Star Trek is a dangerous, denialist lie that is about hope in the future. We cannot hope for a future without injustice where Earth is a paradise without first addressing injustice here and now. Then we can talk about utopia. I realize not all science fiction does what Trek does. I also realize Star Trek…
Category
The Orville
Lieutenant Alara Kitan and Ideal Leadership (Science Fiction and Charles W. Mills’s Critique of “Ideal Theory” Part I)
Charles W. Mills begins the wide-ranging discussion in his 2005 essay, “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology” by clarifying that feminist thinkers have expanded the larger discussion of ethics in rapid and unifying ways (165). I have completed a list, however incomplete, of feminist readings that might be useful to some of you who, like me, are…
The Orville’s “Mad Idolatry” and Star Trek: Voyager’s “Sacred Ground” as a Lesson in Explanatory Ethics
In The Orville’s “Mad Idolatry” (2017) Kelly Grayson violates initial contact protocol with a lesser developed species to assist a girl who had hurt herself. Kelly heals the girl and before she becomes aware of the seriousness of the situation, villagers arrive behind her and witness the act. In time, Kelly becomes worshiped as a…
Complaint Memo: Star Trek and Climate Change – Ways to Improve
These are just a few short notes that I already made elsewhere. Given time I will elaborate on them more completely, perhaps even individually, but I thought I should post this memo here as well. In the Star Trek universe we learn in the Voyager episode, “Future’s End” (part 1), that most of Los Angeles…
Anti-Utopian Leadership
What is clear is that utopian science fiction offers us insights into what can be, and dystopian science fiction presents the most abysmal than can or is likely to come to pass. There is a third pillar I would refer to as anti-utopian. Anti-utopian, like to previous two pillars just mentioned, again, focuses on what…
Without Capitalism Rain Robinson Would Still Be An Astronomer
Lysella: So Wait. If nobody has to have a job then why do you guys all work? Cmdr. Kelly Grayson: The right work can be satisfying for other reasons besides compensation. It’s funny. With all the technology and all the different alien cultures this is still the part that newcomers always have the hardest time…
Societal Progress, Anti-Capitalism, and the Vision for a Culture of Emancipatory Human Rights
To paraphrase Walter Benjamin, violence in society exist to protect the law. The law exists to protect those in power. It falls within any society’s rights and responsibilities to protect themselves from a government of institutionalized violence. A change in power structures is not as far-fetched as many would have us to believe, limited by…