XPost: alt.startrek, alt.tv.star-trek, alt.tv.star-trek.enterprise   
   From: nobody@all.com   
      
   In article <3F34754B.7B49@telusplanet.net>, rgorman@telusplanet.net   
   says...   
   > wandering wastrel wrote:   
      
      
   > > I wonder what the more hawkish fans of Trek think of old   
   > > Gene and his quaint ideas anyway.   
   >   
   > I tell you what I think about them.  I think they desperately needed   
   > balance.  The original Star Trek was the best one precisely because   
   > Roddenberry had to compromise his idealism.  The Federation was like   
   > the United States, only better.  Improved, but still imperfect.   
   > They still had to fight it out with the Romulans in a border skirmish,   
   > or run flintlocks to a bunch of natives to keep their neighbours from   
   > wiping them out with their own Klingon supplied flintlocks and letting   
   > the Klingons take over the planet.  They still had criminals and   
   > mental illness.  The Prime Directive was a statement of principle,   
   > but one that sometimes had to take second place to other priorities.   
   >   
   > That was good.   
      
   I think it was more easier to relate to and certainly more believable for   
   audiences at the time. The evolution of Trek into the kind of lofty "oh,   
   we humans are beyond all tht bad stuff" attitude in TNG was the outgrowth   
   of wishful thinking on overdrive -- 60's idealism morphed into 70's   
   mellow "New Ageism" and then into a reaction against the 80's "Greed is   
   Good" mentality, which spawned TNG (with the Ferengis were portrayed as   
   evil capitalists as you noted). Trek has always been sensitive to current   
   attitudes and events.   
      
   You raise some interesting points in your post. I   
   see many TOS eps as debates rather than pronouncements. Spock often   
   represented the rational, pacifist argument while Kirk was often   
   impulsive and even reckless at times. But even Kirk would frequently pull   
   himself up short and reflect on his attitudes. The point was that   
   humanity was/is flawed but we strive to attain something better.   
      
   I think one of the best TOS eps to illustrate the essential split within   
   mankind was "The Enemy Within" (whether or not you felt Shatner's emoting   
   added to or detracted from it) -- where Kirk was divided into his "good"   
   and "evil" halves. The good half was unable to really act decisively   
   while the evil lacked a conscience to restrain it from acting wrongly. In   
   many respects we face this split within our society. You have many hawks   
   who seem anxious to "bomb the bastards back to the stone age" and the   
   peaceniks who often come across as wishy-washy and unable to act with   
   firmness and resolve when it's required. You really need to balance the   
   two qualities to deal with life properly.   
      
   > Then came TNG and for two years we saw what Roddenberry's utopianism   
   > produced when he didn't have to compromise.  That wasn't good.   
   > TNG's Federation started out as tedious, smug and implausible.   
   > Poorly thought out.   
      
   I would have to agree to some extent. TNG could be annoyingly PC at   
   times, though I always felt it's heart was in the right place. But their   
   interpretation of the Prime Directive could be downright cold quite often   
   -- going way beyond what was envisioned in TOS.   
      
   As for the PD I see it as a reaction on the part of Trek's creators   
   against colonialism and the Viet Nam war. It seems noble on the surface   
   but its complexities make for less than clear-cut morality or ethics.   
   Part of the fascination of Trek for me has been the ambiguity -- the   
   acknowledgement that things aren't always black and white. Trek has   
   evolved over the years turning villains into characters with motives and   
   their own internal (though perhaps distasteful to some) morality, such as   
   the Klingons.   
      
   Obviously if we would really have to deal with a race such as the   
   Klingons we probably couldn't just go up to them and say "Let's all just   
   try to get along", since a large part of their culure is built on   
   confrontationalism and striving for dominance. But we ought not allow   
   them or our need to deal with them from a position of strength to   
   undermine our own values in the process   
      
   > Then Roddenberry got sick, and with other   
   > people compromising his vision...it got better.  Now, you could   
   > have a paranoid McCarthy-like admiral searching for anti-Federation   
   > subversives on board...and that was damn good.  Nothing that   
   > Roddenberry's principles would have allowed, of course, but   
   > a hell of a lot better than what they did allowed.   
      
   What eps like that did (and well I might add) is highlight that the human   
   struggle for determining what is right and establishing what is proper is   
   and will be an ongoing process -- not something that will be resolved in   
   three or four hundred years. At the same time the voices of tolerance and   
   moderation which need to be heard to make an organization like the UFP   
   possible (considering the varied member planets) demonstrate that there   
   is a thread of decency that we should hope will grow stronger with the   
   passage of time.   
      
   > Way better than Roddenberry's insulting parody of capitalist   
   > villains, the Ferengi, who were just incredibly lame as opponents   
   > and even more poorly thought out than the Federation.   
      
   Agreed.   
      
      
   > And that's what this hawkish fan thinks of Roddenberry's   
   > quaint ideas.  They're fine, but leaven them with the   
   > occasional dose of realism...if you don't want crap.   
      
   Roddenberry shouldn't be considered a god but at the same time -- to be   
   consistent -- the tradition of questioning, probing, not settling for   
   simplistic interpretations of right or wrong and accepting that not   
   everyone sees things exactly as we do -- all these principles which are   
   rooted in what Roddenbery brought to Trek should remain at the core. Yes,   
   allow the series and concepts to grow and deepen, but don't go off on a   
   track which may appeal to a broader demographic but will cause Trek to   
   lose its soul in the process.   
      
   ww   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)