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Atamolos — Spock on Collectivism
Published: 2014-01-24 23:56:56 +0000 UTC; Views: 2925; Favourites: 35; Downloads: 1
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Interesting fact: Gene Roddenberry was a socialist.Related content
Comments: 63
I'm not so sure Spock was addressing societies as a whole. At least, that's not what the movie played out.
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Roddenberry may have been one of the few progressive voices in a genre that seems to tend towards a libertarian/martial philosophy--IMO of course!
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No wonder why Patrick Stewart wanted to be in the Star Trek XD
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The principle has good reason to it. The problem is understanding how the practice of this principle of utilitarianism will affect society.
Justification of using this utilitarianism principle in practice requires that there be no assumptions, and that you're forced to make a choice in a situation where you cannot ask for consent. The choice must also rationally weigh the pros and cons the outcome of the choice will have morally on society.
There really is no other way I can reason where you could implement this kind of principle into written law onto a society of people without having more harm come from it than good.
The principle on its own, when practiced by the individual of their own free will, tends to be fine until they get control over other people's lives. That's why consent is so important to have in this principle's practice.
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You sir spark alot of debate with your views. Keep up the good work.
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Exactly what needs of the many outweigh what needs of the few? Any and all?
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How kind of you to unblock me so I could respond.
"The needs of the many" refers firstly, to the basic needs and rights of the collective. More often than not, this includes everybody, not simply the majority.
The central message of the phrase is to emphasize that, if the desires of a few individuals infringe upon the rights of "the many", being the collective, then they are harmful to the society as a whole, and it would be a waste of resources to cater exclusively to such.
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Are you aware that, in Dark of the Moon, Sentinel Prime (also voiced by Leonard Nimoy), used this very same "reasoning" to justify the extermination of an entire species?
And what happens when the desires of the many infringe on the rights of the few?
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What part is Nimroy best known for? Most likely Star Trek's Spock. Now riddle me this, do you honestly believe that Capitalism is the way to go in space? Humanity needs to outgrow these mythical desires in order to exand their knowledge about the galaxy around them. Star Trek's future depends on a post-Capital society based on the idea that each human an alien is special and deserves respect as such. So if you honestly think that Communism and Socialism is about the murder of society, look to Star Trek and remember that the Federation is a benevolent institution designed to bring unity, autonomy, and equality through a collective field. Almost like Socialism or Communism.
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You do realize you're using a fictional show that takes a lot of liberties with reality to support your ideology, right?
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Well than thank you for using Transformers as a reference. I hope you remember that when you mention Nimroy's role as a villain in a movie. Oh, I almost forgot! Did you know that Star Trek has culturally affected the world by having the first desegregated crew in a scifi show? Not to mention that it solely brought out many questions in regard to our treatment of the poor, the affects of Capitalism (Ferengi), and the problems regarding race and religion. Face facts, a liberal show like Star Trek has changed the world.
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And before you try and jump on me for what I just said, Ferengi culture does have problems, but they aren't from capitalism.
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Then what are they from? They are an example of Capitalism that hates taxes, labor laws, and believe in mythical religions like worshipping the First Negus. In no way do they believe in the society that the Communistic Federation believes in.
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And not that you give a damn, but the Ferengi are not representative of free-market capitalism. I could say why...but I already have.
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Actually, looking a bit deeper into them, they are a good race and do represent many of the great benefits of capitalism, and I'm failing to see what "problems" of capitalism they demonstrate...then again, you wouldn't be the first one to view individual freedom as dangerous.
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Ferengi? A good species?! Obviously you must not have watched DS9. They are greedy and do not care for morals. Are you really that type of person that would blindly follow someone because the believed in free-market Capitalism? You are a sad sight for Trekkies everywhere.
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"Well than thank you for using Transformers as a reference."
Considering Atamolos started off by quoting a fake character, I think that allows me to do the same. In any case, it was Nimroy who was making the quote, and he's not fake.
"Oh, I almost forgot! Did you know that Star Trek has culturally affected the world by having the first desegregated crew in a scifi show? Not to mention that it solely brought out many questions in regard to our treatment of the poor, the affects of Capitalism (Ferengi), and the problems regarding race and religion. Face facts, a liberal show like Star Trek has changed the world."
Major League Baseball and the military, things that are actually real, were also changing opinions on race.
And no one's saying "Hey, in the future, we'll be able to beam things and people where we need them, so let's stop building cars and drilling for oil now." No one's ignoring the facts of today for the wishes of tomorrow.
How are things produced in your beloved Star Trek? How is food grown, how are homes built, how are diseases cured?
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Actually, strange enough, a replicator works exactly like the 3D printers NASA has been working on. Think about it, how much has Star Trek influenced our technology? Not to mention, how often did Star Trek ask questions regarding morality?
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Firstly, in my opinion, that was a terrible movie: the plot was silly, the screenplay was horrible, and Ironhide was killed. But I digress.
In this instance, Sentinel Prime's misconception is that the life on Earth "needed" to be exterminated for the Cybertronians to survive. This simply isn't true. You could draw a parallel of any line reasoning to a flawed usage of itself. For example: if two of your neighbors broke into your house, stole everything, and killed you, would the "needs of the many" reasoning be justified because they outnumber you? of course not. There was no legitimate reason for them to do that, so the argument's usage has little relevance if it isn't applied in context.
Desires should never infringe upon rights. That's the point of this reasoning.
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So you do not believe that a majority may demand whatever it wishes from a minority or a one simply on the basis that it needs it?
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You used both the words "wishes" and "needs". Those are mutually non-inclusive.
In any case, the two pillars of a successful social group are democracy and rights. Democracy allows for the majority to be satisfied, and rights allow the minorities to be satisfied if their opinion is not full reflected by the majority consensus.
Democracy without rights is mob rule. Rights without democracy is a benevolent dictatorship. You must have both for pure communism to be possible.
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"Rights without democracy is a benevolent dictatorship."
How so? Rights dictate how a man can live among his fellow men without causing harm, and one of the key requirements of rights is freedom from the initiation of force, which is the cornerstone of any dictatorship, benevolent or otherwise.
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You're right, that is what rights are, but without democracy, citizens are not free to make decisions that govern them. The ability to self-govern is liberty, and without the ability to do so, you live under a dictatorship.
A dictatorship is defined as follows: "A government controlled by one person, or a small group of people. In this form of government the power rests entirely on the person or group of people"
The cornerstone of a dictatorship is that the power is vested entirely in the hands of the government, rather than in the hands of the governed. Benevolent dictatorships can, and have existed. Take for instance, the dictators of the late Roman Republic, Hammurabi's rule, Ivan the Great, or the enlightened despots of the Renaissance Period.
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But again, you have to keep in mind that politicians are no different than you or I, ergo they can't do anything you and I can't do. So rights do guarantee the ability to self-govern.
And that may be the definition of a dictatorship, but without the ability to initiate force, that person or group would have no means of enforcing its rule.
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Not true. Politicians can indeed do thing that we cannot. They can enforce laws, declare war, make policies, etc. None of these things depend on democracy in the sense of citizen inclusion, which is ironic, considering they are the ones most affected by them.
However, this is true. Regardless, a benevolent dictatorship can guarantee numerous rights, just not all of them. This does nothing to downplay the existing ones.
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"They can enforce laws, declare war, make policies, etc."
Only if the end goal is the protection of individual rights; they can't, at least not by right (ie, morally) do any of those things if they would violate individual rights. And many of those things are extensions of our own right to protect ourselves; they've just been put under objective control to make sure they are used to that end goal.
"Regardless, a benevolent dictatorship can guarantee numerous rights, just not all of them."
But those rights exist by the permission of the dictator, not by objective law.
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Modern politicians are not elected by citizen vote, nor do they reflect citizen opinion. They simply fulfill the office to which they're assigned, and spend the rest of their time arguing with other politicians, accepting bribes from lobbyists, and making little progress towards improving society as a whole.
The origin of the rights are irrelevant. They come from somewhere, regardless of the degree of flimsy grounding.
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"The origin of the rights are irrelevant. They come from somewhere, regardless of the degree of flimsy grounding."
You can't have effect without cause, Atamolos. If you ignore where rights actually come from, they can be manipulated to mean whatever someone wants them to mean.
"Modern politicians are not elected by citizen vote, nor do they reflect citizen opinion. They simply fulfill the office to which they're assigned, and spend the rest of their time arguing with other politicians, accepting bribes from lobbyists, and making little progress towards improving society as a whole."
The government's role is simply to protect people from force and fraud, nothing more, nothing less. Improving society is on the citizens (and you'll find that private citizens have done more for improving society than any politician), and the best way for them to do it is for them to be given the freedom to live their lives as they wish, so long as they don't initiate force against others.
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You main misconception is that, in a progressive society, there is little to no distinction between the politicians and the citizens. If the citizens have no say in government, then they have no method by which to improve the society.
As for the job of the government, the government's job is to secure the rights of, ensure a reasonable standard of living for, and protect the citizens. And in a democracy, the government is simply the reflection of the citizens.
And in a country where politicians do next to nothing besides waste money on pointless wars, claiming that private citizens do more to contribute is akin to claiming that leprosy is better than AIDS because it kills fewer people.
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I'll have to paraphrase this, but there is a beautiful line in "First Contact". When asked, but what do you do for money? Ryker replies- "We have no need for money..."
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I finally watched First Contact, and I heard the line to which you are referring. Picard says that people no longer work for money, but for the betterment of humanity.
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That's it!!!
Is that not a beautiful concept? What did you think of the movie? Data has a nice line at the end as well
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It was a lovely movie, of course to me, anything with Borg is great. I especially liked the part of Data, as usual, as well as the inner turmoil of Picard as his duties conflicted with his emotions. It made for a very colorful story.
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It is one of my fav's. What do you think of the new movies? 2nd a bit of a disappointment, almost had the plot figured out in the first 'Act', Still watchable none the less. Watched the Graceland movie last night. My, how, Courtney Cox has matured. In a nice way.
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I found the second one to be better than the first, probably because of the role of Khan, although I found Spock's role to be unrealistic. I too had the entire plot predicted early on in the movie.
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Sounds like an excellent line. Unfortunately, First Contact is one of the only movies I have yet to see. I've heard great things about it though.
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It's a little to heavy on the action part for my taste, but then again I love the Borg, and it's one of the better movies, unlike some of the other Star Trek movies *shudder*
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Yeah, I kind of the 'Borg' kind of appealing in some respects as well. In some of the movies, the opening credits were about as long as the movies themselves as well as being a complete disaster for fans.
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ew... or the one where they look for god *laughs*
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That sounds a lot more like utilitarianism than communism or socialism.
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The two aren't mutually exclusive.
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I guess not? The principle of the many over the individual is basic utilitarianism, though.
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Placing collective interest over the desires of individuals? That's fairly communistic.
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