Good heavens, this is the worst writing I have witnessed in some time! Certainly the worst I’ve read in the Times.
Puerile, unsubstantiated and resplendent with errors which any fan of Star Trek (goodness knows we’re not hard to find with an organized fanbase numbering millions) would be able to correct.
This sort of adolescent insight is best left to the comment pages of newspapers with more fanciful reputations.
Here’s the article in question, Fisked:
To boldly go and interfere
By Patrick West
TODAY IS THE 40th anniversary of the first Star Trek episode broadcast on American television. And while we Trekkies will dutifully be honouring the birthday of this often hammy, frequently absurd but nonetheless compelling show, it is also an occasion for lamentation, a time to reflect on the baleful effect the programme has had on the American mindset — namely Star Trek’s message of liberal imperialism, a philosophy that uncannily has since been realised in real life. Thanks to a process of osmosis from perennial reruns, Star Trek has propagated the belief that it is proper to interfere in other societies, that it is America’s duty to assume the role of (inter-)world policeman, and to correct the errant ways of other cultures — for their own good. And Spock was to Kirk what Blair is to Bush, a lackey willing to assist his master in his curious mission that seemingly has no specific objective.
Let’s list the problems with this assertion: 1) The Prime Directive, 2) Spock being a ‘Lackey’.
The Prime Directive is well defined in Wikipedia:
The Prime Directive dictates that there be no interference with the natural development of any primitive society, chiefly meaning that no primitive culture can be given or exposed to any information regarding advanced technology or alien races. It also forbids any effort to improve or change in any way the natural course of such a society, even if that change is well-intentioned and kept totally secret. ‘Primitive’ is defined as any culture which has not yet attained warp drive. Starfleet allows scientific missions to investigate and move amongst pre-warp civilizations as long as no advanced technology is left behind, and there is no interference with events or no revelation of their identity.
Heck if Mr West had been bothered to perhaps WATCH some Star Trek he may have realized that half the episodes of The Next Generation consist of Captain Picard wringing his hands in high orbit struggling with the fact that he can’t interfere in the genocide/ethnic-cleansing/despotism taking place on the planet.
Secondly the friction between Spock and Kirk is one of the most fundamental aspects of the original Star Trek series, the clash of Logic and Emotion, Reason and Heart. Suggesting that Spock simply followed orders mindlessly is ridiculous.
Some may contend that this is unfair, in that Star Trek promoted gender equality and that the crew of the Enterprise was multi-ethnic.
True, but it was an American alpha-male who was at the helm of the ship, with a Brit (Scottie), a Russian-Ukrainian (Chekov) a Japanese man (Sulu) and an African- American woman (Uhuru — or should we say Condi Rice) remaining decidedly subservient. Tellingly, having dabbled with employing a female as ship’s captain in the unsuccessful 1990s incarnation Star Trek: Voyager, the most recent manifestation, Star Trek: Enterprise, reverted to type, with a white American male back in the saddle, his principal underling now an Englishman.
Right. Let’s see. Kirk was played by a Canadian but we’ll leave Shatner’s nationality out of this. Picard was French, Benjamin Sisko was Black and Captain Janeway was unmistakably female. Sulu makes Admiral, heck even DATA, a frikkin’ Android gets command of a vessel at one point! The Enterprise NCC-1701C was captained by a woman too!
Then what of the show’s celebrated “prime directive”, that the explorers should never interfere in alien civilisations? The problem here is that the prime directive is blatantly and persistently violated. Not an episode concludes without one of Captain Kirk’s sermons, his incessant moralising to troubled alien civilisations that they should follow his lead and cherish life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Read above, this idiot clearly hasn’t watched enough Star Trek to make this assertion.
Star Trek represented not the ethos of mutual, egalitarian co-operation, but of multinational interference firmly under the leadership of Americans. Rather than having succumbed to the urge to boldly go and meddle with strange new worlds he didn’t understand, Captain Kirk should have stayed at home and sorted out his own people’s problems.
The premise of Star Trek was that War, Famine, Hunger, Disease had all been eradicated on Earth and on all the planets of the United Federation of Planets. Nothing else needed to be done at home. The Enterprise NCC-1701’s mission was one of benign exploration.
The Federation showed time and time again its insistence on a policy of noninterference even when entire worlds were subsumed beneath Alien invasions (the Marquis terrorist organization in the TNG/DS9 timeline take up arms due to this stance! Half the crew of the USS Voyager are former Marquis and combined with the many Marquis-related plotlines in DS9 you can hardly call that issue swept under the rug!)
In short, this article is ridiculous. Utter bollocks! It’s disgusting that such an illy-written excuse for commentary, equal in sophistication to the brain-fart of a heavily-stoned college student, should be printed in the Times.
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at September 8, 2006 05:12 PM