Trek folks are gloryhogs, or they're being INTENTIONALLY arrogant, but you'd think that after saving the Galaxy or stopping some massive invasion that would threaten the safety of the entire Trekverse beyond Earth some of the other more warlike Empires out there would think "Huh, these guys DID save everyone including us from invasion. Maybe we could show some amount of respect towards them for this." instead of business as usual.

At least Spock stopped his usual "Humans are bad" stuff after TMP.

 

[T'Girl]

Joining the Federation wasn't about the Federation impossing it's moral values. It was voluntary to join.

Yes, but how much choice did Bajor really have? Bajor joined (partially) out of desperation. The situation with the Cardassians was very fluid, sure the Federation (along with their own resistance) drove out the Cardassians temporarily, but if the Federation became distracted in some other area, the Cardassian might return.

We already saw (forget the episode name) where a Federation citizen/teacher in a classroom mostly composed of Bajorian children, refused to acknowledge the Bajorian culturial beliefs in the lesson plan, or employ local - indigenous terminology. (They're not Prophets, they're "wornhole aliens").

Nor would the Bajorian be allowed (apparently) to retain their own militia once a member, this would be "assimilated" into Starfleet. this gives Bajor less rights than your average America state.

Even while a canidate for membership, Bajorian property (in the form of DS9) wasn't concidered to be under Bajorian ownership or authority, if a Starfleet captain simply wished to disregard the local governments policies.

 

[BillJ]

We already saw (forget the episode name) where a Federation citizen/teacher in a classroom mostly composed of Bajorian children, refused to acknowledge the Bajorian culturial beliefs in the lesson plan, or employ local - indigenous terminology. (They're not Prophets, they're "wornhole aliens").

That's because the Bajorans are just backwoods hicks. Just leave it to the Federation to fancy them all up and make them respectable like.

 

[Mr Silver]

The Federation is more or less a Utopian Democracy, where new members pretty much give up their individual Laws and Functions to abide by the Laws and Functions of the Federation, no matter how much equality the Federation offers, the simple fact is, say the Klingons joined the Federation fully, most of their Laws and Traditions would be regarded as Criminal Behaviour and outlawed

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Joining the Federation wasn't about the Federation impossing it's moral values. It was voluntary to join.

Yes, but how much choice did Bajor really have? Bajor joined (partially) out of desperation. The situation with the Cardassians was very fluid, sure the Federation (along with their own resistance) drove out the Cardassians temporarily, but if the Federation became distracted in some other area, the Cardassian might return.

Bajor did NOT join the Federation during DS9's run, T'Girl.
The Federation offered assistance without strings attached.

During the DS9 Relaunch lit, Bajor did, indeed, join the Federation. When it did so, Bajor was not in the least desperate or forced by circumstances to join.

 

[BillJ]

Joining the Federation wasn't about the Federation impossing it's moral values. It was voluntary to join.

Yes, but how much choice did Bajor really have? Bajor joined (partially) out of desperation. The situation with the Cardassians was very fluid, sure the Federation (along with their own resistance) drove out the Cardassians temporarily, but if the Federation became distracted in some other area, the Cardassian might return.

Bajor did NOT join the Federation during DS9's run, T'Girl.
The Federation offered assistance without strings attached.

During the DS9 Relaunch lit, Bajor did, indeed, join the Federation. When it did so, Bajor was not in the least desperate or forced by circumstances to join.

So if the Federation folded up shop and headed to some other hot spot, Bajor would've been totally fine?

 

[BillJ]

The Federation is more or less a Utopian Democracy, where new members pretty much give up their individual Laws and Functions to abide by the Laws and Functions of the Federation, no matter how much equality the Federation offers, the simple fact is, say the Klingons joined the Federation fully, most of their Laws and Traditions would be regarded as Criminal Behaviour and outlawed

So then Michael Eddington was pretty much spot on when he made this statement:

EDDINGTON [on monitor]: ...You know, in some ways you're worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You're more insidious. You assimilate people and they don't even know it.

When two cultures are merged, the new culture should show traits from both. You really make the Federation sound like an Empire. A homogenized society that really is human centric and reflective/respective of only human values.

 

[Mr Silver]

When two cultures are merged, the new culture should show traits from both. You really make the Federation sound like an Empire. A homogenized society that really is human centric and reflective/respective of only human values.

As I said a Utopian "Democracy", everyone has a say, just the Federation has an established set of principles that originate from not just Humans but Vulcans, Tellarites, Andorians, Rigellians, etc

And in a way the Federation is an Empire, just not based on Military conquest, Still, It does have a serious "Intimidation Factor" for any hostiles, which is probably why the Romulans are kept in check, they haven't got a hope of defeating the Federation, especially with their Klingon allies

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I'll just cut & paste from something I posted elsewhere on the inherent superiority of TOS and DS9 over all other Trek series, with help from Kegg for reminding me of Kirk's quote:

DS9 is the closest in spirit to TOS of all the spinoff series. Kirk's line in "A Taste of Armageddon", "We can admit that we're killers - but we're not going to kill TODAY!" expresses the theme of TOS. Later on, Sisko states the theme of DS9: The Federation is paradise and it's easy to be a saint in paradise, meaning that Starfleet, being the people who the Federation sends outside its borders, are the ones who aren't and can't be saints.

Those two sentiments are essentially the same idea. I can't recall any place in TNG where Picard made a similar admission. He was too busy puffing out his chest and telling every alien he met how holy and pure and perfect Starfleet was, and how obviously wrong they were. And then the Enterprise flies way and leaves the aliens to ponder the wisdom of Captain Perfect. VOY and for the most part ENT just continued in that vein.

This kind of Starfleet arrogance never failed to annoy me. It's so damn cheap. Of course the writers can contrive stories that make Starfleet look good and the disposable aliens of the week look bad! TOS and DS9 were honest enough to throw the moral burden onto the main characters, where the writers would be forced to actually deal with moral issues, not sweep them under the rug on a weekly basis.

Of course, being episodic, TOS wasn't ever able to deal with those issues as thoroughly as DS9, but serialized shows weren't usual in the 60s, so I don't fault TOS for that.

And even in DS9, we saw a fair amount of Starfleet arrogance, for instance insisting on continuing to explore the GQ beyond the wormhole even though the Dominion claimed the territory on their side of the wormhole, under the same logic as the Federation or any empire does: by the willingness to back up that claim by use of force. Not only was it arrogant of the Federation to ignore that claim, it was foolish and dragged the entire AQ into a needless war.

Starfleet has a tendency to trespass onto other people's territory and defend this behavior by calling it "peaceful exploration." You'd think the way they're constantly getting into wars would tell them something.

But the Federation can't be faulted for assimilating new worlds at gunpoint. I've never seen that. Their faults have more to do with obliviousness, arrogance and unconscious aggression.

 

[Patrickivan]

[FONT=Times New Roman]It’s natural that the Federation has a vested interest in it’s own well being. But that well being is not exclusive of the well being of other races and cultures. It’s been shown time and again that member worlds retained their own culture, languages, but also acquired new cultural traits as a result of joining. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]That said, in a galaxy full of various races, it’s within the realm of reason that non-member worlds still had interactions with others, and thusly would acquire certain traits that they otherwise wouldn’t have unless they were completely xenophobic and introverted. That would be the rarity in a galaxy interested in trade of resources of any type be it physical, intellectual, artistic, et c. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]Joining the Federation was obviously about giving up some things, but those things were NOT their culture. Klingon’s were allowed to maintain their ways within their own territory. But serving on a Starfleet vessel, or within other member states territory, of course they couldn’t… Being a part of the Federation doesn’t mean that world belongs to the Federation. Their territories, laws and cultures are their own. But they wouldn’t be let in if there wasn’t some common moral values on some level. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]Again, using Klingons. Though extreme with some of their beliefs, they are honourable, intelligent, and loyal to strong leadership. Traits that Terrans can respect and uphold themselves. On a Klingon ship, Riker had to abide by their rules, though at the same time showing them a different way of success by bending some of their rules. They may have been pissed by that, but may have learned something. The same way Riker may have learned something from the Klingons and brought that back to be assimilated into Starfleet command protocols- itself a culture. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]As for letting non-member planets fend for themselves? They explained the rational for letting them evolve as natural as possible. Any interference from an advanced source could alter that species natural evolution either positively or negatively. However not knowing is the reason why they want to leave them alone! Let’s say they helped a species evolve more quickly or escape a catastrophe, that species will then interact with the rest of the galaxy in ways that are completely unpredictable. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]There are clear and passionate arguments for both sides, but if the Federation didn’t TRY to create rules to govern their actions, there are too many variables that could lead to future chaos. People in general have values and judgement is made based on those values. Like minded people (societies) gravitate towards one-another, and it’s more then reasonable to assume that those non-terran races that JOIN the Federation are indeed of some similar fibre as the Federation’s.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]What’s arrogant is for people to say that their moral values are better then others. But at least the Federation makes an attempt to respect, learn, and yes, assimilate (to some degree) EACH other’s values… [/FONT]

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I'm not fixing that... Apparently Trek BBS doesn't like cut and paste from word...

 

[BillJ]

Joining the Federation was obviously about giving up some things, but those things were NOT their culture. Klingon’s were allowed to maintain their ways within their own territory. But serving on a Starfleet vessel, or within other member states territory, of course they couldn’t… Being a part of the Federation doesn’t mean that world belongs to the Federation. Their territories, laws and cultures are their own. But they wouldn’t be let in if there wasn’t some common moral values on some level.

But Worf's actions did not take place aboard a Federation vessel. As a member of the Klingon High Council, I'm sure the ship Duras was on would be considered Klingon soil. And on Klingon soil Worf acted within Klingon law. Yet still received a reprimand for his actions.

Picard seemed unwilling to allow Worf to handle things in a Klingon manner... even when it was the course of action demanded by Klingon law.

 

[scotpens]

(post cluttered with visible formatting codes)

I'm not fixing that... Apparently Trek BBS doesn't like cut and paste from word...

Have you tried disabling JavaScript when you copy and paste? Or enabling it? One or the other might work.

. . . Kirk's line in "A Taste of Armageddon", "We can admit that we're killers - but we're not going to kill TODAY!" expresses the theme of TOS. Later on, Sisko states the theme of DS9: The Federation is paradise and it's easy to be a saint in paradise, meaning that Starfleet, being the people who the Federation sends outside its borders, are the ones who aren't and can't be saints.

The reach and authority of the Federation was very different in TNG and its successors than in TOS. In the original series, we got the impression that the Federation was a rather weak organization, comparable to today's United Nations, and that its main purpose was to provide stuffy, hard-nosed bureaucrats and ambassadors to be a thorn in Kirk's side.

 

[T'Girl]

As I said a Utopian "Democracy", everyone has a say, just the Federation has an established set of principles that originate from not just Humans but Vulcans, Tellarites, Andorians, Rigellians, etc

But how can the establish set of principles, that were established by a hand full of races two centuries in the past, still be the principles of the Federation? With each new member the composition of the council alters, the Federation should change over time. The beliefs of the original five or six races should have long ago have been buried under the beliefs of the one hundred and fifty races that followed.

I mean it not like the growth of America, where each new state was already populated by people who were Humans.

or escape a catastrophe, that species will then interact with the rest of the galaxy in ways that are completely unpredictable.

But if there is a catastrophe that (hypothetically) completely wipes out the species, then there would be no interactions.

the Federation makes an attempt to respect, learn, and yes, assimilate (to some degree) EACH other’s values

Then why is it that on those occasion when we see the Federation's government, it a Human institutions and procedures government. There apparently is no "melting pot" of ideas and concepts. Consider also the very limited number of Starfleet ships we've heard of with non-Human names, and we've heard a fair sized sampling.

I'm not fixing that... Apparently Trek BBS doesn't like cut and paste from word

Cut and paste onto the search field of Google. Hit google search. The search field will remove the "[FONT=Times New Roman]" nonsense. Then cut and paste the entire resulting corrected google search field onto the TrekBBS message field. I compose on my Email site and it works for me. You'll have to re-establish your paragraphs.

Bajor did NOT join the Federation

Okay then, sought to join, there now all better.