Writing in the New Atlantis, Alan Rome takes issue with the now-stunted horizons of Star Trek as manifested in the new series Star Trek: Discovery. Rome charts the rise and fall of Star Trek in tandem with the contemporary forms of liberalism each series embodied. First was the confident, assertive, Kennedy-era Captain Kirk incarnation of the late 1960s (The Original Series). Then came the universalist, “End of History” Captain Picard of the late 1980s and 1990s (The Next Generation). Some of the TNG spinoffs, such as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, dabbled in post-colonialist forms of liberalism. Even so, Discovery’s pessimistic, dead-end, identity-politics-obsessed modern version came as something of a surprise, despite matching considerably the tenor of modern liberalism. As Rome puts it,
The most prominent current series, Discovery, shows no interest at all in discovery, or in science, wonder, or philosophical reflection. It represents a new type of cultural myopia and chauvinism, different from that seen in The Original Series in its total closure to worlds outside the ones run by its protagonists. Indeed, it seems not even to recognize the existence of alternative conceptions of the world. . . .
While Discovery’s third season is set in a distant future where the Federation has all but collapsed, the first two seasons are set during the supposed historic height of the utopia, and yet lack any recognition of it. The show evinces no interest in any positive aspects of the Federation, nor do its characters seem to be driven by any higher principles or ideals. Discovery has quietly abandoned the moral superiority of the future: The barely-developed characters are almost entirely unlikeable, highly flawed, some explicitly mentally ill, others ill-tempered, bickering, ruthless, or vain. . . .
Whereas in the earlier waves of Star Trek the ideals of equality and freedom had triumphed and become permanently available to all, these ideals are now fragile and ephemeral, relative products of a particular time and place, lacking any real grounding and perhaps even any desirability. They are under siege. . . .
Now, despite having written about Star Trek for National Review, I am not what is known as a “Trekkie.” I have seen a decent number of episodes of TOS and TNG, as well as several movies from the former and one from the latter. So I cannot speak to the quality of Discovery. But, at the risk of violating K-Lo’s ancient proscription, I would like to speak to a part of Star Trek that I do know, one that Rome’s essay touches upon.
Rome writes that one of the central tensions of all of Star Trek is that between the utopian aspirations of the world created by the United Federation of Planets, a kind of “space U.N.” that is also post-scarcity, and the lingering remnants of either (1) atavistic human foibles or (2) the designs of other alien races outside of the Federation (which often resemble No. 1). Luxuriating in utopia all day just isn’t very exciting. Thus, in my experience of its various media, Star Trek is at its most interesting when emphasizing this tension. Often, this requires setting heroes directly against such forces. As Rome writes,
Star Trek manages to cheat history of its finality. Post-historical humanity no longer internally faces interminable political conflict, but it does externally in the infinite number of other species and regimes of the galaxy that remain incorrigibly “historical.” The republic must eternally renew itself in its confrontation with outsiders.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, for example, forms around a classic quest for vengeance on the part of Khan, its villain. Calling it an “old Klingon proverb,” thereby tying himself to one of the other sources of primal resistance to utopian designs in the Star Trek universe, Khan asserts that “revenge is a dish best served cold.” (“And it is very cold . . . in space,” he adds.) Khan is a figure out of Earth’s past, but he combines his primeval qualities with a genetically enhanced strength and intelligence, making him a threat from two worlds. Defeating him requires the crew of Kirk’s Enterprise to access some timeless heroics and virtues of their own, ones that we would easily recognize regardless of the setting. Thus does Khan become by far the most interesting and compelling foe for Kirk and Co.
In an interesting twist on this, Picard’s main antagonist is not a man but a species: the Borg, a galaxy-bestriding, techno-organic assimilative hive mind that absorbs then destroys the individuality of every other race it comes across. “Resistance is futile,” goes the Borg’s famous taunt. And yet Picard and the Federation do resist, at great cost; a memorable arc from The Next Generation sees Picard assimilated by the Borg. In Star Trek: First Contact, Picard faces the Borg again; this time, he is the one motivated by vengeance as he seeks to reverse a Borg time-travel scheme that has assimilated Earth centuries before the Federation even comes into existence. In facing the Borg, our heroes once again assert more old-fashioned virtues and individuality. And, arguably, they do so facing a dark mirror of their own universalist designs. A character in DS9 makes this explicit, telling an officer of the Federation, “You know, in some ways, you’re even worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You’re more insidious. You assimilate people and they don’t even know it.”
Given that Star Trek always depended, somewhat paradoxically, on this tension, it is not surprising that current versions of the show have found it somewhat tricky to navigate, and have instead once again resorted to a more familiar and more human backdrop. After all, not even a warp drive will get rid of human nature.
