"We have the right---"
"To wage war on a planetary scale, captain? To slaughter millions of innocent lives?"
Sometimes a weird theme will take over my life in some coincidental way for a while. Lately it seems to revolve around the old television show Star Trek.
It started a couple weeks ago when, finding myself bored one evening, I was flipping through the television (something I don't do much anymore) and landed an old rerun of the original series of Star Trek, showing on Channel 3. I hadn't watched an episode of that old show in years, but all of a sudden it seemed like exactly what I wanted to see.
Partly it was the fact that it was showing on Channel 3, which is an old station that used to broadcast out of Sterling, a town far out on the Eastern plains of Colorado. Back in the old days, one could pick the Sterling channel with the right antenna orientation. These days, the channel now broadcasts from Denver (I guess) but it retains the format of an old-time independent tv station that just shows old reruns, game shows, and infomercials. It's sort of like what Channel 2 (KWGN) used to be like in Denver in the old days, for folks that remember that.
Thus watching Star Trek on Channel 3 has almost the same campy old-time t.v. feeling as watching it back in the late seventies. They even show the closing credits all the way through, like they used to for old reruns.
Almost immediately it became a staple of my evening routine. Shortly before eight, I could turn on the tv to Channel 3 and catch the last few minutes of a rerun of Magnum P.I. before Star Trek would come on. The opening few minutes of the teaser felt like sinking into a warm bath---a rational world of the crew of the USS Enterprise in outer space, as imagined in the years 1966-1967 (all the episodes I've seen so far have been from the first season).
I'm particularly enjoying the episodes that revolve around the idea of war and peace. For example, a couple days ago they showed "A Taste of Armageddon," which is one of my all-time favorite episodes (Season 1, Episode 24 link). In that episode, two planets are at war with each other, but it is a "fake war," with all of the action generated by computers in a virtual reality which calculates the casualties. The population of both planets must voluntarily submit to execution chambers in order to satisfy the death calculations. They believe it is more humane to do this, because there is no actual physical damage. When Kirk puts a stop to the process by destroying their computers and their execution chambers, the inhabitants of the planet realize to their horror that they are going to have confront the idea of staging an actual real war with other planet. Suddenly peace seems like it might be a good idea after all.
I've long meditated on this episode in relation to our current state of war in the U.S., which is so "clean" in that with the exception of those actually involved in th e military, we don't suffer any apparent damages our casualties. It is all happening elsewhere, to other people. This is why we can keep doing it year after year, without any apparent effects.
But there are always effects of war. I believe that we suffer from it collectively in some deep psychological way, despite our believe that we don't. Somehow the "casualties" will be taken, here at home, despite our belief that we are far removed and immune.
Tonight's episode was "Errand of Mercy," which is about an impeding war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire (Season 1 Episode 26 link). The two sides about are about to start a galactic-sized conflict over a small planet on the edge of the space territories, but they are stopped and forced to negotiate peace by a super race of ethereal thought beings, who have been masquerading as helpless primitive humanoids. The super beings disable all the weapons of both sides, leaving them no choice but to make peace. The quote on the top of this post is from the leader of the super beings, refuting Kirk's attempts to assert his right to wage war.
In a way, thus, it's the same concept as "Taste of Armageddon," but on a much bigger scale, with the humans now cast as the race in need of schooling in the ways of peace.
Both episodes, as well as so many other in the original series, reflect the "enlightened" American values of the late 1960's. We saw ourselves as a muscular, masculine culture, unafraid to fight when it was called for, but we sought peace whenever possible, and always strove to fight with honor and a code of fairness.
How much more complicated it would be now. How much darker we would be. So many of the values of the old Star Trek now seem like quaint relics of another era. Now we torture. We bend the rules. Codes of honor are for idiots. Peace is elusive and never really possible. Is it even desirable?
We make one war after another. Even as one war fails, we go on to the next one, as if this time "we'll surely get it right." Our failures only seem to make us want to feed our addiction.
You might say "it's a different world," but 1967 wasn't exactly the cleanest and most noble year of American history. In fact the reality of the Vietnam War was as messy and disgusting as anything happening right now in Central Asia. Yet nevertheless we could assert cultural values that expressed our desire for fairness, justice, and honor. We could strive for the higher ground of our souls. What is honor now? It seems to be nothing more than reflexive bravery in combat. How debased we are.
Like I said, I like when a theme of my life unfolds with a certain degree of coincidence. For example, I wasn't surprised when Nick, the guy whom I gave a ride up to Nederland a couple weeks ago, patted the the dashboard of my BMW sedan and reminisced about his old family car, saying they called it "Captain Kirk." It felt like a blessing somehow.
Just today I was reading how the real-life USS Enterprise (link), the first and oldest nuclear air craft carrier in the US fleet, first launched in 1961, just set sail on what will be its last ever cruise. Back in 1967, when my uncle Dick was serving aboard that ship as a radio operator while it operated off the coast of Vietnam sending bombing sorties. My father once said that his brother made a vow that if he were ever supposed to relay orders for deploying a nuclear weapon, that he would personally refuse and accept whatever consequences it meant. Thankfully he didn't have to do that. He was honorably discharged and went on to own a chain of recording studios in the upper Midwest.
Yesterday the Big E, as those in the Navy call it, left Norfolk on its way across the Atlantic to a mission in the Persian Gulf. It's part of the American fleet that is being assembled there in possible preparation for the coming war with Iran, the war that everyone in the media seems to think is inevitable. We keep hearing how it just has to happen. Some think it could be the start of World War III (or IV, depending on how you're counting). Or maybe it will all just blow over, like it has before, and we'll be talking about the same things a couple years from now.
It goes without saying that I hope that Enterprise comes back home safely, without having to fire a shot in anger. I wish I could say that I believe that this view is being shared by the powerful people who are moving these chess pieces around the world. I wish I could say that they believe in honor, fairness, and justice. I wish there were a little more of 1967 left alive in our culture.
But heck, I'd settle for a 1984.
Hielten sich für Captain Kirk...
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