When I first conceived of this essay, I thought it would be much more critical of Picard. I thought that writers and producers had missed the spirit of Star Trek which had captured me from behind the couch years ago.
But as I reflected more, I realized that Star Trek changed because we did. It would be difficult for any writer in 2022 to imagine a utopian future. We lived through 9/11 and watched our own facade of stability and optimism collapse into bigotry and fear. We saw years of “hope and change” amount to nothing, and watched our leadership abandon its stated principles in favor of impotence and apathy.
This is a huge reason why it’s important for Star Trek to be written by leftists with revolutionary optimism. Roddenberry was more or less a Maoist and that sort of mindset permeates through the writing teams he put together and the culture he left behind.
That culture dissipated over time without a core to it, eventually flickering out with ENT. Rick Berman also sped that process up by driving away almost everyone involved with making Trek interesting because he’s a huge piece of shit.
In the present, a writing team of liberals will inevitably wind up creating doomer content about the future because they are suffering through the harsh material effects brought on by the failure and decay of their ideological project. They believe that the future must be bleak for everyone since it seems so bleak for the liberals of the imperial core.
TNG was possible in the 90’s because neoliberalism thought it had won and in their revelry, didn’t particularly notice that the utopian vision of Star Trek was based in fully automated luxury gay space communism.
This is a huge reason why it’s important for Star Trek to be written by leftists with revolutionary optimism. Roddenberry was more or less a Maoist and that sort of mindset permeates through the writing teams he put together and the culture he left behind.
That culture dissipated over time without a core to it, eventually flickering out with ENT. Rick Berman also sped that process up by driving away almost everyone involved with making Trek interesting because he’s a huge piece of shit.
In the present, a writing team of liberals will inevitably wind up creating doomer content about the future because they are suffering through the harsh material effects brought on by the failure and decay of their ideological project. They believe that the future must be bleak for everyone since it seems so bleak for the liberals of the imperial core.
TNG was possible in the 90’s because neoliberalism thought it had won and in their revelry, didn’t particularly notice that the utopian vision of Star Trek was based in fully automated luxury gay space communism.
Loved the article, great writing.
:dax-stoked:
He was? Yeah I get that he was way more progressive than most of his contemporaries but I'm not sure I follow here.
Majel Barrett went on record at one point saying he was a Maoist. But as far as I know, we only have her word for it, and only in one quote.