• AdlachEnglish
      35•2 years ago

      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.

      • @KevonLooney@lemm.eeEnglish
        4•2 years ago

        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.

        • @Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.mlEnglish
          4•2 years ago

          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.

        • AdlachEnglish
          3•2 years ago

          Roddenberry died in 1991, which is well after 1972.

    • muddi [he/him]English
      15•2 years ago

      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.

      • @nxdefiant@startrek.websiteEnglish
        4•2 years ago

        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.

        • muddi [he/him]English
          19•2 years ago

          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?

        • UlyssesT [he/him]English
          13•2 years ago

          like allowing differences of opinion and anti-authoritarianism

          Getting steamrolled by nazis by inviting them at the table 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.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]English
      13•2 years ago

      Do you have any argument to back that up that isn’t GOMMUNISM VUVULZULA GORILLION DEAD? morshupls

    • TC_209 [he/him, pup/pup's]English
      6•2 years ago

      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?

    • @bigboig@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3•2 years ago

      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?