Trekkian Utopia

Life isn't fair and it's not a perfect world.

We have all known this to be true for about as long as we've understood pretty much anything. We've all experienced unfairness and had to accept it as a fact of life; we've all witnessed some grave injustices, at least second-hand. Each of us could write a long list of imperfections about this world and the society we've grown up in, and we all have opinions about how things could be better.

If we allowed our wildest imaginations to conjure up a vision of utopia, what would it look like? Artists and philosophers and politicians have mused about this since the dawn of time; some have posed practical improvements, others more fantastical. One of the more inspiring visions was borne from the mind of a man named Gene Roddenberry. He dreamt of a future human civilization when we'd would go where no man had gone before; exploring the unending vastness of the cosmos—encountering new worlds and new civilizations—enabled by technologies that, at the time, seemed incomprehensible.

Roddenberry's television series Star Trek debuted in 1966 featuring vessels that navigated the stars, strange yet human-like aliens, stun guns and teleporters and replicators, a hunky ship's captain whose speech patterns resembled someone who... might be... having... a stroke; but all in all, a truly enjoyable watch that spawned a pop culture titan. Perhaps it fed upon the anxiety of an American culture that was coping with something terrifyingly unimaginable at the time, and its fantasy provided a comforting sense of escapism. The atrocities of worldwide armed warfare were fresh in the memories of the American People, but they were now presented with a new form of conflict: A Cold War. Weapons didn't fire bullets, they shot ideas; the mechanisms of the Cold War were primarily psychological. They were told there was a terrible enemy who may live on the other side of the planet—or might be your neighbor.

This enemy had a name: Communism. Anti-Communism propaganda also had a name: The Red Scare. The evil Soviets were plotting world domination, and all civilian patriots were tasked with keeping a vigilant eye on possible Communist infiltration of American society. Government committees were formed to judge individuals' actions and determine Communist intentions; government-sanctioned anti-Communism even had its own designation: McCarthyism. Hollywood was a frequent target of investigations; lo and behold, the Pinko Commies had clearly seized control of the darling of American entertainment, the bastion of popular influence: the industry of moving pictures. Lists were written, names were placed on them, careers—nay, lives were upended.

One person who wasn't targeted was Gene Roddenberry and his fictional enterprise. And why would Star Trek be a suspect? Sure, they had a Russian crew member but there was nothing definitively Communistic about that; surely in any hopeful human future, we Americans had beaten the Soviets into submission long before the era of space travel. But the reason Roddenberry's enterprise wasn't targeted by anti-Communist witch-hunters was because its vision of future human utopia was founded upon pure theoretical communism (Of important note: the supposed Communism of Soviet Russia and Red China is actually nothing like theoretical communism; a more accurate descriptor of their socio-political economics would be State Capitalism).

Yes, you read that right: The imagined human civilization that enabled the fiction of Star Trek to play out most closely resembles Karl Marx's theory of communism. These future humans enjoy an egalitarian existence, unencumbered by poverty, free from most inter-human conflict, with a wealth of resources necessary to human prosperity, and a near-eradication of crime. Also conspicuously missing from this fantastical utopia: a system of currency; there is no money in Roddenberry's Star Trek. While that omission wasn't overtly explained during the airing of TOS (the original series), later spinoffs explored this nuance in great depth. The first reiteration of Roddenberry's imagination came in 1987, titled Star Trek: The Next Generation. With Patrick Stewart's glorious portrayal of Federation Starship Enterprise's Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the writers of the series made it abundantly clear that these fictional descendants of ours had advanced civilization only by doing away with an economically-based form of society.

One episode from the very first season, 'The Neutral Zone' addresses the 24th century's specific lack of economy by having the crew encounter some cryonically-preserved ancestors of theirs from the 20th century (a depiction of current viewers' capitalistic society). Captain Picard has to explain to his time-travelers: "People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We've eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We've grown out of our infancy." The unfrozen relic tries to reassert, "It's not about possessions, it's about power ... to control your life, your destiny." Picard responded, "That kind of control is an illusion." Similarly, a dated visitor in the first episode of the sixth season, 'Time's Arrow' exclaims: "I come from a time when men achieved power and wealth by standing on the backs of the poor, where prejudice and intolerance are commonplace, and power is an end unto itself." The ship's councilor counters, "Poverty was eliminated on Earth a long time ago, and a lot of other things disappeared with it: hopelessness, despair, cruelty..." If that isn't a blatant enough rebuke of capitalism, the writers make it abundantly clear in the film 'First Contact' (1996) wherein the crew travels back in time to the 21st century and Picard is again challenged with explaining: "The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century… The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives; we work to better ourselves, and the rest of humanity."

That sounds great, you say, but that kind of society is dependent on technology which is unimaginable right now. Is it, really? Their starships certainly were not powered by fossil fuels, I'll give you that. But aren't we already witnessing the precursors to warp drives and teleportation and replicators? While those advancements are still quite a ways off, we're already pointed in that direction. Modern-day physicists are tinkering with the ideas of Newton, Einstein, and Alcubierre to form more hypotheses concerning space propulsion. Every day brings further advancement in clean and powerful energy; Elon Musk's Tesla offers consumer-grade solar power roofing, for instance. Chinese scientists teleported a photon from Earth to a satellite recently. Development of nuclear fusion and its subsequent power output is hampered by economic restrictions, but the potential is scientifically viable. Despite the fact that our current percentage of food waste is unconscionable, ending world hunger would be so much easier with a food replicator. Is that just pie-in-the-sky? Not really, considering the continuing advancements in 3D printing technology combined with the science of genetic engineering. It's suddenly much easier to imagine materializing a substance programmed to contain essential nutrients as well as to look and taste like whatever we so desire.

A Trekkian vision of utopia—built on cooperation rather than competition where an individual's station in life isn't defined by economic status but by contribution to the betterment of humanity and, regardless of one's ability to contribute, everyone is afforded the basic necessities of human life and the tools with which to realize their full potential—seems to be predicated on a simple tenet: "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs." This philosophical approach isn't possible through coercion or legislature, it's a path we must all choose to travel on together; a relative utopia is reachable, but we must go where humans haven't gone before. We very likely won't see poverty eradicated within our lifetimes, or food replicators or fusion power or distant space travel or holodecks (okay, maybe a few of us will get to experience a holodeck before we punch out); but we can start taking steps toward those goals so the coming generations can expand upon that advancement and hopefully build a truly civilized society. If we can imagine a better world, we can begin to build one; life isn't fair and the world isn't perfect, but shouldn't we struggle for fairness and strive for perfection?