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Is it possible to be a misanthrope and a trekkie at the same time?
captclazorus
Member Posts: 377 Arc User
I dont know, I just am so repulsed by human nature, yet I am somewhat of a meliorist because I love ST. And looking at ST in relationship to the real world makes me hate the human condition even more because nobody except some Trekkies want to better themselves. I don't ever see us "evolving" to a state where we can accept one another. It would seem in our country that people have become much more accepting of other people, such as on a basis of religion. However, the newest religion, an ever growing religion, known as Science, is often discriminating against those of us who hold to a much more "antiquated" idea. And at the same time, do we risk going forward in the fear we may lose who we are now? And the lack of philosophy nowadays is upsetting. I do consider myself to be a philosopher, so I often find myself alone. Does humanity have the capability to move forward and not lose who we are? So often we have envisioned billions of dystopian futures, some becoming more and more of a reality. (How insightful Orwell.) But we live in an era where technology is compelled to be born and the majority is reliant upon those creations. The future is bound to be an aristocracy of the intelligent.
I feel like I could relate to Q. It is not that I hate humanity so much as it is I hate their condition. But hopefully, as long as somebody still reaches for the stars, perhaps we will find them.
"I love mankind, its people I can't stand." - Linus van Pelt
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RWtD2zYHT3Q/TM9n4jSq08I/AAAAAAAAApc/M7KvUVrYOFI/s1600/linusissmart.jpg
But still the viewpoint is somewhat paradoxical. I still admire human qualities in some aspect.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension,
how like a god!
We may not so quickly grow to be as great as Star Trek, but we might come to be like we are now. We leave that to a Higher Power though.
I feel like I could relate to Q. It is not that I hate humanity so much as it is I hate their condition. But hopefully, as long as somebody still reaches for the stars, perhaps we will find them.
"I love mankind, its people I can't stand." - Linus van Pelt
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RWtD2zYHT3Q/TM9n4jSq08I/AAAAAAAAApc/M7KvUVrYOFI/s1600/linusissmart.jpg
But still the viewpoint is somewhat paradoxical. I still admire human qualities in some aspect.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension,
how like a god!
We may not so quickly grow to be as great as Star Trek, but we might come to be like we are now. We leave that to a Higher Power though.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
Post edited by captclazorus on
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Yes. Although I prefer being called a fan of Star Trek rather than a Trekkie.
ask a silly question, get a silly answer time?
we cant even get out of the need and greed stage of our thinking much less our base instincts. we are savage cruel race that has destroyed so much in our short history, kill each other more times then there are humans on the planet and yet we find new and disturbing ways to dominate or kill. we dont have the capacity to eliminate the evils of society because someone doesnt like it because there is nothing in it for them. that there is a paradox in itself.
what a piece of work is a man, how dangerous without explanation,
how limited in capacity, in destruction and choas,
how cruel and unusual, how like a monster in the dark,
how like a devil!
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I must quite agree with you on the spirituality part. How I have come to know God, paradoxically, probably has been largely influenced by Star Trek philosophy. Of course, I am a Christian before I am a fan of anything, but no doubt I would not be working to aspire into the field of writing fiction had it not been for ST. I have so little respect for who Roddenberry was, but I do love his work.
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
"Man has mounted science, and is now run away with. I firmly believe that before many centuries more, science will be the master of men. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Someday science may have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race commit suicide, by blowing up the world. Not only shall we be able to cruise in space, but I'll be hanged if I see any reason why some future generation shouldn't walk off like a beetle with the world on its back, or give it another rotary motion so that every zone should receive in turn its due portion of heat and light." - Henry Adams
But...
"I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed in there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."-Boothby
"May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that 'faith' is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?"- W.H. Auden
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
Very good post, first of all.
Second of all, I wanted to single out the above quote from your post because this is a thought I have also struggled with for a number of years. I could go into a lot more detail... however, I am afraid it could start a "forum fire." So, I will just say... I consider myself a bit of an "agnostic Trek fan," partially due to the decline in quality in the franchise during the 2000-2006 era. Mainly, though, it had to do with the general ideas of Star Trek disconnecting with my own personal experience.
I heard the interview with David Gerrold from the Misson Log: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast a while back, though, and it made me realize that I'm not alone in how I think. You should check that interview out, if you haven't.
Honestly though, I don't think being a misanthrope and being a trekkie are mutually exclusive. If you identify as both, then you are both.
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Of course, Earth is also called 'Terra', and humans are also called 'Terrans' (courtesy of latin), so from one perspective, we are named after our planet.
A lot of series do actually call it Terra and us Terrans. Warhammer 40K is one, you have the Terran Empire in Star Trek, the Terrans in BSG (the original), the X Series... the list goes on. It's not radical to think that if humans went into space and became a Federation of Earth and different colonies that the name Terra could be adopted.
Although, I do agree. And Star Trek isn't the only series that falls into this trap; so does Babylon 5 and Stargate (though Stargate gets away with it a little easier). With B5, though, they have the luxury of the fact that they don't have a Universal Translator. France isn't called France in French, nor is French called French in French. In B5, each ambassador has to learn English (because B5 was built by Earth and operated by Earth Officers) and so it makes a degree of sense that they would have to use the English name for their worlds. Either that, or they applied the theory I suggested above; adopting their equivalent of 'Terra' as the name of their planet.
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Jean-Luc was being sincere when he quoted it, but then he was also trying to convince a near-omnipotent being to permit the human race to continue to survive.
Either way, if you try to use Hamlet's speech as a bar by which to measure actual humans, you're gonna have a bad time. We're neither paragon nor demon - we're a bit of both, by turns or at the same time. We are flawed, but we often try to do better, and slowly, bit by bit, we climb further out of the muck and toward the stars. (Compare the modern world, awful as it can be at times, to, say, the world in the twelfth century CE. The only places at "peace" were also being held in a sort of cultural stasis by terrible dictatorships. We're working on that, and getting better at it over time.)
But then we wouldn't have endearing Ferengi insults of "hoo-mons". :rolleyes:
I have a general distrust of our kind, and consider myself a trekker. Star Trek has many noble ideals, but the long and short of it is that I perceive Trek as an entertaining mythology, and not something we'll completely achieve. A modern, thought-provoking one, to be sure, but a mythology all the same. I can learn lessons from it, but then, I can also learn lessons from Gulliver's Travels. I intend to turn neither into something approaching a religion, nor even a life's goal for me and mine. That doesn't mean I intend to become the real Colonel Greene, or at least an aloof representative of the species. "Treat others as you wish to be treated" was around long before Trek, and is a great ideal which one can both achieve and pass on to others.
Of course, I'm also a confessional Lutheran, just like the OP (at least I assume he is, if he's theologically nerdy enough to use a Luther Rose as his avatar), so I think we're coming from about the same place here.
On the other hand, I like Star Trek because spaceships and aliens and energy weapons and explosions, not because of its philosophy. Trek philosophy is generally incredibly stupid. Humans are inherently evil, and that's never going to change as long as our universe exists.
Evil!?
Survivalist more than evil, doing whatever it takes to continue the species, it's all life does.
'Cept Pandas, Carnivors that are too stupid to eat meat
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Indeed, reconciling the world as it is "now" to a possible more evolved future, does greatly point up our flaws and lack of empathy, maybe, because we can see that we, already, have the potential to be better.
Perhaps it is the catalyst through which real introspection occurs and lasting changes are finally brought about.
Maybe someday we will care about each other, at least, as much as we do our selves.
Without entropy we would have a ordered state universe, no fluctuations in cosmic forces or random events, nothing would be created at all. We wouldn't be here so it's a good job it does :P.
But why shouldn't it? Everything about the cosmos suggests chaos is the natural state of any system (within certain laws).
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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IDIC my friend. Humans are capable of of being anything, even inhuman. To go with our wars and our atrocities, we have never lived in a time where so many had the personal freedom to express themselves and their ideals.
Death: Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They're not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?
That quote is from Hogfather. In many ways it sums up the human condition. We are stuck in the middle, always have been and always will be, lying to ourselves about ourselves because the alternative is horrifying. Your assertion that trekkies are the only ones who better themselves is a lie, and a very convenient one, that flies in the face of your own hatred of the human race as a generalization. The moment we leave that middle, when we become fully the angel and/or ape, is when we won't be human anymore.
Philosophy is a lie as well. People make value judgments on their own all the time on subjects of the mundane and metaphysical. You may disagree, but the person who harms or impairs you has made a choice to place their needs above yours. Your reciprocation is based on how you value your goals above or below theirs. Some call it survival, but at it's fundamental basis runs along the same lines as the proposed goals of philosophy.
In whichever case the universe is ultimately indifferent to us. It's up to each of us to find our meaning and come as close to our actualization of our inner selves as possible. It's all we can do. the rest is personal preference.
No doubt, those who despise reality the most would be the most likely to recreate it in hopes of betterment.
"Star Trek: Rubicon" Season 1, Season 2 A new era, a new time, a new crew, a new ship, a new mission...
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again."- Jean-Luc Picard
Is the Federation a true utopia as Roddenberry envisioned? Hell no, and there's a good reason for it. Sapient life forms are inherently imperfect, so any organization composed of them by definition also cannot be perfect. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Of course. Humans invented the concept of evil and we largely have decided that we are the only ones capable of committing an evil act in the first place. Seems like a rigged game to me.
No, it doesn't mean that at all.
On the other hand, it doesn't mean people will try, either. Personally, I can't see how we can get out of this mess without completely turning things upside down, and the fact remains that the people who want to change things are usually the ones that can't do it because they don't have the influence. (Quite possibly because they want to make the world a better place, which makes it a lot harder to get the power and influence required to get it over with)
Mind you, I'm not saying giving up is the best choice. It's probably a matter of timing - get power and influence, remember why you wanted to get it, apply power and influence to save the world. That or get convinced by somebody else to apply it for that purpose.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
I think a more accurate statement would be that we've decided that only sentient races are capable of committing an evil act. It's just that we probably don't know the difference because we haven't met any other sentient races yet.
Edit: My now-ancient signature doesn't match the content of my posts, does it...
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.