Oh, yes, Star Trek is a vision of a perfect future. It's a future to which we must all aspire, where all problems are solved, there is no money, and all is peaceful...
Except...
1. First of all, it's a frickin' Utopia. 'Utopia' literally means 'No-Place', as in 'not possible' - that was the point of More's Utopia, and is usually the point of most Utopian fictions, spilling over into Dystopian fictions. Except Dystopias like Brave New World and 1984 and Gattaca are in fact Utopias as well, in so far as they are perfectly functioning societies where every person has a place. The only practical difference between these Dystopias and a Utopia is that you really wouldn't want to live in a Dystopia.
It's overwhelmingly apparent that if you look at the propaganda of dictatorships, the vision of society they give is usually a Utopian one. Hitler was one of the greatest Utopian-dreamers of modern history, with his talk of a 'pure' society, a land of Germanic heroes... to you it's a Dystopia, to me it's a Dystopia, but to him and his followers it was a vision of Utopia. That's the point, really. For that matter, Soviet Propaganda explicitly declared the USSR to be the 'Worker's Paradise', a state run by rationality and without the corruption of religious superstition. Of course, we don't need to know very much history to be distrustful of such a perspective, so why do people buy this crap when we're talking about Star Trek? The very fact of it being a Utopian vision should be a bit of a tip-off from the start!
2. Let's review... Star Trek shows us a future where...
There is no money
Everybody has a job working for the good of society
There are no elections
Everything is run by the military
The benevolent Federation polices space and brings peace with it's huge, heavily-armed warships.
Rather like Soviet Russia then.
I mean, seriously, the place is a f*cking Dictatorship! It's so obvious! Star Fleet runs everything, they all carry lethal weapons, there's no political representation, and not even the faintest talk of actual government - there is only Starfleet Command. And we're supposed to believe that everybody is happy and lives in little cottages and personal dwellings on Earth. Presumably the population is much reduced, then, given that they have no need of tower blocks and housing estates, and there is still plenty of room for nice little houses in the country, like Kirk's, or Picard's brother's. It would be tempting to wonder if the class divisions of society were removed simply by exiling the working classes when technology made them redundant to the maintenance of luxury on Earth.
3. The Vulcans are a nice and rational people, apparently. Which makes it interesting to consider that after 30 years of them being on TV, Tuvok was the first black Vulcan we'd seen. I mean, presumably this means that the Vulcans have a strictly racist society that made it difficult for any of their ethnic minorities to reach a position of significance during Kirk's day. Hell, their society is probably segregated.
"awaiting completion", right... promises, promises!
Posted by: ffeff | 02 July 2008 at 11:52