Liberal Humanism in Outer Space!

Liberal humanism is a philosophy that recognizes the value of human agency. It prizes individualism, critical thinking, and the possibility that human nature will transcend all differences. Many elements of Roddenberry’s philosophy align with this set of ideas, and there are also parts that move away from the basics of liberal humanism and complicate the picture. For example, it is very clear that Star Trek is a liberal humanist portrait of human potential. The portrayal of what humanity can accomplish when unfettered by war, economic necessity, or prejudice is at the core of the Star Trek universe and is essentially liberal because of its focus on individualism. But it is not strictly liberal in the bourgeois conceptions that existed in the 19th or 20th centuries. What defines individualism in the future? We can’t understand the individuals in Star Trek as being defined by their abstract economic value. In a post scarcity economy, these barometers of individualism have been eliminated - no consumption, competition or accumulation.

On the other hand, the portrayal of humanity is also never explicitly communal or based in Marxist ideas. The view of the future is still resoundingly individualist. This is an idea for a longer discussion in a future newsletter, but Star Trek contains no theory or conception of socialist revolution. The arrival at a communal future arrives not through the victory of workers overcoming capitalism but a much fuzzier version of the ultimate victory of humanist values. Where humanity arrives in the 23rd century does share much in common with the greatest dreams of a socialist victory, with a society prizing human freedom and capacity. Stripped of its bourgeois economic imperatives, what is left behind for Star Trek is a unique humanism that exists in a fictional space as imaginary as dilithium crystal propulsion or transporter technology. But this is not to say that the vision is not interesting or significant! The ways that Star Trek expresses humanism tell us so much about how we imagine the future and also how we see the present.

Roddenberry’s humanism contained some essential planks. He was a secularist, believing that religion would cease to become a driving force in society. His future included equal treatment based on race and gender. As I will discuss down the road, this view couldn’t always escape Roddenberry’s own limitations and the artifacts of 1960s America. His humanism also involved scientific rationalism and environmental responsibility. And finally, probably the greatest contribution in how he saw the future, Roddenberry introduced the idea of “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations (IDIC). This was the idea that all differences in every individual and culture should be celebrated rather than feared or avoided. But Gene Roddenberry attributed this element of the philosophy to the Vulcan culture rather than humans. IDIC was their philosophy, held out to humans as an achievable dream.

There’s a link here to what I was writing about in the last newsletter about socialism and optimism. Roddenberry didn’t identify as a socialist, but this part of his philosophy for human potential links him to the same older tradition that Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin were writing about regarding the necessity for optimism about the future of human capacities. Maybe Roddenberry deserves more credit than he gets in this respect. His contribution is part of a thread that reaches back to pre-Marxist utopians and then encompasses Marx himself in the 1844 Manuscripts in his more classically liberal humanism.

There are some points of friction in the Star Trek universe between the idea of infinite diversity and the 20th-century liberalism that created it. While utopianism always reflects the ideologies of its creators, some utopian ideas scale into the future better than others. The creators of Star Trek often recognized this explicitly as a way of saying that the 20th century didn’t come up with all the answers, that sometimes we got it wrong. Just one example of this happens in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Kirk and his crew dine with the Klingons ahead a peace conference between the two warring cultures. The Enterprise crew stumbles when Chekov decides to wax poetic and declares “We do believe all planets have a sovereign claim to inalienable human rights.” The daughter of the Klingon Chancellor replies, “Inalien! If only you could hear yourselves. Human rights - the very name is racist. The Federation is no more than a homo-sapiens-only club.” Still, Chekov and the crew are trying to suggest a more optimistic and peaceful future.

There’s so much more to say here, particularly when we consider The Original Series and the ways that it used utopia to reify the idea of liberal humanism at the end of a tumultuous 1960s. It brings us back to questions about what utopias are for, and what Star Trek was for both from the perspective of Roddenberry and the other creators.

My interpretation of the role of humanism in Star Trek is as a critical device that is employed in different and shifting ways over the 50-year history of the franchise. In The Original Series the humanism at the core of the show positions itself in contrast to 1960s society. The utopian vision of the future helped viewers to see the present in new ways, to process the civil rights movement, to understand their own changing place in the modern world. By the time The Next Generation arrived 20 years later, the focus of this criticism had changed in that utopia both reflected and critiqued society but also the shortcomings of its own vision. It was a revisionist take on the history of the future that Roddenberry started writing in the 1960s.

A simple way to think about this is that Star Trek could begin to critique itself. It could identify and acknowledge through narrative that what looked like utopia to the creators of the 1960s had changed by the 1980s. This self-criticism deepened in Deep Space Nine in the 1990s with an even more incisive exploration of the failures and complications of utopian societies.

The humanist tradition is very old, predating liberalism itself in utopian thought. Thomas More’s Utopia contains elements of it along with many other utopian texts from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. This week I have been reading Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, written in the early 1600s and published posthumously in 1626. 500 years before Roddenberry, the English philosopher imagined a humanist utopia that shares a great deal with how Star Trek created a rational and humanist future.

The humanist utopia posits that there is a better place where humanist values can flourish. The literary description of that utopia is an expression of humanism shaped to a fictional society. In the example of Star Trek, that other place is the future, the fictional Federation society of the 23rd and 24th centuries. Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis imagined that the better place was an island discovered by Europeans. Sailors lost at sea stumble upon Bensalem and are welcomed to stay.

Bensalem is a society of rational deeply moral humans. The society is highly organized with an emphasis on moral and ethical behaviour. The government is focused on the welfare of its citizens. It is also a highly religious society, focused on truth, piety, and morality.

The feature of Bensalem that shares the most with Star Trek’s future is an institution on the island called Salomon’s House which is the centre of learning and scientific discovery. It creates a vision of the possibilities of the scientific method and the benefit to society that can follow from a devotion to discovery and knowledge. This idea predicted the structure and function of the modern research university. It is a meditation on the importance of the scientific method. Although Star Trek often appears to be a show about the space military or the space navy, it’s creators are often careful to remind viewers that the mission of exploration is based on scientific discovery. When the cast of Lower Decks goes back in time to the Strange New Worlds era they revere the crew of the Enterprise as “those old scientists.” Spock is above all else a scientist. Captain Kirk maybe less so. But their shared mission is always discovery, yet another plank in the humanist values of the show.

“Go Back!”

The humanist view in Star Trek didn’t remain static between the 1960s and today. The Original Series of the 1960s portrayed a human utopia that was somewhat in the background of the show - taken for granted and unchallenged by the narrative events of the average Star Trek episode. When The Next Generation premiered in 1987, it was 20 years after The Original Series, but 75 years later in the Star Trek universe.

Roddenberry’s pilot for The Next Generation did something interesting with the idea of a humanist utopia: he put it on trial. The writing in the pilot was split between Roddenberry and Dorothy C. Fontana. Fontana wrote a fascinating episode about a mysterious outpost, Farpoint, with a secret that the Enterprise must discover. Roddenberry wrote a completely different episode and joined it with Fontana’s script. His contribution introduced the all-powerful Q, who intercepts the Enterprise on its maiden voyage into deep space and puts Picard and his crew on trial for the crimes of humanity. Roddenberry’s rewrite asks viewers to consider a philosophical question at the heart of Star Trek: can humans be better than they are today? Do we have the capacity for growth and self-understanding to overcome our worst instincts?

Viewers had only just met Captain Jean-Luc Picard and in his first scenes with Q they see him at his most self-righteous. Picard assumes that the accomplishments of humanity are self-evident - that their presence in the stars proves they had overcome a barbaric past. Q’s response is essentially post-colonial, arguing that humanity is a child-race that is incapable of change. It’s colonial past is it’s colonial future. Q presents evidence of humanity’s savagery - our warlike history of colonialism and conquest. Once Earth solved its most pressing social and economic problems and conquered space travel humanity then brought its worst instincts to the stars and repeated the same old pattern. Q charges, “finally reaching deep space, humans found enemies to fight out there too. And to broaden those struggles, you again found allies for still more murdering! The same old story all over again!”

This is a stark contrast to how humanity is portrayed in The Original Series. Q suggests that humanity’s murderous and colonial instincts are not in the past, they merely changed and segued seamlessly into its still murderous future. Picard is stung by this because he can’t see it in himself - he is the representative of humanist enlightenment. He’s read and understood the classics! He is Captain on the flagship of Starfleet, he’s supposed to represent humanity’s best. Roddenberry presents the question of whether the future is utopian or dystopian? Q stands at the centre of this question and with his incredible powers he dangles the choice before us. Is better possible for humanity? Will it be utopia we strive for? Star Trek: The Next Generation was a huge step forward because it started to recognize that we couldn’t take this for granted and that humanity had immense trials facing it still.

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This newsletter’s Main Viewscreen was showing Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. It answers the question how do you make a great Star Trek movie without its most recognizable and beloved character? You make a movie about the character. The entire third Star Trek film deepens our understanding and appreciation of Spock, almost entirely in his absence given that he died at the end of the second film.

The search for Spock referred to in the title contains a lot of different meanings. As with all of the Star Trek features, this one revolves around Shatner’s Admiral Kirk. While The Wrath of Khan was about a depressed Kirk searching for the meaning of his life, The Search for Spock is really about what Spock means to Kirk. His death in the previous film leaves an irreparable scar at Kirk’s core. When Kirk realizes that some part of Spock may still be alive, he grapples with the implications of seeking out what he’s lost. The crew of the Enterprise comes along because Spock is connected to each of them, particularly Dr. McCoy who literally carries Spock’s spirit (his katra) within him.

There’s a connection to what I’m writing about above and the humanist view of the future. For Roddenberry, the Star Trek future was atheist because rationalism had replaced spirituality, at least in the form of organized religion from Earth. Roddenberry’s atheism was perhaps the weakest element of his humanist outlook. He seemed to consider it self-evident that if a rational future was to be attained, spirituality would not be a part of it. Or because he had reached the conclusion that religion was senseless that any rational person should come to the same conclusion.

Spock was always a counterpart to this atheist outlook because he was not human (by half) and his life was steeped in Vulcan mysticism. The Vulcan mysticism was in fact a part of Leonard Nimoy’s experience (and Nimoy directed Star Trek III). Nimoy’s upbringing exposed him to Orthodox Judaism. He incorporated elements of this into Spock’s character which in turn helped form the basis for the fictional Vulcan culture. The most recognizable manifestation of this was the split-finger Vulcan salute and the salutation, “live long and prosper.”

The Search for Spock requires that the crew of the Enterprise put Spock’s revival in the hands of that Vulcan spirituality and ritual. Kirk in particular needs to give himself over to mystery and the unknown. He also needs to do the things that customarily appear in a Star Trek film - space opera type stuff like fighting Klingons in space, fighting them with fists on a planet surface, and pushing technology to its limits to win the day. But all of that is merely ancillary to the spirituality at the core of the film and thus at the core of what Kirk is hoping to achieve. He’s trying to bring Spock back to life because he is incomplete without him. When you’re a kid and you see this film it’s just adventure, the deeper meaning of the relationship between Kirk and Spock doesn’t penetrate. As an adult and with a lifetime of watching Star Trek it is an emotional ride.

I liked The Search for Spock a lot more than I did when I first saw it as a kid. It’s more subtle than The Wrath of Khan. The payoff at the end is extremely muted. Spock comes back to life, but he doesn’t come roaring back. His reincarnation is relatively low key, and the fireworks happen in Kirk’s emotional response to seeing his friend again. The reunion between Kirk and Spock is one of Shatner’s greatest scenes in Star Trek. He conveys such immense relief and wonder at the miracle of Spock coming back from the dead. A few years later Kirk will literally go on a quest to meet (and kill) God - seemingly a definitive statement on the role of the spiritual in the humanist future. But it’s difficult to argue that Kirk does not owe something to Vulcan spirituality and the mysteries of life and death revealed on Vulcan at the end of The Search for Spock.

In the next newsletter, I will get deeper into what it means to be human, which means it’s finally time to talk about Commander Data 🙂 Thanks for reading! LLAP 🖖