The Politics of Star Trek

smitty_one_each writes: Timothy Sandefur, a lawyer at the Pacific Legal Foundation has written a breezy overview of the politics of the little-known show Star Trek. His thesis: "...the key to Star Trek's longevity and cultural penetration was its seriousness of purpose, originally inspired by creator Gene Roddenberry's science fiction vision. Modeled on Gulliver's Travels, the series was meant as an opportunity for social commentary, and it succeeded ingeniously, with episodes scripted by some of the era's finest science fiction writers. Yet the development of Star Trek's moral and political tone over 50 years also traces the strange decline of American liberalism since the Kennedy era." The article traces through episodes at each phase of the franchise, exploring literary allusions and lamenting that "Star Trek's latest iterations — the 'reboot' films directed by J.J. Abrams — shrug at the franchise's former philosophical depth."

Comments

Not many morals in the federation really

[sectokia]

I have always thought that the federation was a communist society. We are told that they don't need money. But the two fundamental rules of economics are:
1. We are in a universe of scarcity
2. People have ever increasing unlimited desires and wants

In the federation, we are told that everyone gets what they need, yet we constantly see scarcity everywhere. There is scarcity of engergy, transporter credits and limitations. There is an almost endless list of things people can gain credits and perks for. Then there is the huge amount of laws and regulations. Even trading and using something as money is illegal.

The federation has never been liberal, it has always been communist. It has just been hidden behind a higher level of technology.

Re:Not many morals in the federation really

[circletimessquare]

i never understood this braindead attitude where the only systems in the world are social darwinistic capitalism, and communism

nothing in between

when of course there are thousands of systems in between. in fact the richest and happiest countries in the world, the nordic countries, pretty well balance social safety nets and capitalism. that's actually the ideal society

but if you view everything as capitalism and communism, nothing else, your ideology and philosophy is childish and facile. you haven't given an intellectually honest thought to the subject matter you inject your uneducated opinion into. you're a propaganda victim

this not a baseless insult

you present it as binary: capitalism or communism. when it obviously isn't binary. there are thousands of shades in between, in fact, the best system most definitely is not pure capitalism. objectively, as a function of the most successful societies today, and their economic and political systems

furthermore, the economic, political, social, and cultural systems of the federation are categorically, factually, not communist. define communism. then define the federation. and they do not match, they are far apart

but because it is not pure capitalism, you have to call it communism. because those are the only two extremes you understand. you're a simpleton, an ignorant on the topic

Re:Wrong!

[TWX]

Star Trek Politics were always heavy-handed, often nonsensical, and arguably became somewhat to the detriment of the story while Roddenberry was in charge.

So... politics then?

Nazi episode. Roman Empire episode. MAD episode. All in TOS. Also the Native American one, and the one with the American Flag for some reason.

And in TNG, the Nicotine one.

Sorry, but the show was full of cliches and banalities.

Don't forget, many early TNG episodes were originally either TOS episodes or Phase II episodes that were not produced in their intended shows and were adapted for TNG characters/setting, which mainly worked because early TNG was still in its infancy as far as developing that setting and those characters.

We see a lot more consistent politics in both later TNG and in later movies like Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, but the main characteristic that we see in all Star Trek is that the politics works well when the economy is approaching post-scarcity, where people don't have to worry about basic things like home, food, clothing, and transportation. Those things are either free-free or free to a mimimum standard. Education is also very important, nearly everyon from the Federation clearly has a full and thorough education, which stands out in all the more contrast to Tasha Yar's failed-colony home planet that's more like out of The Warriors, or on Bajoran colonies where people have been refugees for multiple generations.

What I take away from Star Trek is that in an economy where everyone is financially sound and is educated, people can choose to live in different ways from each other and so long as they're not victimizing each other, live-and-let-live applies. Picard's family is very traditional, but LaForge's family, both genders, all sought-out military service. Data's creator Dr. Soong was a madman and given how he seems to have galavanted around the galaxy, a bit of a huckster.

I wish more people would live-and-let-live today. So much culture seems to be based on denying others their own choices in how to live their lives when those choices are not victimizing anyone else.

Devil in the Dark

[mtrachtenberg]

The Gene L. Coon episode The Devil in the Dark, in which a bunch of miners have come under attack by a strange stone-like creature, made an indelible impression on me, certainly more than any bit of religious scripture I've encountered. The lessons in that magnificent episode included the need to understand the other, the danger of assuming you are in the right, the dangers of an ill-educated mob, and the power of fear. I wish W and President Cheney had been forced to watch it before they were unleashed on the world.

Factions and their real world representations

[psycho12345]

I always felt Star Trek politics were pretty cut and dried, as each race either directly represented a specific country or ideology Federation: Western world, especially the US, given the diversity of participants. Romulan Empire: Soviet Union, semi paranoid society, fairly closed, state security is fairly powerful and ever present (Tal Shiar = KGB). Mix of military power and secrecy to further their agenda (The plot line of supplying weapons to the Duras is straight out of the Soviet playbook of arming allies with Soviet weapons, AK-47's being the most common). Cardassian Empire: East Germany. Odo is quoted as saying "Not even the Tal Shiar can match the Obsidian Order" in the episode The Wire. Poor, even more paranoid, uses miltary expansion to acquire resources. Obsidian Order = Stasi Ferengi = Captialism/Wall St. where everything has a price. Tholians = Japanese. Exotic technology, very advanced, but xenophobic to the extreme. Borg = China. More intent on taking then innovating, seen as homogeneous mob. Suppresses dissent for the collective/society good. Dominion = Middle East. Average religious fanatic = Jem Hadar (believe in a god and is willing to die for them). Vorta = Mullahs (use the belief of the founders to enforce their will). Founders = Typical Middle East dictator/monarchy, who use religion purely as an excuse to maintain control, and don't care what so ever about their people and throw them away with little regard. Bajorans = Israel. Home occupied, people murdered, scattered to the wind. Rebuilds. Klingon Empire = Probably West Germany, due to overarching militarism, and pride. As seen in TNG, battleground for the ideologies of Romulans and the Federation, similar to the ideological battles in Germany, symbolized by the Berlin Wall. But really any place where there was combat over the ideolgies could represent here (Vietnam, Korea)