Of course it can, and has been repeatedly and at length, for all of human history to date. The idea that we are all equal was literally laughable at one point. There are responses to the American Declaration of Independence that mock the idea as self-evidently ridiculous. In what, they asked, are we created equal? Strength? Intelligence? Skills? Nobility of birth? Even in more modern times it is hardly a universal idea. Saudi Arabia have a functioning modern society which shuns the idea entirely. And it could be argued that our own societies, while proclaiming this truth, betray the principles of it on a regular basis. ... The industrial revolution occurred when Americans still kept slaves. In fact, it is in large part the new machinery which finally allowed the economy to survive the abolition of slavery. You're confusing cause and effect.
To be sure, I'm not claiming that the idea of individual self-determination is anywhere near perfectly
realized, in the modern world or for that matter even in the UFP. I'm just proposing that the existence of the
concept, and its realization to at least
some degree, is necessary for a society to break through certain developmental plateaus.
(Conversely, the concept of "nobility of birth" is extremely useful for a society that's looking to maintain a rigid hierarchy of social roles, but is pretty much laughably useless in a pluralistic technological society.)
It's fine to make that statement in the real world, but it clearly does not hold in the Trek world. The Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Dominion, etc do not hold values in any way analogous to the enlightenment, although from in-canon history, the Cardassians may have at one point. Regardless, they all built powerful space empires despite not holding individual self-determination in high regard.
Granted, we are hobbled in the real world by having an N of one when it comes to technologically advanced societies (and an N of zero, for that matter, when it comes to societies united on a planetary scale). Obviously it's impossible for us to do any sort of traditional statistical analysis. However, a (psuedo?) Bayesian approach might at least allow some provisional conclusions about the relative dependency of certain outcomes on certain priors.
It's not at all unusual for societies to stagnate, even ones that are relatively advanced for their historical era. It happened to ancient Egypt; it happened to medieval China. Stability trumps progress. When a society is focused inward, it makes perfect sense for those in power to suppress economic, philosophical, and technological change; when it is focused outward those things confer competitive advantage. (Consider, e.g., aspects of Jared Diamond's thesis in
Guns, Germs, and Steel.)
Western (that is to say, European) civilization is fundamentally responsible for what we think of as the modern world. (This isn't praise
per se, much less a claim that it was driven by modern ideals; it's just an observation.) It's probably fair to say that other societies around the world (east Asian ones, for example, and various rising post-colonial nations elsewhere) would not be modernized had they not come in contact with European expansion. (Again, I am
not by any means offering a defense of colonialism here, on moral or any other grounds; merely observing historical patterns.)
And how did Western society advance? Well, the aftermath of the Black Plague in the 14th century greatly increased labor mobility (as demand exceeded supply), which started undermining the rigid social structures of feudalism. Then came the Renaissance and (especially important!) the development of the printing press in the 15th century, and the age of exploration and the Reformation in the 16th, all of which dramatically increased the flow of new trade goods and, more importantly, new ideas. And like a series of dominoes (or, more accurately, sequential feedback loops), we got the scientific revolution in the 17th century, the Enlightenment in the 18th, the industrial revolution in the 19th, and the rapid progress on multiple fronts that characterized the 20th.
My proposition here is that these were interdependent trends. That is to say, that it is far more difficult (arguably impossible) to imagine the modern world arising without Enlightenment ideals in the mix (which, by way of radically oversimplifying for purposes of the discussion at hand, we can sum up as "individual self-determination"), or, conversely, to imagine the Enlightenment happening without leading to kind of political and technological progress that characterizes the modern world.
How then to explain the advancement of the various races in the Trekverse? In-universe, it's fair to say that Klingons were stagnating until they confronted the aggression of the Hur'q, and that much of both their subsequent technological advancement
and their belligerent expansionism can be credited to that historical turning point. (Indeed, the idea occurs to me that in a sense Klingon culture could be seen as an example of a "cargo cult" writ large.) Romulans obviously had interstellar-level tech before they split off from Vulcan, so whatever their current political structure, that developed later (and doesn't necessarily preclude ideas of individual self-determination; after all, it appears to be at least semi-democratic, although frankly Trek canon has often been less than coherent about it). The Cardassians, as you say, have their own complicated history that may include comparable ideas. And we really don't know enough about Dominion cultural history to speculate.
All that said, it is of course possible to imagine a society advancing this way, with comparable philosophical concepts and comparable technological progress, and then suffering some sort of collapse or otherwise
backsliding. For instance, Romulans isolated themselves from the rest of the galaxy (at least on the Federation side) for over a century; much like the historical Chinese "sea ban," a prolonged period of isolationism doubtless had significant impact on the direction of the culture.
Of course, there could be within universe biological differences in the brain structure of some races which mean development of "enlightenment ideals" isn't a prerequisite to getting their shit together. However, Trek has traditionally leaned toward nurture, implying that the differences we see in the minds (but not the bodies) of the races are in large part due to culture rather than genes. I think this is because alien cultures are generally supposed to be allegorical looks at other human cultures, meaning if we explore a race which is fundamentally alien due to a difference in DNA it potentially raises uncomfortable, eugenics-style conclusions. Also because from a character standpoint arguing that Garak is shifty and distrustful because "it's in his nature" isn't anywhere near as interesting as exploring his backstory in exactly the same way one would do with a human.
Thus, brutal authoritarian empires with no respect for individual rights actually work in the Trek world. Well, work well enough to rival the Federation, but never quite take it over anyway.
I agree with you here. A degree of alien diversity that is more
biologically plausible would quite likely be a far less fruitful source of
storytelling potential, at least in allegorical terms. (Which is
not to say that I think any alien race need be treated as a monolithic "planet of hats." The complexity of a character like Garak is a good example of how to strike this balance, as is (as I've mentioned before) the way
Babylon 5 developed its primary alien races).
