Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Different Kind of Geekfest

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first broadcast of Star Trek. Oh happy day for us geeks! This article says the show was about "liberal imperialism", though it does take note of the Federation’s mindlessly relativistic "prime directive" (thank God the British rulers in India didn’t repair behind the prime directive when they saw suttee about to be practiced).

The best analysis of Star Trek remains Paul Cantor’s invaluable Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization.

P.S. Comedy Central recently held a William Shatner roast. It wasn’t very good--too much crude humor--but there were a couple of good lines, such as the comic, noting Shatner’s now-full figure, who said, "Bill--you have let yourself boldly go! You know Bill, they make 1 percent milk now.)

Discussions - 1 Comment

If you buy a book I edited with Dale McConkey on amazon--FAITH, REASON, AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY TODAY--you Star Trekky Geeks and West Coast Straussians can encounter a fundamental theoretical dispute about the object your devotion.
Diana Shaub says that Capt. Kirk etc. embody the meritocratic American principles of equality and liberty, and so that she learned to be an American deep down, in part, by imbibing the message of the show. Paul Cantor says that the show is the saga of "the end of history." The real mission of the Enterprise was to bring history to an end by eliminating liberty understood as genuine human diversity to an end. The Klingons were the last hold outs...
I’m not a big fan of the show and have no opinion, but if you want to have a weekend discussion....For those who care, I’ve been away at the Bioethics Council meeting, which was intense enough to preclude blogging...Thanks to all the NLT people who came to the bar Wednesday; there were enough of you to run the sponsors well over budget.

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