Filed under: Author - ACG,Culture,Politics | Tags: Democracy, Science fiction, War
For much of humanity, 2008 was a rough year: war continued apace; terrorism remained a threat, with the world’s largest democracy witnessing a full-scale invasion; and the global financial market disintegrated overnight. When future generations look back on our lives, in global terms at least, 2008 may well be something of a write-off, the dusk that had to come before the dawn.
That said, things could be worse, and they have been in recent memory. There’re no wars to be fought in the homeland (1776, 1860), the stock market’s in bad shape but it’s not about to disappear (1920s), Europe is in no danger of vanishing under a tyrant’s boot overnight (1939-45), and the prospect of nuclear war doesn’t threaten our survival as a species (1945-85). Keeping things in perspective, 2008 wasn’t so bad, and 2009 promises to be better.
Besides, we’re ahead of the Roddenberry Curve. What’s the Roddenberry Curve? Glad you asked. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, used his beloved series to explore human nature through the lens of an idyllic human future, where poverty is no issue, and humanity sits at the head of a vast intergalactic alliance founded on the principles of the dignity of life, equality, reason, and popular sovereignty. Without the need to fight for our survival, Roddenberry imagined humanity as an explorer race, eternally curious of “strange new worlds” and morally bound to bring similar freedoms to others, where possible.
It’s a nice dream, but in Roddenberry’s own vision, it was a long time coming, a future pax arrived at only after apocalyptic disaster made clear the necessity of unity. For Roddenberry, the inherent human tendency towards war and self-destruction was a cathartic (and eventually positive) force: only after disastrous warfare, first genetic (1992-96) then nuclear (2050s), and horrific poverty (2020s) could humanity unite to prevent future disastrous relapses, an impulse towards peaceful progress that culminated in the discovery of interstellar warp travel. It was the same story for most of the other species in Roddenberry’s universe: only after a people hit rock-bottom could they finally struggle towards permanent, sustainable peace.
It's been a long road.
Here’s the good news: judging by current events, Roddenberry grossly overstated humanity’s self-destructive tendencies. We stepped back from the brink of apocalypse in 1962, and the end of the Cold War seems to have permanently impressed on most nation-states the danger of even thinking of nuclearizing conflict, hot or cold. There are no more wars for war’s sake; no more empires of conquest. As a species, we’ve largely gotten over ourselves, and we didn’t need a nuclear war to get us there. Forty years of fearing one was enough, thanks. Certainly those impulses exist at the fringe – some with the power to threaten the center – but so long as they remain at the fringe, we’re ahead of Roddenberry’s universe. Even if 2008 was a rough year, we’ve beaten the Curve.
The bad news, of course, is that we’ve yet to overcome greed, jealousy, and the ignorance born of racial and religious hatred (to borrow a phrase); and national consciousness still trumps any concern for the survival of our species and planet as a whole, which remain in jeopardy as a lingering result of industrialization. Oh – and if Einstein’s right, warp speed is going to be a long time coming. Some things to work on in the new year, perhaps.
