So, I was thinking about Star Trek and conformity....

[conuly]

And in my thoughts, I was rantling-ing about how we keep getting these characters who are not-human, and how a big part of their development is showing them how they really want to be human. Human, of course, means NT.

And then I was thinking about how this push for normality goes beyond mental normality. Geordie's visor makes him able to see differently from other people. In some cases, this is an advantage - he can see things we can't. And yet, consistently, his big wish is to see normally. Why? Because that's better?

I can forgive Star Trek for a lot of things, like the idiotic Universal Translators (not possible, as near as I can see) and the fact that aliens all look human and have human facial expressions (cheaper, easier, kinder on the actors) and the fact that Earth culture = American culture (tell me why Picard quotes a lot of Shakespeare, but not much Moliere. I often wonder how different Star Trek would be if it had been done somewhere else) and the anti-religion bent (hey, I'm an agnostic, I'm not whining) but... this is starting to irritate me.

I don't want to re-invent the wheel here, so I went to google to see what has already been said. And can you believe that I didn't find anything? Clearly, I'm using the wrong search criteria. I cannot possibly be the only person who's wondered along these lines.

If I decide I am, expect a mild, and probably less-well-educated-than-it-should-be rant soon.

Comments

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

the anti-religion bent

My brother stopped watching Deep Space Nine because he thought it was too religious. He said they were pushing the Bajoran religion too much and it was just a well-disguised New-Age mentality.

[conuly]

And DS9 is one of my favorite series.

I haven't seen the Bajoran religion as being very new-age-mentality-y, but I might've missed something. It *is* a big part of the series, but I always figure it makes a nice change from seeing advanced groups with no religion and seeing people who do have religion being consistently described as illogical and/or primitive.

And in general, when a group has some sort of religious dogma, it's always to hone in on how we are much more civilised now. Yes, religion has been responsible for a lot of bad things, but why every religious mention among a somewhat advanced civilisation is teh evil, I don't know. Religion makes them homophobic. Religion makes them racist. Religion makes them likely to kill one another or themselves. Never religion makes them kind, charitable, and inordinately fond of beetles.

Hm. It's been a while since I've watched any Star Trek, actually. I need to remedy that soon, watch some re-runs.

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

To my brother, anything that isn't Christian fundie-ism is "too religious" or "too New-Agey" for his liking.

[conuly]

But... isn't Christian... I mean... Oh dear god.