Why are Klingons so evil?

[ProtoAvatar]

Many defining characteristics of the Klingon Empire and the klingon warrior cast ARE EVIL - according to human morality:

Their exacerbated aggresivity, their bloodthirstiness, their malleable definition of honor, their conquest of other species who are subsequently exploited (along with their planets) as second class citizens, the fact that killing each other over the smallest offenses seems to be the klingon national sport, etc.

Furthermore, they have many distasteful behaviours - their endless boasting over how many they killed or their unhygienic eating and living ways - for example, that unbearably smelling klingon ship from ENT: Sleeping Dogs.

As for the klingon civilians - we don't know enough about them for a full characterization - except for one thing - they support the Klingon Empire's imperialistic policies.

Of course, the attributes I mentioned apply only to most - BUT NOT ALL - klingons shown on-screen. Therefore, each individual klingon should be judged individually, and not assumed to have certain characteristics merely because they apply to many of his peers.

Maybe the klingons were traumatised by the Hur'k into being so agressive, maybe their agressiveness is dictated by the pragmatic need to maintain their economy/wealth - that remains to be established (but both explanations are satisfactory).

 

[iguana_tonante]

Many defining characteristics of the Klingon Empire and the klingon warrior cast ARE evil - according to human moral standards:

Little point of correction: many defining characteristics of the Klingon are evil according to current, western, secular, humanistic moral standards. Until the last half of the 20th century, the klingon code of conduct was absolutely normal (aggressiveness, bloodthirstiness, "honor", conquest, exploitation, oppression, etc). You are right about the rest, but I felt it was worthy to point out that moral standards are malleable and change rapidly.

 

[JustKate]

^ Definitely true. We have had cultures here on Earth that are dead ringers for that of the Klingons, and they weren't all "evil" either. Heck, there are cultures with similarities alive and well right now, including the one I live in here in the U.S. of A. I don't want to sound all relativist or anything, but even now, killing enemies isn't considered evil. What makes it evil is if you apply the label of "enemy" too many different kinds of people.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Many defining characteristics of the Klingon Empire and the klingon warrior cast ARE evil - according to human moral standards:

Little point of correction: many defining characteristics of the Klingon are evil according to current, western, secular, humanistic moral standards. Until the last half of the 20th century, the klingon code of conduct was absolutely normal (aggressiveness, bloodthirstiness, "honor", conquest, exploitation, oppression, etc). You are right about the rest, but I felt it was worthy to point out that moral standards are malleable and change rapidly.

I was referring to current human morality, yes.
I would point out, though, that it's not just western morality (far from it) and it's NOT only 50 years old - yes, many disregarded the moral precepts during history, but that doesn't mean morals didn't exist in a form very similar to the current one.

As for 24th century star trek human/federation morality - some of its precepts are actually monstruous by today's standards - for example, letting BILLIONS die (when one could save them) in the name of the Prime Directive.

 

[Timo]

I don't remember ever hearing about this, when did this happen? Just curious.

That was from "Rightful Heir". It was told that Kahless, before his death or departure, pointed to a star and said "Look for me there, on that point of light". Klingons of later days took him literally, flew to that star, and founded the Borath monastery there. But if Kahless really said those words, he probably meant something different, more symbolic, who-knows-what. Perhaps he was really saying "Go and conquer all the universe for me", perhaps "I want to be your guiding light, like that star", perhaps "I will now take a short hike, but if you walk thataway, towards that star, you will find me and help me back to dinner; my eyesight is going and my memory isn't all it used to be, so I'd really appreciate the help".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ProtoAvatar]

^ Definitely true. We have had cultures here on Earth that are dead ringers for that of the Klingons, and they weren't all "evil" either. Heck, there are cultures with similarities alive and well right now, including the one I live in here in the U.S. of A. I don't want to sound all relativist or anything, but even now, killing enemies isn't considered evil. What makes it evil is if you apply the label of "enemy" too many different kinds of people.

I should think the criterion for establishing "evilness" is the reason for applying the label of "enemy".
If the label is applied because it's convenient, because attacking this new enemy is advantageous to you (in terms of influence, wealth, etc), then your actions ARE evil.
If the label is applied because this enemy attacked you or because you act in self-defense, then your actions are morally acceptable.

 

[Voyagerian]

I don't think that the Klingons are fearful, or that they're genetically prediposed to violence. Frankly, I think that it's just that Klingon culture is more violent.

In a strange way, Klingon culture is based on a certain idea of equality: To the Klingons, the only thing that makes one person -- or culture -- truly "superior" to another is physical combat occurring according to a certain set of rules ("honorable combat"). So, to Klingons, all combatants have an equal opportunity to win in honorable combat; if they lose, they believe they deserved to lose, and if they win, they believe they deserved to win.

To the Klingon mindset, this is more fair and like tyrannical than what it likely views the Federation's ideas of persuading other cultures to adopt its egalitarian values as being; after all, Klingons won't judge you for being less intelligent than them, or worshipping the wrong gods, or even for not being Klingon. They'll only judge you on whether or not you are brave enough to face possible death in an assertive manner according to the dictates of honorable combat.

While I like this interpretation, I think it reflects the Klingon culture in its "ideal" form, and that form has developed to legitimate the means by which Klingons deal with their collective fears. The fact that so often the system of honour is disgarded or ignored in favour of irrational violence or treachery suggests to me there's something other than mere cultural differences going on. I think that culture is informed by something collective to the Klingon psyche- not inherent or biological in basis, but the result of a civilization-wide trauma. The culture of strength through combat and strict honour codes allows for those fears to be put to rest in a manner that supports an advanced civilization. I think your analysis of Klingon culture is great, but I think that culture is only one manifestation of something else, which also manifests in those Klingons who reject the honour codes and embrace deceit, etc.

But then I'm inclined to define real-life humans in similar ways (minus the alien invasion bit), so I guess I would read this into the presentation of their culture.

In any case posted, I do like the theory re the Hurq connection from the novels...it reminds me of 'The Romulan Way' in which the ancestors of the Orions lull the ancient Vulcans into trusting them, and, having been observing and preparing for something 'untoward', create a situation from which the Vulcans feared alien sentients, at least until Surak-who sacrifices his life here in trying to deal peace with the pirate race/alliance, turns the planetary sentiment away from that mindset...this 'fear of the other' the book speaks of in terms of intra-Vulcanian affairs floows the breakaway pre-Romulans to their new home, and life...and shapes the thought, 'Never again', and fits well into their militaristic bent towards other species...

 

[Anwar]

Way I see it, when the Klingons drove away the Hurq they also looted the leftover tech they left behind and used it to make themselves a Space power. This explains why their tech progressed so little over the years: They still don't understand all of it, and advancement comes slower for them. Most tech advances are from trading/stealing from other races (like cloaks from Romulans).

Lucky for them, the Hurq were really advanced.

 

[mattyhugh]

Way I see it, when the Klingons drove away the Hurq they also looted the leftover tech they left behind and used it to make themselves a Space power. This explains why their tech progressed so little over the years: They still don't understand all of it, and advancement comes slower for them. Most tech advances are from trading/stealing from other races (like cloaks from Romulans).

Lucky for them, the Hurq were really advanced.

That might also suggest why they loved the K'tinga for 200 years.

 

[T'Girl]

I remember coming up with a random theory that the Klingons were originally an artificially created race bred with the express purpose of being soldiers

A theory I came up with a few years ago to explain Klingon behavior and culture is that only one in every ten live births result in a female child. The majority of Klingon males have no prospect of having a wife and family. If they want to attract a mate, in their culture the male has to establish himself, victory in battle create opportunity, advancement in rank, wealth, property, a name.

I don't consider the Klingons to be particularly evil. Warlike, sure, but evil? How so?

One thing that defines the average Klingon as evil is that they wiped out the tribbles. Visualize a Klingon warrior in full armor, bat'leth in hand, advancing on a tribble in the middle of a meadow, the tribble trys to scurry away ...

 

[Joby]

Klingons are built off the Vikings from the TOS movies and onwards....not evil but warlike or militaristic.

 

[I am not Spock]

Klingons aren't evil. Warlike, but they're just a bunch of fun loving, biker, Hells Angel, vikings when you get to know 'em.

 

[Joshua Howard]

If Star Trek works hard to make one point in particular, it is that there is no such thing as evil. There are things which evolved society grows beyond (which is good), but even those things - such as the warrior culture - can be sources of inspiration, diversity and strength.

It is old earth bias that suggests Klingons are evil. The hope is that they retain their warrior spirit, culture, and traditions, but one day progress beyond the need to kill as part of it.

-

Technology in abundance has a way of softening societies, and I think that is why the Federation and Vulcan Empires are more refined. They rely on others for industrial class labor and production, which allows the flagship territories such as Earth to become unusually posh.

If you have absolutely no Klingon in you, you are probably dead. They might be violent, but at least they have initiative. In our present world, the "subway face" is far too common; people who don't look happy, or mad. They just look vacant and empty, as if they are having an out of body experience 90% of the time. Klingons are surprisingly good at avoiding that.

 

[Kang]

^agreed, K'PLAH!

take the borg, they're like ants and robots not really EVIL but a threat nonetheless. And portrayed as villians.

 

[Myasishchev]

Klingons were created as a metaphor of the Soviet Union. When relations were bad, they were the villain like in the Trek movies. Then relations improved, the Berlin wall, ect. and we got 'the final frontier'. Relations improved. Then a Klingon is a crew member in the next generation. I think basically they tend to get evil and less evil is similar to how the west views Russia. Not to say Russia is evil, its just a good metaphor of world events.

If the Klingons really were supposed to be Russians, then their evolution--contradictory in itself--from TOS' cunning slavedrivers to TNG's face-obsessed warlords can possibly be more easily reconciled. I mean, in the 1960s, Americans might have hated communism, but they respected the Soviet Union as a superpower, a genuine threat and an effective, monolithic political unit. So, the Klingons we meet are capable imperialists, smart and savvy as well as powerful.

By the late 1980s, we were beginning to realize that the USSR was, while still powerful in some respects, an economically moribund creature of a tenuous elite, a facade for a tremendously stagnant society. The communist party's hold on power was slipping, while a seething discontent was becoming apparent. At the same time, we had the USSR and the US meeting more as friends than as enemies, despite bad blood. Hence, The Undiscovered Country, and the middle years of TNG, where Klingon society is riven, and individual Klingons are tired old men, ambitious vultures, or just jerks--Worf somewhat excepted. Worf is actually pretty similar in some respects to Chekov, droning on about Klingon this, and Klingon that, much as Chekov was so wery (stereotypically, inaccurately) Russian.

By the 1990s, the public image of the Russians in the West had changed entirely from that of the faceless, numberless soldiers of Stalinism to an inept, drunken nation, dying out from low birth rates and high suicide rates, technologically inept, run by fat alcoholics (K'mpec?) and robberbarons (Gowron?), incapable of paying their army, incapable of even dealing with a separatist-terrorist problem that any the Soviet government would have solved, however viciously, in a few months. So we have DS9's drunken, basically incompetent Klingons (Worf excluded)--a threat sometimes, an unstable and unreliable ally others, occasionally even a true friend, but regularly portrayed in a pretty terrible light, as a flailing, rudderless society, barking about former glories.

If this holds, future iterations of the Klingon Empire might be more threatening again, closer to their TOS roots, as the image of Russia has been restored somewhat to its old self--a mean, un-Western, and autocratic society, fractious and poor, but still powerful and able to see its will enforced on others. At the same time, there's been genuine progress, so if Klingons are somehow unconscious allegories for Russians, maybe next time we'll get a functional society. That would be novel, to be sure.

Edit: oh, incidentally, if Klingons = Russians, does this mean Hur'Q = Mongols? It was at one point, and maybe still is, a popular theory that Russia's problems are traceable to the Mongol occupation, that the reason why Russia never really Westernized--despite shared Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian cultural foundations, despite consistent interaction with Western Christendom in the modern era--was because the Mongols left a millennium-long scar on the Russian psyche, subsequently manifesting itself as xenophobia and a strong autocratic tradition. Personally, I think it's easier to blame the actions of specific people, and their association factions, in the 20th century: Nicholas II, Kerensky, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler.

 

[Joshua Howard]

^ I really like reading your rundown, and it makes sense. Nevertheless, globalism is the name of the game in the 21st century, or at least that is the way it looks to me like it is going.

I am inclined to believe that - to the contrary - we might see Empires previously depicted as isolationist and rigid becoming more intertwined and cooperative.

 

[Anwar]

Klingons are built off the Vikings from the TOS movies and onwards....not evil but warlike or militaristic.

I'd say they're more based on the STEREOTYPE of Vikings, not the authentic Vikings of history.

 

[SilentP]

Klingons are built off the Vikings from the TOS movies and onwards....not evil but warlike or militaristic.

I'd say they're more based on the STEREOTYPE of Vikings, not the authentic Vikings of history.

Hmmm, you raise a point that's got me suddenly thinking. When people think of the Norse (and by extension Vikings) they only tend to think of the Viking raids, which isn't surprising, since they're what left the biggest impression upon other cultures, as opposed to their skill as poets and other crafts they possessed skills in.

Maybe the thing with Klingons is that it's also a stereotype we (and the people in the ST universe) think of, rather than what Klingons actually are like. The violence is an aspect, but it's the only one that foreign cultures (and the characters we follow) experience, and not representative of their whole race.

However, I'll admit it's a point that other posters have raised, that for the most part, Klingons we see are from the warrior castes, rather than many from other disciplines.

 

[xortex]

So the lesser of two evils is justafied. Like two submarine commanders. Who's right and who's wrong in a war? They're just different. To me the Klingons are nazis.

 

[SilentP]

So the lesser of two evils is justafied. Like two submarine commanders. Who's right and who's wrong in a war? They're just different. To me the Klingons are nazis.

Eh? Submarine commanders? And why the Nazi comparison?