Who Is IOZ?: To Boldly Blow

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

To Boldly Blow

I've mentioned many times on this blog that I'm a Trekkie - a fan of the original Star Trek television show. I've loved Trek since I was a kid, but really didn't grow to appreciate it until I got older. At some point I realized that my politics and the liberal, Kennedyesque politics of the show segued.

-Blogger Dean Wormer

You'll often hear the claim that Star Trek posits an ideal of a cooperative, post-scarcity, universally tolerant and largely utopic future, when in fact its fictive universe presents a deracinated, militaristic hierarchy as humanity's destiny. Which, when you think about it, is Kennedy-esque, isn't it? Star Trek was mostly zippity-doo space opera, and I feel a little guilty for picking on its tissue-paper politics, but you do have to wonder why enlightened humanity chooses to whisk among the stars in a bad facsimile of a 19th-century navy? In that regard, the missing detail is a realistic portrayal of sodomy.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...: i feel so under-informed when i come to IOZ's blog and i inevitably see the biting commentary on some moron out there in the internets, of whom i was previously ignorant. as a newcomer, i have to ask: how does IOZ maintain such omnipresence in the land of the connected idiots and charlatans?

follow-up question: was i better off before i became aware that half-wits like yglesias were merely the tip of the iceberg?; 4:43 PM
alansmithee said...: Yes.; 4:51 PM
Christopher said...: You'll often hear the claim that Star Trek posits an ideal of a cooperative, post-scarcity, universally tolerant and largely utopic future, when in fact its fictive universe presents a deracinated, militaristic hierarchy as humanity's destiny.

Dude, these aren't mutually exclusive options, and The Federation is pretty clearly a deracinated tolerant post-scarcity military hierarchy.

Maybe it's because I didn't watch enough Deep Space Nine, but I've never been interested in these discussions about the politics of Federation society. The Federation is less a carefully thought out political allegory then a flimsy plot device designed to explain why the characters wander aimlessly around in a giant spaceship.

The meat of the story, the important part of the show, is what the characters do when they're out exploring the new planet, not what things look like back home.

It's interesting to me; I also enjoy Star Trek partly because it is comfortingly optimistic, but for me it's not because they show any particular tolerance (I mean, it's there, in the humans, but the alien races were always pretty one dimensional. you hardly ever saw the pacifist Klingons or the aloof and logical Ferengi or the Borg who prefered being in the collective), but because problems are generally solved through the calm application of logic.

Coincidentally, I just read a completely different article about politics in flimsy pulp sci-fi:

It's a Weekly Standard article about how The Empire from Star Wars is actually better for the galaxy then the Rebels, because The Emperor "is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet."

I'm still not sure if that's a joke or not.; 5:26 PM
Anonymous said...: I'm still not sure if that's a joke or not.

is the claim of just reading the article you linked a joke too? do you often go back through 6 year old weekly standards looking for articles about Star Wars?; 5:44 PM
The Pudgie Report said...: I just saw Enemy Mine recently and it opens with Dennis Quaid saying "Shucks we finally learned to get along on Earth and live in peace and harmony" and then we see the reason they made peace was for a united Earth campaign to colonize space and fight asexual walrus poets.; 6:10 PM
Christopher said...: is the claim of just reading the article you linked a joke too? do you often go back through 6 year old weekly standards looking for articles about Star Wars?

Well, I was arguing about Star Wars on an internet message board and somebody linked to it. I know it sounds like the kind of thing that could never happen, so I understand if you don't believe my fantastic tale.; 6:35 PM
Anonymous said...: In that regard, the missing detail is a realistic portrayal of sodomy.

Why do you think the Tribbles cooed so sweetly?; 6:45 PM
alansmithee said...: "And when I say 'There is no buggery in the British Navy' I mean there's some.; 10:08 PM
Anonymous said...: The quoted post is incoherent to me. There is no way I can wrap my brain around the notion that floating aimlessly through space surrounded by bland coevals and playing with very boring toys is anybody's idea of utopia.

The best part of the article, though, was that it quoted Wil Wheaton. There is no essay so banal it can't be converted into an outright farce by giving it the Full Wheaton.

Dude, if you Wil it, it is no dream.

Connor; 9:07 AM
alansmithee said...: Look, the original series was just a space oater "Have Phaser - Will Travel" sort of thing. Pretty much disposable TV. It didn't really morph into a full-blown-gonzo Nerdtopia 'til the fanboy-targeted Next Gen aired.; 10:20 AM
stephen said...: i guess you missed the klingon down-low episode.; 10:34 AM
Leonard said...: What's great about ST (meaning ToS, for you spring chickens) is that it does reflect rather exactly the progressivism of the 1960s. Of course progressivism has moved on -- the City On a Hill is a sort of moving target. But yes, in the 1960s only the edgiest progressives were tolerant of homosexuality, and progressives still had a use for the military as a military, not a jumped up police force, because they still had memories of evil Western nation-states needing crushed. But WWII was the last of that, and no good progressives have any use for the military as a military, because no substantial opposition remains. Instead, progressives wish the military could be much kinder and gentler, to win hearts and minds. Because in the future, everyone will love everyone, because we're all exactly the same, except inasmuch as we're different, which we must celebrate. But most particularly everyone will love the crushing, motherly embrace of America, Beacon of Freedom, in her role as world government, because who else can and will? The fight is not a matter of eliminating enemy wrongthink by killing its host brains, but educating and reeducating.; 10:41 AM
lucid said...: Hmm... I always think back to the first season Next Gen episode where 3 late 20th century humans are found cryogenically frozen and brought back... After several twists and turns, the 'capitalist' one among them asks Picard, 'What's the point' [with reference to the fact that scarcity is conquered, etc. etc.] And Picard says, 'To better yourself'. That little scene always ecapsulated the secular humanist underpinnings of the various series.

Do I have issues with a hierarchical command structure? Of course. But there is a lot of good in some of the Star Treks - particularly Next Gen and DS9... then again, maybe I'm just a fanboy.; 1:09 PM
les said...: I always thought the whole point of Star Trek was to put Shatner in those soft gel spotlights, looking upstage right and pondering...um, ponderful stuff.; 5:13 PM
JYD said...: ...Kennedyesque politics of the show segued.

I don't know about Cap'n Kirk's politics, but he and Kennedy did seem to get a lot of Strange.; 5:46 PM
Anonymous said...: Rum, sodomy and the lash always sounded like an idyllic life to me.; 10:34 AM
g-nome said...: Herbert!; 7:21 PM

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

To Boldly Blow

17 comments:

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