Are humans in Trek actually unhappy about their civilization?

[Jayson1]

It actually WOULD be cool to see a post-Nemesis series explore how the illusion and pretense of "an evolved society" went into the dumpster of unrealistic crapola after the Dominion War and Borg invasions...and how that impacts Starfleet and Federation society.

Probably the only worthwhile idea for a post-Nemesis setting at this point.

I've kind of wanted this type of show as well. What better concept than this to explore the liberal/conservative dynamic that is always going to exist in society. It would feel very relevant today as well since the two sides are more at odds than maybe they have been in a very long time. Their doesn't seem to be any common ground on anything, anymore. The show could be the first "West WIng" type of show in Trek history. Maybe focus on someone trying to recreate the Nimbus III idea of a planet of peace were people of different cultures try to live together. Romulans displaced from their home since it blew up set up a colony on the planet and we see how the other cultures feel they should handle this unexpected event.

Jason

 

[velour]

A utopia though might not be a good thing. I mean the concept of how Heaven is described seems like a utopia but I think if you put regular people in that kind of culture, people would begin to despise it. I think humans need suffering and obstacles for their lives to have meaning or else any kind of happiness ends up feeling kind of fake and unsatisfying. I'm a big believer in what Kirk said about "I need my pain." Just because people obey the laws doesn't mean they are happy. I disagree with the above mention that a lack of religion is the issue. I think it's the conformity that would be a real killer for people to handle. No room for individuality or being unique because everyone is the same perfect paragon of virture. Even though racism and sexism is gone I am betting they have even less diversity than some places do in the modern world only it's a lack of diversity of personalities instead of things like skin color or gender.

Jason

Your comments reminded me of the speech Kirk gave at the end of "This Side of Paradise".
MCCOY: I've just examined the last of the colonists, and they're all in absolutely perfect health. A fringe benefit left over by the spores.
KIRK: Good.
MCCOY: Well, that's the second time man's been thrown out of paradise.
KIRK: No, no, Bones. This time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through. Struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.

Spock described it as poetry. Kirk made an insightful point. And he said it with flair. I liked the style as well as the substance of what he said.

I never really saw Trek, specifically TOS, celebrating the idea of an utopia society. "This Side of Paradise" wasn't the only TOS episode that had an anti-utopian theme.

TNG was a different matter. I would guess that the 23rd century TOS society was a more vibrant place than that of TNG. To me, TNG often gave off a whiff of decadence and of a society that encourages conformity for perfect blandness.

 

[Timewalker]

I got this this theory in that is humans evolved to much to a point where they no longer really feel like human beings anymore. They say all the right things about earth being a utopia and humans being more evolved but that is also because they have no doubt been exposed to decade after decade of propoganda telling them how great they are.

Agreed. It's especially noticeable in the pompous speeches Picard and Riker make when they're wagging their fingers at anyone from the 20th century.

It also shows up their entertainment when all the music and holodecks adventures seem to always be from or set in more "primitive" times. It's kind of like nostiga on overdrive. They know most evolved humans can't create art like people from the past unless you move away from earth like a Jake Sisko. Quark once described earth as a "rotating ball of boredom" and I bet many humans also believe that as well.

"Art" on 24th century Earth is probably like an art class, where everyone is told to copy the bowl of fruit and not to be too individualistic about it. I'm reminded of when my grandmother - a self-taught artist whose paintings are all over my apartment - decided to take an art class at the local seniors' center. Her next painting was crap, and she said, "The teacher said to do it this way." I told her to forget what her teacher said and go back to doing it her own way, because her own way was far superior to what her teacher's way was. Her next picture was beautiful, and I've got it hanging on my living room wall about 3 feet from where I'm typing this.

I bet Tom Paris took holoprogram design to a brand-new level when he got back, since he had 7 years of not being inundated with what "civilized society" expected from artists, along with his experimentation with 20th century artistic forms that seem primitive even to the audience watching the show, and could be creatively free.

On Earth itself, they become bored and can't be creatively inspired if they're bored, so they look to the past. Following the "If it was 10 years ago, it sucks. If it was 20 years ago, it's retro-cool" rule and expanding on it to a larger scale, all pop-culture developed from the Mid-20th Century on was deemed as "it sucks" and everything before that was "retro cool". Except the 24th Century mindset did "it sucks" one better and said "not only does it suck, we've outgrown it."

The meta explanation, of course, is that they didn't want to use too much that they'd have to pay royalties for... therefore, you take your date to a Shakespeare play or a chamber music concert, rather than a rock concert playing recognizable 20th century music.

Why they didn't just create something new - and say it's from the 22nd century (or even the late 21st) - is beyond me. Maybe it was a matter of time constraints or budget.

STAR TREK's Humanity's dismissing Religion is the Causative Link betwixt that Universe's unhappiness and the world it lives in.

We have religion now, and we had even more religion decades, centuries, and millennia ago. Are we blissfully happy now? Were they blissfully happy then?

Nope. People are currently killing others now for following the "wrong" god, and in the time of Tudor England, you could be hauled up in front of the authorities just for not making the correct gesture at Sunday Mass. Mary Tudor didn't earn the epithet "Bloody Mary" for nothing. She vowed to rid England of non-Catholics, and died a very unhappy woman.

Not just a human thing, apparently; both Spock and Saavik seemed more comfortable among humans, with all their emotions and imperfections, than proper Vulcan society. (Saavik, in particular, seemed a bit more emotional than the average Vulcan so she probably fit in better in Starfleet.)

It depends on which Saavik you're talking about. Kirstie Alley's Saavik had the backstory of being half-Romulan, which explains her experience and display of emotions.

My personal head canon says that Saavik was also part-Gallifreyan, which explains her physical change and her personality change from someone dynamic and interesting to someone whose personality lies somewhere between cardboard and watching paint dry.

 

[Lord Garth]

Why they didn't just create something new - and say it's from the 22nd century (or even the late 21st) - is beyond me. Maybe it was a matter of time constraints or budget.

For anything human-based, it would've probably had to have been strictly 24th Century music, if it were meant to be "Contemporary". They treated all of the 21st Century like The Dark Ages with Nuclear Weapons. To which I always thought, "Thanks a lot Optimistic Show for giving us viewers something to look forward to!" The 22nd Century was treated more like The American Revolution. And the 23rd Century, meaning TOS and the first six movies (Star Trek's own past!) was treated like The Old West meets The Cold War. The whole "It was a very different time, Mr. Kim..." speech.

So it would be, "Wasn't this new song great? Now here's a cheesy tune from the 23rd Century!" And the crew would react as if they were listening to 1873's "Home on the Range" from Dr. Brewster Higley. On another note: Wow! Not too many songs you'd hear today written by Doctors! But Cold War Period, Western-sounding music (gears grinding in my head)... 23rd Century music to 24th Century ears would've been like pre-'90s Country to us!

Tom Paris was someone who thought outside the box. I think, after Voyager got home, he should've left Starfleet and gone into the entertainment industry to reinvigorate it. Holonovels were even more of a passion of his than piloting.

 

[Timewalker]

For anything human-based, it would've probably had to have been strictly 24th Century music, if it were meant to be "Contemporary". They treated all of the 21st Century like The Dark Ages with Nuclear Weapons (to which I always thought, "Thanks a lot Optimistic Show for giving us viewers something to look forward to!"). The 22nd Century was treated more like The American Revolution.

People compose music during wartime. Granted, it wouldn't be the same sort of music that would be composed if there wasn't a war going on, but it still happens.

And the 23rd Century, meaning TOS and the first six movies (Star Trek's own past!), was treated like The Old West meets The Cold War. The whole "It was a very different time Mr. Kim..." speech.

That is one of the most annoying pieces of dialogue in the entire series. Janeway is in full Jean-Luc Picard mode in that speech, and I just want to slap the smugness right off my TV screen.

Janeway has no reason to be smug. There were plenty of decisions she made and actions she took that would have been the same if James T. Kirk had made them. And the only reason she has the leisure to sit around and look down her nose at Kirk and his crew are because of the decisions and actions they took.

So it would be, "Wasn't this new song great? Now here's a cheesy tune from the 23rd Century!" And the crew would react as if they were listening to 1873's "Home on the Range" from Dr. Brewster Higley. On another note: Wow! Not too many songs you'd hear today written by Doctors!

At least it would have been some attempt to acknowledge that music composition didn't die in the 20th century.

Tom Paris was someone who thought outside the box. I think, after Voyager got home, he should've left Starfleet and gone into the entertainment industry to reinvigorate it. Holonovels were even more of a passion of his than piloting.

Some fanfics I've read have B'Elanna taking a job at Utopia Planitia, designing new starships, while Tom divides his time between being a test pilot and writing holoprograms, so he can spend more time looking after Miral.

 

[Lord Garth]

I think we're actually on the same page about the music. "Contemporary" Music would be 24th Century. There'd definitely be music in the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd too, it just would've sounded "Old" and "Outdated" to the Enterprise-D crew. That's what I mean. They wouldn't like it. The music would exist though, even if it wasn't their favorite.

 

[Timewalker]

I think we're actually on the same page about the music. "Contemporary" Music would be 24th Century. There'd definitely be music in the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd too, it just would've sounded "Old" and "Outdated" to the Enterprise-D crew. That's what I mean. They wouldn't like it. The music would exist though, even if it wasn't their favorite.

It seems sad to think that there would be three whole centuries' worth of music that the 24th century humans just considered crap not worth listening to, so they'd just skip over that and work backward from the 19th century.

I have some medieval and Renaissance-era music in my collection, and most of it isn't bad. Mind you, I spent 12 years in the Society for Creative Anachronism, so I was exposed to a fair bit of it.

Now I'm starting to wonder what kind of dancing they do in the 24th century. Picard and Beverly know how to waltz, Beverly taught Data how to waltz and tapdance, and the Ferengi have some sort of wedding dance. One of Picard's female crew was into ballet (and Seven wanted to be a ballerina before she was assimilated). But I can't actually recall any other episodes where they did any other kind of dancing.

 

[Lord Garth]

They probably have Neo-Neo-Classical Dancing. And Neo-Neo-Classical might be the music of choice in TNG. Which makes me wonder what particular style of music Jellico was thinking of when he asked Riker in "Chain of Command, Part II" if he played Classical or Contemporary? "Jazz!"

And I wonder what in-universe changed Humans so completely in the 24th Century? Greg Cox mentioned in the TMP Novelization (which I know I also have, somewhere) how in the 23rd Century the "less evolved" were more likely to join Starfleet.*

After TUC, and Khitomer Peace Conference, and then after The Tomed Incident with the Romulans going into hiding after 2311, there was probably less use for the "primitives" who gradually became less and less anyway, so Starfleet probably became more populated with the "evolved" in its ranks during the 50 years leading up to TNG.

Behind the scenes, I've heard from various sources that Rick Berman wanted the Humans to be less emotional. That has to be something he picked up from Gene Roddenberry and with continuing Gene's Vision.**

Less emotional Humans brings us back to First Contact with the Vulcans and how heavily they were leaning over Earth's shoulders up through ENT. Maybe it was their goal to make Humans not just more evolved but more like them. Remake the Human Race in their own image and civilize the savages. 300 years later, it was on its way to taking effect. But it also sounds like a more benign version of what Europe tried to do to the rest of the world (and actually successfully did to a large extent).

-----

* I think Gene Roddenberry was trying to say something else there about the poorer, more aggressive, and more conservative being more likely to willingly join the military -- as opposed to being drafted -- in the 20th Century, but using Star Trek to mask it. He might as well have just said, "I think Starfleet is filled with Rednecks!"

** Actually, I think it was. One of the barriers Ron Moore encountered in his first script, "The Bonding" was that Gene Roddenberry didn't believe Jeremy Aster would grieve over the death of his mother. Then Michael Piller had to do a ton of mental gymnastics to figure out how to make it work. So the story survived and it was probably at that point that Gene knew Michael Piller could handle whatever was thrown at him for making his "vision" work on a TV format.

 

[2takesfrakes]

We have religion now, and we had even more religion decades, centuries, and millennia ago. Are we blissfully happy now? Were they blissfully happy then?

Nope. People are currently killing others now for following the "wrong" god, and in the time of Tudor England, you could be hauled up in front of the authorities just for not making the correct gesture at Sunday Mass. Mary Tudor didn't earn the epithet "Bloody Mary" for nothing. She vowed to rid England of non-Catholics, and died a very unhappy woman.

Religion is a tool, a means to understanding, just as science is. When employed by institutions, said institutions find themselves in positions of power and abuse that power. Science has done much to advance various means of destroying life and property. Medical science, in particular the pharmaceutical industry, has done much to cause as much suffering as it cures. Scientific studies are frequently funded by organisations looking to skew results in their favour, for propaganda and other purposes. And most pollution in the world is due to the application of Real World science in our daily lives.

Various churches - including the Roman Catholic Church, to which I belong - have abused their power to oppress anything threatening their power. There's no end to the abuses, because science and religion are both expressions of people and people abuse their privileges. It's just a fact of life. Another fact of life is that most people of the world do, in fact, believe in a higher power of one kind, or another and frequently use organised religions to act on those beliefs in an earnest and meaningful manner. And science, of course, has improved the quality of life for most people. Despite stubborn viewpoints on either end of the spectrum, Science & Religion are two sides of the very same coin.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Discussion of real-world religion, meet the Miscellaneous forum.

 

[2takesfrakes]

 

[Greg Cox]

As I've observed before, there's a big difference between "optimistic" and "utopian." To my mind, one of STAR TREK's great strengths is its optimistic vision of the future, but it's possible to get carried away with the whole "utopian" thing--as, arguably, TNG did in its early seasons.

(I still remember rolling my eyes when, in an early episode of TNG, Picard complained of a headache and Dr. Crusher reacted as though he'd just come down with scurvy or smallpox or something. Seriously, the future is so perfect on TNG that people don't even get headaches anymore? Give me a break.)

As noted, TOS had a distinctly ambiguous attitude towards "utopias." Pretty much every time Kirk and Co. bumped into a society that seemed a little too perfect or peaceful, you could count on there being a worm in the ointment: alien spores, an insane computer, disintegration booths, etc. .

Getting back to "This Side of Paradise," Kirk is actually relieved to find out that the colonists are losing their tempers and getting into arguments again. Meant they're acting like real, flesh-and-blood human beings again.

Imagine what Kirk would thought of that whole "Evolved Humans" business.

 

[STR]

I thought the whole point of Star Trek: First Contact was to blow a cube-ship sized hole in the entire concept of "evolved" humanity. Just like they've shown many times with Vulcans, there's plenty of passion just below the surface of all humans - including the best of us.

I've kind of wanted this type of show as well. What better concept than this to explore the liberal/conservative dynamic that is always going to exist in society.

Why would you assume that, when the "liberal/conservative dynamic" didn't exist at all 400 years ago, and what is conservative vs liberal changes every election.

Like, people are so caught up in "now" that they can't grasp that not only do things not have to be the way they are now, they weren't until very recently, and as such can change very quickly.