this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Came across this article, and it's a very interesting take on how Star Trek has changed with the times, and how modern audiences seem to have a harder time trusting institutions or imagining Trek's utopia.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Were the earlier series not focused on shared values to more or less a similar extent too?
Kirk has usually been given the reputation of being a rule-breaker, often ignoring Starfleet rules when they are in conflict with his values. Even off-camera (in DS9 I think) they attribute him 17 temporal violations, and I think he has been accused of violating the prime directive multiple times.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's a good point. I think this contrast between individual (often flawed) human judgment vs collectivist ideals has always been a theme. In TOS, you see Kirk calming McCoy's knee-jerk reactions almost every episode. In TNG, it was Yar or Worf. In DS9, probably Kira.

Even then, I would say the collectivist ideals (i.e. Starfleet regulations) were more often portrayed as overly-cumbersome in implementation, which leads to someone like Kirk violating the rules in place of the ideals that they stand for. For example, how many naïve (but well-meaning) diplomats do we see in TOS or TNG? However, rules being restrictive or imperfect in an effort to support larger agreed-upon morals can still be trusted, compared to corrupt power structures, which cannot.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Kirk doesn't really violate them, also you can tell that the writers don't really have the rules of star fleet worked out in season 1 or even 2.