David Corn and James Pinkerton on Star Trek and More

The Star Trek theme is, “space the final frontier”, though I would have thought of it more in a philosophical sense as relating to the at-tempters of the yet to come—in the sense that Thus Spoke Zarathustra deals with the last man that points the way to the superman. Zarathustra’s project is different from Kirk’s. What motivates Kirk to wander the heavens is to see what is there in the sense of a Pepsi commercial—been there done that, while Zarathustra at-temps to preach the meaning of the eternal return of the same (hence he is still locked in the realm of Jewish prophesy but his message is the denial of prophesy in the sense that now that God is dead what is it that really matters—what does the burning of sacrificial thighbones do for me since it can’t please God or is it a crime—stealing the animal’s right to live so as to appease the non-existent god—or does burning flesh produce an erection and a collective orgasm?) Repetition for Zarathustra differs from Hollywood in that the idea is that every instant of this life is repeated, over and over again without stop (like watching the same movie over and over again but only that you’re not cognitively aware that it’s a rerun—a sort of existential Alzheimer’s in-between universes ) and if you were to live life with that way of understanding, as the meaning or religion of your life, would the belief that you are sentenced to live every moment of your life precisely as you have lived it for all eternity, would this “knowledge” transform your world view, alter your actions—considering George W. Bush, the perfect embodiment of nihilism—an archetype for the abuser of power, the answer is most likely no—but we live in an age where religion is fighting for its survival and thus it is repeating its history in its most majestic manner—as an abomination against life, this abomination will either end God or make it manifest for a new millennia of stupidity where to fail to grovel at the holy feet of the great nothing is punishable by death. Regardless, Zarathustra at-temps to be a projection of the future of philosophy, in the sense that Kirk is the great voyager of the Cosmos who zooms into the unknown reaches of the universe—to go where no man has gone before but where the more contemplative Zarathustra conceived of these superhuman individuals of the future as coming to terms with the derivation of a new table of values—because the morals of the Christian God have perished with the death of God. Thus freedom in his mind is liberation from God, but it means the very question for what it means to act on account of our own volition then forces the question of what is right and what is wrong to be reevaluated. Wrong in the absence of God is no longer a theological question but rather it becomes a human one. There are no divine commandments so what is morality? Kirk on the other hand is presented as having the morality of the observer (at least in the original version—haven’t seen this new old film)—it is forbidden to intervene in the affairs of “lesser” evolved societies—which means Kirk assumes to know what this concept of “more evolved” means and yet much like the problem of the observer in terms of modern physics one must ask how can Kirk believe that his presence in these unknown societies be viewed as not affecting the development of the society—or anthropologically how can Kirk comprehend how his presence might determine or influence the deification concept among these humanoids or these sentient beings? For example what constitutes a God is in no way obvious because we seem to attribute “God” to a scripture of some form—but once the scripture is gone will we not remain metaphysical subjects of God unless we are able to put our finger on what God is? (It’s a bit like fight a war on terrorism) Consider the way in which an anthropologist interacts with something from his own cultural background, something as common placed as his wristwatch can provably constitute the behavior and rituals attributed to a God—thus the very so-called primitive people this anthropologist observes, are in turn observing the anthropologist (I guess this is “primitive Anthropology”) and their question of questions to the anthropologist is—“Who is that God on your arm?” Has Kirk evolved into this super-being who knows in totality the unconscious meaning of his everyday acts? Does Kirk challenge the death of God with a new table of values or is Kirk merely the manifestation of our present day rightwing Jewish-Christian values superimposed on a cosmetic future? It would seem that Kirk on his adventures always manages to snuff a few “savages”, to zap a few cosmic “terrorists” or crush “an axis of evil planets” all the while he pays allegiance to the “federation” of which he represents and whose order has imposed its will upon the “free” universe (Kirk is more than an explorer of the unknown—he’s a imperialist of the federation laying claim to the dominion of the Federation at warp speed, which miraculously knows where in the universe he is. The world of Gods has always been a world that imposes a sort of depravity upon a culture’s development but also it colors and seasons its advancement. In Western Civilization it is when the realm of Gods is semi-shattered that Greek Culture explodes in advancement—creates it’s sciences, it’s Euclid, it’s Aristotle and Plato, its Hippocratic medicine, its Ptolemy cosmology and the arts of Euripides or its comedy of Aristophanes, it is when it becomes a culture that housed a multitude of religions as well as no religions that it truly blossomed into the Golden Age (is this Kirk’s federation?)—but when the limit was reached in antiquity, this sojourn with openness, is also when the religiously conservative are threatened and then clinging in fear they execute even the most pious of the pious—like say Socrates and force the less religious into banishment—like say Anaxagoras or hunt down Pythagoreans for their “evil” thoughts on infinity. What is Kirk’s religion and when will the federation lose control of its “openness” and execute the infidels? What is the Federation faith?