From: KPJ (kpj@sics.se)
Date: Tue May 09 2000 - 08:06:05 MDT
It appears as if James Wetterau <jwjr@ignition.name.net> wrote:
|I prefer to look at Star Trek as an allegory in which the different
|characters are archetypes for aspects of humanity. It is possible, as
|I think Robert Anton Wilson has suggested, to view the principal Star
|Trek characters as emblems of various aspects of consciousness, with
|the Enterprise itself serving as one of them. Leary's eightfold
|consciousness model works decently here. I should think this might be
|of particular interest to Eliezer with his thinking aboud "domdules"
|of consciousness. Once you view Star Trek as a story about the way
|that human consciousness grapples with the unknown in a sort of silly
|sci-fi allegory, it becomes a lot more fun, I think.
Star Trek is simply a _soap_opera_.
Soaps are stereotypic so people can immediately recognize themselves
without having to look at all the umpteen parts of a series.
_Of_course_ the series is a stereotype. It wouldn't sell if it wasn't.
Star Trek, like all soaps, comes with holes inside the programme to
put the commercials. A U.S. TV programme without commercials is a dead
programme. The trekkers/trekkies/whatever would never support a series
if it changed _anything_ from their known "universe". They can discuss
forever what some obscure thingie means. They are the audience.
No audience, no commercials, no money, no show.
You don't mess with the audience when the audience pays your salary.
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