Hi All,
Patrick Stewart musing that his character Jean Luc Picard would have voted remain (forget that the character was French and therefore wouldn't have had a vote)
But should anyone familiar with star trek be surprised?
You see star trek from the TNG onward is leftist through and through, like the Feds as a post scarcity socialist utopia . They don't have money or cling to wealth / assets/ investment portfolios : Picard says so . Everything's done for the * good* of society, i.e. [ in the show's internal logic ]the government or Starfleet / Federation.
Picard was a Starfleet Captain of the United Federation of Planets :a government and society which praises inter racial, multi species, multicultural beliefs and cooperation, but with a Starfleet that was uniform enough to keep the whole thing together . A paradox we can explore later, but suffice to say that if you just read the Soviet constitution and talked to the upper strata of Soviet society you would think that Soviet society and therefore socialism had produced both a duty bound polity where everything was undertaken for a "higher purpose", which had achieved a liberal and utopian state.
You would only find something different by actually going outside the bubble /datchas / elite / military to see the food lines and rationing of what the west thought of as basic necessities,such as indoor toilets , toilet paper and yes food. In the star trek parallel, we only see and hear of this utopia by the elites of Earth and Federation, not how the average citizen coped.
Incidentally the same happens with the Klingons, where we only see their warrior - nobility , which is the top of what is in effect a feudal society which happens to somehow have existed for hundreds of years and can master faster than light warp drive. You never see, say, a,camp Klingon hairdresser.
You would only find something different by actually going outside the bubble /datchas / elite / military to see the food lines and rationing of what the west thought of as basic necessities,such as indoor toilets , toilet paper and yes food. In the star trek parallel, we only see and hear of this utopia by the elites of Earth and Federation, not how the average citizen coped.
Incidentally the same happens with the Klingons, where we only see their warrior - nobility , which is the top of what is in effect a feudal society which happens to somehow have existed for hundreds of years and can master faster than light warp drive. You never see, say, a,camp Klingon hairdresser.
A one world government of Earth was a member planet in this Federation alongside other aliens. So logically captain Picard would support a supra national state , as that is exactly what he does do in the show, except on a galactic scale.
As Picard himself explains that the federation is a form of collectivist socialism:
The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn’t exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity
P.S. earth did seem to dominate Starfleet and therefore the federation. One thinks of Russia in the Soviet Union.
P.S. 2 , I'm not advocating that this is a good or bad thing, just that if it looks like a duck....
P.S. 3, apparently we do see earth in Deep Space 9 and the TNG, both showing people owning businesses or property. In the DS9 one there is a coup attempted by Starfleet. And interestingly there's no riots with soldiers on the streets and taking compulsory blood samples (for plot reasons) , so it shows the population is docile and unperturbed by the coup, in other words people are used to powerful government without challenging it. The only character who does is captain Sisko's father, who is clearly old enough to have been of the Captain Kirk style Trek , thus of a different generation. This makes me think, was there some kind of shift leftward- why- between 2293 and2374?
The businesses are captain Sisko's father's restaurant and the second example is Picard's Chateaux and vineyard . All I will say is that there's a difference between possession of something (e.g. a form of rent on a government council house) and property rights (ownership , yours to sell for profit or loss) . Second , even some socialist societies do allow for small or micro businesses to be operated without state ownership, albeit with hefty regulations.
P.S. 2 , I'm not advocating that this is a good or bad thing, just that if it looks like a duck....
P.S. 3, apparently we do see earth in Deep Space 9 and the TNG, both showing people owning businesses or property. In the DS9 one there is a coup attempted by Starfleet. And interestingly there's no riots with soldiers on the streets and taking compulsory blood samples (for plot reasons) , so it shows the population is docile and unperturbed by the coup, in other words people are used to powerful government without challenging it. The only character who does is captain Sisko's father, who is clearly old enough to have been of the Captain Kirk style Trek , thus of a different generation. This makes me think, was there some kind of shift leftward- why- between 2293 and2374?
The businesses are captain Sisko's father's restaurant and the second example is Picard's Chateaux and vineyard . All I will say is that there's a difference between possession of something (e.g. a form of rent on a government council house) and property rights (ownership , yours to sell for profit or loss) . Second , even some socialist societies do allow for small or micro businesses to be operated without state ownership, albeit with hefty regulations.
No comments:
Post a Comment