DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA Aboard the imperial star ship Ameriprise
By William Astore
I grew up in the 1970s on reruns of the original Star Trek with Captain
James Tiberius Kirk at the helm, backed by that ever logical Vulcan, Mr Spock,
Dr "Bones" McCoy, and the rest of the intrepid, space-faring crew of the USS
Enterprise. During the tumultuous 1960s, that sci-fi series - before being
canceled - had pointed to a more promising future in which humanity would be
united. Star Trek, after all, offered a vision of a post-racial society
in which blacks and Asian-Americans would serve alongside whites as equals, and
a post-nationalistic society in which Russian-accented Ensign Chekov could
loyally follow a WASP captain from Iowa.
Even as the Enterprise cruised the distant reaches of our galaxy, the show was
distinctly a creature of its moment, of the tensions
released by the rise of the civil rights movement and by the Cold War
superpower standoff. Minorities were still struggling for equal rights when the
first Star Trek aired in 1966, while the US government was just putting
the finishing touches on a nuclear command center buried under 2,000 feet of
granite that was meant to ride out a possible apocalyptic Russian sneak attack.
So, having a black female officer like Lieutenant Uhura and a Russian one like
Chekov on the starship's bridge certainly seemed like one small leap for
mankind.
In a way, the Enterprise and its multinational, alien-inclusive crew was the
ultimate American melting pot (and, if you happened to be an aficionado of war
films, the ultimate "lost patrol" as well). It was also "a wagon train to the
stars”. At least that was how its creator here on Earth, Gene Roddenberry,
pitched the series concept to TV network executives at the time. In the early
1960s, remember, such execs were accustomed to green-lighting Westerns like Gunsmoke
or Bonanza with lily-white casts, not a sci-fi series set elsewhere in
the galaxy with a multi-racial lineup.
Not surprisingly then, Roddenberry re-imagined space as the "final frontier"
and sent Kirk and crew off each week, like so many American pioneers of earlier
centuries, to "boldly go where no man has gone before". They were to ride their
high-tech wagon into the unknown in search of "new life and new civilizations".
Of course, exploring that final frontier could be dangerous, whether in the
American West of the 1800s or hundreds of years later among the stars and
planets of the Milky Way.
Accordingly, the Enterprise space wagon was heavily armed with phasers and
photon torpedoes: precision weapons that, on rare occasions, may have missed
their targets, but in the emptiness of space never left behind embarrassing
collateral damage. Besides, wherever our heroic crew journeyed, the Prime
Directive of the United Federation of Planets went with them. Peaceful
exploration was the singular goal of the Federation, and General Order No 1
precluded interference, even for humanitarian reasons, in the lives of any
developing alien cultures that might be discovered.
Not that that stopped Captain Kirk and crew. They often found themselves in
situations where, Prime Directive or not, they were forced to meddle in an
alien society's development. In the Star Trek universe, these attempts
at social engineering - in our time they would be termed "humanitarian
interventions" or "nation-building" - usually yielded promising results. They
certainly didn't lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands or the
displacement of millions. Indeed, we rarely saw such dire results on the show
precisely because, unlike American ground troops stationed on other
"frontiers", whether in the 1960s in Vietnam or today in Iraq and Afghanistan,
the Enterprise and its crew could always head off at warp speed from ill-judged
experiments in social and cultural engineering.
And this being an American vision of the future, even in space the Enterprise
never lacked conflict with evildoers. The ship was almost constantly confronted
by aggressively hostile aliens, most commonly the militaristic Romulans and
Klingons. (In later versions of the series, created on earth as the Cold War
wound down and ended, the Klingons would eventually ally with the Federation
and come on board the Enterprise.)
On board the USS Ameriprise
Looking back at Star Trek, more than four decades after Roddenberry's
vision entered our homes, what's remarkable is how much it captured a still
extant American optimism and an American cultural smugness. The optimism today
has been muted, but the smugness - not so much. After all, official American
"expeditionary forces" continue to travel the "final frontiers" of our own
planet, if not the galaxy, armed to the teeth with our own versions of phasers
and photon torpedoes. At the same time, most of us continue to see ourselves as
a peace-loving, Federation-like crew, a force for progress, for international
cooperation, and above all for good.
Yes, our acts may - these days, more than occasionally - misfire (or quagmire),
but our intentions are benevolent, motivated primarily by a desire to serve a
higher purpose, even as we seek to enlarge our peaceful federation of allied
nations. Unfortunately, like the Star Trek crew, Americans are meddlers.
We want to help others even when they don't want our help, even when our "help"
is counterproductive to the normal development of other cultures and countries.
Worse yet: despite our aspirations, the American spaceship of state - let's
call it the USS Ameriprise - not only resembles the USS Enterprise of the
(mostly well-meaning but distinctly meddlesome) Federation, but also, on too
many occasions, the Enterprise from a barbarous parallel universe pictured in
"Mirror, Mirror”, an episode from the show's second season.
In it, thanks to a "transporter" accident, four members of the Star Trek crew,
including Captain Kirk, switch places with their evil twins and find themselves
aboard the Imperial Star Ship (ISS) Enterprise. Among the ISS crew, might makes
right. Alien cultures that refuse to provide scarce energy sources (the
dilithium crystals that power the starship, not mundane oil as on this planet)
are massacred and their resources stolen. Perceived mistakes by crewmembers are
punished with "agonizers”, taser-like miniature zappers applied to the chest
just above the heart. Disloyal crewmembers are tortured to extract confessions,
or simply slowly tortured to death, by being placed in "the agony booth". The
booth is the ultimate "stress position", without all the inconvenience of
shackles or the messiness of water-boarding. Officers advance in rank by
assassination, with Kirk possessing the choicest precision weapon: a device in
his quarters capable of killing any person on board with just the touch of a
button.
Let's recap: alien cultures shocked, awed and bludgeoned into submission in
order to gain control over scarce energy resources; torture used liberally to
extract information; precision weapons capable of decapitating the enemy and
controlled from a distance via the push of a button.
It's disturbing how closely the recent journeys of our Ameriprise have come to
resemble those of that imperial Enterprise. Yet we've hardly seemed to notice,
convinced as we were that our ship of state is still the good Enterprise,
spreading democracy and freedom, even if meddling in other cultures as well.
Perhaps we've forgotten that another way to express the wisdom contained in the
Prime Directive is: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
But let's rejoin Kirk on the ISS Enterprise. Aghast to find himself surrounded
by such barbarity, he adapts just enough to survive until he is able to rejoin
the "good" universe. The question is: can we, like Kirk, recognize and reject
the barbarity around us, even as we resist the temptation to interfere in the
lives of others, unless they well and truly ask for, and really need, our help?
Early signs are not good when it comes to the latest Barack Obama-led
Ameriprise. Our spaceship of state still seems remarkably addicted to phasers
and photon torpedoes, an addiction we refuse to own up to, even as we send one
variety of our own spaceships, which we call unmanned aerial drones, over the
tribal lands of Pakistan and Afghanistan armed with Hellfire missiles. We also
refuse to admit that we're an imperial power, even as we build new military
bases along the final frontiers of our planet, while our military seeks "full
spectrum dominance" from the deepest oceans to "the shining stars and beyond"
(as one US Air Force advertisement recently put it). We demonize our enemies,
turning them into so many Romulans, aliens who are incapable of understanding
anything but the blunt, unsparing use of force.
When we look in the mirror, we want to see a peace-loving Federation member
staring back at us, not a barbarian from the ISS Enterprise. I certainly do.
But even the far friendlier visage of the benevolent Kirk and the logical Spock
needs to be considered seriously and critically. For if the Captain and the
Vulcan no more saw themselves as imperial meddlers than we normally do, they
often found themselves fighting to expand the boundaries of their friendly
Federation - and so do we.
In the long run, we may well be able to reject naked barbarity and lust for
power. But can we resist the power of our own illusions, of the notion that,
despite missteps, mishaps and mistakes, we're always a force for good in the
world? Can we affirm our own Prime Directive - a reversal of our Monroe
Doctrine that defined our boundaries in a different age and time - and vow not
to meddle in the affairs of others? For our Ameriprise has its limits, as well
as its own pressing problems to solve.
William J Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), taught for six
years at the Air Force Academy. A TomDispatch regular, he currently teaches at
the Pennsylvania College of Technology and is the author of Hindenburg:
Icon of German Militarism (Potomac Press, 2005), among other works. He may be
reached at wastore@pct.edu.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
