I think the problem with the PD is as the franchise went on, there were fewer and fewer episodes that presented it in a positive light. Who Watches the watchers and Patterns of Force were good episodes for showcasing why the PD was important.
By the time we got to Voyager and Enterprise, Archer and Janeway were willing to let entire civilizations die and say that is the moral thing to do. An episode like Dear Doctor made the concept of the PD just seem callous and against natural human compassion.
Agreed.
Secondly, the arrival of the British decimated the indigenous cultures, across the planet- they will never be what they were. Some of the culture remains, yes, but there is no such thing as benign interference- the moment two cultures meet, both will be changed, forever.
While I completely agree with you that the arrival of the British led to the decimation of indigenous cultures, you take your argument too far in claiming that there is no such thing as "benign interference." NATO, for instance, interfered in what was then Yugoslavia to stop the Serbs from committing genocide against the ethnic Albanian Kosovars in the late 1990s; that was benign. Had anyone bothered to interfere in the genocide of the Hutus by the Tutsis, that would have been benign.
Indeed, Europe is a product of benign interference. Throughout the Middle Ages, Europe was a primitive backwater peninsula of Asia. Then they had contact with more advanced cultures from the Middle East and Asia, gaining access to things like gunpowder, advanced mathematics, etc. This led to beneficial technological advancements for Europe.
It's not that any and all contact between a more technologically advanced and a less technologically advanced culture will inherently be destructive. Such exchanges are only destructive if the more powerful culture deliberately chooses to attempt to dominate the less-powerful culture, or if it does not take steps necessary to make sure it is not inadvertently harming or dominating them.
Ultimately, that's why the Federation adopted the Prime Directive and bans all contact with pre-warp cultures: It doesn't yet trust
itself not to even inadvertently dominate or harm less-powerful cultures. Which is really the best thing you can say about the Federation -- it is a culture that's far more aware and far more self-critical than most are today.
(Having said that, the more cynical part of me can't help but remark that the PD has the added benefit of helping to maintain the Federation's position of relative technological superiority over all those other cultures out there.)
So, instead of allowing humans to invent the warp drive, the Vulcans should have just come down and GIVEN it to us? Is that benign interference? Should they then have said: "Y'know, this emotions thing you got going on, you know what's better than that? Logic!"
Well, let's not sit here and try to pretend that Vulcan circa 2063-2154 was some kind of model for how a powerful culture should interact with a less-powerful culture. It is true that certain concepts that later formed the core of the Prime Directive (and its Federation civilian government counterpart, the Federation Charter's prohibition on interference with the internal affairs of foreign cultures) came from the Vulcans, such as the refusal to hand over advanced technology.
But by the same token, Vulcan pre-2154 was a prime example of a neo-imperialist state. We know that the Vulcan Ambassador was constantly attempting to use his strong informal influence on the United Earth government to interfere with Earth's space exploration programs, attempting to stifle Earth's technological and foreign relations development. We know that Vulcan had a habit of propping up governments they could control on worlds who had resources they needed, like Coridan, even when those worlds faced domestic insurgencies. We know that Vulcans weren't above acts of aggression against the Andorians, such as seizing their settlements on Weytahn, or launching invasions based on false evidence of WMDs, nor were they above illegally spying on the Andorians.
In short: The Vulcan of most of the late 21st and early-to-mid 22nd Centuries was very clearly a neo-imperialist state. It used its wealth and power to dominate more technologically primitive worlds like Earth, keeping their governments under Vulcan's thumb; it propped up illegitimate governments like Coridan's in the same way the United States does the Saudis, the Bahrainis, or that it did the Hosni Mubarak regime; it engage in acts of aggression against its neighbors.
22nd Century Vulcan is a great example of another system of imperialism the Prime Directive is meant to protect against.
Would the PD apply to the Cardassians and Klingons? They are the technological equals of the Federation.
"Redemption" made it clear that the Prime Directive contains provisions prohibiting Starfleet from interfering in the internal affairs of foreign cultures with comparable levels of technological sophistication. "
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" also established that a similar provision exists in the Federation Charter, meaning that it's both constitutional law
and a Starfleet general order.
Archer is not subject to the PD, which hasn't been written yet, though he expresses the desire for such a principle. While it may seem callous to deny the cure for the disease to the Valakians, what about the Menk, the other species that is evolving to be the dominant in that culture and has natural immunity to it?
"Dear Doctor" was just nonsense, not the least because the writers completely do not understand how evolution works. The idea that the Menk were somehow "destined" to evolve to become the dominant race is just ridiculous--there's no such thing as being "destined" to evolve a certain way. Evolution is not pre-programmed; it's the result of random mutations that either prove beneficial or harmful to the organism that develops it, and which are then either passed on or weeded out of the gene pool respectively.
Meanwhile, the Valakians have every right to live. The idea that United Earth should withhold medical assistance out of some ridiculous notion that the Valakians are "supposed" to die and the Menk "supposed" to reign supreme is just nonsense. United Earth has every moral obligation to provide humanitarian assistance to the Valakians; it is not responsible for whatever conflicts exist or come to exist between the Valakians and the Menk later on. To make a comparison, the West has every moral obligation to provide humanitarian assistance to, say, starving Somalis; this does not make the West responsible for conflicts that occur between the Somalis and other nations. (
Other Western policies might make the West partially responsible, but not providing humanitarian assistance.)
Either choice seems bad in some ways - let an entire species die out from a disease of genetic decay, or deny another species their chance to become the dominant (and eventually only sentient) species on their planet.
Why is the latter a
good thing? Why is it bad to deny a culture (the Menk) a chance to
dominate another culture? Shouldn't United Earth's goal be to foster
equality and
peaceful coexistence between the Menk and the Valakians?
Fortunately, the reference book
Star Trek: Star Charts -- which so far as I know is the only
Star Trek product to in any way follow up on the Menk and Valakians -- establishes that the Valakians survived, and that the Menk achieved social equality with them. Both founded a new state known as the Commonwealth of Menk and Valkis, which itself became a Federation Member later on. So happy endings for this one, if we want to accept a bit of non-canonical work.
