Star Trek Review: Who Would Captain James T. Kirk Vote for? JFK, of Course
Reader Comments
Kirks an Independent...the movies psychological...and we do live in a bright future.
Star Trek was never about the machinery...it was always about the human condition....and it still is.
First, on our bright new future. Our future has turned out different than the 1960's technologically...but it is amazing. We have robots wandering around Mars, we have looked through time and space with orbiting satellites, and we have put sent satellites (now the equivalent of robots that do not walk) around the Jovian planets. We recently just saw a rubber fueled private rocket take off.
NASA JPL is where its at...not Florida anymore. My dad was an engineer for Collins Radio during the 60's..he worked on the Apollo program. He is far far more impressed with robots on Mars. We do have 200 years to get to Star Trek...be patient.
Psychological not sociological:
The great questions of the 1960's were sociological, how groups and cultures relate to one another. Our society today...I think for the better...is more psychologically oriented...how do we foster our self-awareness and grow and flourish.
Oddly enough the new movie was true to the 1960's sociological treatment of women...all the female characters were communications or nurses...anyone else notice that. The Women's movement that came to fruition was in many ways a psychological reform...where we have learned to identify differently as individuals.
The psychological considerations of the new Star Trek were far more advanced than anything from forty years a go.
KIRK WAS AN INDEPENDENT:
Given his lack of structure growing up and his cynicism for the "organization", Kirk was a pull yourself up by the boots Independent...no doubt. There are elements of Conservative and Liberal identities...but they do not define the man.... He would have voted for Ross Perot in the 1990's and probably Barack Obama (not as liberal but as a change agent) in 2008.
Sorry...thats the way I see it.
Why does it have to be complicated?
>>For instance, to what extent is the Federation in Star Trek analogous to Big Interplanetary Government as say an Obama administration would imagine it, or a projection of old school Reaganesque Americanism simply expanded to a space federation where the union of different states is replaced by a union of different planets. <<
The very fact that you had this thought shows what's wrong, I think. I've always found it interesting how people immediately try to put such things into slanted political terms. In the Star Trek world, right is right and wrong is, well, wrong. People are accountable for there actions and the buck stops with those responsible. It's pretty simple. Not like today's world that's all about shifting blame and making things intentionally murky. If it's vague, then no one can blame me.
It not that hard. If you broke it, fix it. If you made it dirty, clean it up. The things we learned in kindergarten. Except we don't teach that anymore.
Why are there no Republicans in the Star Trek Movie?
It takes place in the future!
The Missing Piece
I thoroughly enjoyed the new film, but with one caveat. I took it as an action-based popcorn flick that missed out on the one element that had made "Star Trek" so relevant in the 1960s: social commentary. This editorial has given me pause to reflect that, perhaps the new film does in fact connect with our own world. I'd considered certain plot points allegorical to our post-9/11 world, but hadn't been able to flesh out the thought to anything satisfying. Thank you for helping complete the connection.
(One can only wonder, though, how this editorial might have read had Senator McCain prevailed in his presidential bid last year; the film was initially slated for a Christmas release and was already completed by the time of the election.)
James Tiberius Kirk: Neo-Conservative Space-Cowboy
While I think analogizing the world of Star Trek as a futuristic projection of left-of-center idealism is interesting, I think such a view assumes certain analogies that are themselves questionable. For instance, to what extent is the Federation in Star Trek analogous to Big Interplanetary Government as say an Obama administration would imagine it, or a projection of old school Reaganesque Americanism simply expanded to a space federation where the union of different states is replaced by a union of different planets.
I would argue the latter. If it was the former, starfleet would be less a capable military force in space, and more a conglomeration of peace keeping forces a la the United Nations located in various hot-spots mostly to provide political cover with little military action. If the Federation were more like liberalism would imagine it, then the Romulans and the Klingons would have a seat in the Federation equivalent of the Security counsel and ensure their common enemies, think of the planetary equivalent of say, Israel, would be subject to continuing interplanetary pressure to not defend itself even as they are being attacked by forces to whom the Romulans and Klingons provide support. Meanwhile a captain of a Starship, such as James Kirk would be subject to a long list of rules of engagement preventing him to act in any effective manner against forces hostile to the Federation.
No, Roddenberry's vision entailed a certain conceit, which goes as follows, "In some interplanetary future, a common understanding of human civiliation such as that exemplified in American democracy will be so ubiquitous and influential that any differences between peoples from differing planets such as, say Vulcan and Earth, will be no more significant than those between say Vermont and Florida, such that, in this interplanetary world, a union of planets joined around common, Americanesque ideals, will be founded to defend itself against those cultures, (think Romulans, and Klingons) who would deny such ideals and societies holding them." In such a world the mission of a Federation like fleet would be clear, and a Captain of a Spaceship such as J. Kirk would know how to engage and when to engage the enemies of the Federation. In other words the Federation was simply 20th Century America writ large, not an interplanetary UN nor a foreshadowing of an Obamesque America with diminished military capability and freedom to act.
The original series had a clear view of those who held the values espoused by the Federation, and those that didn't, and understood the later as a threat that required engagement, this corresponds more with, dare I say it, neo-conservatism not liberalism. And lest we forget, James Kirk, as envisioned by Roddenberry was originally conceived as a futuristic version of a cowboy leading the spaceship equivalent of a wagon train through space, something more in keeping with red-state Texas than say blue-state Vermont.
James Tiberius Kirk: Neo-Conservative Space-Cowboy
While I think analogizing the world of Star Trek as a futuristic projection of left-of-center idealism is interesting, I think such a view assumes certain analogies that are themselves questionable. For instance, to what extent is the Federation in Star Trek analogous to Big Interplanetary Government as say an Obama administration would imagine it, or a projection of old school Reaganesque Americanism simply expanded to a space federation where the union of different states is replaced by a union of different planets.
I would argue the latter. If it was the former, starfleet would be less a capable military force in space, and more a conglomeration of peace keeping forces a la the United Nations located in various hot-spots mostly to provide political cover with little military action. If the Federation were more like liberalism would imagine it, then the Romulans and the Klingons would have a seat in the Federation equivalent of the Security counsel and ensure their common enemies, think of the planetary equivalent of say, Israel, would be subject to continuing interplanetary pressure to not defend itself even as they are being attacked by forces to whom the Romulans and Klingons provide support. Meanwhile a captain of a Starship, such as James Kirk would be subject to a long list of rules of engagement preventing him to act in any effective manner against forces hostile to the Federation.
No, Roddenberry's vision entailed a certain conceit, which goes as follows, "In some interplanetary future, a common understanding of human civiliation such as that exemplified in American democracy will be so ubiquitous and influential that any differences between peoples from differing planets such as, say Vulcan and Earth, will be no more significant than those between say Vermont and Florida, such that, in this interplanetary world, a union of planets joined around common, Americanesque ideals, will be founded to defend itself against those cultures, (think Romulans, and Klingons) who would deny such ideals and societies holding them." In such a world the mission of a Federation like fleet would be clear, and a Captain of a Spaceship such as J. Kirk would know how to engage and when to engage the enemies of the Federation. In otherwords the Federation was simply 20th Century America writ large, not an interplanetary UN nor a foreshadowing of an Obamesque America with diminished military capability and freedom to act.
The original series had a clear view of those who held the values esppoused by the Federation, and those that didn't, and undertood the later as a threat that required engagement, this corresponds more with, dare I say it, neo-conservatism not liberalism. And lest we forget, James Kirk, as envisioned by Roddenberry was originally conceived as a futuristic version of a cowboy leading the spaceship equivalent of a wagon train through space, something more in keeping with red-state Texas than say blue-state Vermont.
New Kirk would vote for new JFK
This is an interesting piece for many reasons, but one thing I find striking is that a conservative voice (and maybe that's assuming too much, but the knock on the greens seems a hint) tells a somewhat skewed story, even if the analysis of the relationship between Star Wars and Star Trek seems spot on. As a fan of both, I recognize Star Wars for its mythic, fantasy qualities, and I hated Phantom Menace's attemot to turn it into hard sci-fi, and, in so doing, diminishing the hero quest story which followed. Star Trek, on the other hand, offers us a remarkably liberal vision of the future, and I think it's unfair to blame environmentalists for the fact that we're not further on our way towards that future. After all, it's envoronmentlists who've been warning us about Global Warming for decades, and arch-conservatives who have been battling against science (for reasons raning from young-Earth creationism to corporate greed) for the last few decades. Also, if you want to find someone who is opposed to space exploration, don;t look to liberals to get in your way. We love grand government enterprises that lift us all up, rather than unnecessary foreign wars that sink us into quagmire after quagmire. Everyone I've ever heard badmouth NASA has been a small government conservative complaining about taxation, despite the fact that the original space race produced far more revenue than it cost in the form of inventions (like these computers we're using right now). Human beings are motivated, in mass, by two things, conquest and exploration. Liberals prefer exploration to conquest, historically. Conservatives like to reign in our impulses to both, but lately they've allowed a bit too much conquest to get through, and not nearly enough exploration. Now the popular culture has voiced its approval for hope and change, both in our movie-going and in our last presidential election, where we picked the candidate styled on JFK over the one styled on Eisenhower (and sometimes Hoover). Whether or not Obama can channel our national will into some project like a space race, or some progressive uplift that strives for the equality seen in the Federation of Planets, has yet to be seen, but I expect the conservatives to be less than cooperative.
Who Would Captain James T. Kirk Vote for? JFK, of Course
You said:
"And 40 years ago—on July 20, 1969—the United States put a man on the moon, just as JFK said we would. But then Americans forgot how to do such great deeds for the benefit of ourselves and for all humanity. In conspicuously consuming, we laid waste to our powers; the Luddites, Green reactionaries, and neo-Hobbits did away with the rest."
Some 'great men' achieve great things. Then, as when we left the moon, they soared to great depths with "women," destroying their remaining potential; maybe, so too nations emulate those of us who create them? Or nations become who we have become?
