Star Trek - The "Leftist" Future

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Discovery' started by Awesome Possum, May 6, 2019.

  1. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    A video worth watching about the future shown in Star Trek, examining the blend of leftwing and rightwing ideals.

    I'd recommend actually watching it before jumping to conclusions because it's actually about how a society that is anti-capitalist and based on celebrating diversity also has an extremely powerful military.
     
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  2. NewHeavensNewEarth

    NewHeavensNewEarth Commodore Commodore

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    "A [TV show] is never anything but a philosophy put into images." That about sums it up, but fans will take what they want to from it.
     
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  3. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    [​IMG]
     
  4. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    SUPERMAN II CABBIE: Man, this is gonna be GOOD!!!
     
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  5. starfleettanner

    starfleettanner Commander Red Shirt

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    If anything, Star Trek has always promoted a more liberal ideal than a leftist one. Federation Credits were a barter system that was used in the 23rd and 24th Centuries, so some form of capitalism still exists. if anything, they identified it as a post-scarcity society with liberal stances, so its neither socialist or capitalist...its become basically non political in the economic sense.
     
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  6. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    Economics doesn’t seem to even be a concern unless dealing with other groups who do. Life seems devoted to following whatever it is that you want to do in life.
     
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  7. Jayson1

    Jayson1 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The show is about liberals who are prudes and moderates as opposed to the more radical hippie types we might think about when we think of liberals. They aren't vulgar with their language,they are responsible and feel civic pride in what they have achieved in society. They aren't trying to change society but preserve it. They seem to believe in old school sexual norms which has often been a man and women but even now that we have seen some gay characters they are still in traditional marriage situations.

    Starfleet is a military but they don't like it for waging war or creating fear and believe in things like a proportional response. They will almost never fire the first shot in any conflict. They have diversity in terms of race and gender but very little culture within those different groups of people but more of the melting pot variety were everyone is part of the same one big culture that is Federation based and built around science and appreciating the finer things in life and they don't seem to have any pop culture.

    They also enjoy alien cultures but see's them as "others" and not the same as them but more like a American going on vacation for the first time of his/her life and seeing different societies that seem strange to him/her and still enjoying it but still very much American in how he/she looks at these places.


    Jason
     
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  8. Serveaux

    Serveaux Fleet Admiral Premium Member

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    The people who defined Trek were Kennedy liberals, who'd be well to the right of center in many respects now.

    Trek, though, doesn't represent an ideology or phil8sophy...not really. It's a feel-good, pie-in-the-sky fantasy world with a shot of Sunday School moralizing.
     
  9. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It's clearly not modern(or then-late 20th century)capitalism but then it's not a perfect post-scarcity utopia free of all societal problems. It's always existed somewhere in between the two ideals.

    We have money, credit and power-obsessed humans like Harry Mudd and Cyrano Jones and corrupt, authoritarian-minded Starfleet Admirals who even sank to the levels of conspiring with enemy powers to assassinate Federation leaders and even stage a military coup and topple the elected leadership of the UFP.

    And need I even mention Section 31?

    It may be a much more equal and egalitarian society than we have in the real world right now but it's certainly not a socialist utopia that destroys all profit motive and makes humans angels.
     
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  10. JoeZhang

    JoeZhang Vice Admiral Admiral

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    From a European perspective, Star Trek is not a particularly leftist show - at best, I'd call it softly conversative (with a little c) with a few trimmings "no money!" that really don't make a lot of difference to what we see on-screen.
     
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  11. Spot261

    Spot261 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The problem here is the commonplace oversimplification of the political landscape.

    Where that landscape is increasingly populist various philosophies which could loosely be termed "left wing" in the traditional sense have become more closely affiliated in common parlance. It's easy to make slogans about simple tribal divides, much harder to include nuance and depth of analysis whilst doing so. I'd suggest sadly the average voter might struggle to actually explain the difference between liberalism, socialism, communism or a left leaning libertarianism. In fact many wouldn't even be aware there was a difference because the world is seen as being divided neatly into two camps.

    I'm not wanting to derail into yet another "is there money in the federation" thread because it doesn't really matter one way or the other and frankly the answer depends on which episode you are watching anyway. "Some form of capitalism" can sit entirely comfortably within a truly left wing framework.

    Even leaving aside the question of liberalism and where that truly sits on the so called "political spectrum" there are theories of socialism which not only can co exist with a free market but outright rely on it, operating at the level of the cooperative rather than the nation. Google is in fact very much an example of a major corporation whose mission statement is distinctly socialist in flavour and functions perfectly well within a free market without that being a source of conflict. The idea that the 23rd/24th century need be constrained by a binary free market/public sector divide doesn't really wash with me

    Add into the mix the question of what exactly "socialism" would mean in a society which is, as you say, post scarcity and the labels we currently use start to look quite obsolete, at least in the economic sense.

    What is more meaningful than trying to categorise a fictional society according to labels which don't really even work now is what the show has to say about the world we live in now, what questions it forces us to ask about our own values and worldviews. If entertainment and the media can encourage us to at least think about those questions more deeply than we currently are doing then it's working by my measure.
     
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  12. Armus

    Armus Commodore Commodore

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    Maybe this isn't true of Discovery(I don't watch it) but the great thing about Star Trek was that both liberals and conservatives could claim it as their own.
     
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  13. Serveaux

    Serveaux Fleet Admiral Premium Member

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    You can pretty much get anything you want out of STD, philosophically speaking, because the writing operates pretty much on the same generic beat-the-bad-guys-love-is-good level as most action shows; it's nine-tenths stimulation with a little superficial rumination thrown in. Most of the folks who accuse it of pushing some kind of leftist or anti-ME agenda because the casting is diverse are fighting the shadows of their own anxieties.
     
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  14. Soong-type Android

    Soong-type Android Captain Captain

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    Well Starfleet is supposed to be an idealised version of the tool of imperialism that is the US Navy and the United Federation of Planets is clearly supposed to based on the United States of America. There is some superficial examples of egalitarianism on display and it is stated that poverty has been eliminated and money has been abolished, but on the whole it is more about depicting a cliched Utopian vision of the future than anything.
     
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  15. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

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    Welcome to a show made in America. :techman:
     
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  16. Serveaux

    Serveaux Fleet Admiral Premium Member

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    Exactly so.
     
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  17. Vger23

    Vger23 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I couldn't care less about what philosophies or political leanings Star Trek has embedded in it.

    All I care about is..."is it entertaining?"
     
  18. Serveaux

    Serveaux Fleet Admiral Premium Member

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    Same here.
     
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  19. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I never saw Trek as particularly leftist. I couldn't have watched it this long if I had.
     
  20. Ridcully

    Ridcully Commodore Commodore

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    But.....is that...canon???