B5: Confessions and Lamentations

[Percysowner]

[

And while the episode isn't a 1-for-1 AIDS allegory, that was DEFINITELY an epidemic that was ignored for years because it was an "immoral disease".

Well, it was not talked about in polite company, but research was done to figure out how to treat it, steps were taken to contain its spread, and to the extent that people were ignorant about it, it was often more in the direction of overestimating the risks of contagion.

The Markab essentially act like their society has not yet come up with the germ theory of disease.[/quote]

Yeah, NO! http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum ... 751030.php

Dr. C. Everett Koop, Reagan's surgeon general, has said that because of "intradepartmental politics" he was cut out of all AIDS discussions for the first five years of the Reagan administration. The reason, he explained, was "because transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs." The president's advisers, Koop said, "took the stand, 'They are only getting what they justly deserve.' "

It was far more than not talked about in polite society the surgeon general couldn't even TALK about the epidemic at the time, let alone lobby for funding.

[RobbyB1982]

I was going to comment some more and counter argument, but anything I could say has kind of already been said.

Good job forum.

But in short my point when bringing up healthcare, gun control, women's choice, global warming, etc... they are all cases where we have options to fix the problems but don't mostly for ideological reasons. If those ideologies are religious, profit based, or cultural pride based, , the core reasons vary and have nuances.

But they are all cases where we go "there is clearly a problem, we have known about this problem for decades and we could fix these things, but lets do nothing about it or even make it worse, because of our beliefs."

Saying "this alien race not dealing with a preventable problem because of their faith is stupid!" misses that humans do exactly that. We've known about global warming as a scientific fact for *decades*, since at least the 80's, and it wasn't until the results started to be really obvious that we even started to try fixing it... and the current administration is actively working against it (due to loyalty to oil and coal companies). It has for a very very long time been passed off as "there's nothing we can do about it" and "It's a problem for my grandkids". Even though the evidence is absolutely in and there are people working to fix the problems, there are still many many many people that say "this is just a natural part of earth's cycle and humans have nothing to do with it, global warming is just a myth."

And for the record on women's issues specifically, no, it's not JUST abortion that we regulate. There's also general health care, not understanding that birth control/pads are a need not a luxury, denying maternity leave, lower pay rates across all industries, sexual harassment, and thousands of other things. There's absolutely a war on women. As far as abortion in particular goes, even though abortion and a woman's right to choose are legal, states have done a looooot of things to stymie those choices. In some states you would have to go to a different state entirely, hundreds of miles to find *a* clinic now and have to stay there for two days and you have to go through tooons of hoops to do it... rather than it being the safe and quick readily available procedure it can and should be. (And to say nothing of getting in the way of using contraceptives because of religious reasons.)

[GandALF]

There's absolutely a war on women. As far as abortion in particular goes, even though abortion and a woman's right to choose are legal, states have done a looooot of things to stymie those choices. In some states you would have to go to a different state entirely, hundreds of miles to find *a* clinic now and have to stay there for two days and you have to go through tooons of hoops to do it... rather than it being the safe and quick readily available procedure it can and should be. (And to say nothing of getting in the way of using contraceptives because of religious reasons.)

But you could easily reverse that and argue that pro-choice beliefs are leading to deaths from abortion. The episode kind of has a problem in that the Markab belief is silly and is presented that way, so can it can be used as an analogue for any belief anyone thinks is silly. So Cecil Rhodes could see it as an allegory for the Shona's beliefs getting in the way of him saving them from barbarism.

[MadAmosMalone]

This is why last season's "Believers" makes an interesting counter-point to this episode. Some people's beliefs may seem silly to us but are often sacrosanct to the person holding those beliefs.

[CareerKnight]

This is why last season's "Believers" makes an interesting counter-point to this episode. Some people's beliefs may seem silly to us but are often sacrosanct to the person holding those beliefs.

Not sure if I would call it a counter point necessarily. Believers is another episode that probably wouldn't happen in Star Trek and not just because of the downer ending. Trek loves its message shows which Lamentations is, the message being that politicizing a disease or any problem really is a bad idea that can only really end badly (its a bit more specific then just "you have to deal with the problem" cause the Marcab would argue they are by being pure and if anyone falls sick then they must not have really been pure, no true Scotsman anyone?). Believers isn't a message show and is more about getting you to think about the issues raised (Trek has done these occasionally but definitely prefers to pick a side and beat it into the ground) and I'm guess JMS succeeded as people argue that it is pro-religion and anti-religion.

[CharlesPhipps]

I think the general consensus is the parents were stupid for not allowing surgery and Franklin was an idiot for not bothering to find out just how seriously they took the issue. In other words, we're more aware the issue wasn't religion vs. science but culture vs. culture.

There's no real way to defend the fact, "We shunned the people who had the Black Plague and it got us all killed."

However, that's a hindsight issue.

It's a tragedy either way.

[G-Man]

But they are all cases where we go "there is clearly a problem, we have known about this problem for decades and we could fix these things, but lets do nothing about it or even make it worse, because of our beliefs."

Saying "this alien race not dealing with a preventable problem because of their faith is stupid!" misses that humans do exactly that.

The point is "we're going to ignore the fact that a disease that is obviously spread through casual contact is wiping us out because it resembles a disease that was associated with a place that we think of immoral centuries ago" is a strawman version of it.

And for the record on women's issues specifically, no, it's not JUST abortion that we regulate. There's also general health care, not understanding that birth control/pads are a need not a luxury, denying maternity leave, lower pay rates across all industries, sexual harassment, and thousands of other things. There's absolutely a war on women. As far as abortion in particular goes, even though abortion and a woman's right to choose are legal, states have done a looooot of things to stymie those choices. In some states you would have to go to a different state entirely, hundreds of miles to find *a* clinic now and have to stay there for two days and you have to go through tooons of hoops to do it... rather than it being the safe and quick readily available procedure it can and should be. (And to say nothing of getting in the way of using contraceptives because of religious reasons.)

Again, this is more an issue of disagreement on values than of disagreement on facts.

To explain the difference, look at "Confessions and Lamentations" vs. "Believers." You can think that the parents in "Believers" were stupid and did the wrong thing, but they were not delusional about what they were doing. They were going to let their son die because they believed that the operation to save him would be worse for his soul. They did not think "if we just pray, he will get better on his own."

But they are all cases where we go "there is clearly a problem, we have known about this problem for decades and we could fix these things, but lets do nothing about it or even make it worse, because of our beliefs."

I think what people object to is the attitude of "the way to fix these things is totally obvious, and has no downsides, only upsides. On the gun issue, the healthcare issue, the pollution issue, there are trade-offs (for example, in the UK, thieves are not afraid to break into people's homes while the homeowners are inside, because the homeowners cannot effectively defend themselves; also in the UK, hospitals often fill up beds with cheaper-to-care for patients and critical patients wind up unable to get into the hospital, as for global warming, if we relied entirely on renewable energy we could not possibly maintain first world living standards). I don't really want to get into a debate over what the right policy is on all of these issues; I just don't think that you can argue that there is no real debate on what to do with these issues, only ignorant people who don't see things your way.

"We're going to die because we are in denial about the very existence of a highly contagious disease" just seems to me to be a bit of a strawmannish version of the "dogma before science" position.

[Darth Wedgius]

I'm not sure why Dear Doctor ruffles more feathers than TNG's Homeward, where the entire crew is willing to see all life end on a planet because of a technowhahoosis atmospheric inversion thingy.

Does it? I was under the impression that the consensus was that both of them were BS.

I just gathered that Dear Doctor got more hatred because I couldn't remember Homeward being brought up when the prime directive is mentioned. I guess I shouldn't say that Dear Doctor ruffled more feathers, more like I saw more ruffled feathers from Dear Doctor. I didn't count the population of overall feathers on the basis of ruffledosity. Maybe Homeward caught just as much flak, and I just hadn't seen it.

[SuccubusYuri]

I think it's a blend of stuff. A) Dear Doctor was specifically billed as "Hey! Want to see the Prime Directive born!?" in the promo material. And we got that pile. related to B) Homeward emerges in the Berman era, but there were plenty of Prime Directive episodes in TNG that actually understood the fucking point. It's easier to write it off as inconsistency in continuity. Dear Doctor...is all you have for Enterprise. Primarily because of the suits advertising, the other instances a proto-prime directive would apply must be inferred, which is harder than it sounds when its been so inconsistent over the years if you take all its applications on even ground.

Which I'm sure we'll be enjoying this weekend, a whooooole bunch.

Though now that I think of it the Prime Directive is Starfleet General Order 1, and since Section 31 traces its origins to the starfleet charter, and is in Enterprise, shouldn't the Pri-ah fuck it. *drink drink drink*

[G-Man]

I think that "Homeward" is viewed a lot less unfavorably because (1) the Prime Directive exists by Homeward, so the crew at least are behaving due to values and rules already established (and perhaps there have been incidents that have made them gun shy), and (2) we get both sides of the argument. This can be seen as a "letter of the law" vs "spirit of the law" argument.

In "Dear Doctor" you basically see both the Doctor and Archer at the end agree that the ideology that would become the Prime Directive is the obviously moral choice based primarily on their own whims. It's not treated as a dilemma, and the reasoning as to why interfering would be wrong (equivalent to "let all the Africans die in case gorillas might develop a society in Africa if the humans are gone") is very threadbare.