Star Trek and liberalism

This is old news, but the National Review is worried about Star Trek:

I have over the past couple of months been watching DVDs of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a show I missed completely in its run of 1987 to 1994; and I confess myself amazed that so many conservatives are fond of it.

In fairness, there are many reasons why one might not like Star Trek, or TNG in particular. Maybe it's a sane explanationâ¦

Its messages are unabashedly liberal ones of the early post-Cold War eraâ¦

Ah, OK. So he's objecting perhaps to the fact that Star Trek has a socialist economy, where money has been abandoned and where acquisition of wealth is denigrated. Or maybe he objects to the notion that the United States has subsumed itself into a global government, itself a member of an interplanetary parliament which reduces its members' sovereignty. Those are certainly contentious choices, and even liberals might find themselves questioning some of those choices. So, what are the unabashedly liberal values our conservative author rejects?

⦠â peace, tolerance, due process, progress (as opposed to skepticism about human perfectibility).

Ah.

More like this

“An ancestor of mine maintained that when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” -Mr. Spock, Star Trek
“‘Star Trek’ says that it has not all happened, it has not all been discovered, that tomorrow can be as challenging and adventurous as any time man has ever lived.” –Gene Roddenberry
tags: movies, film, Star Trek prequel,
A few days back, I happened to watch a few scenes of an old Star Trek episode. There was the usual fare of beam-me-ups, tea materializer, mother levitator, etc. And then there was the Matter Displacement Detector. That piqued my interest.

Except no one is making any money off the wars...except the Farengi.