Klingon warfare : a cult ?

The more episodes I watch about Alexander, the more I feel like the whole Klingon warfare culture is actually a cult.
Alexander is heavily pressured to become a warrior, he goes throught intimidation and threats to convince him to engage in warfare...Even Worf often acts with intolerance and injustice towards him because he doesn't want to accept his son is different from him...

 

Not every Klingon can be a warrior, for example, who would build their ships that they use to fly around in space, who would forge Bat'Leths, who would bake bloodpie...

Maybe long ago the military has gotten a hold of the culture with honor and battles and it has become an "American dream" to be a warrior. Not everyone can do it though. Could a society like that even work, everybody just fighting around.

Maybe the warrior thing is just an image the Klingons portray on everyone.
Maybe most of them aren't even interested in battles and doing honorable things everyday.

 

I always thought that the Klingons of The Next Generation were partially inspired by ancient Sparta. Their code appears very similar to the agoge, and you can see that the way they like to sleep and such we would definitely call "spartan".

It is still much like a cult though! I also felt that they were highly influenced by ancient Islam (mixed with a little Nordic), and their belief is almost like a religion as well. What is the difference between a religion and a cult?

Part of Worf's intolerance is probably due to his belief in Sto-vo-kor. If Alexander is not a warrior, then he will never cross over. It was part of Worf's personal development to learn that there could be non-violent ways to earn glory and honor.

 

A cult involves brainwashing and usually implies it's small. Klingon warfare is a social value system that indicates social class, no different than Ferengi profit obsession.

 

@Marynator : it's hard to give a correct list of differences between cults and religions. Most countries will have laws that list which spiritual movements are considered religions and which are cults, and it varies from country to country. In France ie. the Testimonies of Jehovah is considered a cult and is closely monitored for any abuse and illegal practice, whereas it's considered a religion in other countries. I don't really think the word really matters that much in our topic. What I really wanted to underline was that Klingon warfare appears to be a legitimate reason for psychological pressure, ostracism and threats towards those who don't want to conform.

 

Oh I absolutely agree with you!

It's like in ancient Sparta, if a man came back from battle without his shield it was his wife's duty to murder him. Now that's pressure!

 

That's an appropriate comparison indeed !

 

Worf may be a radically extreme case. When it came to the Klingon warrior culture, Worf seemed to be some sort of cultural purist, not only regarding Alexander but other Klingons as well.

I saw "Birthright" not too long ago on H&I. The Klingons that Worf encountered on that planet adapted a different lifestyle that was not the warrior lifestyle. They lived peacefully with the Romulans. They didn't hunt or play any of the Klingon games that honed a Klingon's skill for combat. But Worf didn't accept that. He was intolerant of their lifestyle.

Worf butted in to their lives. He insisted that the Klingon youngsters follow the way of the warrior as Worf knew of it. He taught the youngster to hunt and other Klingon warrior ways. He couldn't leave well enough alone. Maybe Worf is a cultist. The irony of Worf was that no matter how hardcore he was of the warrior culture and how much he pushed it on other Klingons, he himself didn't have the guts or honor to live among Klingons imho.

 

In the Klingon's case, it's not a cult, any more than capitalism or socialism are. It's a way of life, which is why he's so intolerant of the Klingons on Carraya IV. It would be like a socialist landing on a world of people just like him, except they were capitalist. Even more so, because there's religious aspects to it as well

 

I tend to think of the Klingon way of life as "Klingonism" or "Kahlessism". I think to think that the word "Klingons" is restricted to followers of that ideology, and that there is a different name for their species as a whole. I would love a story where non Klingon members of the species fled from Kronos and establish colonies to live their pre-Kahless way of life.

 

Worf's cultural purity might also be due to him growing up outside the Klingon Empire. His understanding of Klingon ways is purely theoretical from what he has studied about them, rather than actually living it. So he was able to see what the Klingons are supposed to be rather than what they actually are. One of the ongoing stories in The Next Generation I felt was about the cultural corruption within the Klingon Empire (ultimately resulting in Duras) and the restoration of their honor. We learned that sometimes to start being who you want to be you just have to pretend, "fake it until you make it" as they say. For this we see them bring in Kahless, who although he is a clone and a fraud, still represents the ideals that Klingon culture wishes to live. They needed Worf more than they realized! Worf was like the perfect Klingon, even though he wasn't really a Klingon. Very much like Data who was the perfect human. It was a recurring theme in the show.

I don't think that the Klingons in "Birthright" are a good example, because they were prisoners! The elder Klingons had been forced into that lifestyle by their Romulan captors, and then had neglected to teach their customs to their children. We see in that episode how the older generation felt shame by the end, when they realized what they had done, and the younger generation wanted to leave their home and join their people. I believe there was a lot of symbolism in this episode, about forced assimilation especially.

 

@Mojochi : no offense intended, but I don't think the comparison to socialism and capitalism is relevant in that situation. Socialism is more a political philosophy (I'm thinking about "classic" socialism here, not communism) and capitalism is mostly an economical approach. I don't think they can be compared to Klingon warfare as a culture and a religious doctrine (the Khaless stories sound a lot like verses from the Bible).
Children in our northern-western countries are not pear pressured to know Karl Marx's life by memory, unlike Klingon children who go throught some sort of religious brainwashing about Kahless's life and accomplisments.

 

I agree TauCygna. To me it feels there is a similarity to the Muslim veneration of Mohammed (combined with the Nordic myth of Valhalla, aka Sto-vo-kor).

 

I think we are limited in seeing everything Klingon through Worf's perspective.
Possibly if we went to the city blah-blah there in the school they are taught the history of Kaleese and it is a class like history of Rome or whatever in Europe is here.
Then they go to gym class, then art class, science, math, etc.
There would have to be people that make clothes, farm, make their ships, everyone can't be a lunatic whose whole job is to run around drinking and killing.
Worf is upset with Alexander because his son doesn't want to be like his dad. There are millions of dads like that the world over.

I always just saw it that Worf has a distorted picture of "how to be a Perfect Klingon" probably stuff he read while young and living on Earth. He just has a certain image of what he wants his son to be like.
It would have been revolutionary thinking to have had the Worf character a guy that could tear your arms off being a pastry chef on the ship and being upset because his son just wants to go into battle and kill people.

 

They may have started out as prisoners, but what evolved from that was a community where they lived in harmony with the Romulans. They discarded the Klingon warrior lifestyle, maybe not by choice at first. But they seemed to be content with their current lives.

In the end, the adult Klingons were happy to stay. They didn't leave with Worf. I could understand the Klingon youngsters wanting to leave the small isolated community and to expand their horizons and to seek out greater possibilities in the larger universe. Unfortunately, Worf burdened them with the baggage of his warrior culture.

When Worf discovered that the girl was actually a Klingon/Romulan hybrid, he was disgusted. Worf felt that they should hate the Romulans. Worf had a racist mind regarding Romulans and he tried to teach that to the youngsters. Based on Worf's reaction to her, she sensed that Klingons would not accept who she was.

Some of the stuff that Worf wanted to instill onto those youngsters seemed rotten. I guess when those youngster get to the Klingon home world, they will be brainwashed into the warrior lifestyle and learn to hate Romulans as well.

IIRC, after they became prisoners, those Klingons chose to stay with the Romulans because the Klingon warrior culture deemed them to be dishonorable. They couldn't go back, and the Klingon high council didn't want them back anyway. The lead Klingon said that being captured was "worse than death". In other words, according to Klingon culture, they committed a grave and unforgivable sin.

Klingon warrior culture seems like a rigid religious ideology. Those Klingons were as much prisoners of the Klingon warrior culture as they were of the Romulans. The warrior way was so inflexible that they chose to remain with the Romulans. Oddly enough, by turning away from that culture, they turned their situation into something seemingly positive.

 

Those Klingons were never given an opportunity or choice, they were given one lifestyle and not given any other options. It's the equivalent of if you had a child and locked the child in the closet for the first ten years of their life.

"Who are we to say that lifestyle is wrong?"

Those children have a right to be told all the options so they can choose their own lifestyle, whether it's the 'warrior' lifestyle, the imprisoned agrarian lifestyle, or some other lifestyle entirely.

 

Yes! They were prisoners and had no choice. They tried to commit suicide but were denied that, so they learned to live with it. That isn't a sign of choice!

Worf is pretty strict, but he felt that some of his people had their culture forcibly taken from them. To me it feels like an anti-colonialism message.

 

That would be the ideal scenario. I didn't see the situation as black and white.

I had no problem with the youngsters leaving the isolated community. They should have a chance to expand their horizons and to seek out opportunities elsewhere. However, the youngsters were destined to go the Klingon home world. What options would they have there? It would be the warrior way, or get out of the way. They would be indoctrinated to follow the warrior lifestyle, and be taught to hate Romulans as well. Worf personified the Klingon way of thinking.

If the Klingon youngsters had been taught the Klingon warrior culture during their time in the compound, they would have wound up killing everybody and destroying the community.

It was a bad situation to begin with, but it was made, for better or worse, livable. Those Klingons and Romulans learned to live in harmony. Doesn't that count for something?

The sad thing was that it was the very warrior code, that those Klingons once cherished and lived by in the first place, that condemned them to the situation they found themselves in.

The Romulans offered to let them go free after the Klingon government refused to take them back. Those Klingons chose to stay because of the intolerance of the Klingon culture. They were deemed dishonorable for having been captured. They couldn't go back. Ironically, this is the very same culture that their children would be going to.

At the end of the episode, Worf had to lie about the origins of the youngsters. The truth couldn't be told, not only to hide the secret of the community, but to protect the youngsters from being condemned as dishonorable. They would have had to live a life of lies.

I am not saying that the youngsters should stay in that community. Why not give them asylum in the Federation? I assume they would have more freedom of options living in the Federation. Being raised and living within the Federation was good enough for Worf, why not for them?

 

Now that you mention it....wow. Such a tragic situation ! The Klingon culture is more intolerant than I realized.

 

It sounds to me like we are passing judgement on Klingon values. Just because we disagree with them doesn't mean that they are wrong for the Klingons. The Klingons are intolerant for sure, but if we can't accept them than so are we!

 

@Marynator : I get your point. I guess this is where the line between tolerance and intolerance gets blurred. I mean theorically, a perfectly tolerant person would be able to shrug at everything, at least as long at it's religious, cultural or even moral. But doing so, wouldn't that person silently validate things that make others suffer ?
In example, some people argue that excision is an important part of some sub-african cultures and shouldn't be illegal. But by being so tolerant towards said cultural behaviour, don't they stay passive in front of the girls' and women's suffering ?
Where can we draw the line between tolerance and passivity ?