The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek
POSTED BY: citizen
UPDATED: Sunday, June 7, 2026 16:12
VIEWED: 22000
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Quote:This is a good point, which was also raised by Citizen earlier. If the theme of fascism is based on the implied militarism in a show about a military organization, then it is a pretty thin argument. I can see that.
Originally posted by Mirand:
I thought the United Federation of Planets is just a treaty to organize defence, exploration and other things. And the Starfleet is the military arm of the UFP. Which must be military because the universe and its intelligent lifeforms are often dangerous.
But ist the UFP a government of a state? Can it be fascistic? Has not every military organisation some fascistic traits?
What is there to suggest that the Federation as portrayed in TNG is not a dictatorial entity run by Starfleet? Has there ever been anything in the show to address that? Although I’m not really sure that the writers ever intended anyone to assume that the Federation was anything other then a democratic state.
Quote:This is certainly the secular humanist point of view that is often espoused by American intellectualists, and on that I think the author does have a point. I think the elimination of religion in sf is an arrogant perspective, because it implies that humans can know everything (though clearly that's not the case.) This along with the assumption of no Scarcity is a bit of fantasy that has been interjected into Star Trek in order to force certain themes to emerge.
Originally posted by Mirand:
The author also question the lack of religions. I think religion is in conflict with reason. Religion would only hinder an utopia.
In this manner I think Joss Whedon has it right. The elimination of religions is not realistic, whether one agrees with it or not. It is so unrealistic that it often strains the suspension of belief, similarly with the elimination of Scarcity. These two features are the reason why many otherwise devout science fiction fans think of Star Trek as being too “neat” or too “tidy.” Removing Scarcity and religion creates such an unrealistic scenario that TNG often appears sterile of the human condition.
I also agree with Orson Scott Card, that technically the elimination of religion is impossible. Just because a writer has taken all traces of traditional religious belief out and eliminated traditional notions of god or any other symbol of Man’s limited knowledge of his environment, doesn’t mean you’ve eliminated religious belief. When any notion of traditional religion or some acknowledgement of man’s limited understanding is eliminated it creates a void which the writers fill with their own opinions garnered from their own lack of complete knowledge. And this, I think, is how a lot of these Left-leaning assumptions find there way into science fiction.
As Orson Scott Card states:
Quote:
When a science fiction writers shows humanity evolving beyond the need for religion, the belief system and culture they depict as being "higher" than religion will most likely be precisely their own present religion. The only exceptions are when they are being ironic, and their point is that the "superior" religion is not superior at all. Most of the time, though, "evolving past the need for religion" is a code phrase for "coming to believe what I believe instead of what those other fools believe."
http://www.writing-world.com/sf/card.shtml
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:I think one of the problems with televised-Trek (as opposed to novelized-Trek) is the American bias.
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
This is a good point, which was also raised by Citizen earlier. If the theme of fascism is based on the implied militarism in a show about a military organization, then it is a pretty thin argument. I can see that.
What is there to suggest that the Federation as portrayed in TNG is not a dictatorial entity run by Starfleet? Has there ever been anything in the show to address that? Although I’m not really sure that the writers ever intended anyone to assume that the Federation was anything other then a democratic state.
The United Federation of Planets is, by design, an assemblage of worlds that respects all cultures and viewpoints. While there are basic laws(no slavery, no attempts to conquer/enslave fellow UFP member races, no violating the Prime Directive, etc), most UFP member worlds are basically self-governed however they wish, each with their own religions, political systems, languages, etc.
If you'll forgive my own Canadan bias, it's like the image of the Canadian Mosaic; a multicultural society, where an Indian/Chinese/Thai fusion restaurant can sit right next-door to the local synagogue, and where an Irish descended kid can listen to Russian techno-pop while reading Japanese manga about African-American gang culture.
Trouble is that, on American TV, this starts to look like America, in which everyone is allowed to look, act, and think like Us. Vulcans learn to embrace emotion, Klingons can only show kindness after being around humans, Ferengi become altruistic, androids want to become human, etc. Of course, everybody wants to look/act/think like Us, because We have the best way of doing things.
Naturally, with a largely-human crew (necessitated by makeup and budget), and a human captain (necessitated by Roddenberry's franchise bible), it usually ends up looking like a human-dominated empire, filled with people who must follow human culture, complete with Shakespeare.
I want to hear someone quoting an Andorian poet, or playing Tellarite tribal music, or collecting Ferengi trading cards. . .
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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Quote:The only person doing that here Finn is you. How is saying "fascism is right-wing" any less inflammatory than saying "fascism is left-wing". Oh yeah I forgot, the left and all those left leaning are evil, so it's ok for you to blame all the ill's of the world on the left.
Originally posted by Finn Mac Cuhmall
It should be moved down to RWE with the rest of the inflammatory nonsense, unless someone is interested in discussing, without accusing others of Fascisms, the original premise.
If you take me saying "fascism is right wing" as "everyone right-wing is fascist" it betrays your intentions when you say "fascism is left wing" far more than mine. You want to say everyone who thinks differently to you is a Nazi that's your own problem, please don't accuse me of it because I dare to have a different mind to you.
That is your reading, how dare I suggest that the right wing of the political spectrum has skeletons in the closet, we all know evil was invented by the left. If you take me saying fascism is right wing, as saying all those on the right wing are fascist obviously you believe everyone with left wing ideals are totalitarian Communist Fascists.
Thanks for calling me a totalitarian communist fascist then. My position has always been that we need both capitalism and socialism, left and right, not one or the other, my major question is how much of either and the implimentation, I think the fact you find that so insulting speaks volumes about your own position.
Come to think of it you were the first person to say fascism was left wing, and since we've already seen you take that sort of sentence as equivalent to "everyone on the left wing is fascist" perhaps we should have YOUR comments moved to the RWED with the rest of the inflammatory nonsense.
So what I'm saying is if you think perscribing this or that to a political wing is inflammatory, maybe you shouldn't have been the first to do it.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Quote:That’s the impression I get as well. I’m not sure that Fascism was on the minds of any of the Trek writers, and that whatever Fascist comparisons can be made, is probably an unintended consequence of limited scope.
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
The United Federation of Planets is, by design, an assemblage of worlds that respects all cultures and viewpoints. While there are basic laws(no slavery, no attempts to conquer/enslave fellow UFP member races, no violating the Prime Directive, etc), most UFP member worlds are basically self-governed however they wish, each with their own religions, political systems, languages, etc.
The problem with a multiculturalist depiction of the Star Trek universe, however, is the difficulty in relating it to any real audience (not necessarily American.) There is a good deal of multiculturalism assumed in Star Trek already, but telling a story from the point of view of an alien culture without drawing some kind of conclusion about the human condition would likely be, at the very least, confusing and at most impossible. A one hour show is simply not the venue for defining an alien culture; that is something that is better left to the books, since only the very diehard Trekkies are likely to pick up on the meaning in such an abbreviated format. After all, what would Andorian poetry mean to a Human audience?
However, I understand what you’re saying and it goes to the issue of limited scope in which to tell the story. The same problem exists in Firefly. We see the story being told from the point of view of criminals, as defined by conditions of the story. So we assume the Alliance is some evil state. In reality, this isn’t really a necessary interpretation. The Alliance doesn’t have to be thought of as evil in order for the story to work; it just has to be thought of as being at odds with the heroes in the story. (Although the movie sort of throws some monkey wrenches into this; so I’m talking specifically about the episodes.)
Scope can’t account for the somewhat Marxist message in Star Trek, however; that remains difficult to account for. Except that perhaps utopias are necessarily Left-wing? So that maybe the Left-wing message is really a consequence of a utopian vision, and not necessarily an intended result of the writers.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Did we ever see any civilian authority in the Federation?
Sisko in DS9 was made responsible for the accession on Bajor into the Federation, so you would expect him to have dealings with the Federation equivalent of the State Department, Department of the Interior, local civilian authorities etc. IIRC the only civilian authorities he dealt with were those of planets outside the Federation.
Is there any evidence that the UFP consists of anything except its military, its intelligence services, and the Presidency?
It is all rather disturbing.
And of course, the Federation seems to lack an economy of any description.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I think the elimination of religion in sf is an arrogant perspective, because it implies that humans can know everything (though clearly that's not the case.) This along with the assumption of no Scarcity is a bit of fantasy that has been interjected into Star Trek in order to force certain themes to emerge.
What is religion? With wider definitions most societies could be called a religion. The interesting part of the bigger religions is their believe in something unexplainable and supernatural. Ok in this fictive universe are “supernatural” being, but they are not the source of any believe on earth (I think ;).
Yes they don’t know everything and they know that they don’t know everything. But is this a reason to believe in unexplainable things without question them? Maybe with the accumulating of knowledge over hundreds of more years many religions lose their basis, shrinking to unimportance.
Another thought: religions could become more private and nobody talks about it.
To the lack of scarcity: This could be the basis of an Utopia but i don’t know how humans develop without scarcity. What would we do without competition, without the need to work or to advance.
At the end the authors of Startrek are just humans. They also don’t know everything and maybe have not the resources to scrutinize every aspect of their fictive society.
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Quote:Well, we met President Jaresh-Inyo (and assorted hangers-on) during DS9, and one of the TOS films involved the Federation Council. That's about it for the shows (AFAIK), but we've seen plenty of it in novels (Articles of the Federation, by KRAD).
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Did we ever see any civilian authority in the Federation?
Quote:Actually Sisko was put there only to serve as commander of DS9 (which was technically owned by Bajor and just being "leased out" to Starfleet until Bajor could get their act together). Any influence he had in Bajoran decisions regarding UFP membership were strictly "off the record." His becoming Emmissary was unanticipated by almost everyone concerned --some factions in Starfleet wanted to remove him, but he had Admiral Ross on his side. Then there was the Dominion War and priorities were revised.
Sisko in DS9 was made responsible for the accession on Bajor into the Federation, so you would expect him to have dealings with the Federation equivalent of the State Department, Department of the Interior, local civilian authorities etc.
The only "real" involvement he had on the political side of things was to advise the Bajoran government (as we saw when he told them to reject UFP membership before the Dominion occupation). All the real work would've been between them and the off-camera-people.
The Bajoran provisional government would've been dealing with the UFP bureaucracy. Of course, bureaucracy doesn't make good television (*), so most of that was kept off-camera. You'll note that we never actually saw the provisional government in action either, except when it directly involved the station and its personnel (electing a new First Minister, Church/State issues, etc).
(That said, a Star Trek equivalent of The Daily Show would be all manner of hilarious.)
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Quote:Broadly, religion is belief in any set of principles or reality which is based on faith. Yes maybe we will someday exchange our current set of unknowable concepts for a new set of “scientific” unknowable concepts, whatever that means. Card’s point, however, is that such an argument is mostly likely going to translate into a validation of the author’s own religion, not actually an evolvement beyond religion.
Originally posted by Mirand:
What is religion? With wider definitions most societies could be called a religion. The interesting part of the bigger religions is their believe in something unexplainable and supernatural. Ok in this fictive universe are “supernatural” being, but they are not the source of any believe on earth (I think ;).
Yes they don’t know everything and they know that they don’t know everything. But is this a reason to believe in unexplainable things without question them? Maybe with the accumulating of knowledge over hundreds of more years many religions lose their basis, shrinking to unimportance.
Quote:Exactly. Human life, in fact all life, is based on the procurement of certain scarce resources. It is an intrinsic property of the human condition.
Originally posted by Mirand:
To the lack of scarcity: This could be the basis of an Utopia but i don’t know how humans develop without scarcity. What would we do without competition, without the need to work or to advance.
This is a point the author makes to support his fascist description. The answer seems to be that Starfleet creates that impetus, which once again gets back to the implied militarism and Marxism in the show. People work to advance the cause of Starfleet. What happens if they don’t want to advance the cause of Starfleet? What happens to those people who don’t enlist in Starfleet or some other kind of “Federal Service?” In an economy where Scarcity no longer exists, what is there?
That is a huge blindspot that I’m not aware has ever been adequately addressed in the show.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Well, I'm struck by how quickly the Voyager crew switched to trading replicator rations. Could be that the scarcity in Star Trek has less to do with material goods and more to do with energy (it's not about having money to buy stuff, it's about having energy to replicate stuff). This is why we can't replicate starships; it'd take all the energy on Earth to build one Galaxy-class. It's fully possible that having a replicator in your living room is a Starfleet thing, with civillians making due with public replicator facilities.
We've also seen that replicators aren't perfect, food-wise: Chateau Picard is (well, was 
) a viable business precisely because replicators can't make good wine. I'd guess that cajun food poses similar problems (as evidenced by Sisko's Creole Kitchen). I can't recall if it was a novel or an episode where someone digressed about the sin against nature that is replicated caviar, and the novels also point out that B'ellanna Torres loves mushrooms, but refuses to come within spitting distance of the replicated stuff. Then there's gagh, which simply can't be replicated, 'cause it's alive.
Of course, there've also been diatribes between the replicator-raised "fast food culture" and those who prefer "real" food (Sisko, Picard), so that might be a factor.
We've seen trade in dilithium, both in the original series and in the 24th Century (when it's less vital, but obviously still quite valuable). It can be "recrystalized," which seems to promote its longevity, but still can't make something from nothing.
Then of course, there's latinum, which is impossible to replicate due to its molecular structure. Most of the Alpha quadrant seems to use gold-pressed-latinum (which, Quark explains, is a small amount of latinum embedded within gold) as the main currency, traded in bars, strips, and slips, rather than representative cash/change. Remember how Quark freaked out when he risked his life to gain Morn's fortune, only to find that it was "worthless" gold, with no latinum inside it?
The Federation obviously has some form of e-currency-based economy; we see DS9 personnel thumbing bills and invoices left and right (the thumbprint seems to work as an equivalent to the credit card swipe). The question is what this "money" represents. The Federation is obviously quite wealthy (latinum, dilithium, etc), but how that translates to individual citizens was never really an issue. I'm hoping the post-Unity DS9 novels will present some data, as Bajor's economy gets assimilated into the Federation's.
I'd guess it all comes back to Roddenberry's concept that humanity has "evolved" --people are expected to work because they either enjoy it or feel it's worth doing. Which I guess is fine in theory. Anyone who does want to make a fortune is welcome to head out to the frontier. Those who are too lazy/unmotivated to work. . . Well, I guess we just don't talk about them.
There is, of course, a downside. Remember how the EMH Mark ones were removed from service and put to work in the Federation's dilithium mines (the implication being that this is where androids would have ended up if not for "Measure of a Man," and Data's being recognized as a full citizen)? That's pretty obviously slave labour right there (advocates would point out that holograms aren't "people." I would then happily introduce them to the Doctor and/or Vic Fontaine).
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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First of all, Citizen has it right. Fascism and Communism are polar opposites on the political spectrum. Thats 10th social studies right there. However, one is a political doctrine the other an economic one so they are actually difficult to compare. A democracy is much closer idealogically to communism than capitalism with them both being towards the left of the political spectrum. In calling Star Trek fascist, the author is completely off base.
Militaristic? The ships are supposed to be for science and exploration as well as defense although the uniforms and action-based plots (especially those at the end of DS9's run) have drifted toward militarism and subsequently away from Roddenbury's original vision.
Athiesm? Really? The major monothiestic religions of our planet are minimalized as not to alienate in particular audience and he cries athiesm in the name of Star Trek 5??? No one likes Star Trek 5. The only good part is when Kirk, Spock, and McCoy sing row, row, row your boat. What about the reoccuring religous elements of other cultures? The Klingon religious customs and traditions Worf constantly takes part in. The Fregii worship of the god of the free-market. The vulcan mystism. Chekotay's practice of native american beliefs. I'm not saying I think Star Trek's got it all right in regards to religion, but to call it an Athiestic show is completely off-base.
Also, someone mentioned that all we ever see in Star Trek are Americans. Kirk was an American, yes. But Sulu was from Japan, Chekoff from Russia and Scotty from Dublin. Picard was French, Kim was Chinese, Yosi was South American, and just about everyone else wasn't from the planet.
As for the lack of realism as expressed by Sisco not having to deal with a state department and the lapses in specifics in regards tothe economics of the future, you've got it right. Star Trek isn't realistic. Its far from it. I think Ronald D. Moore said it best, "No one really believes anyone lives on the Star Trek Enterprise." Its just to clean and prim and proper. Thats why people are attracted to his show, BSG, and one reason we love firefly. They harken back to Lucas's idea of the used universe (which disappeared in the prequels and one of many reasons they plain sucked).
Cybershark, I think you've really got it right. Star Trek is a utopian society with a certain lack of economic realism. But realism was never the objective. This FICTION is merely a launching point for tackling larger issues such as the definition of humanity as seen in the character's of Data and The Doctor.
-e
"Storms getting worse."
"We'll pass through it soon enough."
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