-- [ From: David Christenson * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] --
>From past posts:
> >> >However, the world of Trek is one where the military-industrial
complex
> >> >controls just about everything. Yuck.
> >>
> >> Huh? I think this is the perception because the Trek stories focus
on the
> >> Trek characters, most of whom are in this military. However, it's
clear
> >> that there are a lot of other leveld to the Trek universe than the
> >> Federation. Is Earth controlled by a Starfleet Admiral? How about
Bajor?
My impression of Trek's universe, from my unschooled feminist
perspective: there is a military-style complex, but not military-
industrial, since manipulation of energy and matter have made industry,
as we know it, pretty much obsolete. (Some folks claim this will be
accomplished in the real world by nanotechnology, but I'm not holding my
breath.)
Star Fleet operates very much on the 20th-century military model, with
that same comforting clarity of structure, but apparently without as
much civilian control at the top. In one sense, the military model can
be better for the advancement of minorities and women, because it
acknowledges merit and effort more fairly than the corporate model,
where merit is judged more subjectively, and is often rated by one's
willingness to play golf with the boss. The military model is not immune
from abuse, however, as we know, and a lot of gays and lesbians found
out the hard way.
In our world, an expeditionary ship like The Enterprise might well have
a cultural split between the military and scientific wings, with each
keeping to itself - Antarctica comes to mind as a real-world example,
"The Thing From Another World" and "The Abyss" as cinematic examples.
But on the Enterprise, the culture is strictly military, while many
(most?) planets colonized by Federation folks have more of a scientific-
academic culture. Most of these scientific colonies seem dominated by
one genius type, usually a man.
Anyway, women seem to do O.K. in Star Fleet - in general, I mean, not
among the continuing characters - but they're still operating and
advancing within a male-created model of organization. For good or ill.
(I understand that, in creating the original series, Roddenberry felt
that an organization similar to that of a ship-at-sea, as in much
written SF, would be easily comprehensible to general audiences.)
-- David Christenson - ldqt79a@prodigy.com"Yet, throughout the book there exists the whole gamut of strange facts which we ourselves had been aware of for years, all carefully mustered to support a theory doomed by every process of logic to be forever incomprehensible." - Ray Palmer
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:37 PDT