as small as a world and as large as alone

9:13am June 20, 2014

andromedalogic:

there’s something about the ethical landscape of star trek — not in every episode, but in its overall tendencies — that makes me feel very safe there, very stabilized, in a way that i am not by most moral structures

and i think what it is

is that star trek is pretty firmly, almost without variation, anti-institution.

it starts out that way, with ‘the cage’.

it’s got a pretty strong anti-utilitarian bent throughout — values human autonomy (dignity of risk, heh) over safety — there’s obviously the federation’s troubling paternalism but

i just get this impression from star trek. half its plots can be likened to ‘the ones who walk away from omelas’.

every time a place is Safe, and Happy, and Protects its Inhabitants, that place is dangerous.

every damn time.

star trek knows to trust my instincts even when i don’t.

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