Was Star Trek Wallowing In Arrogance, Or...?

[T'Girl]

Ferengi as capitalists are so stupid that it is certain they are representative of Jews.

Scotty: "Would ya like to rephrase that laddie?"

using the catch-all of claiming "cultural diversity" doesn't really work in a lot of cases, which was exactly my point.

Then how do you explain the obvious existence of arranged marriages within the Federation? Vulcan children are bonded at a non-specified young age. Both TOS and VOY show that it actual isn't necessary to have death in the event of a death duel,.Tuvok went through pan-farr without being anywhere close to his wife without dying. T'pol wasn't bonded at a young age (it happen later in her life) and she severed the relationship without either party subsequently dying. Amok Time established that the kal-if-fee isn't even part of the normal koon-ut-kal-if-fee. T'Pring issuing the challenge was a surprise to Spock.

Yet the Vulcans still have it. The Vulcans were one of the designers of the Federation from the start, why would they insert into the newly created Federation laws and procedures that could potentual shut down one of their core cultural institutions? They wouldn't. The Vulcans are carefully people, they wouldn't design into the Federation the power to later interfere with "the Vulcan heart."

During Cloud Minders, Plasus, the High Advisor of Ardana, said it best" "Your Federation's orders do not entitle you to defy local governments."

So, cultural diversity is built into the Federation, even if a temporary majority of the temporary politicians in the two centuries old government wished to, they couldn't interfere. The Vulcan get their child bonding and occasional challenges, the Andorian get their Ushaan ritual, Ardana get their rigid class system and the Human get their prohibition against genetic engineering. And if one day the Bajorian become members, they get to worship wormhole aliens.

Diversity.

you CAN'T "tolerate intolerance" or oppression under the guise of "respecting cultural diversity" or it ceases to be tolerance.

Going back to my previous question, how do you explain the obvious existence of certain things? There's a world of differences between acceptance and tolerance (I believe sonak that you have the two reversed or confused).

And I'm not saying that the various member worlds and their individual civilizations (who are the Federation) accept anything from their neighboring members, only that they tolerate these things.

I believe that the only choice the Federation as a body would have, is to expel any culture they found too egregious.

 

[stj]

I've been busy, busy, busy, but this was both too silly and sleazy to let go.

Scotty: "Would ya like to rephrase that laddie?"

Quark and Sisko say this in "The Jem'hadar:"

"The way I see it, hew-mons used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget."
"We don't have time for this..."
"But you're overlooking something: Hew-mons used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery. Concentration camps. Interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you. We're better. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lock to pick."

Quark is not speaking as a capitalist! If one objects, correctly, that the modern state of Israel, essentially operates the equivalent of a giant concentration camp/Warsaw ghetto (a vicious irony of history!) that forgets that the Ferengi are a [/i]fond[/i] caricature. The shreds of my PC-destroyed soul still find that somewhat objectionable in and of itself. Happily you yourself are unconcerned by that. Which would raise the question, what the objection really is, if it were an honest argument.

 

[T'Girl]

Ferengi as capitalists are so stupid that it is certain they are representative of Jews.

Let me ask straight out then, how do you equate being a stupid capitalist - to - representing Jews?

If one objects, correctly, that the modern state of Israel, essentially operates the equivalent of a giant concentration camp/Warsaw ghetto (a vicious irony of history!)

The difference between modern Israel and the Warsaw ghetto is that in Warsaw the Jews were walled in by the people who hated them and wanted to kill them. In Israel the walls (and fences) are in intended to keep the people who hate them and wanted to kill them walled out.

 

[stj]

Let me ask straight out then, how do you equate being a stupid capitalist - to - representing Jews?

I don't "equate" them. The Ferengi don't significantly represent capitalism because they have nothing to do with capitalism, or even everyday economic life. That indeed does not mean the Ferengi represent fond humor about Jews. But the Federation is our idealized possible selves, the US or at least "Western Civ" projected into the future. As such it, it is predominantly Christian. Christians have slavery and concentration camps in their past. What non-Christian group in the here and now didn't have slavery and concentration camps in their past?

 

[Myasishchev]

Do Ferengis practice mandatory circumcision? That would be pretty brutal.

 

[Stoek]

[Y]ou're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

This has been a most fascinating discussion. Sadly there is too much for me to feel able to quote anyone directly and have my reply make any kind of sense. Instead I will attempt to respond to the zeitgeist of the thread with my own particular point of view.

It seems to me that in any association of intelligent beings there are a limited number of options so far as handling differing values. As I see it they are...

1: Adoption. A culture changes or modifies it's values/practices or adds a new value/practice based on the value/practice of another culture.

2: Rejection. A culture rejects both the legitimacy of the values and practices of another culture and refuses to permit it's members to engage in those practices or hold those values.

3: Toleration. A culture does not adopt a value/practice but they accept it's legitimacy for other cultures and is often less strident about preventing its own members from holding those values or engaging in those practices.

Now it seems to me there are some who tend to view anything other than rejection of another culture's values and practices to be defacto rejection of a persons "original" culture. This is most often seen in America (I will not presume to speak for other countries as I have not lived outside of the US nor read with any kind of depth about the current sociopolitical climates of other countries to feel I can speak authoritatively on such matters) both on the political Right (usually as part of a campaign to demonize multiculturalism) and often amongst some ethnic and racial groups. Proclaiming that engaging in this act or that means that one has "sold out".

Then there is the other end of the spectrum. Those who view anything other than total adoption of another culture's values and practices to be rejection of same. They usually then label the non adopter with divisive terminology (racist, sexist, anti-christian, etc).

The problem is that neither side is willing to allow for the possibility of toleration. In fact both sides often demonize toleration. Either as being a weak and illegitimate stance tantamount to adoption. Or as being "condescending" and actually being a form of rejection by lack of adoption.

Or to put it simply, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Now let's take a look at an example from an episode.

In Ethics, Worf is badly injured and believes that he will never be able to walk again without mechanical assistance. He deicides that this state of affairs is not acceptable to him. So he resolves to engage in ritual suicide. He asks Cmdr. Riker to assist him with this.

After much soul searching Riker decides he cannot in all good conscience do so.

Now while some would view this as rejection if you look closer I think you'll find it's actually clear that Riker is engaging in toleration. While it is true that he makes it clear that he disagrees with Worf's choice, he does not tell Worf that he cannot commit ritual suicide. Rather that he does not think that Worf should, and that if he chooses to do so he will not help him. And then he reminds Worf that the appropriate person to ask according to Klingon law and tradition is his son Alexander.

Now there are some who would damn Riker. Who would claim that by refusing to participate he is passing judgement on Worf's culture and values. But my question is, does not Riker have the right to have his culture and values repsected as well? By his beliefs Worf committing suicide under the prevailing circumstances is wrong and facilitating that would be an even greater wrong. He has the tolerance to not attempt to bar Worf outright, because he respects Worf's right to hold values and engage in practices that are in keeping with his culture and values even when they are at odds with his own.

And Worf offers Riker the same tolerance in return by accepting the Commanders decision. He does not belittle or demonize Riker for his choice.

Ultimately the Federation has made decisions throughout its existence as to what will be adopted, what will be rejected, and what will be tolerated. Those entities who can accept those decisions can be/are members.

Those who have not are not. Sometimes that makes them enemies (as is the case with the Romulans) and other times it makes them allies with a desire not to give up certain aspects of their culture (as is the case with the Klingons).

To be certain toleration is a challenge to practice. We all of us tend to be most comfortable around those with whom we share commonality. But ultimately it is the best hope for building a society where people can live and work together, all honoring their culture and values as best they can, while not forcing that culture and those values down anyone's throat.

 

[Sci]

Jumping into this thread a bit late...

As I said a Utopian "Democracy", everyone has a say, just the Federation has an established set of principles that originate from not just Humans but Vulcans, Tellarites, Andorians, Rigellians, etc

But how can the establish set of principles, that were established by a hand full of races two centuries in the past, still be the principles of the Federation? With each new member the composition of the council alters, the Federation should change over time. The beliefs of the original five or six races should have long ago have been buried under the beliefs of the one hundred and fifty races that followed.

I doubt the Federation accepts as Members any state whose political principles fundamentally conflict with its own. So, for instance, it is improbable that the Federation would ever accept as a Member the, say, Tallarian Republic, whose beliefs include the inequality of the sexes, or the Klingon Empire, which practices aggressive warfare, conquest, and oppression of vassal worlds. Nor can I imagine the Federation would allow a world to join that, say, denies its homosexual citizens the right to marry.

the Federation makes an attempt to respect, learn, and yes, assimilate (to some degree) EACH other’s values

Then why is it that on those occasion when we see the Federation's government, it a Human institutions and procedures government. There apparently is no "melting pot" of ideas and concepts.

Who's to say that the democratic model is one that can't develop independently on multiple worlds? I mean, at the end of the day, any government is going to have legislative, executive, and judicial functions, and any well-developed government is going to develop organs that specialize in those functions. So the idea that a democratic model can't develop independently, I think, is somewhat unreasonable. Certainly in real life, monarchies developed independently in many different cultures -- why not democracies, too?

Indeed, ENT established that there's an Andorian Chancellor, which implies a system akin to a parliamentary system. I see no reason that the founders couldn't have settled on a sort of hybrid presidential-parliamentary system (which is what the Federation government as described in the novel Articles of the Federation essentially is).

Consider also the very limited number of Starfleet ships we've heard of with non-Human names, and we've heard a fair sized sampling.

Eh, not really. Ronald D. Moore once estimated that Starfleet has upwards of 20,000 ships, and we've only heard a small percentage of those. And of those, the majority have been generic words or adjectives -- U.S.S. Enterprise, U.S.S. Voyager, U.S.S. Defiant, U.S.S. Galaxy, U.S.S. Intrepid, U.S.S. Destiny, U.S.S. Endeavor, U.S.S. Equinox, U.S.S. Excelsior, U.S.S. Majestic, etc. Any number of these could just as easily have official names in every other Federation language.

DS9 did appear to buy into the bullshit more. It is no accident that the Klingons and the Ferengi, by any rational lights both impossible and disgusting societies, were mostly adored by DS9.

This is an inaccurate description of DS9's attitude towards Klingon and Ferengi societies. DS9 in fact was quite critical of both -- Klingon hypocrisy was a major theme, as was the dark side of Ferengi capitalism. Or did you miss episodes like "Tacking Into the Wind," "Bar Association," or "Business As Usual?"

Or that religion was uniformly regarded as a totally unifying force, free of sectarianism,

Given the conflicts between conservative Bajoran Prophet-worshipers like Kai Winn and liberal Prophet-worshipers like Vedek Bareil, and given the conflict between Pagh-wraith worshipers and Prophet worshipers, I do not think this statement is the least bit accurate.

While the Founders and the Vortas and the Jem Ha'dar and, essentially, the Cardassians were regarded as pretty uniformly evil, just because.

The only way you can say this is if you ignore episodes like "By Inferno's Light," "Hippocratic Oath," "Rocks and Shoals," "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River," "Duet," and numerous episodes about how the Cardassians are not evil even if their government has done evil things.

You are being fundamentally dishonest about DS9's content.

But to be fair the last Federation president we saw was alien.

The majority of Federation Presidents have been non-Human. The Federation President in Star Trek VI was from an unnamed alien species (he was named Ra-ghoratreii and his species is Efrosian in the novels), and Federation President Jaresh-Inyo from DS9's "Homefront/Paradise Lost" was also from an unnamed species (called the Grazerites in both the script and in the novels). Only one canonical Federation President, the unnamed man (Hiram Roth in the novels) from Star Trek IV, seems to have been Human -- but given the number of Human-like aliens out there, we maybe shouldn't assume. He could have been Ardanian or Argelian or Ramatian or Risian or Betazoid, too.

why is eugenics/genetic engineering banned throughout the entire Federation when it seems that only Earth had a disastrous ...

I don't see it as being banned for everyone, just Humans. Other than Humans when did Star Trek ever indicate there was a prohibition for any other species?

"Dr. Bashir, I Presume?" establishes that extensive genetic engineering has been banned throughout the Federation, and that, further, it would take a ruling from the Federation Supreme Court to overturn it.

The relevant question is how extensive genetic engineering is defined. There may well be loopholes that allow Denobulan practices to survive (assuming Denobula ever became a Federation Member).

Janeway and Tuvok defends in favor of assisted suicide, vs Sisko's interference and prevention of one.

Sisko did not prevent assisted suicide, he prevented actual homicide. Even if it had occurred with Kurn's consent, Kurn was asking Worf to be the person who killed him, not killing himself (as suicide is dishonorable in Klingon culture).

Worf is not reprimanded. It is considered an internal cultural matter.

To be fair, it occurred in a high-level meeting of Klingon Defense Force and government officials aboard DS9. It's entirely possible that for the duration of that meeting, that room was considered legal Klingon territory, subject to Klingon but not Bajoran or Federation law. Possible, I emphasize -- there's no evidence for this.

Now does the UN go courting Afghanistan to join, or do they? No. Because they are too different right now. In the future, that may change. At the same time, as long as Afghanistan doesn't threaten UN member nations in the future, they can go on living their own lives for the most part.

Wow, where to start. First, Afghanistan has been a UN member since mid November of 1946. Second, being different doesn't seem to be a detriment to joining the UN, only if a powerful existing member claims your country as their own or if you're a relatively new country can you not join. Third, powerful forces in the Afghanistan region do want to re-establish themselves in control of Afganistan and threaten UN member nations in the future, so that country doesn't get to go it's own way.

The comparison ultimately does not work, because the United Nations is not a sovereign state with its own government, but the Federation is. The UN is an intergovernmental organization created by sovereign states as a way to administer international law (that is, treaties that two or more of those states have ratified for themselves) and provide a platform for the launching of joint ventures and the peaceful resolution of conflicts. In other words, the UN is a tool of its Member States, and can only do the things its Member States allow it to do. It is not a government and should not be compared to one.

Er- Wow... Sorry for not specifying who I meant to reference.

The Security Council IS the powerful arm of the UN and afghanistan is NOT a member of that branch. The gerneral assembly is pointless to even mention...

How do we know that the Federation doesn't have its' own equivalent of the Security Council? Made up of Earth, Vulcan, Andor and Tellar. It could be that member states outside those four carry little sway in Federation leadership?

There is no canonical evidence for this.

However, in the novels, there is a committee of the full Federation Council called the Federation Security Council, which has oversight over Federation security matters. Its function is not to keep the peace between Federation Member States like the UN Security Council's function is; rather, its function is to be a sort of "Congressional oversight and advisory committee" on matters of overall Federation security against external threats. In an allusion to the UN Security Council, though, the Federation Security Council is comprised of the Federation Councillors from the founding Member States (Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Tellar, Alpha Centauri), and the "Back Eight," Councillors appointed by the Federation President with the advise and consent of the full Council to a term on the Security Council.

(That's how every committee in the Federation Council works in the novels, incidentally -- the Federation President appoints a Councillor with the ratification of the full Council.)

That might be what is being referred to, when various characters speak of the "Federation Council," a relatively small assembly of members.

It's been fairly well-established that the Federation Council is the Federation's legislature. There is no evidence that its name is anything other than "the Federation Council."

Then there would also be a much larger legislature composed of the entirety of the 150 plus membership,

Nope. That would be the Federation Council. Which, incidentally, we know from DS9 and TNG, has the right to make both domestic law for the UFP and to declare war. It's not the UN Security Council.

For what it's worth, the novels establish that the Federation Council is comprised of one Councillor from each Federation Member State, with membership determined in whatever manner the Member State being represented chooses. Betazed's is popularly elected; Andor's is appointed by the Andorian Chancellor on the basis of which Andorian political party wins a majority of seats in the Parliament Andoria; Bajor's is appointed by the First Minister with the advise and consent of the Chamber of Ministers. Etc.

How exactly would the Federation handle having the Klingon Empire as a member, if they can't allow something as simple as Worf's legal recourse for the murder of his mate?

The Federation has to drawn the line somewhere. If it's members consider murder and blood revenge to be wrong - and I don't see why that would be a uniquely human belief, not shared by other member species - why should the Federation be obliged to let the Klingons keep it? Or let the Ferengi mistreat their woman? Just because something is a cultural trait (and surely there's much more to both cultures than those things) doesn't make it sacred and automatically good. The Federation is not and is not meant to be some universally all-inclusive club. It's a grouping of like-minded species with some mutually-determined standards that need to be met.

I wonder why the Koon-ut-Kal-i-fee (marriage or challenge), which is a fight to the death, is allowed to continue to take place on Vulcan?

Possibly because it is considered consensual homicide. (Perhaps consensual homicide is banned for active duty Starfleet officers, thus explaining Sisko's problem with Kurn's death wish, but not amongst general Federation citizens, provided it occurs in specific, legally-recognized contexts like the koon-ut-kal-i-fee.)

Why Vulcans are allowed to force their young children into arranged marriages?

Apparently, they aren't. No one took legal action against T'Pring when she married someone other than Spock. This seems to be more a matter of the weight of tradition rather than a matter of law, in much the same way that many Indian-Americans (Indian Indians, not Native American Indians) accede to their parents' arranged marriages even though they have the legal right to refuse.

Why are Vulcans allowed to push their children into an emotionless existence which isn't natural for them, when humans know that it isn't in the childs' best interest?

It isn't in the childrens' best wishes? Says who?

Also, ENT established that the ushaan was already an extremely rare ritual. It may have died out before the Federation was founded.

The capitalism practiced by the Ferengi is some reactionary daydream of small shopkeepers, not even wide enough to include artisans! Ferengi as capitalists are so stupid that it is certain they are representative of Jews.

This is complete bullshit. There is nothing the least bit "Jewish" about the Ferengi, and nothing about them is intended to parody any aspect of Jewish beliefs or culture. They're intended to be a parody of capitalism; if you think the parody doesn't work, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that they must therefore be intended as a parody of Jewish people.

Similarly, nothing about Klingon culture resembles the African-American subculture in America. They don't even resemble stereotypes of African-Americans -- they much more closely resemble stereotypes about the Vikings and Imperial Japan. You're just making stuff up to accuse Star Trek of racism.

During Cloud Minders, Plasus, the High Advisor of Ardana, said it best" "Your Federation's orders do not entitle you to defy local governments."

He meant that Kirk's orders from Starfleet to transport resources from Ardana to another Federation Member world do not entitle him to violate Member State law, in the same way that, for instance, a U.S. Navy Captain's orders to transport ore from the State of Florida to the Commonwealth of Virginia do not entitle him to violate Florida state law. It does not mean that Federation law does not over-ride Member State law, in the same way that federal law over-rides state law in the U.S.

I've been busy, busy, busy, but this was both too silly and sleazy to let go.

Scotty: "Would ya like to rephrase that laddie?"

Quark and Sisko say this in "The Jem'hadar:"

"The way I see it, hew-mons used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget."
"We don't have time for this..."
"But you're overlooking something: Hew-mons used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery. Concentration camps. Interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you. We're better. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lock to pick."

Quark is not speaking as a capitalist!

Of course he is. Specifically, he's claiming that slavery, concentration camps, and war are not inherent to capitalism, and that therefore a culture that practices capitalism while avoiding those problems must be superior to one that practices capitalism but can't avoid those problems.

Quark is also being disingenuous. At the time of that episode, Ferengi females essentially lived as slaves to their husbands or fathers.

If one objects, correctly, that the modern state of Israel, essentially operates the equivalent of a giant concentration camp/Warsaw ghetto (a vicious irony of history!) that forgets that the Ferengi are a [/i]fond[/i] caricature.

Sometimes the Ferengi are a fond caricature. Other times they're sharply criticized. It depends on the situation. Certainly by the end of DS9, the Ferengi had adopted a much more democratic socialist approach to their society -- guaranteeing equality for women, ending environmental abuses, instituting democratic governance, and creating social programs to alleviate poverty, etc. And certainly episodes like "Business as Usual" and "Bar Association" were sharply critical of Ferengi culture.

I think the fairest thing you can say is that DS9 was fond of some aspects of Ferengi culture but sharply objected to others.

What non-Christian group in the here and now didn't have slavery and concentration camps in their past?

To the best of my knowledge, no non-Christian groups in the here and now did not have slavery in their pasts. Muslims were part of the Atlantic slave trade, and both the Jews of the early Common era and their ancestral Hebrew and Israelite fore bearers practiced slavery. Slavery's been a universal blight upon humanity.

 

[stj]

Never an end to silliness and sleaze, eh?

This is an inaccurate description of DS9's attitude towards Klingon and Ferengi societies. DS9 in fact was quite critical of both -- Klingon hypocrisy was a major theme, as was the dark side of Ferengi capitalism. Or did you miss episodes like "Tacking Into the Wind," "Bar Association," or "Business As Usual?"

No, it is an accurate generalization. Trek was not quite critical of both, with the occasional episode viewing them more favorably, which is the false claim you imply.

Given the conflicts between conservative Bajoran Prophet-worshipers like Kai Winn and liberal Prophet-worshipers like Vedek Bareil, and given the conflict between Pagh-wraith worshipers and Prophet worshipers, I do not think this statement is the least bit accurate.

There are no conflicts between conservative and liberal Bajoran worshippers. There was a single individual who falsified Bajoran religion in a campaign for personal power, but the instant Kai Winn was defeated, Bajoran religion
resumed its non-sectarian, universally pacific nature. This of course if bigoted horseshit, but there you are.

The only way you can say this is if you ignore episodes like "By Inferno's Light," "Hippocratic Oath," "Rocks and Shoals," "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River," "Duet," and numerous episodes about how the Cardassians are not evil even if their government has done evil things.

The Founders' Great Link and ketracel white and genetic engineering to worship the Founders and all that ill thought out rot puts the evil into these beings' physical nature. They are of an inferior flesh, that pollutes the mind and soul. Again, this is bigoted horseshit, and again, there you still are.

As for Cardassians, the qualification "essentially" tells you I am perfectly aware that is more ambiguous. But basically, any Cardassian who is a rebel, even to the point of posing as a war criminal to earn greater disrepute by blatantly boasting of war crimes, is okay. Obviously this is true, but it's not much of a concession to the fundamental decency of the people as a whole. Frankly, boasting about how Trek could see the decent side of the people in a Nazi regime when it never saw anything except the need to annihilate the people in a Communist regime, namely, the Borg, says an awful lot about your real perspective right there. DS9 itself was artfully ambiguous about the necessity to annihilate the Founders too.

You are being fundamentally dishonest about DS9's content.

A generalization is not a lie, it is a necessary mode of rational thought.

This is complete bullshit. There is nothing the least bit "Jewish" about the Ferengi, and nothing about them is intended to parody any aspect of Jewish beliefs or culture. They're intended to be a parody of capitalism; if you think the parody doesn't work, that's fine, but it doesn't mean that they must therefore be intended as a parody of Jewish people.

The Rules of Acquisition parody the Talmud. They certainly don't parody anything capitalist. The ears have sexual connotations, and in this culture African Americans and Jews are the minorities whose image is contaminated by sexual projections. Since everyone who watches Trek experiences capitalism as corporate, industrial, urban, the whole Ferengi style of "capitalism" is taken from literature and drama, starting with Shakespeare's Shylock. Even the subservience of women fits stereotypes of Jewish patriarchy, and stories about men praying thanks to not be a woman. Whereof you know nothing, stay silent.

Similarly, nothing about Klingon culture resembles the African-American subculture in America. They don't even resemble stereotypes of African-Americans -- they much more closely resemble stereotypes about the Vikings and Imperial Japan. You're just making stuff up to accuse Star Trek of racism.

More horseshit. The low-rent Klingons, namely, the Kazons, came complete with dreadlocks and the Bloods and Crips, er, "septs." No one objects to the Kazons for being stereotypes of Africa Americans, they object to them for not being as cool as Klingons. And everyone knows the Kazons are merely variations on Klingons.

I happen to like Star Trek and Voyager and the racism I see in modern Trek is personally embarrassing. I have zero motive to make stuff up to accuse my own taste. I think you're making stuff up to acquit Trek of racism.

Of course he is. Specifically, he's claiming that slavery, concentration camps, and war are not inherent to capitalism, and that therefore a culture that practices capitalism while avoiding those problems must be superior to one that practices capitalism but can't avoid those problems.

Quark is also being disingenuous. At the time of that episode, Ferengi females essentially lived as slaves to their husbands or fathers.

You have to be a moron to see the Ferengi as a projection of any kind of capitalism, whether for criticism of ourselves or as an ideal to achieve. The notion that real capitalism would be free of such blemishes as slavery, concentration camps and wars defies centuries of history. It is a grossly reactionary lie.

Sometimes the Ferengi are a fond caricature. Other times they're sharply criticized. It depends on the situation. Certainly by the end of DS9, the Ferengi had adopted a much more democratic socialist approach to their society -- guaranteeing equality for women, ending environmental abuses, instituting democratic governance, and creating social programs to alleviate poverty, etc. And certainly episodes like "Business as Usual" and "Bar Association" were sharply critical of Ferengi culture.

I think the fairest thing you can say is that DS9 was fond of some aspects of Ferengi culture but sharply objected to others.

Whatever is the point? The generalization is still valid, despite a couple of episodes.

To the best of my knowledge, no non-Christian groups in the here and now did not have slavery in their pasts. Muslims were part of the Atlantic slave trade, and both the Jews of the early Common era and their ancestral Hebrew and Israelite fore bearers practiced slavery. Slavery's been a universal blight upon humanity.

Changing the issue to slavery alone, when it was slavery and concentration camps and war, reveals the dishonesty of your arguments, I think.

 

[T'Girl]

Consider also the very limited number of Starfleet ships we've heard of with non-Human names, and we've heard a fair sized sampling.

Eh, not really. Ronald D. Moore once estimated that Starfleet has upwards of 20,000 ships, and we've only heard a small percentage of those. And of those, the majority have been generic words or adjectives ...

Actual no. The majority have been Human proper names. Human family names, city names, river names, mythical figures, historical figures, Earth animals and insects. Only a few (proportionally) have been generic names.

And I did stipulate "Starfleet ships we've heard of ..."

Given the conflicts between conservative Bajoran Prophet-worshipers like Kai Winn and liberal Prophet-worshipers like Vedek Bareil, and ...

According to Major Kira, in the episode In the Hands of the Prophets, Kai Winn is orthodox (not conservative). Orthodox means: Sound in opinion or doctrine, especially in religious doctrine, harmonious or congruous with the doctrines of the temple.

Kai Winn is mainstream.

... assisted suicide, vs Sisko's interference and prevention of one.

Sisko did not prevent assisted suicide, he prevented actual homicide. Even if it had occurred with Kurn's consent, Kurn was asking Worf to be the person who killed him, not killing himself (as suicide is dishonorable in Klingon culture).

Assisted suicide pretty much by definition involves a second person's participation, by deigning Kurn access to someone to "homicide him," Sisko was preventing Kurn's wished for assisted suicide. Murder is killing someone in a illegal fashion, if assisted suicide were legal in the jurisdiction in which Kurn found himself, then Sisko would not have been preventing Worf from committing homicide.

As his commanding officer, Sisko can dictate Worf actions, but his (Sisko's) preventing Worf from ending Kurn's life doesn't automatically indicate those actions would have been considered homicide.

 

[Sci]

Never an end to silliness and sleaze, eh?

Don't worry, I can always send you links to my favorite porn parodies.

Frankly, boasting about how Trek could see the decent side of the people in a Nazi regime when it never saw anything except the need to annihilate the people in a Communist regime, namely, the Borg,

Considering how often the Klingons were meant to represent "Communists" without there being any notion that it's okay to kill them all -- and given as how the Romulans were also said to stand in for the Chinese (another Communist country) as recently as NEM (hence why John Logan called his film's antagonist "Shinzon") -- I don't think that's fair.

I also think that the fact that the Borg are usually killed outright has more to do with the fact that they function far more often as techno zombies than they do as strict allegories for Communism. Besides, they're led by a Queen. Surely that renders them more a generic allegory for any totalitarian system.

says an awful lot about your real perspective right there.

Oh? And what is my real position on Socialism, Communism, and Capitalism, pray tell?

The Rules of Acquisition parody the Talmud.

Oh? What section of the Rules of Acquisition prompts that comparison? What aspect of its content marks it as being a parody of the Talmud? (As opposed to it just being a, "Oh, those silly Ferengi, they're so into Capitalism, they even made their holy book about it!")

'Cos the Talmud is a collection of commentaries and debates with sources cited, not a listing of rules and divine orders.

They certainly don't parody anything capitalist.

I agree that they're an inadequate parody of modern Capitalism's corporate incarnation. But to say that a society dedicated to greed and the acquisition of privately-owned wealth, to the point of it being a religion, is not based on Capitalism, is just silly.

The ears have sexual connotations, and in this culture African Americans and Jews are the minorities whose image is contaminated by sexual projections.

.... I'm faintly astonished that you would even think to make a link like that. Does this mean that Vulcans are also meant to be Jews and Bajorans are meant to be blacks? (Or is it the other way around? I can never keep my stereotypes straight. A consequence of their being bullshit, no doubt.)

Since everyone who watches Trek experiences capitalism as corporate, industrial, urban, the whole Ferengi style of "capitalism" is taken from literature and drama, starting with Shakespeare's Shylock. Even the subservience of women fits stereotypes of Jewish patriarchy, and stories about men praying thanks to not be a woman. Whereof you know nothing, stay silent.

My absolute best friend in the world -- the sister I never got to have, really -- is a girl named Rachel who happens to be watching DS9 for the first time, at the urging of her fiance. Rachel is a practicing Conservative Jew.

So I figure there's nothing more I can possibly contribute after Rachel rather eloquently and decisively commented on your argument over AOL:

First of all, I'm not really okay with people looking at the Ferengi and thinking, "wow, they're so much like the Jews!" That's saying a lot more about what you think about Jews than it's saying about how the creators of Star Trek thought about the Ferengi. I don't like the idea of going "hey, there's one race, so it must be this real-world race!" -- there's more nuance in the world, and in DS9. The reason why they're fictional races in DS9 is because the creators recognize humans are varied and transcend these vastly stupid stereotypes. (Besides, my fiance is Jewish and 6'6: he wants to be a Klingon.) I don't see how the Rules of Acquisition parody the Talmud at all: obviously, this person has no idea what the Talmud is besides "Jewish book, very long." A comparison to the 10 Commandments, sure: in form and content, they're obviously a joke of what a capitalist culture would consider a Holy Book, the Bible of the guys from Glengarry Glen Ross.

I really don't understand how Jews are more patriarchal than any other group in Western civilization. Yes, there's a blessing that men say thanking G-d that they're not women: there's a matching blessing that women say that men don't. (The actual reason that men say this blessing is because they're just so happy that they get to fulfill certain mitzvot that women are exempt from: then again, the reason women are exempt is because we sinned less than they did in the Sinai. No, really, it's built into Judaism that women are inherently better than men. ^_-) And I really don't get the thing about the ears having sexual connotations means that they have to be Jewish, because Jews are sexualized? Again, that's a projection that you're creating. Yes, some Jews are short: again, my 6'6 fiance is just one of the many counterexamples. Yes, Jewish actors played many famous Ferengi: are all Vulcans Jewish, then? Yes, it's a stereotype that Jews are all greedy: it's also deeply anti-Semitic. The creators wanted to make a despicable race, so they picked up some despicable traits and built a race around them -- and then had characters transcend these traits. Something you ought to do. (For the record, Quark is one of my favorite characters: I think he has some great lines and amazing chemistry with lots of characters, I like the reveals of his hidden depths, and his plots are never quite predictable. He's three-dimensional. Reducing a race to "Space Jews" is a crime.)

Also, as Rachel noted in my conversation with her, Shakespeare did not invent the idea of the Jew as a greedy moneylender.

More horseshit. The low-rent Klingons, namely, the Kazons, came complete with dreadlocks and the Bloods and Crips, er, "septs." No one objects to the Kazons for being stereotypes of Africa Americans, they object to them for not being as cool as Klingons. And everyone knows the Kazons are merely variations on Klingons.

So, in other words, you can't defend the "Klingon=African American" argument, so you're shifting gears to another alien species instead.

Now, having said that, I will concede that I think a race-based critique of the Kazon concept is valid. Jeri Taylor in A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager (VOY's "Making of" book) by Stephen Edward Poe, is quoted as saying that the initial inspiration for the Kazon came from wanting to find a way to comment on the rise of street gangs in Los Angeles.

Now, I don't see any reason to think that the VOY writers had any racist intent. But I do think that it's fair to say that in the course of trying to do an allegory about street gangs (in the form of the Kazon sects), their depiction of the Kazon instead hit on a lot of racial imagery and ideas. I think that has more to do with incompetence and unintended connotations than any real intent.

(There again, their depiction of Chakotay in "Caretaker" is pretty borderline racist, IMO.)

You have to be a moron to see the Ferengi as a projection of any kind of capitalism, whether for criticism of ourselves or as an ideal to achieve. The notion that real capitalism would be free of such blemishes as slavery, concentration camps and wars defies centuries of history. It is a grossly reactionary lie.

And the fact that the Ferengi rather egregiously oppress their women shows that Quark is not a reliable person when he claims that the Ferengi have been free of slavery, war, and concentration camps. I wouldn't take his claim that Ferenginar has not know such blemishes as being authoritative; they're contradicted by everything we know about Ferengi culture.

Sometimes the Ferengi are a fond caricature. Other times they're sharply criticized. It depends on the situation. Certainly by the end of DS9, the Ferengi had adopted a much more democratic socialist approach to their society -- guaranteeing equality for women, ending environmental abuses, instituting democratic governance, and creating social programs to alleviate poverty, etc. And certainly episodes like "Business as Usual" and "Bar Association" were sharply critical of Ferengi culture.

I think the fairest thing you can say is that DS9 was fond of some aspects of Ferengi culture but sharply objected to others.

Whatever is the point? The generalization is still valid, despite a couple of episodes.

No, when an entire arc of the series is about how badly Ferengi society is in need of reform, that means it's not just "a couple of episodes." It's an arc, it's a story being told, and you're ignoring the facts that contradict your false and invalid generalization.

To the best of my knowledge, no non-Christian groups in the here and now did not have slavery in their pasts. Muslims were part of the Atlantic slave trade, and both the Jews of the early Common era and their ancestral Hebrew and Israelite fore bearers practiced slavery. Slavery's been a universal blight upon humanity.

Changing the issue to slavery alone,

I'm not changing the issue, I'm pointing out that one aspect of your comparison is invalid.

when it was slavery and concentration camps and war,

Nor do I think it's in any way reasonable to claim that the Jews have been without war. Whether it was the wars they fought to defend themselves against the Romans, the wars Israel has suffered just in the last sixty years, or just the numerous Jewish individuals who have served in various nations' armed forces over the centuries, it's clear that Jews have had to grapple with the same universal problem of war that every other culture has had to deal with.

And you're the one claiming that the Israelis have a giant concentration camp today. If you are arguing that the Israelis have turned the West Bank into a giant concentration camp, then you are necessarily contradicting your own argument that the Ferengi equal the Jews because of a lack of slavery, war, and concentration camps. (I'm not going to touch on whether or not I think your claim about the West Bank is accurate.)

 

[stj]

There is indeed never an end to silliness and sleaze.

Considering how often the Klingons were meant to represent "Communists" without there being any notion that it's okay to kill them all -- and given as how the Romulans were also said to stand in for the Chinese (another Communist country) as recently as NEM (hence why John Logan called his film's antagonist "Shinzon") -- I don't think that's fair.

True, I haven't specified modern Klingons each and every time. I foolishly assumed that after specifically citing modern Klingons, the discussion could be read in context. It was Star Trek that didn't want to kill off the Commies, not modern Trek. I don't think it's fair to ignore context. Nor is it fair to cite Romulans in Nemesis when that movie has the Remans instead.

I also think that the fact that the Borg are usually killed outright has more to do with the fact that they function far more often as techno zombies than they do as strict allegories for Communism. Besides, they're led by a Queen. Surely that renders them more a generic allegory for any totalitarian system.

A totalitarian system is commonly pictured as a single tyrant over a faceless mass. There's Kim Jong-il, and then there's the rest, according to this picture. It's the model of an ant queen and worker ants. Borg also function as technovampires. Probably the clearest example of the Borg as Communists is the Elian episode of Voyager, Child's Play.

Oh? And what is my real position on Socialism, Communism, and Capitalism, pray tell?

Red herring. The question is, why is it so much more obvious that the Federation should plan genocide of the Founders, but not the Cardassians? It isn't at all obvious, save to your greater sympathy for Nazi-ruled populations, over Communist-ruled populations. Why did DS9 sweat so much more over Sisko's decision to poison Cardassian property than over Section 31's decision to murder the Founders themselves?

Oh? What section of the Rules of Acquisition prompts that comparison? What aspect of its content marks it as being a parody of the Talmud? (As opposed to it just being a, "Oh, those silly Ferengi, they're so into Capitalism, they even made their holy book about it!")

It is not even logical that a critique of capitalism, as you allege the Ferengi to be, would even give them a "holy book." Real rules of acquisition should be proprietary business secrets, after all. It would have been much more penetrating if the capitalists were portrayed as being totally godless, and having no code at all, just a bottom line. Given that, what other "holy book" is devoid of mythology but consists of rules for daily life? (Sunni schools of law, I suppose, but they are still too foreign to US audiences at large to be models.)

'Cos the Talmud is a collection of commentaries and debates with sources cited, not a listing of rules and divine orders.

I may have been mistakenly separating Midrash from the Talmud proper, but "the commentaries and debates, with sources cited," are about "rules and divine orders." You're just spouting gibberish.

I agree that they're an inadequate parody of modern Capitalism's corporate incarnation. But to say that a society dedicated to greed and the acquisition of privately-owned wealth, to the point of it being a religion, is not based on Capitalism, is just silly.

Not seeing the oddity of a Capitalist religion is just silly. We have the famous examples of Ayn Rand and her Atlas Shrugged with a chapter titled The Sign of the Dollar, or Robert Heinlein's Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and its slogan TANSTAAFL. The most crazed capitalists do religious parodies, not religion.

.... I'm faintly astonished that you would even think to make a link like that. Does this mean that Vulcans are also meant to be Jews and Bajorans are meant to be blacks? (Or is it the other way around? I can never keep my stereotypes straight. A consequence of their being bullshit, no doubt.)

I'm not even faintly astonished you pretend that bigots don't have weird sexual hangups they project onto those they oppress. Your indignation on their behalf, when I say that they do project sexual stereotypes onto African Americans and Jews, is repulsive in the extreme. Why the Klingons, who supposedly are based on Vikings and Samurai, should be such sexy animals is quite mysterious. Why the Ferengi, who supposedly are based on crazed capitalists, should have big....ears is past mysterious, into insane. I think you know perfectly well that the peculiar sexual characteristics of modern Klingons and the Ferengi fit altogether too uncomfortably into the sleazy mythologies of racism and anti-Semitism. You just don't like getting caught at it.

So, in other words, you can't defend the "Klingon=African American" argument, so you're shifting gears to another alien species instead.

The whole objection to Kazons was that they weren't another alien species, they were just modern Klingons in dreads. You're not even pretending to meet an argument here. However, there are shout out moments for Klingons as African Americans too, pretty much every B'Elana Torres episode of Voyager for one. The episode where Torres tries to genetically engineer a better child, unsatisfied until it's a blue-eyed blond, is about as obvious as you can get.

And the fact that the Ferengi rather egregiously oppress their women shows that Quark is not a reliable person when he claims that the Ferengi have been free of slavery, war, and concentration camps. I wouldn't take his claim that Ferenginar has not know such blemishes as being authoritative; they're contradicted by everything we know about Ferengi culture.

Ever since Move Along Home, Quark has been known to be a fundamentally decent person. It was a heartfelt moment, and it was meant as a serious critique of Christendom, the other meaning of the term Western Civilization. By the way, a true parody of women under capitalism would focus on prostitution, not submission. The patriarchal submission is derived from another source, prejudice.

No, when an entire arc of the series is about how badly Ferengi society is in need of reform, that means it's not just "a couple of episodes." It's an arc, it's a story being told, and you're ignoring the facts that contradict your false and invalid generalization.

Arc, arc, what story logic was there? The writers had a fear they went too far with the humor and wrote away the parts too critical of Jews. Especially the patriarchy. If you or anyone else really believed the Ferengi were about capitalism, then the sudden, motiveless, nearly random, stride toward perfection would have to be condemned as pipe dream scifi. Indeed, such an easy imagination of self-reform of capitalism would constitute a reactionary endorsement. This issue doesn't come up much because no one really thinks of the Ferengi as capitalists in any meaningful sense. And no one really wants to openly be anti-Semitic. People only accept this drivel because at some level they know Jews are not really monsters of greed and patriarchy. The "arc" therefore doesn't need rational motivation.

And you're the one claiming that the Israelis have a giant concentration camp today.

What this is really about, in other words. Well, people who would find comic Jews lovable are not the sort to enjoy simple truths about Zionism.

The "humor" in the Ferengi relies far too much on anti-Semtic stereotypes, even if the worst are whisked away by magic by the end. I object. Insofar as the Ferengi as manifestations of simple greed (DS9 and modern Trek generally is far too badly written to cope with such a sophisticated concept,) the gentle love for the Ferengi is self-forgiveness for greed and patriarchy. I object to that too.

Lastly, when appealing to authority, it is necessary that the authority has some tiny shreds of credibility. No one "looked" at the Ferengi and thought Jews. Indeed, less perceptive people like me didn't really get it until seeing one of the shout out moments that made it inescapable. Which, for me, was the "we didn't have..." speech. Which makes no sense whatsoever except as a Jew upbraiding a Christian. This makes everything this creature wrote irrelevant, except for the small-minded malice.

Cleaning the Augean stables, just a little, as a distraction from other troubles is one thing, but the smell from shit like that will eventually penetrate even my perpetually clogged sinuses.

Done.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The low-rent Klingons, namely, the Kazons, came complete with dreadlocks and the Bloods and Crips, er, "septs." No one objects to the Kazons for being stereotypes of Africa Americans, they object to them for not being as cool as Klingons. And everyone knows the Kazons are merely variations on Klingons.

Of all the godawful idiotic "logic" I've seen you display, this is a true standout. Klingons are black stereotypes because Kazon are black stereotypes and of course, Klingon = Kazon. "Everyone" knows that.

Wonderful. Keep up the good work.

 

[stj]

^^^Another ox gored!

I need a matador costume.

 

[LJones41]

Later on, Sisko states the theme of DS9: The Federation is paradise and it's easy to be a saint in paradise, meaning that Starfleet, being the people who the Federation sends outside its borders, are the ones who aren't and can't be saints.

Why was it necessary to portray the Federation and by extension, humanity, in such an ideal light?

 

[1001001]

Why was it necessary to portray the Federation and by extension, humanity, in such an ideal light?

Ljones41,

Please refer to the Board rules, located here: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/rules-a-short-guide-to-posting-on-the-bbs.282269/#post-11662568

This thread hasn't had a reply in 6 years. Let's let it rest in peace.

Thanks