Posted by
Icarus on Monday, February 25, 2008 9:53:41 PM
Browsing Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism blog, at NRO, I found a small entry about
Star Trek's fascist tendencies.
Philosophy professor Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D., is rather persuasive in arguing that
Star Trek not only anti-capitalist and anti-religion, but, when push comes to shove, is downright fascist.
"If daily life is not concerned with familiar economic activities and
the whole of life is not informed with religious purposes, then what is
life all about in Star Trek? Well, the story is about a military
establishment, Star Fleet, and one ship in particular in the fleet, the
Enterprise. ... So what one is left with in Star Trek is military life. ... In the 20th Century there has been a conspicuous political ideology
that combines militarism, the subordination of private economic
activity to collective social purposes, and often the disparagement of
traditional religious beliefs and scruples: Fascism, and not
the conservative Fascism of Mussolini and Franco, who made their peace
with the Church and drew some limits about some things (Franco even
helped Jews escape from occupied France), but the unlimited
"revolutionary," Nihilistic Fascism of Hitler, which recoiled from no
crime and recognized no demands of conscience or God above the gods of
the Führer and the Volk."
Firefly, Dr. Ross argues is the "anti-Star Trek".
"All of the disturbing characteristics of the Star Trek
shows, the militarism, collectivism, anti-capitalism, and atheism, are
notably missing from the excellent but shortlived series Firefly. ... Unlike the starship Enterprise, a powerful warship of the United Federation of Planets, the ship Serenity
is a small, private "Firefly" class transport with no weapons -- except
the hand weapons of the crew. The captain and first officer... are veterans of the attempt to prevent the vast Alliance of planets from taking over their own worlds. ... [Joss] Whedon wants to make it clear, however, that he doesn't think of the
Alliance as evil ... but rather as something perhaps too big for its own good, or the
good of its citizens. ... In the pilot, Serenity takes on, not only Simon and River [fugitives from the law], but the Shepherd, i.e. Minister, Book ... Although the Shepherd expresses his religious views in,
usually, a low key way, and the details given of his beliefs are spare,
he does have an actual Bible, and once he even seems to make a
reference to Jesus, as a carpenter. In the movie, the word "Christian"
is even uttered -- though most viewers may not have noticed that the
words "Jesus" (
) and "Buddha" (
, literally "Buddha Founder") have both been spoken in Chinese during the shows.
...
"The very best thing about Firefly, in comparison to Star Trek,
is probably that it doesn't try for the slightest bit of Utopianism. It
does not assume that a single galactic government would be best, as it
does not assume that present religion and capitalist economics are
undesirable. This is refreshing, to say the least ..."
Give the whole thing a read. I found it very interesting. In part, because the idea that Star Trek presents a future chock full of Utopian Liberal Fascism, which will make Trekkies liberal heads just explode in frustration.