This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.
I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)
Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).
“Sins of the Father” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.
“Allegiance” See this for a plot summary.
There is a reference to anarchists, but it sort of describes an anarchist society as being very violent. I'm not sure how inaccurate that is- if things got to the point where anarchists were strong enough to do away with the state it probably would be a much less violent society than what we have today (of course, as I explain below, I think that most approaches to anarchism probably won't work, but some would and their vision is of a non-violent society).
My thoughts on anarchism are:
1. I consider something like half of left-wing anarchists to be my allies.
2. I don’t believe that the State is inherently oppressive. I believe that to one degree or another the state reflects the power of various parts of society (I got that from something Noam Chomsky said). Thus, a weak labor movement will lead to a state that is anti-union, to one degree or another. If the labor movement gets stronger, legislation about labor will make it easier for even more workers to be organized. Since this means that the labor movement won’t get stronger until the right politicians are elected, and the right politicians won’t get elected until the labor movement is stronger, I should say that much of my blog is about things that we can accomplish that will strengthen various liberal-progressive movements in America.
3. I’m not convinced that anarchism can provide services such as transportation or health care- it seems like the state would be more appropriate, and based on what I said in the item above, I’m comfortable with a democratic state. On the other hand, I get the impression that anarchists would be happy to see some functions of the federal or state government devolved to state or local governments, and I’m more or less okay with that, depending on exactly what we’re talking about.
4. It seems like decision-making in an anarchist society might result in an INFORMAL political elite- that the people best at political maneuvering would dominate decision-making. A problem with that is that you can’t un-elect those people. Additionally the the use of consensus decision-making results often in some minority who either defeat whatever proposal is being discussed and is supported by a majority, OR they vote the way the majority voted without their opposition being recorded; Lastly, it also would give people an inaccurate picture of how the community feels about that idea that was unpopular with a minority. (I think that consensus decision-making in small groups is a good idea- small groups being around 5-10 people; I have seen consensus decision-making not work at a meeting of about 25 people)
5. I know of one anarchist who, when her proposal was defeated because of consensus decision-making, she announced that her proposal would go ahead anyway.
6. I think anarchism would have a better chance of working AFTER a period of democratic socialism gets the vast majority of people thinking more in terms of solidarity and cooperation and less in terms of greed and power. Also, I wouldn’t object if, under socialism, there could be some small areas of the country where people would more or less have a large degree of autonomy and can experiment with anarchism (I don’t know exactly how that autonomy would work, but I think it’s still a good idea, and could from the start or after a few years be INDEPENDENCE for that area). Also, Democratic Socialism could, and maybe should, involve the devolution of some powers and responsibilities to the local or state level.
I give it three stars out of five.
“Captain’s Holiday” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
“Tin Man” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
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