User blog:Lindsay Lohan Phoenix/Star Trek: Concepts of Utopia and Dystopia

This will be my 1st official blog for Memory Gamma so I must carefully choose my words carefully (also my spell check doesn't hurt either) but recently Ive really been getting into Dystopian fiction and films. Actually ive been watching these sort of media for a while Ive been looking more into it after purchasing a copy of 1984 and began growing a small fascination with the concepts of Utopian and Dystopian societies and none other then Star Trek and Memory Gamma itself is an better example for both of these concepts. Lets look at a comparison of both forms of society within Trek Canon and fanon.

1st lets start with...

1. Utopia
The main speculative fiction concept in Star Trek is that of utopia as was 1st conceptualized by the great writer and philosopher Plato and then later expanded and named by Sir Thomas More basically by its modern definition is a society that has fully embraced the concept of true equality and maintain a general pacifist attitude (although its citizens are all ready to fight if need be). Along with this The evils of society, eg: poverty, starvation, and misery, are all removed. Also either the concept or actual process of an monetary trade system is eliminated thus removing the before mentioned poverty along with general greed and the impediment of technical evolution mainly due to the lack of monetary funds and resources. Also another mark is the combined social and moral balance of technology with humanity which manages to further advance the average standard of living and comfort for every individual (regardless of species). However one counterpoint (besides Bookworm1138's thoughts on the treatment of Orions) is the meeting of 19th Century writer and satirist Mark Twain with the crew of USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) in one TNG episode. in the episode Twain sees the Enterprise interior and crew after the ship travels into the past. While being shown this and being given a short explanation on what human society in the 24th Century has become Twain quickly doesn't believe this and rationalizes that any society with this much control over this much technical and military power must have some sort of absolute control or hold over the ships alien crewmembers essentially making them slaves. While the crew tries to convince Twain that this is not the case, Twain politely refuses to believe other wise (this however can be construed in a real-world sense that this was simply the opinion of a man from an post Civil War society that could not conceive of either an American or global society evolving past the concepts of monetary dependence and an European imposed societal system of Upper and Lower classes.)

Never the less Star Trek on an overall is one of the perfect examples of what is either considered an Technological or Scientific Utopia that many real life scientists strive for. However throughout most of the series (and all or most of its spinoffs) long history the shows characters never categorize themselves or the society they live in as "Utopian" only as a society that was far better then it was before and striving to become better so it would not ruin or deconstruct the societies of other species.

Also as they say all is not as peaceful or there is "Trouble in Paradise" within Star Trek mainly in the sense that while "World Peace" has been achieved (a general concept which has been strived for and been made as an ultimate humanitarian goal by numerous philosophers, social activists and religious leaders since before the birth of Christ himself and far afterwards to the present day.) externally outside of the Earth a large portion of the rest of the Galaxy is still under some sort of hostile rule from some sort of dictatorship or conquering force or armada. However in fairness many people have wished or prayed for universal peace, although its most likely that this hope is more so directed towards Humanity and not the actual universe itself mainly due to the fact that most (not even in Star Trek before Vulcan 1st Contact) haven't the belief in other worlds populated with sentient or complex thinking species. It is due to this main flaw within the Trek Utopian concept that war and general conflict for Humanity is seemingly near endless and unending burden that if does not come from within then does come from some sort of malevolent or literally Alien minded external force.