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Star Trek and Class Warfare
Sep. 5th, 2015 11:06 pmThis seems like a silly heading at first glance, I suppose. Hear me out, though.
As the only warning, I've not watched much of the Original Series...so most of my canon knowledge comes from The Next Generation.
An ongoing theme in Star Trek is a futuristic society that has done away with classes of people - things like poverty, greed, and human suffering have been done away with in their entirety, or so the characters are often quick to claim to any who question. There is one episode in particular where Picard and friends come across people from earth frozen in cryostasis for hundreds of years - one of the frozen men in particular was a wall-street investor - and the theme I just described is heavily played out. The investor simply wants to talk to a lawyer or trading firm to see how much money he has accumulated in the hundreds of years he slept, while Picard assures him that none of that matters now. But is that really the case?
Picard himself is a good example to start with. He apparently was born to a large farming family on earth - in one episode, he returns to meet his brother, whom continued the family tradition. Real wine was drunk, and the episode ends with Picard and his brother having a fist fight in the mud surrounded by crops. Now, there is a lot of information I'm personally missing - in the 24th century, how many people live on earth? Who decides who has what amount of land, and what they can do with it? (surely, not EVERYONE has a large crop farm?) Does Picard's brother earn some sort of currency by performing all of this work - especially considering the existence of replicators and other high-tech devices that seem to have removed the need for any sort of physical labor? His brother was far less educated than Picard was...was that by choice, or was there something else at work?
There's some other important information to consider. Picard, while having been born to a seemingly large land-owning family, was also able to attend Starfleet Academy. We can only assume not everyone is allowed in, and we don't really know anything about the "civilian world" in Star Trek. We don't know if education is completely standardized - giving everyone equal chances - or if there's a kind of stratification system like, for instance, Alduous Huxley described in Brave New World (and given the level of technology and genetic understanding they show in Star Trek, this does not seem unreasonable - are the low-level engineers and throwaway security personnel betas and gammas?) To make matters worse, Picard was top of his graduating class in Starfleet. One can only assume an individual such as Picard would end up commanding The Enterprise, but were his beginnings humble or were they extravagant? We've no reference point, but if we were to compare his situation to someone from today, he would certainly have been considered upper class. He reflects an aristocrat in almost every possible way, from his love of ivory tower intellectualism, to entry into a form of Officer Training School, to the fact that he never once had to be a part of lower ranking personnel on a starship. His first duty after graduating from Starfleet was to command a starship, albeit one smaller than the Enterprise.
Given the above, from my perspective, it seems there's still a great deal of social stratification. There may not be economic stratification per-se, but there is likely some variance because, as I noted before, we can be fairly sure not everyone can own vast reserves of land on earth. Other cultures in Star Trek - space faring ones, just as advanced as (and for a longer time-period than) humans, show a great deal of socioeconomic stratification in their societies.
This, to me, makes moot the entire premise of the Prime Directive - if under-civilized races become space faring, what difference does it make if civilized (or under-civilized) cultures that aren't space faring are exposed to higher technology prematurely? It can't be any worse than the Klingons (who still utilize some sort of feudal system and whose common people seem incredibly poor) or the Romulans (who, on the surface, appear to have some sort of corrupt democracy or republic, but whose people, once again, seem exceedingly poor.)
The Enterprise, in every way, is an exceptional vessel, with exceptional people upon it - by no means does it reflect the world that the inhabitants claims exists, and we never see enough of that world to trust their statements (and there's plenty of other races among the stars who don't reflect it.) Star Trek, as far as I can tell, is not normal people in extraordinary circumstance - it is extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Any claim that social stratification, human suffering, or similar has been abolished seems premature.
As the only warning, I've not watched much of the Original Series...so most of my canon knowledge comes from The Next Generation.
An ongoing theme in Star Trek is a futuristic society that has done away with classes of people - things like poverty, greed, and human suffering have been done away with in their entirety, or so the characters are often quick to claim to any who question. There is one episode in particular where Picard and friends come across people from earth frozen in cryostasis for hundreds of years - one of the frozen men in particular was a wall-street investor - and the theme I just described is heavily played out. The investor simply wants to talk to a lawyer or trading firm to see how much money he has accumulated in the hundreds of years he slept, while Picard assures him that none of that matters now. But is that really the case?
Picard himself is a good example to start with. He apparently was born to a large farming family on earth - in one episode, he returns to meet his brother, whom continued the family tradition. Real wine was drunk, and the episode ends with Picard and his brother having a fist fight in the mud surrounded by crops. Now, there is a lot of information I'm personally missing - in the 24th century, how many people live on earth? Who decides who has what amount of land, and what they can do with it? (surely, not EVERYONE has a large crop farm?) Does Picard's brother earn some sort of currency by performing all of this work - especially considering the existence of replicators and other high-tech devices that seem to have removed the need for any sort of physical labor? His brother was far less educated than Picard was...was that by choice, or was there something else at work?
There's some other important information to consider. Picard, while having been born to a seemingly large land-owning family, was also able to attend Starfleet Academy. We can only assume not everyone is allowed in, and we don't really know anything about the "civilian world" in Star Trek. We don't know if education is completely standardized - giving everyone equal chances - or if there's a kind of stratification system like, for instance, Alduous Huxley described in Brave New World (and given the level of technology and genetic understanding they show in Star Trek, this does not seem unreasonable - are the low-level engineers and throwaway security personnel betas and gammas?) To make matters worse, Picard was top of his graduating class in Starfleet. One can only assume an individual such as Picard would end up commanding The Enterprise, but were his beginnings humble or were they extravagant? We've no reference point, but if we were to compare his situation to someone from today, he would certainly have been considered upper class. He reflects an aristocrat in almost every possible way, from his love of ivory tower intellectualism, to entry into a form of Officer Training School, to the fact that he never once had to be a part of lower ranking personnel on a starship. His first duty after graduating from Starfleet was to command a starship, albeit one smaller than the Enterprise.
Given the above, from my perspective, it seems there's still a great deal of social stratification. There may not be economic stratification per-se, but there is likely some variance because, as I noted before, we can be fairly sure not everyone can own vast reserves of land on earth. Other cultures in Star Trek - space faring ones, just as advanced as (and for a longer time-period than) humans, show a great deal of socioeconomic stratification in their societies.
This, to me, makes moot the entire premise of the Prime Directive - if under-civilized races become space faring, what difference does it make if civilized (or under-civilized) cultures that aren't space faring are exposed to higher technology prematurely? It can't be any worse than the Klingons (who still utilize some sort of feudal system and whose common people seem incredibly poor) or the Romulans (who, on the surface, appear to have some sort of corrupt democracy or republic, but whose people, once again, seem exceedingly poor.)
The Enterprise, in every way, is an exceptional vessel, with exceptional people upon it - by no means does it reflect the world that the inhabitants claims exists, and we never see enough of that world to trust their statements (and there's plenty of other races among the stars who don't reflect it.) Star Trek, as far as I can tell, is not normal people in extraordinary circumstance - it is extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Any claim that social stratification, human suffering, or similar has been abolished seems premature.
