"Star Trek" and our dream of America (I wrote this in 2016)

 

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There is a general tendency in Science Fiction that involves more than one space-faring civilization to use a short-hand where entire planets are ruled by only a single government, and that government echoes a nation-state here on planet Earth. This is more true of Gene Rodenberry’s “Star Trek” than most of the rest of the genre.

Star Trek’s Federation was a dream of America, though a historically specific one. It reflects the self-image of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations; one had just ended, the other had just begun as the program went into production in 1963. The Enterprise was a warship, and its command hierarchy was military, but the manner that authority was expressed, and the mannerisms of its crew, far more reflected the best imaginable corporate culture than any veteran’s memory of their time in service. Militarism was important as evidenced by its super-weapons and the expression of force, but the militarism didn’t permeate the culture aboard the ship, and the main expressed concerns were civil rights, individual rights, and economic justice.

Though Kennedy and Johnson engaged in nuclear brinkmanship and proxy wars (issues addressed in the TV series) the public expression of their heart’s desires was that of the “Great Society,” and therefore that era’s conceptualization of the ideal of America still engaged in becoming “the shining city on the hill.” The TV show’s warship did far more humanitarian and scientific work than the defeating the enemy stuff. I should throw in that earlier President Eisenhower’s heart’s desires were not very far removed from this, and let’s be honest, neither was Nixon’s -- or at least Nixon pre- his humiliating defeat at the hands of Kennedy in 1960, and even more humiliating defeat at the hands of Goldwater in 1964 (Nixon didn’t run in 1964, but Goldwater’s victory in the GOP Primary was a blow to Nixon’s ideological camp and his conception of what his party was supposed to be).

Star Trek’s villains reflected with the same short-hand. The Klingons were obviously the Soviets, but the series left out the ideological war between the USA and the USSR in favor of critiquing our Cold War opponents self-corruption and how they foolishly let their militarism permeate the whole of their culture in a way that American militarism did not. This proved an incredibly deft move, it saved the Klingons from pop-culture obsolesce when the Cold War ended, and Star Trek did, in fact predict a peaceful end to the Cold War at a time when almost no one else could imagine it.

Meanwhile the Romulans, proud of their ancient and highly intellectual culture, had been self-corrupted by elevating cynicism and deceit to virtues; they were clearly stand-ins for our perception of Red China (that would make the Vulcans, the Romulans sister-race, the Taoist Chinese that the Red Chinese where then persecuting).

When Star Trek returned to television in 1987, the American political climate had changed but the series’ vision of America’s becoming had not; if anything, the purity of the ideal was refined, its utopianism even clearer regarding the path we must take to reach that very same shining city on the hill. These two series reflect the best dreams America ever had of itself, far more culturally significant than any of the other series or films in the franchise.

Of course, dreams are not reality, and the administrations of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and especially Nixon weren’t the Federation; but dreams are still important, and the values expressed in those dreams do shape real world decisions later. I don’t think that it is much of a stretch to say that if your concept of the common good was shaped by what Gene Rodenberry preached, you have a much better common good in mind than had it been shaped by what Karl Ritter preached (prolific WWII Nazi propagandist writer and film maker).

In the 1960s, the Federation was America’s dream of itself; that no longer seems true. America in this new century has been defining itself by a pedantic nationalism and cultural militarism we haven’t seen since WWII (and unlike now, back then we might’ve actually needed it). We’ve embraced this in the context of thoughtless military adventurism and arrogant regime changes that have shamed us before our European allies and destabilized the whole of the Middle-East; the thoughtlessness and arrogance are tied up in an ambiguously defined War on Terror that has made the demonization and dehumanization of minorities, both ethnic and religious, an acceptable idea in our political debate. We are increasingly tending to view the protection of civil rights as a back-door to some obscure tyranny. We care too little about our ever-widening income inequality. We keep electing a Congress we say we hate that is more committed to stripping the working poor of their medical coverage than doing the job of governing.

Once we wanted to be the Federation, today we stink like Klingons.

Now a new Star Trek TV series in in production, and I am far more excited by it than the new Star Trek film, because I think we need the core Star Trek more now than any other time in the last fifty years. How I hope and pray that this Star Trek series will be more reflective of Rodenberry than JJ Abrams seemed capable of managing. I want to see America dream better for itself again.

Be a Kirk.

Be a Picard.

But for God’s sake, don’t ever be a Trump.