Star Trek and Colonialism...

[MarkusTay]

Ferengi are actually closest to Norse/Vikings in human terms. If the culture they run into is weaker than them, they raid, and if is is stronger, they trade, all the while slowly spreading their influence everywhere. I think the 'raiding' aspect may have dialed-back from first season TNG, after they realized just how big and strong the Federation was, and how much more lucrative all those new markets would be over simple raiding. Still, their government is setup in such a way as the 'official' Ferengi government can disavow any ship/DaiMon as not acting on their government's behalf, which is very smart way of allowing individual ships to still raid (when they have an opportunity) and not take diplomatic hits for it.

 

[Vger23]

 

[oberth]

Ferengi are actually closest to Norse/Vikings in human terms. If the culture they run into is weaker than them, they raid, and if is is stronger, they trade, all the while slowly spreading their influence everywhere. I think the 'raiding' aspect may have dialed-back from first season TNG, after they realized just how big and strong the Federation was, and how much more lucrative all those new markets would be over simple raiding. Still, their government is setup in such a way as the 'official' Ferengi government can disavow any ship/DaiMon as not acting on their government's behalf, which is very smart way of allowing individual ships to still raid (when they have an opportunity) and not take diplomatic hits for it.

i always thought they were american capitalists

 

[Kor]

Data mentioned scholarly comparisons of the Ferengi to "ocean-going Yankee traders of eighteenth and nineteenth century America."

Interestingly, at one time there was this concept that Klingon ships were run like semi-independent privateers, or something like that, mainly seeking their own glory. You can kind of see that with Kruge "taking the initiative" to go after Genesis, and Klaa attacking the Enterprise without authorization from the Klingon government.

Kor

 

[UssGlenn]

Interestingly, at one time there was this concept that Klingon ships were run like semi-independent privateers, or something like that, mainly seeking their own glory. You can kind of see that with Kruge "taking the initiative" to go after Genesis, and Klaa attacking the Enterprise without authorization from the Klingon government.

The different Klingon houses aligning their fleets with a side of the Klingon Civil War, also fits with the idea of a looser military organization. Then everyone is "drafted" during interstellar conflicts.

 

[Ferengi Prime 5]

Based on the present definition of colonialism, the UFP are not a colonial power but they are semi imperialist.

Remember Quark' s root beer analogy... The Federation is insidious...

 

[Ferengi Prime 5]

What is sentient or sapient life?

I like to point out in the Star Trek Movie : The Voyage Home. An Alien spacecraft came looking for a type of life it must have thought was sentient and almost vaporized our oceans looking for them. While the whole time ignoring the billions of one sentient life form on the planet, man.

This Alien spacecraft was looking for whales...

 

[Arpy]

^ maybe it didn't care about sentient or sapient life but similar life.

I wouldn't underestimate the Ferengi. Anything that makes a profit, they're for, including colonialism, imperialism, and war. And they're not all the same.

Also, the definition of insidious is "proceeding in a gradual, subtle, way but with harmful effects." Maybe the task should be to prove the Federation is harmful if we're to call it that.

 

[Ferengi Prime 5]

I wouldn't underestimate the Ferengi. Anything that makes a profit, they're for, including colonialism, imperialism, and war. And they're not all the same.

Ferengi history does not support your notion... They avoid evils our species could not...

While the Rules of Acquisition enshrined fundamental principles of Ferengi society, such as greed and materialism, Ferengi history avoided atrocities such as slavery, concentration camps, and interstellar wars.

Also, the definition of insidious is "proceeding in a gradual, subtle, way but with harmful effects." Maybe the task should be to prove the Federation is harmful if we're to call it that.

Eddington pointed not the subtle evil of the Federation. Even Quark pointed it not over time the Federation is insidious assimilates one with bubbles or we can called it gentrification of races and cultures... Its takeover once let in... When a lesser advance people meets a more advance people, the less advance people in the long run suffers... The Greeks did it to the Know world under Alexander and the Europeans did it in the New World...

 

[Oddish]

Isn't that why there's a Prime Directive?

 

[Ferengi Prime 5]

"proceeding in a gradual, subtle, way but with harmful effects.

Here is a good article about Star Trek and it brings up Colonialism...

https://thetempest.co/2020/07/09/en...ause of,something that benefits the colonized.

Moreover, Starfleet actively seeks out and recruits worlds, especially worlds that have resources and technologies that would be valuable to the Federation. It is precisely because of the Prime Directive that Star Trek makes a pretense of not being a colonial power, but rather than avoiding colonialism it simply reimagines colonialism to be something that benefits the colonized. Deep Space Nine almost nailed down this gaping flaw in the Federation’s ideology by showing the complex politics of a world called Bajor that sought membership. It came closer by narratively casting the Bajoran rebellion against the Cardassian occupation of Bajor as a justified fight for freedom. In the end, it turned Captain Benjamin Sisko into Bajoran Jesus and lost that particular thread of metanarrative critique. From Britain to the United States, there have always been descendants of the colonizers who argue that colonialism benefited the colonized.

 

[Arpy]

These articles are more intellectual exercises than they are exposés. Accept them at your peril.

Here is a good article about Star Trek and it brings up Colonialism...

https://thetempest.co/2020/07/09/entertainment/star-trek-colonialism/#:~:text=It is precisely because of,something that benefits the colonized.

Moreover, Starfleet actively seeks out and recruits worlds, especially worlds that have resources and technologies that would be valuable to the Federation.

Untrue. What did Bajor have to offer the Federation; the Cardassians just left after stripping the planet of anything useful. Remember the wormhole hadn't been discovered yet, and the planet was both remote and needed massive assistance. Both the Angosians and Kesprytt had sophisticated technologies that could have been useful, yet they were denied membership. If this were the case, the Federation would be seeking to unify with any and all aliens with anything of material value.

It is precisely because of the Prime Directive that Star Trek makes a pretense of not being a colonial power, but rather than avoiding colonialism it simply reimagines colonialism to be something that benefits the colonized

That's absurd. I'm not going to shoot you because I don't want you to know that I'm going to shoot you. Could it be, just maybe, they just leave people alone who want to be left alone?

Deep Space Nine almost nailed down this gaping flaw in the Federation’s ideology by showing the complex politics of a world called Bajor that sought membership. It came closer by narratively casting the Bajoran rebellion against the Cardassian occupation of Bajor as a justified fight for freedom.

As opposed to what? Accepting Bajor as an ungrateful subject of a superior race? We can play this game all day. Down isn't up because it resents up. It's a conspiracy by left and right who are jealous of up for being uppity. ....or they're just directions and anthropomorphizing them says more about the anthropomorphizer than the directions themselves.

In the end, it turned Captain Benjamin Sisko into Bajoran Jesus and lost that particular thread of metanarrative critique.

That was the sci-fi of it all. Sisko actually was the Emissary despite both his and Starfleet's consternation. Send your complaints to 1 Celestial Temple Way, Denorios Belt, Bajoran System.

From Britain to the United States, there have always been descendants of the colonizers who argue that colonialism benefited the colonized.

True that.

But you have to take Star Trek on its own terms or prove specifically why it's wrong, not jump on a sophistic bandwagon. Trek suggests an idealized future in which the Federation leaves people alone who want to be, and it only federates with people who would fit in, not who would be assimilated. And the Federation itself is changed with every entrant, optimistically, for the betterment of all. Unlike the Borg who strip away any individual identity for continued dominance. With others it forms alliances and attempts to establish interstellar law agreements for peaceful coexistence. How else would you rather it be?

 

[Arpy]

Eddington pointed not the subtle evil of the Federation.

Why was Eddington right to leave the Federation? His argument was that the Federation should leave them alone to terrorize and murder Cardassians, eventually prompting Union action, prompting Federation action, and war. When Vladimir Putin tells you he's just trying to liberate Ukraine from Nazis, why do you believe him? Of course he's going to have an argument; is it accurate?

Even Quark pointed it not over time the Federation is insidious assimilates one with bubbles or we can called it gentrification of races and cultures... Its takeover once let in... When a lesser advance people meets a more advance people, the less advance people in the long run suffers... The Greeks did it to the Know world under Alexander and the Europeans did it in the New World...

You're suggesting Quark was a noble savage lamenting his realization that the Federation in fact wasn't evil. He lost his shit because his employees wanted to unionize, nephew wanted an education, and mother dared to wear clothes. Maybe his pre-Federation life wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and he's just having a cognitive dissonance accepting that.

 

[publiusr]

Once you leave the cave…everything is a colony

 

[oberth]

Once you leave the cave…everything is a colony

so is your cave if you did not evolve in it

 

[dupersuper]

Ferengi history does not support your notion... They avoid evils our species could not...

While the Rules of Acquisition enshrined fundamental principles of Ferengi society, such as greed and materialism, Ferengi history avoided atrocities such as slavery, concentration camps, and interstellar wars.



Eddington pointed not the subtle evil of the Federation. Even Quark pointed it not over time the Federation is insidious assimilates one with bubbles or we can called it gentrification of races and cultures... Its takeover once let in... When a lesser advance people meets a more advance people, the less advance people in the long run suffers... The Greeks did it to the Know world under Alexander and the Europeans did it in the New World...

I have to ask again: if you actually find Star Trek this morally reprehensible, why do you watch it????

 

[Sci]

Listen, part of what this boils down to is this: It is unavoidable that part of the idea of Star Trek is that the Federation wants to persuade everyone else to become UFP members. So, you either buy into the narrative that that's a good thing or you don't.

But either way, that is clearly a form of colonialism. "Everyone should be part of my political system" is colonialism. That's unavoidable. The question is whether you think that's a good thing or not.

 

[fireproof78]

I have to ask again: if you actually find Star Trek this morally reprehensible, why do you watch it????

Why not? There are lots of things in shows that I find reprehensible but still watch. I find murder and killing horrifying yet still enjoy crime shows, and things like Marvel. I even play video games that involve killing.

One does not need to shelter oneself from things they find morally reprehensible.

 

[Sci]

As for the idea that Ferengi history doesn't have the sort of mass sentient rights violations Human history has...

Ferenginar may not have a history of industrial warfare or genocide. But the fate of untold generations of Ferengi women -- sold like broodmares, unable to own property or participate in their culture's most basic practices, punished brutally if they rebel, denied even the dignity of clothing, all of which add up to strongly imply a culture of pervasive, hegemonic sexual violence -- is honestly so horrific that I don't think we can reasonably take Quark's assertions in "The Jem'Hadar" at face value.

 

[fireproof78]

As for the idea that Ferengi history doesn't have the sort of mass sentient rights violations Human history has...

Ferenginar may not have a history of industrial warfare or genocide. But the fate of untold generations of Ferengi women -- sold like broodmares, unable to own property or participate in their culture's most basic practices, punished brutally if they rebel, denied even the dignity of clothing, all of which add up to strongly imply a culture of pervasive, hegemonic sexual violence -- is honestly so horrific that I don't think we can reasonably take Quark's assertions in "The Jem'Hadar" at face value.

Yeah, as much as I know Quark is treated as some unbiased narrator, he really isn't. He views the Federation as evil because they have different values than he does. Which, is more of an indictment against those who would treat outsiders as "evil" than a black mark against the Federation. Quark demonstrates that self-interest and profit are always his driving forces. He laments the savagery of the humans and then, when it comes down to him vs. a Jem'Hadar killing his nephew he grabs a phaser and kills the Jem'Hadar.

It's only in the Magnificent Ferengi that Quark shows an inkling of the possibility of changing himself. So, while I can appreciate Quark's comments, they are hardly unbiased or fully informed. And Ferengi culture is hardly one I would consider something as an example to be emulated.