Is Star Trek only for Lefties?

[Schattenlied]

Am I?

I mean, you did said it, so, yeah, you are.

We would be extinct if it were.

Fortunately our nature also includes propagating our species, but in spite of that we have very nearly caused our own extinction on multiple occasions... Sometimes averted through sheer luck of one single person being in the right place at the right time to avert it.

During the Cold War we came down to one man's (Vice Admiral Vasily Arkhipov) decision (overriding the unified votes of an all officers on the submarine which he was stationed and was not the captain of to launch nuclear torpedoes at NATO surface vessels) from full on nuclear war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

It is, unfortunately, in our nature to destroy each other.

[Collegeguy]

Maybe they happen to just like scifi

I didn't care about the politics of my wife, she was just fucking gorgeous, so why would I care about the politics of Star Trek.

People who look into a glass and first come to politics for everything tend to be more like the small faction of lefties and righties in a Trump spam thread.

[Teleros]

He speculated why someone center-right would be a Star Trek fan.

Adventure, exploration, pewpew lasers, Seven of Nine's costume, and (at least in Kirk's day) American/Western values being the best (hoo-rah!).

If you look at the values in Star Trek though - at least TOS-VOY (ie the shows I'm familiar with) - then they all tend to push lefty ideas. No money, humans "moving beyond" greed & competition and all that, lots of emphasis on equality, a strong atheistic streak, a preference for dialogue over purging filthy xenos... yeah it's not surprising most Trekkies are left-of-centre to a greater or lesser degree.

On the other hand, it's not like the right doesn't have it's own preferred sci-fi settings. Just remember that the Empire did nothing wrong, and that the Inquisition is always on the lookout for heretics. Always.

I do find myself wondering what the popularity of more nuanced shows like Stargate SG1 and Babylon 5 is like though, at least on the left/right divide. I've always preferred both of them to Star Trek, but maybe I'm just one of those weird right-wing guys who likes that stuff.

I'm not a lefty on most things, but I've usually enjoyed Star Trek. I'm not sure who is right or wrong here.

Honestly, I'm more concerned about the other link Star Trek has.

= = =

Auth left is an oxymoron...

See! See! Stalin was right-wing guiz! So was Mao! Everything eeeevil is right-wing!!!!1one!

Because you have misconceptions about what communism means. Communism results in dissolving government in its extremist form.

Allegedly. According to people like Karl Marx, who were not at all shy when it came to writing about the rivers of blood that would be required to get between the present and that alleged utopia. Whole classes of people would have to be, ah, done away with.

Back on topic... is the Queen actually the leader of the Borg, or is she (it?) more of a representative of the hive gestalt (kind of like @Endus says)? Because First Contact saw the Borg Queen get killed, as happened at the end of Voyager IIRC, yet we don't see any indication that doing so destroyed the Borg hive mind. I mean, I think having a queen was a retarded idea in the first place, but it's too late to go back on that now.

= = =

I wouldn't even argue that the Borg have any real use as a political metaphor.

Well, on both sides you get some people who take the ideal of unity too far. Commies do it on a class basis, and nationalists (usually right-wing) do it on an ethnic basis. I guess the Borg would be more left-wing though in that they are universalists - ie they want everyone who can contribute to the Borg Collective to become a part of their collective, whereas unity-obsessed right-wingers tend to be exclusionary. A right-wing Borg Collective would be fanatically isolationist* and view assimilation with utter horror because it would mean impurity.

*Or perhaps genocidal, particularly if they take the view that there's only so much scarce resources to go around. Regardless though, they wouldn't be driven to assimilate aliens, which is what the Borg Collective are canonically.

= = =

Okay, so where do the various one-dimensional races come into it? If the Federation is a lefty semi-utopia, what about the rest? Given that Star Trek was made by, basically, leftists, I have to say the big-nos- I mean, big-eared greedy & unscrupulous space capitalists left a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth.

[Queen of Hamsters]

No, it's not.

Making it into a Left vs Right convo to begin with is probably a very left-or-right thing though.

We would be extinct if it were.

Yep, very much so.
Just look at modern-day hunter gatherer societies, the form which we lived as for FAR longer in our existence. Caring for your group is literally human nature. Modern humans have simply enabled their "group" to contain so many different concepts. . Some choose selfishness and greed as their tribe. Those people can thrive in modern society, but would've been shunned on the savannah.

[JohnBrown1917]

Lefties never seem to think communism/socialism/marxism is what the Righties think it is and vice versa. I wonder why that is...

Because one side uses it to fear monger and thinks anybody no far right is a commie/socialist and the other side actually wants to implant it.

[Hammerfest]

Because one side uses it to fear monger and thinks anybody no far right is a commie/socialist and the other side actually wants to implant it.

And what mistake is the Left making?

[JohnBrown1917]

And what mistake is the Left making?

With what? How does that relate to my post?

[Hammerfest]

With what? How does that relate to my post?

Well, you were answering my question and only did so half way.

[JohnBrown1917]

Well, you were answering my question and only did so half way.

I answered it fully, i'm saying the far right has no idea what communism is.

[Hammerfest]

I answered it fully, i'm saying the far right has no idea what communism is.

So you don't think the other side has made any mistakes in this regard?

[JohnBrown1917]

Allegedly. According to people like Karl Marx, who were not at all shy when it came to writing about the rivers of blood that would be required to get between the present and that alleged utopia.
.

One, that is simply not true.
And second, violence and authoritarianism are not the same thing.

Whole classes of people would have to be, ah, done away with.

Yeah, turns out that is what happens when you take away the land and properties they own.

- - - Updated - - -

So you don't think the other side has made any mistakes in this regard?

In what.. regard? What are you even on about? Politics can't even be simplified to just 2 sides.

[Hammerfest]

In what.. regard? What are you even on about? Politics can't even be simplified to just 2 sides.

Well my observation is that both sides think the other doesn't know what they are. You definitely gave us one side of that equation. No worries... but one side is even simpler than two sides.

[draynay]

It amazes me the lengths people go to fool themselves. Labeling the death of individualism as anything but fascism is beyond my imagination, yet look how easily they do it.

[Hammerfest]

It amazes me the lengths people go to fool themselves. Labeling the death of individualism as anything but fascism is beyond my imagination, yet look how easily they do it.

Are the Borg fascist? As originally introduced, they didn't have a central leader, it was the collective minds of all of them. Even after the Queen was established, there was some evidence that she wasn't entirely their leader but rather a figurehead.

[JohnBrown1917]

Well my observation is that both sides think the other doesn't know what they are. You definitely gave us one side of that equation. No worries... but one side is even simpler than two sides.

And i'm telling you that observation is wrong. Communists do know what communism is, are you going to tell Karl Marx he has no idea what the idealogy he birthed is?

[Kraenen]

I'd assume they like the various traditionalist and homogeneous societies (e.g. planet Vulcan, Romulans, Klingons are all largely just their own species with their own unique heritage).

The Prime Directive is basically just a lens from conservative economics and the separation of state, on how to interact with a new species' culture. Let them be to themselves, don't fool around with their way of living even if you think it's terrible. Keep the government (Federation) smaller so it doesn't have the power to legislate how we live. Etc... The opposite approach taken by Progressives and hawkish liberals is to intermingle as much as you can because diversity is so wonderful, and because foreign resources are useful (respectively).

Of course this breaks down when one considers segregationist progressives (safe spaces for races) or any on the left who believe natives should have their own governance, and corporatist/hawkish and dominionist conservatives who wish to spread their religion onto other people with no regard for respect or distancing oneself from other cultures.

[Hammerfest]

And i'm telling you that observation is wrong. Communists do know what communism is, are you going to tell Karl Marx he has no idea what the idealogy he birthed is?

Karl Marx created Communism? I thought he created Marxism...

[Themius]

God I wish I could just watch good shows without it having to be anything political.

What medium of art is not based on life???? This is a rather silly thing to request.

[Kraenen]

The Borg "Queen" isn't making decisions and issuing commands to the drones, the drones are her, to a certain degree; they are her hands and eyes. The "commands" she issues are more comparable to the "commands" your brain sends to your hands along your nerves than to any kind of communication between individuals as we conceive it.

In that sense, the body itself is authoritarian (well, maybe not) since your brain orders commands that usually work out. Sometimes a body part goes renegade, of course. I think your assessment here assumes that a command is necessarily something one can disobey - look at it from the angle that a command is just an imperative action.

It's hard to say it's even "authoritarian", since they aren't really forcing individuals to obey, they destroy the individual in the process of assimilation. The individual no longer exists in any real sense, or at least has been so completely subsumed that it may as well not exist.

How does this hold up when considering that the borg are more or less created slaves?

It seems like the Borg are sort of "technically authoritarian, without some of the morally bad parts".

[Teleros]

One, that is simply not true.

"There is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror."

"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."

"We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. But the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of God and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable."

"Above all, during and immediately after the struggle the workers, as far as it is at all possible, must oppose bourgeois attempts at pacification and force the democrats to carry out their terroristic phrases. They must work to ensure that the immediate revolutionary excitement is not suddenly suppressed after the victory. On the contrary, it must be sustained as long as possible. Far from opposing the so-called excesses—instances of popular vengeance against hated individuals or against public buildings with which hateful memories are associated—the workers’ party must not only tolerate these actions but must even give them direction."

But no, you keep on lying away there.

And second, violence and authoritarianism are not the same thing.

Yeah, of course, the bloodshed will all be leaderless and happen spontaneously .

Yeah, turns out that is what happens when you take away the land and properties they own.

Yeah and the Final Solution was just about moving all the Jews to Madagascar /s .