14 votes

Revisiting Star Trek’s most political episode: In 1995, the Deep Space Nine installment “Past Tense” stood out for its realistic, near-future vision of racism and economic injustice

4 comments

  1. [4]
    mrbig
    Link
    I’m getting there. I just started the second season. DS9 is wonderful but it’s not escapist in the slightest. So I’ll probably progress a bit slower. Sometimes it can be a real bummer, I don’t a...

    I’m getting there. I just started the second season. DS9 is wonderful but it’s not escapist in the slightest. So I’ll probably progress a bit slower. Sometimes it can be a real bummer, I don’t a need to be reminded of how awful humankind can be at this precise moment.

    4 votes
    1. [3]
      lel
      Link Parent
      If you think it's wonderful and you're in season 2, I'm sure you'll love the rest, because seasons 1 and 2 are pretty rocky for the rest of the show's standards. When it comes to the escapism,...

      If you think it's wonderful and you're in season 2, I'm sure you'll love the rest, because seasons 1 and 2 are pretty rocky for the rest of the show's standards.

      When it comes to the escapism, I've always seen it as something like this: TOS was a pie-in-the-sky pipe dream future where liberalism and progress flourish to their fullest potential (as seen from the '60s), while TNG is this but very slightly socially updated. But DS9 was being made in an era where liberalism was heralding the end of history. It was held that we had made it, and progress reigned supreme.

      But of course that wasn't true. It's not like we'd made it to some social utopia. How could someone even think that? But really that exact idea was what Star Trek had primarily been about from the beginning, so DS9 takes it's time looking at all the ways the Federation (and, by proxy, our society) is lying to itself about its own enlightened perfection. There's still, always, so much further to go.

      Personally, I don't see the need to try to convince ourselves that we have before us some carefree, beautiful future where we'll leave all our troubles behind, because I think that offloads all responsibility for us to actively bring about the required change by asserting ourselves on the injustices in our world here and now: oh, don't worry, we'll get there eventually, and it'll be great!

      I think DS9 is a splash of cold water on the masturbatory fantasy of a progressive humanist who was never that progressive to begin with, and I can't help but love it.

      4 votes
      1. [2]
        mrbig
        Link Parent
        I love it for all those reasons too. But the message that we’re fundamentally broken is not something I’m psychologically willing to endure in my leisure time when reality is already making that...

        I love it for all those reasons too. But the message that we’re fundamentally broken is not something I’m psychologically willing to endure in my leisure time when reality is already making that abundantly clear. So, as I said, I’ll pace myself. One episode at a time.

        4 votes
        1. lel
          Link Parent
          Yeah, I 100% get that. It's a lot less pleasant to watch twenty of in a row than Kirk spreading the American way to godless aliens or Picard and the gang engaging in diplomatic hijinks.

          Yeah, I 100% get that. It's a lot less pleasant to watch twenty of in a row than Kirk spreading the American way to godless aliens or Picard and the gang engaging in diplomatic hijinks.