On Monday, May 08, 2000 9:58 AM James Wetterau jwjr@ignition.name.net wrote:
> > Roddenberry might be excused for not knowing, but the damage is done.
The
> > conflation of irrational with emotional and rational with unemotional,
> > sadly, has a longer history than Mr. Spock, extending back to the
Ancients,
> > but _Star Trek_ gave it a concrete portrayal that people confuse with
the
> > real thing.
> >
> > Even though I agree with Eleizer, the problem should not be assigning
blame.
> > Instead, it's how to overcome the stereotype here and now.
>
> 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.
Even if true, it's still stereotypical thinking. I prefer characters that
are more full, more realistic. I still believe Eliezer right here -- the
intelligent (and the rational) are projected in a one-sided way. The reason
they split people into characters like that is because deep down, too many
accept the notion that reason and emotion are antagonistic and that human
nature is basically split along those lines. _Star Trek_ only reinforces a
bad habit. (Granted, it does not completely damn the series, but it is not
something to be praised.)
I also prefer "the unknown" that is a bit more unknown and a lot less like
finding more of the same in space. (_Star Trek_'s alien races -- choose any
series -- are a bit too much like humans from look to culture. And the
things the crews discover range from cliche to platitude.:)
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:10:54 MDT