TNG - The Masterpiece Society

[pilight]

You guys seem to think liking your job means it's an all consuming passion that takes up all aspects of your life. Working, even at something you like doing, is only part of your life. Doing exactly what you want as a vocation doesn't preclude an avocation or even several. The people who created this society knew that artists need audiences, leaders need followers, sellers need buyers, etc. They didn't breed their people to be monomaniacal workaholics. They bred them to like their jobs and be good at them. When they're not working, they can appreciate other things without wanting to do them for a living.

[CharlesPhipps]

You guys seem to think liking your job means it's an all consuming passion that takes up all aspects of your life. Working, even at something you like doing, is only part of your life. Doing exactly what you want as a vocation doesn't preclude an avocation or even several. The people who created this society knew that artists need audiences, leaders need followers, sellers need buyers, etc. They didn't breed their people to be monomaniacal workaholics. They bred them to like their jobs and be good at them. When they're not working, they can appreciate other things without wanting to do them for a living.

You may watch as much theater as you like here. You just will never participate in it.

[pilight]

You may watch as much theater as you like here. You just will never participate in it.

You can participate, you're just not going to want to do it as a full time occupation

[clearspira]

You may watch as much theater as you like here. You just will never participate in it.

You can participate, you're just not going to want to do it as a full time occupation

Can you though? That didn't seem to be implied.

[CharlesPhipps]

You may watch as much theater as you like here. You just will never participate in it.

You can participate, you're just not going to want to do it as a full time occupation

Can you though? That didn't seem to be implied.

Quite the opposite. It stated that the idea of someone wanting to be an actor when they were a plumber was a "flaw" of society.

I find it helps to assume these people are basically the Qunari.

[AllanO]

As stated elsewhere, "This is the nicest isolationist eugenicist totalitarian hereditary dictatorship world you're likely to see."

I mean the Federation are willing to break bread with the Klingon Empire I think they are quite willing to extend compassion and consideration to ideological opposites.

To me dictatorship implies a state where dissent is met with a considerable amounts of coercive force to override individual decisions, it is difficult to see how these guys could even have a 20th century US style justice system they could not afford to have more than one or two people in prison much less the drain on main power of maintaining the prison system. There is no hint they would take violent reprisal against the dissenters and so on. At a certain point a nice enough dictatorship ceases to be a dictatorship because there is no dictating.

So fearless leader Connor is presumably delegating most actual decision making down the chain by those designed to be experts like what particle accelerator to build and what plays the theatre company puts on, but given the noted interdependence of the people and environment of the colony, it seems suspiciously like the leader is going to have a lot of substantive policy, priority and direction of the colony dictated from below by the back and forth of experts in various fields not decided by him. It might be that he is still dictating enough of the policy that he is a dictator or it might be he is more just chief bureaucrat in charge of coordinating the priorities set from below, which would not be a dictatorship. Now how are the priorities of the colony set by like an oligarchy of department heads maybe, or maybe by a representative legislature elected from different parts of the colony or maybe by a fully participatory citizens council who knows?

Quite the opposite. It stated that the idea of someone wanting to be an actor when they were a plumber was a "flaw" of society.

I find it helps to assume these people are basically the Qunari.

That was a different question though that was about your one's main occupation (being a plumber as your main career etc.), not about whether it is a good or bad thing that people have hobbies, other interests etc. If you're saying that is all that is said about it your admitting it is not implied that hobbies are bad, it is not implied they are good either. The story as written admits either interpretation.

I admit that it helps us to come to your interpretation if we assume your interpretation, but that just suggests again that the question is an open one in the story. Since after all if we assume they think unplanned hobbies are good then it helps one interpret it as a society where although one's main occupation is planned and organized for your other unplanned pursuits are allowed and valued in moderation.

I guess it comes down to two questions one is does the society seem more plausible as a rigid autocracy or a permissive participatory democracy (or whatever point in between) and two do the dilemmas of the story hinge on the interpretation. In terms of plausibility I see problems with either side (if its a dictatorship how could they do any enforcement given their dependence on each other etc. if it is permissive how could they maintain such rigid conformity etc.), so I don't think it matters much for that. In terms of story dilemma I think maybe assuming it is a permissive democracy makes the colony's plight more clearly sympathetic but it would not change the main dilemmas or the outcome, whether we sympathize with the society or not it is threatened if not doomed by this disruption.

[Frustration]

Now that I'm FINALLY registered...

I usually agree with the analysis in these reviews, but the rejection of the Prime Directive - or at least what that phrase came to mean in the TNG era - just isn't something I can get behind.

The Federation doesn't regard the saving of lives as the automatic highest good that transcends all other concerns. A comparison can be drawn to the medical ethics of our society, which have often been ignored, but keep being reinforced and re-emphasized because of the danger overzealous medical professionals can pose - a danger that doesn't necessarily involve risk to their patients' lives.

A major imbalance of power can have seriously deleterious effects on the underdog society even when the powerful are concerned and take great care - when they aren't and don't, the less powerful society is usually obliterated, either physically or culturally.

In the case of this particular episode, everyone involved knows perfectly well that the Enterprise's interference has saved lives. But as far as the society is concerned, the ship was just as destructive as the stellar core fragment. The episode is about the main cast recognizing that their good intentions didn't make their intervention any less damaging.

[Riedquat]

Now that I'm FINALLY registered...

I usually agree with the analysis in these reviews, but the rejection of the Prime Directive - or at least what that phrase came to mean in the TNG era - just isn't something I can get behind.

The Federation doesn't regard the saving of lives as the automatic highest good that transcends all other concerns. A comparison can be drawn to the medical ethics of our society, which have often been ignored, but keep being reinforced and re-emphasized because of the danger overzealous medical professionals can pose - a danger that doesn't necessarily involve risk to their patients' lives.

A major imbalance of power can have seriously deleterious effects on the underdog society even when the powerful are concerned and take great care - when they aren't and don't, the less powerful society is usually obliterated, either physically or culturally.

In the case of this particular episode, everyone involved knows perfectly well that the Enterprise's interference has saved lives. But as far as the society is concerned, the ship was just as destructive as the stellar core fragment. The episode is about the main cast recognizing that their good intentions didn't make their intervention any less damaging.

Whilst I've got a lot of sympathy with the protect a society angle (something some people just don't seem to grasp) in this case their intervention was considerably less damaging. Society dead and people alive is unambiguously better than society dead and people dead.

[Colbertnation]

Now that I'm FINALLY registered...

I usually agree with the analysis in these reviews, but the rejection of the Prime Directive - or at least what that phrase came to mean in the TNG era - just isn't something I can get behind.

The Federation doesn't regard the saving of lives as the automatic highest good that transcends all other concerns. A comparison can be drawn to the medical ethics of our society, which have often been ignored, but keep being reinforced and re-emphasized because of the danger overzealous medical professionals can pose - a danger that doesn't necessarily involve risk to their patients' lives.

A major imbalance of power can have seriously deleterious effects on the underdog society even when the powerful are concerned and take great care - when they aren't and don't, the less powerful society is usually obliterated, either physically or culturally.

In the case of this particular episode, everyone involved knows perfectly well that the Enterprise's interference has saved lives. But as far as the society is concerned, the ship was just as destructive as the stellar core fragment. The episode is about the main cast recognizing that their good intentions didn't make their intervention any less damaging.

What people seem to forget about history is that Societies and Cultures change. Go way back to Bronze Age Greece, limited people limited travel and still the society changed and culture changed. It was never “Ok everybody these are the gods and rituals we use so get used to them” and then they ran with it for a few thousand years. I think the real reason why there was no real revolt on the planet was in part because of rigid control but mainly there was no place to go. Your choices are planned society or Poison world.

It’s funny how a supposedly happy and perfect society, which during the crisis The Enterprise would have had very limited contact with the population considering how anal the leadership was about isolation, thousands of its “happy” and “content” citizens immediately said “screw this place I want asylum” the instant an alternative was presented. These people know very little about the galaxy and other worlds and civilizations since that was the whole point of their society, yet they willingly wanted to fling themselves into the unknown rather then stay. Even their head scientist openly admitted the whole thing was BS. The society was a failure, the culture was a failure, the ideology was a failure. For an enlightened scientific society they forgot the most basic scientific principle. When an experiment is a failure you change the variables.

Also what is the abhorrence towards a society changing? By that logic the south should have been allowed to keep slaves because that was the culture and society they had. Women’s sufferage? Forget that our society hasn’t had women voting and to change would be wrong. LGBT rights? Society has hated them for generations and that’s how it should remain because change is wrong. If this masterpiece society had decided to have an underclass of citizenry with basically no rights used as throw away fodder (think 40k hive worker) would the argument “they can’t be allowed to leave it would destroy us” be given the same weight? Whether or not the society is abhorrent to us is irrelevant since the whole argument is “Society change is bad”.

[pilight]

Yeah, it's like the line from Jurassic Park. "The kind of control you're attempting here is, uh, it's not possible. If there's one thing that the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. Expands to new places and crashes through barriers. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously." It's actually kind of miraculous it lasted as long as it did.