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In Reply to: No, I'm right - period. posted by Rob Doorack on November 29, 2001 at 06:57:45:
Hi,
you had me nodding my head, right up to that last sentence. While there is an inherent irony, in bringing a ship loaded with weaponry into orbit and talking about peace....the show was pretty liberal. They often tried to nudge cultures toward democracy. In one show, an ancient and damaged religous icon turns out to be the Declaration of Independence. Roddenberry danced lightly around a lot of things. You could see he was hoping there would be progress, but often avoided getting specific. I can see how the demands of making a tv show makes
things look militaristic; a point Roddenberry addressed in the first episode of Next Generation.
Follow Ups:
I certainly can't claim to have seen every episode of all the permutations of Star Trek but I've watched a representative sampling of them. When was any character on any Star Trek show ever shown voting for a Federation official, or just talking about a Federation election? While the US and UK militaries are subservient to civilian political control, I don't recall that any distinction was made between the Federation as an armed force and the Federation as government. Absent any evidence that the Federation was a democracy we can only conclude from what was actually aired that it was a militarist autocracy of some sort.
Proably haven't seen the episodes of the original as many times as late; but my impression of the UFP was that it was, essentially, a defensive military alliance among various planets, each of which was presumed to a have unitary government of some sort or other. I don't get the sense that there was any qualification attached to membership other than a willingness not to make war on fellow members and, presumably, to pay the cost of such things like starfleet.Remember the great "non-interference directive"? Hardly the stuff of a militarist society.
What was probably difficult and pioneering for Star Trek was that it was conceived as a serious show for adults that was not supposed to be funny. Most earlier Sci-fi was for kids or, like L-I-S, just a goof.
You need to remember that, at the time, the big 3 TV networks had a lock on what viewers saw. The relationship among them at the time would properly be characterised as "oligopolistic competition" which is kind of a self-contradictory term.
People love to bitch about the price of cable, but the fact is that cable allowed the development of tremendous numbers of alternatives for TV viewers -- which is why the broadcast nets are hurting.
The opening of the UHF spectrum and the government's mandate (in the late 1960s) that all TV receivers have UHF and VHF tuners began to open things up, as more frequencies were available and independent stations got access to syndicated programming but the fact that cable operators funded networks that would give cable unique programming, really burst the floodgates.
> > the UFP was ... essentially, a defensive military alliance < <That's how the Warsaw Pact described itself, too. My memory is that the Federation has its own ambassadors and planetary governors, which is a little unusual for a military force (and the Enterprise is clearly a war ship). A Trekkie coworker observed that there doesn't seem to be any form of justice in the Federation other than courts martial. When Data wanted to establish whether he was a sentient being or an "it" wasn't his case heard in a military court? The point is that there's little evidence that the Federation is subservient to civilian control.
> > Most earlier Sci-fi was for kids < <
That ignores The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, to name just two shows.
Twilight Zone & Outer Limits -- how could I forget?But I did. Absolutely -- and far better than ST or its sucessors, I might add.
Re the nature of the Federation, I'm just not enough of a trekkie to master all the details to argue one any more than I have, one way or the other.
Re your point about courts martial: Maybe Star Trek is the justification for the secret military tribunals the administration wants to use against "terrorists." ;-)
Hi,
basically you are using conjecture. You have an impression, it's not quite accurate, but what the heck. I have seen almost every episode, of every show, often several times. I think Rodenberry commented on this, but that was back in the 70's; and I don't remember more than a general feeling; one that I tried to convey in the earlier post.
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