This year, Star Trek celebrated its fiftieth anniversary—a remarkable achievement for an entertainment franchise whose beginnings came from a failed television show that only lasted three seasons. But even more remarkable than Star Trek’s longevity is its social commentary throughout the decades.
Before you non-fans run away, I promise this won’t get too Trek-y.
Today I want to focus on what we Trekkies/Trekkers call “The Original Series,” the late 1960s television show that featured William Shatner as the young and impetuous Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as the coldly logical Commander Spock. Its commentary on the civil unrest of the 1960s is well known, even to the uninitiated: particularly for the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren,” which, until recently, has been recognized as airing the first interracial kiss on television. (Something so controversial, of course, could only be done under the guise of alien mind control forcing Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura to kiss.). Many other episodes touched on other issues of the day, such as “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” which portrayed an alien conflict between two races that were largely the same but for the location of black and white colors on their faces, or “Balance of Terror,” which introduced the Romulans and carried with it commentary on the Cold War.
But for all of its great social commentary, I think it’s the relationship and portrayals of Kirk and Spock that reveal the most to us of who we are as humans, what we are as a people, and how we view our politics.
The Chocolate and Peanut Butter of Interstellar Travel
James T. Kirk and Spock (only one name) shared a bond that lasted decades, through life, death, and rebirth (and even again, if you’re counting the J.J. Abrams reboots). They saved countless planets and the universe many times over, and nearly always prevailed successfully in the end.
The key to their relationship, from a narrative standpoint, was the near opposite temperament and backgrounds of each character. Kirk, an Iowa-born farm boy, was a passionate, ambitious, risk-taking leader; Spock, the super intelligent product of a race of emotion-free, coldly logical beings, despite having a human mother—a small but important character flaw from the viewpoint of Vulcans, but a welcome dose of literal humanity to us Terran-born audiences.
The two greatly complimented one another, a fact that made [spoiler alert] Spock’s death in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan all the more painful. Kirk’s impetuousness at times required the tempering advice of Spock to get Kirk’s most emotional reactions in check. But let us not be fooled—this relationship was one that always ended with Kirk in the driver's seat. He was always in the supervisory role; indeed, despite Spock’s utmost competence he was nearly always not only Kirk’s subordinate, but also an officer who could never quite advance beyond that advisory role. Even in the movies, when he had attained the rank of Captain, he was still simply Kirk’s right-hand man, rather than a a office blossomed on his own.
What Their Relationship Tells Us About Politics
We can look at the political landscape and see a lot of Kirk and Spock in our every day interactions. I don’t mean the political system just as in the structures of government we have established in the United States, but also more broadly how our societies develop and adjust to the interlocking and ever-changing needs of our citizens.
Logically, we understand that rule-by-technocrats would probably produce the best results. Policies have consequences, so a technocrat tries to understand those consequences, and adjust for the unintended ones to continue to improve policy outcomes. Just as Spock would look at the facts and probabilities of situations and determine the most beneficial outcome.
But as the Star Trek narratives tell us, logic alone cannot dictate our actions. Even the most logical beings in the universe, the Vulcans, have to deal with their emotions, whether through a cultural adjustment (watch the episode Amok Time if you want to understand more) or in Spock's case, through a simple failing of ancestry. So, too, does our political system. Time and again, anger and fear have proven themselves to be the most motivating factors in effectuating change at any level. Speaking from experience, I can point out that no one comes to a town board meeting when they are happy with the direction of the government and want to tell you what a great job you are doing; only those that are angry or annoyed and feel the need to complain are the ones that show up and try to influence the direction of their policy makers.
The 2016 presidential election in some ways fell along these same lines. Though there was certainly a lot of factors that went into the eventual outcome, one of the threads that was often discussed was Hillary Clinton’s focus on policy and her failings as a candidate, juxtaposed with the emotional chords that Donald Trump was able to strike among an angry electorate. Ultimately, just as the Kirk world view was almost always victorious over Spock’s, Trump’s emotional connection with voters prevailed over the Clinton technocratic regime.
The Kirk/Spock Battle in Ourselves
“You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They’re the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!”
- James Kirk, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Though Star Trek V is unarguably the worst of the movie franchise, this particular refrain has always stuck with me. In short, the crew of the Enterprise has their most painful moments of their lives excised from their psychological baggage by an emotional Vulcan who happens to be the half-brother of Spock. When given the opportunity to have that pain washed away, Kirk adamantly disagrees with losing it, recognizing that he is who he is because of the things he has gone through.
As I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve been thinking a lot about what, ultimately, I want people to get out of it. In thinking about these issues over the last couple months, I keep coming back to the idea that our politics are not easily changeable. In fact, they shouldn’t be easily changeable, because there are important issues that come from many sides that can not be discounted, and the debate and electoral fight we go through are important. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we as individuals can do about it.
So while I agree with the Kirk philosophy, that it’s important to maintain our pain and channel it in ways that we can do good, we must also be mindful of two important factors:
Our emotional responses to issues and events are important because of how they make us feel. But there are others that we live with and interact with that have very different emotional responses, ones that are equally as valid as our own concerns.
Recognizing that tension, it is important that we turn to the technocratic side of the equation, exploring how to move the system forward in ways that attempt to meet the needs of all sides. We should remember, though, that technocracy does, at times, lose or ignore some of the important emotional impacts of policy, and we should try to strike a balance.
The logical technocrat would remind us that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. But in a constitutional republic that protects minority rights, where emotions can run deep and have a significant impact on electoral outcomes, sometimes the needs of the few are paramount. We must remain cognizant of this fact, and always open to moving society into new frontiers that achieve these multiple goals.
Only then can we live long and prosper.
OK, sorry, that was a lot of cheesy Trek references to close. But I know you Trek fans are appreciating them.