Those divisions of left and right may seem totally arbitrary to some degree, but the divide always seems to hinge on defense of nation/race/ethnics on the right and the lack of that on the left (which makes the left internationalist by default), regardless of the validity of the claims.
Honestly, there is nothing wrong with one's sense of belonging to a specific people and wanting to protect that. That is both logical and honourable. Such is the way of Nature. It can only serve to favour love and respect and trying to destroy that, or the feeling of losing that, is what leads to great trouble.
I'd tend to say that because of the pitfalls of its own doctrine, communism can't be applied without fascism. Mind you, would you
not resort to a kind of fascism if you knew how insidious and powerful your enemy was and knew that it was present within many of your neighbouring political entities? Would you apply laissez faire at the risk of simply being too weak?
The UFP seems to be a monopoly on the political power and it's unclear how much leeway it leaves to other entities at the lower levels from what I have seen. It seems to be internationalism cranked up to galactic proportions, which is quite concerning if true.
Also, if the UFP can seize one's belongings without any strong legal force to oppose it, we couldn't honestly say that its citizens can enjoy true property as it would be more than a precarious illusion. There would be a good argument to be made that our occidental governments are truly communistic towards the plebe and the smaller businesses: they can seize your house and car very easily and they routinely take our money by force through yearly or monthly renewed taxation without asking once if you agree or having you renew any kind of contract on a regular basis. By any means, that's stealing.
Only Dow Jones / NASDAQ / F500 companies and fiscal safezones enjoy a greater freedom and although they are required to pay tax, they evade all that and the governments are complicit of this fraud to a large degree.
This ranting aside, if it were seen that in the end, when it comes to property, the individual or non-state group would always lose against the UFP, then
property within the UFP should be considered illusory.
Up to you to decide if that's an applicable ground for fascism or not. Doubtful, maybe.
Relaxed utopia is what seems to best describe the UFP to the casual watcher of Star Trek. The problem is that although looming as the UFP appears to be, it's also ubiquitous. It seems to be much more than some kind of auxiliary United-Nations-in-Space thing, although to me it appears to be opt-in and proposes advantages and services to those who belong. What matters is the rules
inside and what the UFP stands for.
Sending ships to civilizations it deems worthy of getting inside the UFP may look like advertisement which ends with a letter on a desk and a box to tick with a signature. What are the pressures to those who refuse, and for them, what can they do within the UFP?
One could cite the Ferengi, but they are merchants and have laws mostly centered on wealth acquisition, ethics be damned. Above all, they are age old specialists in the trade of a material that the UFP cannot replicate.
2046 wrote:Beyond that, I wouldn't say there is evidence of government-directed conformist pressure. I certainly wouldn't take that view. Indeed, it seems to me that such a thing would require as a goal a certain identity to strive toward, be it nationalist or racial or what-have-you, like Nazis with Aryan whatever. But even that can be taken too far . . . after all, American 20th Century TV could be construed as a conformist pressure pot trying to turn everyone into Ward Cleaver under governmental oversight by the censors, by that logic.
It's probably more subtle. There are various models you can attack yourself to, but they all belong to the modern American culture that is the tenet of what is exported worldwide through globalisation. Consider the quantity of shows and movies exported to other countries and how many, say, Polish movies or shows you get to watch. In fact, for example, even when some European movie turns out to be a success, the American audience is isolated from it and will see a version shaped by the culture. That is, a remake. Unless the identity of the movie is too strong so much that it couldn't be reformated.
sonofccn wrote:
More troubling than Picard’s comments about destiny, I would think, are his equating “need for possessions” as part of mankind’s “infancy” it has outgrown in the 24th century. Besides being a touch hypocritical, Picard’s family still owns a vineyard, it makes me twitchy on how the Federation views private property. Do they view it as a cornerstone of civilization or an indulgence citizens are allowed provided they behave?
It is not only immensely hypocritical but although delusional. The only way you could tone down the claim is to say that by belief, one has to understand belief in something that would and could never be observed nor demonstrated and verified, even if humanity were to reach godhood. In other words, a belief in something that could never be. Now, on the other hand, one could argue that belief in supernatural stuff is nothing but the belief in weird physics which are yet to be explained by science, right?
Anyways, as I said in another thread, humans will do anything to give a sense to their lives in a finite universe where property is a rule and has meaning. Replicators only push that reality away and build some kind of illusion. People would do anything to
own something unique and dear to them. Some would even do that to trade what would be deemed rare –unreplicable– items, from food to art.
In fact, those words from Picard sound like nothing more than Space Communism 101. If you had to limit yourself to the words of this respectable figure, there'd be a strong case of the UFP being communist. After all, there were private ventures within the USSR too to some degree, and that's precisely that "some degree" that the most hardcore fans of Trek dig up to make a case against accusations of communism.
Also, the entire struggle of man is between his need to belong to a group and the inner need to be unique, to cultivate individuality (and today many people do that so stupidly; e.g. the names they give to their kids or the "original" spelling they use for classical names).
Now it is true I could be totally mischaracterizing Picard and the Federation. He was stressed and Offenhouse is a grade “A” jerk. I freely admit I could be suffering from preconceived biases or misconceptions. Nor do I want you to think that I’m arguing that the Federation is some Soviet gulag. I would agree from what we see the Federation is a peaceful, prosperous democracy with certain Republic leaning tendencies. But I do think it has a strong conformist streak, which in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, and a strong adherence to a set worldview as opposed to truly championing a more Ayn Rand inspired individuality.
How much individuality is there to be found when you cannot, or perhaps even more gloomily, don't
want to possess anything?
Are you some kind of ant?
I am open to counter examples but Picard does have a slight tendency to say these rather leftist polemics like in the “Neutral zone” or in “Who Watches the Watcher”, {TNG-03}, were he comes down fairly hard on belief makes you stupid and irrational.
Which is totally fruity when you remember all the dialogues he has with Q (see
here), notably when he reveals that he BELIEVES that humanity shall become gods!
I would argue that to Picard, and by extension the Federation, the “liberty” of the people Acamar Three to live free of the violence and cultural backwardness of the Gatherers was less important than an almost tribal view of ethnicity. Picard seemed to take it for granted it was good and proper that all Acamarians be represented under the same government, solely because they were of the same race, regardless of how much their societies had diverged in the preceding century.
Way to kill diversity. Mind you, he's just replicating what the federation called the USA does, wherein none of the states can really and authentically grow their own cultures. And the same goes on in the other union on the other side of the Atlantic, that other federation called the European Union. I think the effets are even more devastating over there because those nations have a lot of history to erase before one can mould them into one super-entity.
As to conformity requiring a goal of identity to work towards, I would argue that the Federation has a central identity in the trek’s “New Man” who isn’t obsessed with material things and strives for social dogoodery. Much like the Culture, there driving impulse seems to be to make everyone like themselves. To have Cardassians sit on the Federation Council, as Eddington said.
-respectfully, sonofccn
Would you have more evidence of that? It's terrifying. It would mean the UFP only exists to grow. Is there any kind of founding charter, even since ENT, that presents the nature and point of existence of the UFP to be to unite all different species?