Michael Westmoreland-White sees the Star Trek universe as a liberal or progressive vision of the future, featuring things such as racial and gender equality, free universal health care, and an absence of imperalism. I'm neither liberal or progressive, but I think that he's right.
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Image by Flickr user Tim Williams used under Creative Commons license
But I do think that Star Trek is a fairly progressive/liberal science fiction franchise. It’s a basically hopeful vision of the future. It offers up a future earth that has survived war, terrorism, and ecological disasters and forged a global government of representative democracy (we are never told this, but it must be some form of federalist system to avoid tyranny). Hunger and poverty have been overcome. Most diseases have been conquered and high quality universal healthcare is available for all. Education is free and the world is highly literate with most people going beyond secondary education. It’s a clean energy society that is eco-friendly. (In Star Trek IV, the Enterprise crew in their stolen Klingon ship actually go back in time to the 20th C. to keep whales from going extinct–and in the process save the earth of their future.) There is finally global racial harmony. And, despite the micro-mini-skirted uniforms that reflected the fact that the original series was made in the ’60s, we finally have gender equality, too.
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Image by Flickr user Tim Williams used under Creative Commons license
lol - WTF? First, why say what you aren't instead of just saying "I'm conservative" or whatever you identify as. Second, why does it matter what you are to recognize what is in front of you? I'm not a communist but I know Stalin was.
Too dim, man.
Why not just say that I'm a conservative? Because I'm not a conservative.
And why did I say it in the first place? Because a few readers are constantly looking for a reason to be outraged at Neatorama, and I didn't want to give the impression that I'm pushing my politics on readers here. I'm not. I think that Westmoreland-White wrote a good post, and that's why I linked to it.
Progressives move things forward and change things (for good or bad) and conservatives want things to stay the same or move backwards in line with tradition. If you aren't conservative or progressive, what are you? Frozen in time?
Boring fail.
Discussing politics, religion or war in general gives a reason for blog commenters to be outraged at the drop of a hat. Your views are your own, but when discussing these topics you always have to expect someone to come out and point a finger at you yelling "You’re wrong"! I'll have to check out the rest of the info from the link later, my work's network is blocking it.
One thing that I've always liked is Star Trek's approach to interspecies/inter-racial relations. Listen to Spock and McCoy go at it, or Worf and Riker. Those sorts of racial jokes and sparring are all very un-PC by modern standards, but I think it's generally a healthy and realistic approach.
What he is trying to say is that it doesn't matter what his political stance is, what he read from this guys blog he agrees with. Are you just blowing this out of proportion for the sake of it (because I like doing that from time to time), or are you actually disturbed by this?
Technology burgeons in times of strife (see WWII), and sometimes the status quo changes virtually overnight (petroleum replaces whale fat). Who fosters the development of new technology? Greedy capitalists who fund grants and laboratories, using Money, often in the name of defense.
Both the left and right try their best to hobble technology. Those who would have us drive oxcarts and recycle our farts while China builds more coal power plants are as imposing as those who insist on teaching that Christ rode a dinosaur to work every morning.
But it's never going to happen.
Humans are well... just stupid as a whole.
It was a pre-emptive effort to avoid accusations of me pushing my politics on Neatorama readers, when it wasn't. I think that it's just a good post, and worth reading. I don't view everyone who disagrees with me politically as stupid or immoral, when in fact they're often insightful.
I think John distancing himself from it only made it stick out more that this could be viewed as partisan and - whether the case or not - made it seem like he would disagree with it. Therefore fail, John. (I love how you bring in things I never mentioned, like people being immoral - way to go politico)
Would've been fine if you'd just posted the darn thing.
A Star Trek future? I predict either a Soylent Green future, or a Road Warrior one.
btw, The new movie is great!
Buckle up, suckers!
I forgot that part. So maybe there is hope for the future.
Spock needled by everyone.
Tuvok urged to lighten up.
Data laughed at for not being "human" enough.
Worf...
Hell, the list's endless! Most of this crap would be actionable workplace harrassment by today's standards. "Please conform to our humanity or be ridiculed."
You'd never hear "C'mon, Space Jew, that pork won't kill ya...", but alien cultures are fair game.
Sorry, I love every version of this show, but that's always gone up my *ss a mile.
I'm Neelix. I consistantly refer to my immmediate superior at work as "Mr. African-American" or "Mr. Homosexual" rather than use his real name, in a sort of jocularly scoffing way.
How long do I get to keep my job? Granted, any conservative starship captain would have spaced Neelix at the earliest opportunity, along with Dr. Smith and Wesley Crusher.
TNG's utopia was terribly bland and dull, and didn't get better until after the first two seasons - when characters began getting more real.
This little "revelation" by Michael Westmoreland-White is nothing anybody else hasn't said before, and probably better. To say it's a result of a liberal agenda is kinda laughable.
Oh, and the Star Trek movie was good. I just didn't like the whole time travel cliche bit. Can we stop doing the time travel? And killing six billion people just for the sake of potentially different future movies? Insulting. What happened to movies with happy endings?
The main problem with the star trek society is that it goes against human nature Tell me ..if you got free rent, free food, free medical care, free transportation, free holodeck time. would you become a Red Shirt to " better yourself"?
Or stay on earth and eat steak and lobster between your Roman orgy time in the holodeck?
I think we know the answer
sounds like someone needs an IQ overhaul.
keep in mind that star trek was extremely anti-war and anti-segregation and also featured the first interracial kiss on tv
also keep in mind that it was made in the late 60s
being seriously opposed to segregation on network tv in the late 60s is not middle of the road
It's been established since TOS that the show falls on the scientific theory of the unknown principle that time travel might be possible, given the right methods. City on the Edge of Forever, for example.
And it makes for one helluva deus ex machina in the story.
Compare the film Generations with the current one. There, Picard risks his life and the lives of his crew to save a planet of some anonymous people. They win. Yay!
In the new movie, the idea of killing six billion people, and altering the entire shape of the Star Trek universe - effectively wiping out the entire Star Trek history as you know it - is a backdrop for a cool special effect. Why couldn't they fix that? Because they want more movies.
I say they've strayed from Utopia, where there are happy endings. They even have a Chinese guy playing Mr Sulu. That ranks pretty low on cultural awareness - insert generic Asian actor here (I was waiting for Kumar to show up, by the way - that would have been awesome).
Kal Penn (aka. Kumar) showing up would have been awesome. As for Sulu, I'm sure people could have chewed them out for specifically finding a Japanese guy for the roll. I liked the new cast, Simon Pegg like usual is kick ass. The new Chekov, duno so much.
Chekhov shouldn't have been there at all - he wasn't actually recruited until something like the second season. Spock and Uhura - it just cheapens her character to have her doing her senior officer. They took away some of her independent spirit. Of course, you could consider that a liberal influence after the whole Monica Lewinsky thing.