I’m kind of looking forward to the new Star Trek flick, Section 31. But possibly not as much as this guy, who’s done a whole thing about the moral/logical contradiction of 31 even existing the Federation:
Ethics can be very neat and tidy at the normative level, it's all that damned applied ethics that is the problem; people have a terrible habit of ruining everything.
"But mostly I’m looking forward to Michele Yeoh kicking ass" oh hell yes. She was brilliant as both Michael's mentor Captain Philippa Georgiou of Shenzhou but like many of the mirror universe counterparts she ruled as the emperor of the Terran Empire (giving a real Emperor Wu Zetian feel to the role for me). But I think you are spot on regarding Gene Roddenberry's take and I for one am grateful that there is no longer such a restraint as his on these stories.
I was always more a Star Wars nerd than a Star Trek nerd, although I've really enjoyed a lot of the Star Trek oeuvre.
As a more casual consumer of Star Trek I always felt that the whole point of Star Trek was that they managed to achieve this Utopian Federation WITHOUT employing the dark arts - that somehow logic, reason and compassion had managed to win out over all species' darker instincts, and that much of the conflict in Star Trek stemmed from defeating or deflecting those darker instincts via reason, logic and compassion. Or curbing humanity's colonising instincts via the Prime Directive and letting cultures and species evolve and develop without outside influence or interference until they've reached a level of "enlightenment" that enables them to join the Federation.
The existence of Section 31 appears to undermine the entire founding proviso of Star Trek. If the development of the Federation could not have occurred without the application of the dark arts, it implies that logic, reason and compassion DIDN'T win all on their own. But that also runs into the development and evolution of our culture and society, and the imperative for art to reflect reality. I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone that our popular culture is darker, more cynical, and more violent, reflecting everything that's happened over the last 40 odd years. Star Trek is not immune to this, and the demands of its audience to reflect their reality back at them and give them avenues through which to process the reality they're dealing with (this makes the scrubbing of Covid from popular culture quite odd, and yet deeply jarring when it gets included, although this is not a new phenomenon).
We look back on the OG Star Trek's optimism and hope as adorably naive and innocent rather than aspirational, and a show in this format would be laughed out of the pitch meeting today (I'm aware that the OG Star Trek got laughed out of pitch meetings for different but parallel reasons, and ultimately saved by Lucille Ball).
All of that said, I would not be surprised if the writers didn't give it any thought beyond "Michelle Yeoh kicking arse" because she was PHENOMENAL in every second of screen time in Discovery, and really she deserves to have any number of shows and movies written purely to give her endless opportunities to nom on the scenery and win all the awards.
The high ideals of the Federation need robust defence in a dangerous galaxy, and sometimes the best defence really is offence. If you accept that, then at some point, Section 31, or a similar secretive agency, becomes inevitable. 'Need to know' is also a thing, even in the Federation, so Starfleet command may indeed have a broad knowledge of Section 31 while accepting they don't have a 'need to know' any details about its operations.
Roddenberry, on the other hand, may have been the kind of individual Orwell had in mind when he wrote that pacifists could not accept that, "those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf".
However, for the purpose of committing violence on the Federation's behalf you could do worse than putting Michelle Yeoh on the job!
dont want to sound cynical but i remember seeing somewhere an article written by a sociologist about how hollywood is used to grease the wheels for making this acceptable (or possibly just a reflection of) the current main powers political agenda and how they deal with things on a global scale. I guess what better way to make the populace feel comfortable with "alternative" off the books ops than to make a tv show/book series/movie where the ones doing the off the book work are doing it for the good guys. But again - if this comes out on paramount i'll be seeing it in about 10yrs (sigh)
One the question of utopias and their cost the article references Ursula K LeGuin's influential " The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" which I am sure all have heard of, might I offer in response for those of us who will not accept a binary choice Isabel J. Kim's Clarkworld piece "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole" https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/
Ethics can be very neat and tidy at the normative level, it's all that damned applied ethics that is the problem; people have a terrible habit of ruining everything.
"But mostly I’m looking forward to Michele Yeoh kicking ass" oh hell yes. She was brilliant as both Michael's mentor Captain Philippa Georgiou of Shenzhou but like many of the mirror universe counterparts she ruled as the emperor of the Terran Empire (giving a real Emperor Wu Zetian feel to the role for me). But I think you are spot on regarding Gene Roddenberry's take and I for one am grateful that there is no longer such a restraint as his on these stories.
I was always more a Star Wars nerd than a Star Trek nerd, although I've really enjoyed a lot of the Star Trek oeuvre.
As a more casual consumer of Star Trek I always felt that the whole point of Star Trek was that they managed to achieve this Utopian Federation WITHOUT employing the dark arts - that somehow logic, reason and compassion had managed to win out over all species' darker instincts, and that much of the conflict in Star Trek stemmed from defeating or deflecting those darker instincts via reason, logic and compassion. Or curbing humanity's colonising instincts via the Prime Directive and letting cultures and species evolve and develop without outside influence or interference until they've reached a level of "enlightenment" that enables them to join the Federation.
The existence of Section 31 appears to undermine the entire founding proviso of Star Trek. If the development of the Federation could not have occurred without the application of the dark arts, it implies that logic, reason and compassion DIDN'T win all on their own. But that also runs into the development and evolution of our culture and society, and the imperative for art to reflect reality. I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone that our popular culture is darker, more cynical, and more violent, reflecting everything that's happened over the last 40 odd years. Star Trek is not immune to this, and the demands of its audience to reflect their reality back at them and give them avenues through which to process the reality they're dealing with (this makes the scrubbing of Covid from popular culture quite odd, and yet deeply jarring when it gets included, although this is not a new phenomenon).
We look back on the OG Star Trek's optimism and hope as adorably naive and innocent rather than aspirational, and a show in this format would be laughed out of the pitch meeting today (I'm aware that the OG Star Trek got laughed out of pitch meetings for different but parallel reasons, and ultimately saved by Lucille Ball).
All of that said, I would not be surprised if the writers didn't give it any thought beyond "Michelle Yeoh kicking arse" because she was PHENOMENAL in every second of screen time in Discovery, and really she deserves to have any number of shows and movies written purely to give her endless opportunities to nom on the scenery and win all the awards.
The high ideals of the Federation need robust defence in a dangerous galaxy, and sometimes the best defence really is offence. If you accept that, then at some point, Section 31, or a similar secretive agency, becomes inevitable. 'Need to know' is also a thing, even in the Federation, so Starfleet command may indeed have a broad knowledge of Section 31 while accepting they don't have a 'need to know' any details about its operations.
Roddenberry, on the other hand, may have been the kind of individual Orwell had in mind when he wrote that pacifists could not accept that, "those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf".
However, for the purpose of committing violence on the Federation's behalf you could do worse than putting Michelle Yeoh on the job!
dont want to sound cynical but i remember seeing somewhere an article written by a sociologist about how hollywood is used to grease the wheels for making this acceptable (or possibly just a reflection of) the current main powers political agenda and how they deal with things on a global scale. I guess what better way to make the populace feel comfortable with "alternative" off the books ops than to make a tv show/book series/movie where the ones doing the off the book work are doing it for the good guys. But again - if this comes out on paramount i'll be seeing it in about 10yrs (sigh)
Any wookies in it? I reckon Chewie would make an excellent Section 31 operative.
No but for that I can thoroughly recommend Star Wars Doctor Aphra for her Wookie associate Black Krrsantan.
One the question of utopias and their cost the article references Ursula K LeGuin's influential " The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" which I am sure all have heard of, might I offer in response for those of us who will not accept a binary choice Isabel J. Kim's Clarkworld piece "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole" https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/
I hadn't read it, but I skimmed the Wikipedia entry, which gave me the outline. Interesting piece.