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historical materialism moment
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/7802418
Don't forget about the Irish unification of 2024!
Mao is pretty much the opposite of what the federation stands for in almost every respect.
This seems like an opportune time to note that Gene Roddenberry was a Marxist who strongly supported China. He almost certainly thought well of Mao.
There were many people who supported Mao in the 60s and 70s, mainly because the terrors of the Cultural Revolution and the failure of the Great Leap Forward were not really known in the West.
China was a closed society. Academics didn't even travel there. That's what they mean when they say Nixon "opened up" China in 1972. Prior to that, people only knew what the Chinese government told them about the country.
Roddenberry died in 1991, which is well after 1972.
Huey Newton visited China in 1971, he knew what it was like before 1972. Many other revolutionaries from many other countries also visited China before 1972.
Earth and the Federation was communism. Admittedly an idealist version of it, came about because it was voted in by enlightened voters. But even then the Bell Riots showed that it was capitalism that caused conditions to arise in which the oppressed rose up against the failures of capitalism, and finally end it.
Not sure if you specifically meant something about Mao, but at least be aware of this. It's the most basic theory of communism that capitalism fails, turns into barbarism, and the working class have no option but to revolt to resolve the crisis.
Star trek doesn't really have a working class though, they achieved Marx's earlier hypothesised state of the deprecation of manual labor (in the technical sense). Interestingly, most of the philosophy is around how to get to Star Trek, where Star Trek itself is kind of the biggest thought experiment we have for what we would do once we're there.
Marx later evolved to believe only a revolution would destroy capitalism, and that's what Mao focused on, the getting there. Through violence.
Mao took that to heart, and succeeded, despite his best efforts, in ultimately setting the stage for a China that's more capitalist than it's ever been.
That's kind of the magic of star trek. Theres a violent past, a billion deaths, and it isn't a new political system or a different economy that changes everything, it was a newfound hope that things could be better if people were better, and they worked together to make that happen.
I think younger Marx would have loved Star Trek. I'm not sure about older Marx or Mao.
Yeah I mean specifically that Mao killed millions of people through a combination of ineptitude and taking the lessons from the wars he fought in into government. The Federation is built on principles that run counter to Maoism in important respects like allowing differences of opinion and anti-authoritarianism.
Do you know what the "mass line" concept by Mao is?
you know for a fact that they don't know dick about shit and are proud of it
Self dunks are so satisfying though!
Getting steamrolled by nazis after inviting them to the table under pompous pretenses of "allowing differences of opinion" isn't even a viable starter for a government. The Weimar Republic comes to mind.
The in-setting excuse for why the Federation survived at all, shaky as it was, is that it employs cryptofascists already and gives them unchecked privileges to surveil, harm, and murder on a whim to maintain the status quo: Section 31. You might be a fan.
Do you have any argument to back that up that isn't GOMMUNISM VUVULZULA GORILLION DEAD?
Lol. Ok buddy.
You literally don't know anything about Mao
The U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 comes across a lost Earth colony during a survey beyond Federation space; a few generations after its establishment, a group of religious zealots take over the operations of the colony, creating a feudal society in which power is held by a select few "holy" families and the vast majority of colonists are little more than slaves. How would Kirk and crew handle this situation?
Well I don't think the federation government would be idiotic enough to try and make every farmer into an industrialist by forcing them to meltdown their own tools in the hopes of creating mechanised farming equipment only to end up with piles of unusable pig-iron slag, and thus contributing to another famine.
Says the Stalinist who'd be the first lined up at the wall and shot by the very ideology they support.
And for the record, fuck the Nazis, fuck the Tories, and fuck every single fascist rightwing or leftwing.
Democracy isn't perfect, but it gives people a voice and if they work hard to maintain proper democratic institutions, it offers the better outcomes for the majority.
Fascist... leftwing? I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.
Yea, democracy is nice. That’s why China has workers councils embedded into its constitution, to ensure democracy in the workplace.
A world where China respected its constitie would have really been something.
Lol really ticked off the tankies. Don't tell them starfleet hq is... in America!
edit: sorry, I have been informed tankies' localization actually has star fleet headquartered in... San Fransokyo from Disney's Big Hero Six?
The Star Trek Understander has logged on
the USA is definitely an entity that still exists in star trek
100 percent
have you even watched the show?
Where's the Office of the President of the Federation?