But remember that the Trek universe is a world of stated cosmopolitanism, brother-sisterhood, goodwill, etc., all seen through a resoundingly Cold War–Western–American lens. So while the Federation of the Trek universe is stated as being global, multicultural, cosmopolitan, etc., it’s the way a certain kind of American of the past fifty or so years would view such world: as being mainly like America, sharing vaguely democratic and progressive values (and being able to back these up with overwhelming force when necessary), technology- and science-worshipping in extremis (and really into competence porn), etc. It’s less about me thinking that the Federation is America than about the Federation being a certain wish-image of how Americans see the world under American hegemony and leadership.
It’s odd, thinking about this: are there ever any Muslim Starfleet officers? Do we ever see Starfleet places on Earth that aren’t in America or the West? Etc. It’s hard for me to think of any recognizable influence on Starfleet that isn’t resoundingly Western-centric. Whereas the various alien cultures are resoundingly the way Westerners see and imagine non-Western cultures, a la Said’s Orientalism.
Re: Starfleet–the Federation as the UN, again, it’s a mix of a lot of things, the UN being one of these. Think the UN with America’s military and technological power and that’s a closer approximation. And remember that Roddenberry and other creators of the show have been Americans, with Americans’ customary projections and prejudices about the UN, globalization, transglobal partnerships, and the like.
Part of the Star Trek universe that isn’t talked about much is that Humans have pretty much dumped religion entirely. You never hear so much as a peep about Star Fleet chaplains for instance. You never see places of worship in the Federation. No Churches, no prayer rooms, nothing, not even in the floorplans for ships (although if you wanted to, you could argue that the Holodeck would work fine for this in TNG). The only reason DS9 had religious gathering places was so the Bajorans could be a pain in the neck about it.
They tend to depict alien religions as quaint, but always make a show of trying to respect their beliefs. Generally religion only comes up to cause problems for the heroes.
Which sounds perfectly like the kinds of secular humanism preached variously in America and the West for some time now, and which tends to have issues or problems when faced with faiths of various stripes and intensities. Roddenberry’s and the show’s various pronouncements about all this are rather cute, if you can ignore the various catastrophes wreaked by our secular, rationalist, technology-worshipping, so-called-progressive cultures.
[quote] They tend to depict alien religions as quaint, but always make a show of trying to respect their beliefs.
[/quote]
It’s interesting to me how much anger there was over this movie, especially how people got so angry that they’d gone so far from the Starfleet vision, when not only did Undiscovered Country do it as well, but Brock Peters and Nichelle Nichols nearly quit over the stuff about the Klingons becoming the “alien trash of the galaxy” and especially Chekov’s derisive line, “Guess who’s coming to dinner”.
To be fair, Worf does have a record of getting beaten up by bad guys. Data’s the one you want to send in when you want shit to get done.
Dr. Bashir from DS9 may or may not be Muslim. His ancestors likely were. King Abdullah of Jordan also had a cameo on Voyager as a random member of the crew.
As for locations seen on Earth, it’s fairly rare that they’re actually on Earth in most of the series. When they are on Earth, they tend to go to Starfleet HQ in San Francisco or other places that are easy to find locations for. There are scenes in the Arctic in that Enterprise Borg episode. There’s also an episode of Voyager where Barclay has a scene with Troi on a beach. It’s not specified where that beach is.
Yeah, I have Trek friends who just get all sad and angry when the subject of Abrams’s universe comes up, the same folks who get all mystified and confused by any of the points we’re all discussing above: “Well, it’s about science, you see…” It’s odd confronting propaganda in the arts, especially of the weaksauce secular-humanist variety.
This is a holdover from naval/maritime tradition, but not without justification.
The theory was (and still is, to a lesser degree) that a ship and her crew were placing themselves in great danger, tempting fate by going into a hostile environment in what’s basically a fancy wooden box. At any time, Neptune could roll over and cough. When that happens, everybody has to work together, instantly, or else their future looks cold, damp and abbreviated.
So the solution, as always, to a combination of potential chaos and not-potential danger is authority. (It has its uses.) Far out of contact with land, captains were given a lot more metaphorical leeway than they get today. Picard doesn’t answer to any elected officials (well, in theory he does, ultimately, but for practical purposes he doesn’t) because they are far away. (Subspace radio sometimes pops up as a plot point sometimes, but never when it would be too convenient.)
But Worf would be CRUSHED to be passed over for an opportunity like that. Just Imagine:
Picard: Worf, we need someone to take down Shinzon and we can only beam over one person. I’d like you to grab your Bat’leth, get your wrinkled forehead over there and kill every Romulan you see. You won’t be coming back, but you’ll save the Enterprise and be feasting in Sto’Vo’Kor by dinnertime.
Years ago there was a final question on “Who wants to be a millionaire” that had to do with the letters in aircraft license numbers. I somehow knew the answer because NCC-1701 was the Enterprise’s number and it WASN’T a military ship, and that seemed like the kind of little detail that Roddenberry would have gotten right.
I told my wife that if I was the guy answering the question, I would go for it on one condition: If I got it wrong, I would take my rationale to the grave.
I get that there are many in-universe reasons for these things, and thanks for noting the various in-universe nods to various cultures and religions, here, Islam. (Totally didn’t know that about King Abdullah, very cool.) Ditto for the locations on Earth. And a lot of it’s undoubtedly a function of convenience, that it’s harder and 'spensiver for an American show to do location work in foreign countries or to CG-up convincing approximations of the same. But it still feels resoundingly that there’s ideological and aesthetic imperatives operating here, that the Federation and Starfleet look like an American- and Western-centered view of a peaceful, globalized future. It’s not a terribly noxious whitewashing of difference, nor the racist-y Orientalism and othering of the Star Wars universe (Jar Jar and company), but it still jumps out as a set of very particular choices that derive from some very particular, historically- and culturally-embedded viewpoints.
I’m not saying they go Full Conrad and do Star Trek: Into [The Heart of] Darkness, although that would be fun and different. But it’s fun to imagine if the cosmopolitanism the show talks a lot about were seen at more fundamental levels of plot, story, characters, viewpoints (why not multiple, conflicting viewpoints, it’s always just heroic Euro-American captains and their merry crews), settings, and the rest. These have never been much more than some dialogue and visual stage-dressing for the show, yet are things it constantly insists upon as existing, vibrantly and dynamically, in its world and universe, and the gap is both obvious and fascinating.
I thought this piece in today’s nytimes was rather shortsighted. Essentially, the barn door is open, but the real question, left unaddressed, is why it should be closed in the first place.
