I'm watching TOS again. I never finished it back in the day. Not because I didn't enjoy it, it's just that TV shows, especially long episode length ones are easy for me to get bored of.
But TOS is the only Star Trek I like. I forced myself to watch all of Next generation and didn't care for it. Haven't seen the others, but with Deep Space Nine not being as much about self contained stories but long archs, I see myself hating that even more.
But this is about TOS.
I hear all the time "Star Trek was always a woke show...it's not for you right wingers, yadda yadda yadda".
Well after I watch an episode, I check out the review for it on Jammers reviews and I read the comments.
I swear about 90% of the comments for the original series are pointing out all the stuff they find "problematic".
"I love the plot in this episode, but I hate the portrayal of "insert woman character"
or
"Wow this episode basically took a pro-colonialism stance, that did not age well"
To me, if you have to constantly dodge landmines of things that irritate you in a show, then you're not the target audience.
It would be like me claiming that Marvel movies are right wing entertainment because of things like law and order, justice, etc. Then I'd have to go "but I hate this feminism inserted here, and this race pandering here" and on and on. It would be absurd for me to claim that Marvel movies are conservative if I'm having to constantly express my frustration with woke elements.
Likewise, while there are some philosophical underpinnings to the writers of Star Trek that are subversive and leftist, 98% of what comes through in practice is stuff that's refreshing to me as an old school Conservative Christian.
The very stuff they gripe about is some of the most appealing aspects to me about the show. The Star Trek writers essentially understood the nature of women and wrote them accordingly and realistically to reality as just one example.
And while they did have some left leaning tendencies that sometimes comes through, the thing people don't talk about is how influenced in Christian Conservative thinking even atheists were in their thinking back then by virtue of having grown up and lived in a Christian culture.
Modern Star Trek is an example of how post-Christian thinking has worked it's way into writing.
Well the original 60s Star Trek has so much thinking and viewpoint that was right in line with how normal people viewed things. Yes some liberal stuff got through, and they probably would have gotten away with more if they could have, but there are just generally character attitudes rooted in how men are supposed to be, and how women are supposed to be, and values rooted in at least the concept of objective morality, which they unknowingly are getting from the Christian society.
So I wouldn't claim that Star Trek is a Conservative show, but my point is that when I watch it, it's like a breath of fresh air, while the so called die hard Star Trek fans, have to scrape through with a fine tooth comb to extract the few things they like while having to give caveats about all the "problematic" things.
When there's a show with as much wokeness as the so-called "bigotry" that these Star Trek fans are finding in TOS, then I stop watching that show, I don't claim that I like it, and I certainly don't claim it for my side.
If Star Trek TOS was as "progressive" and "woke" as they claim, I'd be having a hard time watching it, instead of it being like a refreshing gulp of crisp water contrasted with the sewage that is modern day ideology and these "fan" comments wouldn't be filled with statements about how much this and that element are "tough to stomach" and "a product of its time".
It was progressive for the time, so not good enough for 2020's progressives.
Exactly, but even then, I'd say, it's considered progressive because people remember some of those stand out moments.
The half-black, half-white fight that was meant to be a "woah, racism is like stupid man....." and the interacial kiss.
There's like 30 episodes per season.
The majority of the show isn't left leaning or right leaning.
Including the messaging. Most of the time the messaging would be as simple as "having quiet wars where no cities get destroyed, but millions of people die is bad...war is supposed to be ugly which is why you try to avoid it". These "messages" weren't usually as much about pushing an agenda, as giving an intriquing conflict to figure out how to resolve where you have culture clash. And back then the good guys represented the values the typical American would have. Whereas TNG and later would be more "morality is grey and who are we to say their culture is wrong". Whereas Kirk and his team were more like, no....this is right, this is wrong, your society is stupid.
The aforementioned position on war being ugly by design would fall into the category of a common sense message that pretty much anyone would agree to. I think Sun Tzu would probably agree with that as a generally true statement even if you yourself are pro war.
90% of the show is apolitical, 9% a mix of ideas conservatives and liberals might debate on, and then a tiny, once in a while smattering of some, for the time, "progressive" (read subversive) moments that people remember and associate the show with that are actually few and far between.
So in that 90-99% of the time you're left with general writings and attitude of the time which is stuff that makes people with modern day sensibilities fall over into their fainting couches.
This, for that time, is like the modern equivalent level of having an explicit tranny sex scene with stickditch visible on screen on network television for your children to be watching with you. You see it as "just a thing" that happened that can be handwaved this easily because you are looking at it from a modern lens where such a thing is so blase.
If our modern discourse on "Woke/Progressive" was around back then this would be decried as "woke shit, complete garbage, irredeemable slop" on this alone. Instead its being judged on a scale where you can give every element a fair shake and then compare it to decide its totally not because X outweighs Y.
Like, you could do this for most of the Woke media we laugh at here. Compartmentalize the wokest part as "that thing that happened" and then write about the other elements that are more generalized at length, making it seem like its not really that woke at all actually! Its just a black guy in Japan, its just a girlboss, its only one tranny character.
If you like the series regardless, that's fine. Everyone here would be a liar to pretend they don't enjoy some property that is Woke to some extent. But by its own historical standards TOS was incredibly Woke, because it was absolutely pushing a Progressive agenda in those scant 1% moments.
I understand how much it was pushing the envelope for the time.
I'm not denying that.
The only difference is there's nothing bibically inherently immoral about an interracial kiss. There is something biblically inherently sinful about the tranny stuff.
If we're going to assess things by how big of a deal they were at the time, we could do that for a lot of stuff. Like it wa a controversy that the movie Psycho showed a toilet flushing. You're not supposed to have that be seen in cinema according to sensibilities of the day.
Does it being a big deal at the time mean it's on the level of tranny and wokeness? I don't think you would consider a toilet being shown as in that category.
Do I like the interracial kiss? Knowing what the agenda has been, no. Do I think it's on the same level because the audience reaction was the modern day equivalent that we'd have over something horrendous. No, I don't think it's on the same level objectively speaking.
By the same token, if the woke crazies were to become the majority, like a true majority and something conservative happened in a movie and it caused national outrage, that they considered subversive, that wouldn't give you insight into the morality of the thing itself.
You have to deal with it objectively outside of general audience reception.
Is a white man kissing a black woman objectively immoral? No.
Was it pushing the envelope of the culture. Yes.
Was that envelope pushing part of a larger destruction of the values of our society? Yes.
So I'm against it for those two out of three reasons.
However the tranny, gay and other blatant anti-white bullcrap fails all three categories.
You can stop at the very first question in their case. Is the tranny gay and anti-white stuff objectively bad? Yes.
So they aren't perfectly equivalent. I don't like it for what it represented, but again, a white man kissing a black woman is not sinful or inherently wrong unlike stuff today.
And there it is. The civnat elements that make Christianity a terrible religion that keeps making excuses for soulless, human-shaped beings.
You needed a very specific definition to create this differentiation. There are more metrics to immorality than inherent or biblical evil.
Pedos don't inherently have to hurt children. But we know that will happen to such an overwhelming amount of time we don't need to split the hairs on it.
Heck, black people existing in a country doesn't have to inherently increase crime and violence, but it always does and most of our "race politics" debates rest on this fact. Its one of the reasons why that scene is so Progressive and Woke to this day.
This is a foolish comparison. We are assessing it by both how big of a shakeup it was and the agenda that it is attempting to push. The interracial kiss was meant to be a statement reflecting the real world Civil Rights movement, which is why Shatner forcefully ruined every take to make sure it got on air, whereas a toilet flushing is not trying to make a message on Leftist Political positions.
Even if it did, its purely on a neutral action against censorship. We can squabble on the degeneration of American culture by allowing gross things on TV like that, but that's a whole much larger and less Left/Right definable discussion.
A white man giving in to his lust constantly with women to whom he is not married is objectively immoral thing regardless of who its with, based on "biblicaly inherently immoral" standards. Heck most times the bible refers to these acts it calls it "sexual immorality" specifically. This is your standard, so it fails before it even reaches the "black woman" part.
You've created a super specific metric to define things to defend a property you like from being criticized by the same standard you hold many other things to.
It was a Leftist political message shoved into a network television show to push a very controversial position onto the populace via media manipulation and social pressure. That makes it no different than the vast amount of gay and tranny stuff is right now, regardless of how you want to split the hair.
Its fine if you like Star Trek, heck its fine if you think the tarring of it goes too far in some ways. Literally everyone here has some Woke property we like anyway.
I have a similar rant about TNG. TNG is the apotheosis of Conservatism.
The world is reduced to an almost sub-technological state. They rebuild over centuries. Eventually, they overcome material restrictions on resources. What society do they build? A replica of 1980s America domestically and a colonial view of exo-worlds, with a veneration of the past that verges on worship. Sure, Riker flirts with a sex-less alien in one episode. But there are multiple episodes about the absolute, unquestionable sanctity of the nuclear family and private property rights. It's a Boomer wet dream and in no way "fully automated gay space communism."
I found you Razorfist!
I've never heard anyone except Razorfist use the term apotheosis.
Just kidding, unless you actually are Razorfist in which case my powers of deduction win again!
I use a lot of commas. I don't use that many commas.
Razorfist would say it's DS9 that's the apotheosis of Conservatism. :D
Good point!
Star trek could be considered progressive especially for its time but its extremely difficult to argue that it is woke. Wokeness consists of three key components:
-Hatred of tradition and the past to embrace new ways of doing things regardless of how flawed. This includes the destruction of beauty and history
-Minority worship and anti-white
-Emphasis on emotion over professionalism
All of these three components do overlap to some extent with each other (Hatred of tradition and history is often inspired by an emphasis on emotion and anti-white beliefs).
Star trek TOS wasn't anti-white and it respected history (the oft quoted scene where Abraham Lincoln says an oopsie word, apologies and is then told that he is not at fault comes to mind). The series regularly states that emotion and empathy are important but do not override duty and professionalism. The show did not appear to be hiring people based on immutable characteristics nor did it elevate minority characters in the cast as being above what the context would allow. Star trek clearly understood what beauty was so there's no need to even check if they were intentionally hiring horrifically deformed whales.
There is very little in Star trek TOS that could be called woke. An interracial kiss is hardly even all that noteworthy since interracial marriage was already allowed a year prior to the episode and received no noticeable backlash by the general public. It's most likely a product of the racially sensitive minds of our time that made this scene seem more important than it actually was. So we can't even argue this scene was progressive for its time when it was unanimously accepted by the people at the time.
Roddenberry was an Air Force pilot in WW2 then he joined the LAPD. He was "progressive" for his time but he believed in the power of institutions and society and tried to highlight and project the best parts of them into his shows.
Typical shitlib.
Shitlibs believe that to increase the power of institutions you need to destroy the power of the individual and this is always the preferred outcome. TOS and even TNG obviously didn't encode that idea.
To the extend that institutions and society empower an individual they're obviously a worthwhile investment.
Does TOS address any lore about what happened on Earth between the 1960s and whatever their future date is in the series?
The only lore I know as a casual is from the series that followed such as the fact that baseball died off with only a few hundred fans watching the final World Series.
And the whole utopia MacGuffin where some discovery (the machine able to materialize matter?) ending poverty/inequality/employment/warfare on Earth so that humanity was some unisex generic culture in leotards.
The vast majority of Earth's population was wiped out in WW3 and "the eugenics wars" which led to them building a United Earth government. Also French is a dead language but that's TNG lore. The utopia macguffin (replicators) isn't until after TOS either.
TOS was progressive in the sense that like most TV shows at the time there was always some writer who wanted to push commie propaganda and there was an executive who pushed back resulting in the version we got. ("Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one to be quite adequate.")
WW3 only killed about 37 million in Stark Trek.
Probably had more to do with the infrastructural and economic damage than raw population damage.
Between the 60s and First Contact, which is the earliest actual Star Trek material not counting time travel shenanigans or the Carbon Creek episode of Enterprise episode set in 1957, you have generally the same timeline until into the very near future.
Strange New Worlds more or less irons this out to the most confirmed order of things in it's pilot episode explaining how conflict started "with a fight for freedoms" and was called "the second [American] Civil War, then the Eugenics Wars, and then finally just World War 3".
A lot of the timeline has been retconned and moved around as TOS originally sets the Eugenics Wars as happening around the 1990s, which Voyager specifically draws attention to when they time travel back to 1997 and see it hasn't happened. SNW later explains this as various time travel incursions changing things in places but overall only postponing events which is why the Eugenics Wars still happens, albeit 40 years after originally mentioned, hence the more contempory near future event.
After that the various movies and shows take over filling in the details.
Replicators are a fairly late addition to the wider Star Trek universe only showing up from TNG onwards. Enterprise and TOS both still have food more or less prepared and stored at the time in varying ways depending on specifics like rank and setting. Archer being the Captain of Enterprise for example literally has a chef who preps his meals and those he might be dining with at the time for both personal/crew reasons as well as hosting alien visitors. The rest of the crew make do with a situation similar to vending machines or military mess halls with meals that can pick from but no options to input/request specific things that replicators permit.
Strange New Worlds isn't canon. They established TOS--->ENT as the main timeline and everything after with the Kelvin movies on is in an alternate reality.
SNW isn't in the Kelvin timeline.
Originally, TOS said that the near-apocalyptic Eugenics Wars and WWIII (which may have been the same thing) happened roughly in the 90s. Not much was ever said in TOS about how Earth had changed, other than that it had internal peace. It really wasn't that concerned with the topic. TNG is where it really went in on the utopian Earth thing.
I'm pretty sure the word "replicator" wasn't used at all in TOS or the original movies. Until STD, it was assumed that the replicator didn't even exist until the 24th century. Enterprise, which takes place in the 22nd century, makes it explicitly clear that even the Vulcans don't have replicators.
Most likely, it was a combination of cheap fusion power and Vulcan assistance that led to Earth solving all its problems. You can brute force a lot of problems with functionally unlimited energy. On a meta level, it was warp drive, because there's the whole Carl Sagan pseudo-spiritual thing about how space exploration is a higher goal for humanity - It's just a given that being space-faring and "evolving" are tied, at least for humanity.
You can read between the lines in TNG and the TOS movies to infer that the ME and the subcontinent were glassed in WW3. Given the lack of an Eastern or African cultural tradition or population, China and Africa probably didn't make it either.
That's mostly due to TNG being an American production and not authorial intent, but the breadcrumbs are there.
Even with the American production they still sink large parts of LA in 2047.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Hermosa_Quake
I was just saying that the 24th century Federation flagship having the same demographics as 1990 LA was a consequence of it being a TV show that needs to hire extras, not specific intent.
Not sure. I'm not deep into lore for Star Trek anyways.
I didn't get progressive vibes at all till nearly Voyager and Janeway was the WORST captain till the new stuff was made.
It was set in a post scarcity future so that clears up A LOT if the issues we have today and, ironically, hurts both leftist and communist values MORE than capitalism. Race also takes a backseat when you consider there are ACTUAL aliens you interact with.
I thought that TNG had some definite agenda and viewpoint that I didn't like.
It was much more "man is inherently good" centric.
Most of that show was Picard trying to prove mans worthiness and how deep down man will fix everything and be perfect beings because we're so innately special and good.
Basically a denial of the sin nature.
The original series absolutely at every turn acknowledged that man is flawed and didn't trust mankind's nature with many lines pointing out the dark side of the human nature, not in the past tense, but in the present tense.
As an example. The first episode of TNG is Picard vs Q basically arguing with Rodenberry's strawman of God and beginning the series long argument that man is great, whereas the first shot episode (it was aired out of order) of TOS is a guy who gets god-like powers and how that's a really bad idea and ends in disaster because man is prone to sin (even if they don't use the word sin explicitly).
That's one of many issues I had with TNG, but I'd say the majority of my issues with TNG stem from that philosophical difference in starting position.
If your baseline premise is faulty, every conclusion made by using that baseline premise is going to miss the mark.
But in general I would also say TNG just had a more feminine outlook in general. There was less masculinity to the thinking, acting, characterization, etc.
I'd say look at DS9 for that more, there you see how flawed people can REALLY be especially the lengths people within Starfleet will go to ensure victory when they are in a war with a on par enemy.
I don't think TNG has a particularly feminine outlook.
It was intelligent, which can be mistaken for being weak or not masculine but it's not. Like Picard is not weak or effeminate, he's diplomatic and measured.
In my favorite episode The Wounded, the writers are very careful to make the rogue captain right about everything and Picard also right about everything. In the end Picard basically tells the Kardasians 'fuck around and find out'.
TNG is like the first five seasons of Simpsons when they had actual smart people writing it.
I feel like the 60s progressive writers were slowly turning up the heat and trying to woo people to their side while being light on proselytizing. You see it with Roddenberry and Rod Serling. They clearly leaned left and it shows. They are also good writers and made really good shows.
I always felt like Star Trek and especially TOS/TNG/DS9/VOG were what left-wing (liberal) boomers envisioned peak society to become after everyone took-on their left-wing values. However, these values "progressed" past a point where these same boomers would have been happy with it.
Today, most of those boomers are living a fantasy and still think society is as "progressive" as what Star Trek portrayed. And unfortunately, the TV/Media has programmed these same boomers into progressing into the very kind of creature their former self would have detested.
A good episode to truly highlight the difference in values/beliefs is the TNG episode where SPOILER ALERT a Cardassian boy is being raised by a Bajoran family. The Cardassians are a warring civilization that conquered and enslaved the Bajorans. Over-time, the Cardassians relaxed their hold on the Bajorans and pursued a more peaceful relationship. The Bajorans held grudges though and this Bajoran family that was raising the Cardassian boy would teach the boy that he was from a race of evil colonializes that oppressed their people and he needed to live a life paying reparations for his ancestors choices despite the boy having no influence on the past. Anyhow, the episode is a near perfect parallel for White people = Cardassians and Bajorans are non-White races that see themselves victims of something White people did.
Immediately, in the episode the entire federation crew (the good guys whose morals the boomers thought everyone should emulate) realized that the Bajorans were abusing the Cardassian boy by teaching the boy that his ancestors were bad people. The boy was rescued from the Bajoran family and a family was found for the boy in which he would be taught to be proud of his race's lineage.
Yet, here we are 20+ years later teaching White people that their ancestors were bad people.
Also, I find it ironic that in Star Trek all the humanoid races have specific behavioral stereotypes that are significantly different for each race yet here we are today pretending all humanoid races on Earth are exactly the same... Klingons were all dark skinned and they were a violent aggressive race with voodoo-type symbolism. What were they trying to tell us?
Star Trek is overall a liberal/progressive show but it was written at a time when the liberal/progressive ideology was not wholly formed such that Star Trek ends up being "based" by accident without realizing it because the people who wrote it at the time understood what the truth was and wrote to an audience that still understood the truth of things.
The original series was progressive for an era with more popular contemporaries like Beverly Hillbillies, Gomer Pyle USMC, and The Andy Griffith Show. As you've already figured out, progression is relative. What was pushing the envelope in the 60's is now practically wholesome and family-friendly 60 years later.
Not sure where the their idea that "this is/wasn't for you" came from. Maybe saying you wouldn't be the target audience of the day, or mentally connecting it to the modern regressive mantra (the part before begging you to make it profitable).
The interplay between Spock and McCoy in TOS is arguably where this kind of writing got its start. Cold, unfeeling logic almost always beats out heated emotions or instinct. You'll also see blind faith against probability rewarded, to be fair.
The Andy Griffith Show was progressive for the time, maybe even more than TOS. Star Trek is only imagining a potential future. The lessons of Andy Griffith were meant for right now. (or back then anyway)
Yeah, Andy Griffith show is one of my favorites and I love it, but even in the first season, I pick up on some feminist messaging which is annoying.
They at least let the women look foolish at least half if not more of the time, but there is definite "see men!" moments in the show which I really don't like.
Just don't even invoke a battle of the sexes as a plot. I always hate it.
Sexes are complementary and even if the episodes resolution ends up with that conclusion, you still have the majority of the runtime dedicated to women competing with men and it's downright unpleasant to watch.
the gay space communism literature isnt gay or communist enough for them now.
It's an incomplete quote. "Star Trek was a progressive show"
The rest of it is "except for all the times it wasn't."
There were a few stand out episodes, but the rest of it was pretty middle of the road with no leaning one way or the other. Like many shows of their day, it was just supposed to be a show worthy of your time, not your political allegiance.
Wasn't gene rodenberry a member of the communist party at one point or am I misremembering that?
the original series was pretty good overall, honestly, and it had its own sense of humor.
I will say i've got questions about one of the throwaway jokes between kirk and spock where spock is talking about <insert monster of the week here> and how it toyed with them cruelly or something to that effect, and kirk makes an offhand comment about how "what little boy hasn't" <something implying kirk tortured small animals as a child> and then he walks away, and a moment later, spock makes the connection and his eyes get huge and he looks towards where kirk went out of the shot, and the episode ends, lol.
Pedophiles all like to claim that shows are secretly on their side because they confuse meanings or make up shit that isn't there. Kind of like how the Boys and their anti-corporatist and anti military industrial complex (both the pedophile party) is a progressive comic.