Are We All Too Cynical for Star Trek?
Are We All Too Cynical for Star Trek?
The franchise’s evolution since the 1960s reflects disconcerting trends in American society.
Came across this article, and it's a very interesting take on how Star Trek has changed with the times, and how modern audiences seem to have a harder time trusting institutions or imagining Trek's utopia.
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This is not to say that the ’90s shows never delved into the complexity and nuance of this ethos—indeed, playing at the edges of their internal morality was how they derived much of their interest...Things are different in modern Trek.
If you have to include a variation of "sure, it was always like this, but it's different now," it's time to go back to the drawing board with your thinkpiece.
I've admittedly still only watched up through the 90s, but I'd definitely say that DS9 depicted a significantly more "morally gray" version of Starfleet than TOS or TNG.
I think the point the author is making is that the extent to which this idea gets explored is reflective of our society's growing mistrust of institutions IRL, rather than suggesting the theme has never been explored.
Yeah, and I don't buy it.
Can anyone make a serious claim that "as a rule, Starfleet is good, and the best way to be a good servant of the true and just in the world of Star Trek is by being a good Starfleet officer" is not the message of literally every current series? Even "Picard," which had arguably the most cynical take on Starfleet by virtue of featuring a number of characters who had left the organization, ended by sticking everybody back into a uniform, ready to take on the galaxy. "Starfleet is good" is the central thesis of "Prodigy," as well as "Discovery," particularly during the two most recent series.
The piece treats the crew stealing the Enterprise in SNW as something particularly meaningful, despite the fact that this sort of thing has been done repeatedly since...checks notes 1984.
It's just another tired bit about how following orders and perfect institutions are what Star Trek is really about, to hell with any evidence to the contrary.
It’s just another tired bit about how following orders and perfect institutions are what Star Trek is really about, to hell with any evidence to the contrary.
I'd argue that the theme is less about following orders and more We are all individually flawed and are at our best when we follow our shared values - which is represented by both Starfleet and the utopian setting as a whole.
I can see the argument (for fiction and real life), that as we trust institutions less, our focus becomes more on individual judgement rather than collectivist ideas. It also tracks for me that as this occurs in real life, our media would reflect individualism more and more.
Sure, and if the core of the article is "today's values are somewhat different than those of the 90s"...yes, they are, just as the values of the 90s were different from those of the 60s. I think there's an interesting academic discussion to be had in there, but I don't think this article is it.
Were the earlier series not focused on shared values to more or less a similar extent too?
Kirk has usually been given the reputation of being a rule-breaker, often ignoring Starfleet rules when they are in conflict with his values. Even off-camera (in DS9 I think) they attribute him 17 temporal violations, and I think he has been accused of violating the prime directive multiple times.That's a good point. I think this contrast between individual (often flawed) human judgment vs collectivist ideals has always been a theme. In TOS, you see Kirk calming McCoy's knee-jerk reactions almost every episode. In TNG, it was Yar or Worf. In DS9, probably Kira.
Even then, I would say the collectivist ideals (i.e. Starfleet regulations) were more often portrayed as overly-cumbersome in implementation, which leads to someone like Kirk violating the rules in place of the ideals that they stand for. For example, how many naïve (but well-meaning) diplomats do we see in TOS or TNG? However, rules being restrictive or imperfect in an effort to support larger agreed-upon morals can still be trusted, compared to corrupt power structures, which cannot.
Kirk doesn't really violate them, also you can tell that the writers don't really have the rules of star fleet worked out in season 1 or even 2.
It wasn't really always like this, in modern Trek they don't have any ideals to aspire to, they just do what they have to. In DS9 you had Captain Sisko breaking his back trying to convince himself that letting Garak kill a Romulan diplomat to get them on the alpha quadrant's side was worth it.