Lately, arising out of discussion in the Money thread and the TNG Best Episode thread, I've been thinking a lot about the supposed utopia of the Federation and future human society that we see posited, explicitly stated, and developed over the course of the different Trek series.

In my opinion, future human society in Trek is not utopian because it doesn't allow for actual freedom of person, movement, or thought. It's essentially fascist, as all utopias from Plato's proto-Athens in the Timaeus and Critias to his Republic to Thomas More's Utopia to Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and onward are all portraits of essentially fascist societies. They are just as fascist as the anti-utopias of Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Brave New World, and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The reason for this, I think, is that utopias and anti-utopias are both grounded in the idea that someone(s) has decided what's best for society and must, therefore, enforce this "bestness" either through actual law enforcement, thought police, or physical limitations/confinement so that individuals don't act as individuals and, thus, against the "best interest" of collective society as a whole. And that "best interest" is what the particular author has decided he wants to see society look like. It's his utopia, not necessarily anyone else's, even though in publishing the work, he's given his idea an audience whom he must think will agree that his created world is utopian, otherwise, why publish it.

In regards to Star Trek, this utopian author is Gene Roddenberry and he has proposed what I consider to be a very limiting and confining utopia. I will agree that I find the idea of no more poverty, starvation, unemployment, war, religious intolerance, and political, ideological, or religious conflict to be utopian. However, Roddenberry proposes that these things come about not by humans solving problems with current economic, political, or religious ideologies, but by eliminating them altogether. That doesn't say much about the enlightened evolution of the human spirit to me: "we fixed this problem by eliminating it outright." That's kind of scary, if you think about it.

I don't see Star Trek as dystopic. I get your point about religion, and it's one I agree with, but Roddenberry didn't see religion as defeated or conquered, just that people evolved their way out of it. Religious expression itself isn't banned, nor is a religious society incompatible with the Federation ideals. Look at Bajor. Look particularly at Accession, the episode where a new emissary appeared and began instituting repressive policies. Sisko said it would probably doom Bajor's membership into the Federation. Bajor was always religious; it was only when religion and freedom conflicted that there was a problem.

On the point of money, the writers haven't really sorted out what that meant, or even whether people have money. But there are copious examples of humans and other Federation citizens earning money, spending money and so forth. It's not that people aren't allowed money, but that you don't need it.

Which is a fairly ridiculous and unbelievable idea. Religions that have been around for thousands of years aren't going to be abandoned or "outgrown" in another few hundred years. And the idea that people evolve beyond religion says in effect that religions are juvenile and religious people childish, and that in Roddenberry's utopia such childishness will have been left behind. Part of the point of creating a utopia is that you want your readers/viewers to agree that your concept is utopian. Telling all the people who watch Trek that a utopian future has no human religion is not going to appeal to a large amount of your audience. It's going to alienate many of them, actually.

Yes, religion in Trek is always alien, not human. Humans don't have religion anymore once the Federation is founded (Phlox talked about going to a Catholic Mass and a Buddhist ceremony, but that was pre-Federation). And humans would be considered childish and juvenile if they still believed, so that is cultural obliteration of religion, even if individual people are still going to adhere to those beliefs and religion hasn't been banned by the government.

Which limits people's freedoms for several reasons outlined and suggested in the Money thread. And might even lead to the creation of a slave race of sentient holograms. Not utopian.

Here in lies the whole flaw in Utopia. Everyone is making valid points so far. All illustrating that what's ideal is going to vary from person to person. So Mr X's Utopia might be different from Mr Y's. Mr X might think Utopia is humans free from the chains of menial labor, and holograms or robots or androids are just fine for that kind of thing. Sentient or not, they are created by man and therefore not worth worrying about. Mr Y may think that scenario for those manmade humanoids is wrong. Mrs A may think Utopia would include having an unending supply of well written mysteries to read. Mrs B might hate reading. Not that all of these are mutually exclusive, or that a Utopia might not be able to accomodate some of these things at the same time, but it really can't encompass all views or desires at the same time. These are very basic, simple, personal examples but the same holds true for larger ideals. So then, how do you define Utopia? Is it satisfying the majority of the people the majority of the time? Or the majority of the ideals the majority of the time?

Enough on Utopia in gerenal. I have a couple of initial thoughts on the genesis of the Star Trek "Utopia".

If we've moved beyond much of that "nonsense", then it makes us better equipped to be the arbitrators and moderators in many situations. We can't be swayed by politics or money if we have no need for it. Although, we have seen where there are still other ways to sway people, and we have seen where they are still affected by money or power or politics (forgive, I am SO not good with episode names so I'm not listing any). Maybe that was part of the point? Maybe it helps highlight the flaw in the Star Trek utopia?

It seems to me that Star Trek tried to incorporate some of these "high falutant" ideas that (they thought) most people could agree on and didn't necessarily think all of them through. "Wouldn't it be great if there was no more hunger or poverty?" "Wouldn't it be good if people weren't judged for their monetary worth, but for who they are?" And so on. OK then - no more of that in Star Trek world. If money doesn't exist, people can't be judged for being poor, they can all get equal educations, etc. So then we say "money is no longer needed/used." Some of it seems to be (at least to me) due to trying to portray humans in the future in a "slightly" evolved state, but not to the point of the "large eyes, grey skin and telepathic communication" stage. So they tried to think of some intermittent steps. Maybe, for some things it was just easier to say they were "past that" than to show all the implications. If they tried to show all the debates that might have gone on after learning that many other sentient, space traveling species exist; or the implications to the existince of a human soul with their advanced technology it might have been a whole other kind of show. Not that it couldn't be good, just different (and maybe something Enterprise could have done). For example, if a person can be split apart at the molecular level and reassembled completely whole many miles away does that mean the soul doesn't exist? Many religions believe that we, humankind, were created in God's (or diety of choice) image. What does it mean if there are many other humanoid species out there? What kind of religious debates or battles could that have spawned on Earth and elsewhere? After encountering a species like Q, what does that do to one's faith in God? So, I think it might have been easier just to say or imply that organized religion has "faded out", or that people have moved beyond that.

So I do agree that when you begin to look at it in depth, the Star Trek world seems more fascist than anything. I'm just not sure the motives behind it, I think it might be as much practicality than anything else.

I guess I didn't solve anything. ;-) Thanks for listening to my ramblings anyway.

I think a lot of the issues that fall out when you think deeply about the money issue are probably just unintended implications of poorly thought out writing.

As to the fascism thing, I really don't see where you're getting this. I've never been clear on exactly what fascism is, but I always think of it as being synonomous with totalitarian, with no individual rights. This seems like the opposite of Star Trek.

Also, Chakotay holds strongly to his spiritual tradition and discusses it openly with other crewmembers.

Also, there was the TOS episode "Who Mourns for Adonis?", in which Kirk informs Apollo: "We have no need for gods. We find the one sufficient", implying that monotheism has survived into the future.

Incidentally, why didn't the Greco-Roman polytheists protest this episode, in which Kirk & Co. basically dismiss Apollo as complete bullshit? Because some religions do find themselves marginalized or even supplanted by other belief systems. And even existing religions have evolved from their early roots; we no longer sacrifice animals, and many Jews and Christians no longer follow the dietary rules outlined in Leviticus. Religions take on different flavors in different countries at different times -- revolutionary Catholicism in Latin America, Islam adapted to matrilineal societies in southeast Asia, Orthodox Jews updating Sabbath laws to reflect the advent of cars and electricity.

So I don't think it's out of left field to suggest that human beliefs and expression of those beliefs will be different a few centuries from now, especially if you factor in the sheer momentousness of discovering extraterrestrial civilizations. How many religious issues would that raise? You know - why would a god serve only Earth (or only Alpha Centauri, or only Vulcan, or...)? If other planets don't share your god, what would that imply for your beliefs?

I don't know what the answers to those questions are, and I'm certainly not going to suggest Gene Roddenberry had them either.

On a more practical, television-as-a-product-of-mere-mortals level: During the original Trek's run, utopia was a political statement. We have blacks and Asians and Russians all working together, hanging out in a functional society, and it's no big deal. To put this on a timeline: the Watts Riots happened in 1965. Star Trek premiered a year later. The Supreme Court struck down all anti-miscegnation laws in 1967. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968. (Obviously, one of these things is not like the others.) So Roddenberry's utopian society reflected his ideals, but they were also a pretty ballsy statement in an era where people were getting shot, beaten, firebombed and firehosed for standing up on the issue of race relations.

Thing is, the later incarnations of Trek were then saddled with living up to the concept of Utopia. Deep Space Nine probably came the closest to shaking it off entirely (indeed, many of DS9's best episodes truck in moral ambiguity and impossible dilemmas).

The Next Generation, meanwhile, had the task of bringing 1960s ideas of utopia in line with the expectations of a 1980s TV-watching public. It doesn't surprise me that TNG's writing staff often went "Uhh... well.... it's all better now. Hey, lookatthatplanetoverthere!"

Well, if Gene Roddenberry actually said this: --then I would say that the motives on the religion aspect of Trek utopia are a complete intolerance for religion and downright closemindedness on his part.

Yes, and we see this moderating tendency manifest itself in the sort of condescending, preachy bullshit of a speech that Picard gives in "Who Watches the Watchers." "We're humans. Our society is better and more enlightened than yours."

It's the opposite of what Star Trek says it is, but not what the Federation would actually end up being in practice. Per Eddington's speech on this topic in DS9 and per this post and towards the bottom of my post here and this post and this post. Most of the last three pages in the Money thread outline the fascist nature and implications of a society with no money.

Exactly. Religions have always evolved and adapted to changing situations in the world around them to stay relevant to their believers and to keep alive. They do not evolve out of existance.

I just would like to point out that I think there's a difference between discussing Star Trek's televised utopia and Gene Roddenberry's idea of Utopia. He clearly rejected religion, for instance, but that didn't stop the writers from injecting pantheistic ideals into Picard's dialogue in other episodes.

Picard: Considering the marvelous complexity of the universe, its clockwork perfection, its balances of this against that... matter, energy, gravitation, time, dimension, I believe that our existence must be more than either of these philosophies. That what we are goes beyond euclidian or other 'practical' measuring systems... and that our existence is part of a reality beyond what we understand now as reality.

Sounds like a pantheistic (the universe is God, or we are all part of God) belief system to me... and describes Roddenberry to an extent, based on what I've read about his approach to religion.

And I'm sure Roddenberry would have rolled over in his grave had he known about Benjamin Sisko's journey as the Emissary of the Prophets. Sisko started out calling the Prophets "wormhole aliens" and ended up accepting his role as the Emissary by the end of the series. And Chakotay has been mentioned--clearly a spiritually oriented character.

I think Star Trek softened on religious tolerance after Roddenberry passed away. I did see the irony in Roddenberry's intolerance of religious beliefs in his utopia of tolerance, but I think that his heart was in the right place--he saw religion on Earth as a source of death and pain and hatred, and as a humanist he thought a utopia would be free of all this spiritually based sturm and drang. I agree with him--but I think the answer is not dispelling religion or casting aspersions on spirituality, but tolerance and the rejection of stereotypes.

I don't think the Federation is fascist. The Federation is a collection of soveriegn worlds, each with its own systems of rules with a few certain agreed on fundemental rights granted to its citizens. These worlds are bound together for mutual defense and exploration. Why the Federation might seem fascist is because we see everything through the lens of Starfleet, which is a military organization. Actually, that's something to be concerned about, the Federation as it stands now isn't what I would call a fascist state, but DS9 has shown us that it wouldn't take much effort for a group of high ranking Starfleet members to take things over and make the Federation a police state.

I've never felt that the Federation is fascist. I look at the Federation as the European Union of the Alpha Quadrant.

You mean, an over-extended, bureaucratically muddled, financially murky, corrupt, mismanaged, ineffectual, in-fighting travesty of an original half-decent idea?

I think this is an important point, and for what it's worth, I don't think the Federation that we've seen on screen is fascist. It is possible that taking Gene Roddenberry's ideas to their logical extremes would produce a fascist state, but I don't think I've seen anything to support that on TV (unless I'm being even more obtuse than usual!).

I don't think it's ever presented that the Federation made rules that said, "no more money" or "no more religion". I've certainly never had that impression. Certainly it's not illegal for Federation citzens to possess money, as we see the crew of DS9 using it all the time. It's not illegal to practice religion, because Chakotay and Sisko both do it openly. It's not fascism if people just don't use money or religion because society has changed to the point where people don't feel they need either anymore.
I'm still not sold on the canon evidence that religion is over in humanity. We mostly have one comment from Picard that religion is childish, but maybe that's just his opinion. Every other human has been coy about religion. Early on Sisko merely said, "there are... things I believe." Archer similarly dodged the question in "Cold Front".
I'd extend that to a lot of these issues, including religion.

To be fair, some do evolve out of existence. How many worshippers do you think Mithras, Thor or Zeus have these days? (Actually, I've met someone who claims to be a Greco-Roman polytheist, but even he realizes he's in a pretty teeny minority.)

Still, I think it's very possible for religion to exist in the Federation; it's also possible for a society to generally be quiet and/or nonchalant about it. Some societies like that already exist on Earth (Japan, for example -- although cultural traditions like New Year are very much alive, it's rare to hear people pontificate on their personal beliefs).

My guess is that there's either: a) a general quietude on religion for the sake of social harmony, or b) religious differences have become as meaningless as racial differences in the future, so the general attitude is "Yeah? And?" Maybe announcing your god-belief is the equivalent of Uhura announcing that she's black.

Like what?

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're asking.

What sort of attitude for the sake of social harmony would there be on religion?

Oh, I just mean that: if numerous religions exist, maybe there's a tacit mutual agreement not to get in other people's faces with your theology. You know, kind of ilke how the Vulcans live their strictly-logic way of life without trying to force everybody else to do the same? That sort of thing. *shrug* Just positing a possibility.

First, all hail Cleo!

Thinking about utopias raises two points for me:

First, can you truly have a utopia if someone is unhappy? I'm a staunch capitalist and very religious. For obvious reasons, I'd like to think that my point of view isn't repudiated in the future, and for logical reasons, I assume that there'd always be people with that point of view. Saying that "no one wants money" or "no one is religious" implies that certain people are "corrected." Now, while religous people, for example, wouldn't give up their faith willingly- thus meaning that such a universe would not be a utopia- I don't think their existence would be too bothersome to those without religion.

So I guess I'm saying, "Live and let live." I can imagine people adopting that philosophy, and, if that happens, we'd really have a utopia.

One other point is how cynical the utopia can be in Trek terms. Perhaps the threat of global nuclear war was more real in the '60's, but so much of Trek future history seems to be based on the idea that it will get a lot worse (Eugenics Wars, World War III, etc. etc.) before it gets better. Why can't we have a utopia where we get better and better? Why couldn't Cochrane just have been some crazy loner genius with a trust fund instead of saying that civilization had broken down?

Between 240 and 1000, in Denmark.

I can't find any reliable data on the number of people in Iceland who subscribe to Asatru...

One point about Utopias in Star Trek that seems to be getting overlooked is that anyone who doesn't like the way the Federation is being run can just pick up and leave and found their own society. We can see that in The Masterpiece Society, Paradise, and to some extent, in Insurrection. Space is big, and there always seems to be an uninhabited class M planet around. So maybe all the religious types just said to themselves, "All this alien crap is for the birds" and went and founded some colony. That happened all the time in real history.



That's not a bad description of the Federation, at least as seen on DS9. TNG had the problem that we're seeing almost everything through Picard's eyes, and he can be a little too idealistic, seeing the Federation's good sides and ignoring the seemy underbelly. Which is kind of interesting, because DS9 managed to deepen our understanding of a character that was barely even mentioned on the show.

As much as it pains me to defend Star Trek's writers I think people are overlooking one major point. Pretty much everyone we see is part of the military, dependants of the military, or are dealing with people in the military.
So basics like food and quarters are paid for by the UFP. They usually aren't on vacation but leave on some planet. These people are the true believers of the UFP's govt. The ones who hate how the the Fed is ran not only can go somewhere else but they sure aren't going to join Starfleet. Plus isn't every single person in SF pretty much a "lifer"? Sure it's a tv show but everyone stays around for at least a decade and if you are on the NX-1 the same rank and job.
Now what I wonder is what do the poor of Earth think? And no matter what GR might say there is always someone who is at the very least poorer than average. What is their living conditions? Crappy govt housing with replicated food?
I see the poor of the UFP basicly sitting around their apts. doing holoporn and watching tv. Probably there isn't a NEED for more money but not working could get really boring. With all the jobs that we consider to be menial today taken away the people who don't care enough to get a good education or have any skills wouldn't have anything to do.
I doubt that crime would be much a problem though. The UFP has some pretty good technology and computer systems. Put the two together and you can pretty much watch everyone all the time. Plus I can't imagine the UFP letting "problem children" going through the system. Violent kids would be fixed at a pretty young age.
Actually now that I think of it the UFP on Earth seems to be a far less facist version of Earth in the Larry Niven Known Space books. Without the creepy ARM farming out all felons for organs.

Now, now - ARM didn't do the organ-gathering, that was done by a whole other branch of the UN. ARM's responsibility was to ensure that technological progress was carefully monitored, so that no one could develop any new WMDs without the UN taking control (Niven said, in his notes at the end of the collection "The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton", that Dr. Sinclair had invented the FyreStop device, which could suppress chemical reactions at a distance. Sinclair had intended it to be used to put out wildfires - it didn't occur to him that life is basically a series of chemical reactions...)

Actually, if the UN was that fascistic, the organleggers would have been ruthlessly smashed before they could do any harm - and Owen would have been found before he starved to death. He could wait in that hotel room that long, because even the hotel manager couldn't enter the room without a court order. Besides, if you don't like the UN, just head to the Belt and become a miner, or go into coldsleep and get transshipped to Wunderland, or Down, or We Made It, or even Jinx (just avoid Plateau - talk about your fascist governments!). Lots of choices, lots of escapes.

One wonders if there's a place, on the fringe of Federation space, not cut out of some other interstellar empire, where people go to escape the treacly embrace of Big Brother Fed...

Arguably the Rim in Firefly is this kind of place. Except with no aliens, less tech and a mishmash of English and Mandarin.

In the Worst Episode thread of TNG I accidentally started a semi debate of how Ryker destroying the clones in Up The Long Ladder. My objections I think would fit better in this thread.
I don't really think it was wrong for Ryker and Pulaski to have the clones destroyed. However I do question first was it legal for Ryker to do that? He wasn't exactly uninvolved and there was no process involved in his actions.
If Picard would have said,"yeah destroy them." That would seem to be legal to me. However Ryker was not the man in charge. Also I am fairly uncomfortable with a military officer making legal judgements.
Granted there is very little civilain govt we ever saw in the Federation (besides the ones who went crazy and made Kirk's job harder). And the Enterprise probably wasn't in the Fed's boundries.
However very little good comes from govts that has the military and police be one organization and I hope that Federation has the two separated out and this was a special case.

I'm going to bring up my abortion comparison again because I think it's the most pertinent.

When a woman gets an abortion, there is no legal process involved as far as her having to go to court or get a lawyer or someone's permission. She decides, she goes to the doctor, she gets it done. It's a personal decision, not a government or legal one. The destroying of the clones is exactly the same to me: a personal decision, and one that I must assume is already defined under Federation law, just like abortion rights are already defined under our law. Perhaps to destroy an undeveloped clone a doctor's opinon is needed, but Pulaski was there and implicitly gave consent.

Picard wasn't involved because it was not an issue and none of his business any more than a woman on the Enterprise wanting to get an abortion would be any of his business. Riker is very much the man in charge when it comes to deciding what to do with his clone-fetus. Just as Pulaski is the woman in charge of deciding what to do with her clone-fetus. I don't see how this could be a government, military, or police issue at all. It's a personal reproductive rights issue.

If that is the law then you are correct. But do we know that?
Abortion only works so far as an example. Neither Ryker or Pulaski were pregnant (only Trip gets knocked up) so the "our bodies our choice" arguement didn't exist.
I am just saying that if that would have been the episode great. But it was probably the 4th most important part of the episode so why throw such an issue in there? It is definitely a shade of grey and the writers didn't explain anything.

I'm not certain of the Federation's legal position vis-a-vis cloning. One wonders if perhaps they have a law similar to the one in John Varley's Eight Worlds stories - one genotype, one life. If so, the actions of Riker and Pulaski would become a matter of self-defense, rather than retroactive birth control...

It doesn't work narrowly defined as "my body, my choice." However, the comparison does work for the legal side: that a fetus is defined as a potential life, but not yet a life, so it has no status under the law. It is not alive, not a person, so it has no rights. Only the person whose body is used to make the fetus can make decisions regarding it. And in the case of clones, since only one person contributed to the genetic make-up, I would think the issue would be even less sticky.

The comparison here between abortion and destroying the clones is apt. Abortion isn't legal because of "my body, my choice." Abortion is legal because the fetus is legally defined as not a person. It's true that we don't have any outright evidence that clone-abortion laws exist in the Federation. However, based on the very fact that Riker's destroying of the clones is indeed a non-issue, I must conclude that there are such clone-abortion laws. We do know that fetus-abortion laws exist because when Troi gets mysteriously pregnant earlier in S2, the concept of aborting that pregnancy is raised, if I remember right. So, to me, it only makes sense that clone-abortion laws are also in place.

Speaking of which, I recall being appalled that Picard and the rest of the senior staff started a discussion about whether or not Troi would abort the fetus without asking her opinion first. In the end, Troi said she was not going to abort the fetus and no one questioned her decision, but I thought they should have asked her first.

Gilmel you are probably right. I just wish that Roddenberry had mentioned any of this rather than the stereotypical Irish crap they forced on us.
Also I would guess that abortion is legal in the 24th Century Fed. Birth control must be pretty damn good by then and (trying to avoid politics here) the current attitude would have gone away by that time.

What current attitude?

Actually, going by DS9 ("Someone didn't remember their shots!"), birth control seems pretty bad. I think we've discussed exactly what that might mean elsewhere.

For some reason, both Ben and Kasidy had to take shots. Both of them? WTF?

Well, that's just dumb. We can do better than that now, with those 4-times-a-year injections that women can get.

I got the impression it was just Sisko who had to take the shots. Do they actually say that Kasidy had to take them, too?

No, they didn't. I got the sense that Kasidy was using the phrase "one of us" because even if only one person in the relationship was responsible for getting the birth control, it was considered one of those couple things that both partners are involved in. Or because she didn't want to sound accusatory and make Ben feel worse.

That's also what I got out of Kasidy's comment. That "one of us" is the same as saying "a certain someone" is the same as saying "you." It was just a euphemism for "you."

I loved that statement because it seemed to me to imply that in the future men did birth control and women didn't. (Which I thought was cool because I personally know several women who've had complications of varying degrees from taking the pill or getting hysterectomies. Of course, I don't think I personally know anyone who's gotten a vastectomy, so I have no means of actual comparison.)

On a different topic for this thread, and so I write it down before I forget, I'm watching "The Maquis, Part II" on Spike right now, and Sisko said that on Earth there is "no poverty, no crime, no war," that looking out the window of Starfleet Headquarters shows a paradise, but that that's not the case for the Maquis. So, it seems that the utopian aspect of the Federation may just apply to Earth and not to other Federation planets, even other human ones. I noted that he didn't say there was no religion and no money. Of course, he was just talking about the negatives that Earth didn't have, so his lack of mentioning religion or money is neither here nor there.

I've always thought that Earth still had various religions -- there have been many points when they've alluded to stuff that seems to imply some people still practice. Of course, I can't think of any examples now but I know they're there.

I've never understood why Roddenberry's supposed vision of a future utopia specifically got rid of religion. I'm not overly religious myself -- I like to keep it in my own way -- but I certainly don't see a need to force it out of society.

Sisko quoted the Bible at some point. I don't remember the passage but his father was in the scene and he seemed surprised that Sisko was quoting from it.

Actually, it was the reverse in "Far Beyond the Stars". Joseph quoted from 2 Timothy 4:7 ("I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith.") and Ben was surprised. (As a side note, Brock Peters also played the preacher in that episode.)

Of course, familiarity with the Bible--or other holy book--doesn't necessarily mean one is religious. I've taken classes on the Bible's influence on Western literature, and they were in an entirely secular context.

I agree. I've taught texts in mythology classes that were religious to certain cultures once upon a time but really aren't anymore. So quoting the Bible doesn't prove anything either way except that it's still known as a text.

I would agree with that but it wasn't just quoting the Bible that I'm thinking of (I haven't seen that ep yet) but there have been other indications.

Phlox said he attended different religious services on Earth, in "Cold Front". That's pre-Federation, but still, it proves that there are religions in the 22nd century.
In the other thread, I brought up the comparison to DS9's "A Man Alone", where Odo specifically says that murdering your own clone is murder. The difference may be Bajoran law versus Federation law. Or it may be because the clone was fully formed. Or maybe because he knowingly and deliberately created the clone. I don't know, but that's the other data point that needs to be considered while solving this mystery.

I vote for that. Because it fits with my abortion analogy.

Data makes mention of a particular Hindu observation in a VO during "Data's Day."

Rewatching TNG on Spike has alerted me to how... creepy the Federation seems. This essay by Michael Wong makes some very interesting arguments about the Federation's political system (they're commies). He makes a particularly interesting observation about the military's power:


Fascinating stuff.

In other links, Slate magazine recently published a look at how a society that doesn't need to work functions... the oil-rich Gulf states. Turns out, not many people do, creating a bit of a cultural malaise.

Some of the unhappiest people I've ever known were ones that didn't need to work to live. No job is 100% fulfilling, and without the profit motivation, it's easy to just walk away. Only some sort of "for the good of society above all" mentality would keep people at it. That's not awful but not exactly utopia, either.

All well and good: But he basically ignores all the little contradictory details we've brought up here. Perhaps you can say that the show is meant to be that way, or written that way, or TPTB prefer it that way, or canon or the show bible have it that way. But it doesn't square with much of what actually makes it to the screen.

A great article, Devil May Care. I'm hating the 24th century more and more (well, except DS9, where we had a lot of non-UFP personnell to love).

Exactly. Because, in practice, fascism and communism turn out the same.

I wouldn't say that the show was meant to be seen as a communist paradise by TPTB, the show bible, or any of the writers. I think that's how it plays out in practice because the show tried to build up a lot of utopian ideals without worrying about how they actually functioned... which does sound a lot like Mr. Marx's way of thinking.

It seems to me that most of the contradictory details we've been discussing are contradictory if you're coming at it from the point of view that the UFP is a fully democratic political entity with a free enterprise economy. Once you move to another view, like communism, a lot of the contradictory details (not all of them, surely, but most) we've brought up are no longer contradictory.