A Global, Anti-Racist Approach
By José-Antonio Orosco
José-Antonio Orosco is a professor of philosophy and director of the Peace Studies Program at Oregon State University. He has also been a Star Trek fan since his youth, watching reruns of The Original Series with his mother every Sunday night. As an adult, he realized the connections between the science fiction franchise and his career as a professor – specifically within the field of peace studies – and combined the two interests into a 2022 book entitled Star Trek’s Philosophy of Peace and Justice: A Global, Anti-Racist Approach.
For those unfamiliar with the field of peace studies, it was founded shortly after the end of World War I and focuses on issues concerning peace, war, violence, and justice. Those within the academic discipline are not merely interested in studying or theorizing over such concepts, however, but finding ways to actively participate in creating a more just present and future as well.
Since its inception in 1966, meanwhile, Star Trek has portrayed its fictional future as one where humans of all races, creeds, and genders have learned to both live and work together while emphasizing exploration over empire building and colonization.
“Star Trek is not necessarily a blueprint for a utopian future, but it can highlight aspects of the horizon to which we can aspire, highlighting new values and new ways of relating to one another and to the natural world,” José-Antonio Orosco writes. “Star Trek episodes demonstrate important concepts within peace studies, but the STU (Star Trek Universe) articulates a particular image of what it will take to build a more just future for humanity that robustly challenges the field to take on radical positions about social transformation.”
Although Orosco explores peace studies on a variety of levels in Star Trek’s Philosophy of Peace and Justice, chapter three – “The Nature of Peace and Human Flourishing” – especially relates to contemporary real-world issues. Using philosopher Jane Addam’s theory of “negative” and “positive” peace as a barometer, the author analyses instances in which Captain James T. Kirk of The Original Series has disobeyed the Prime Directive of Starfleet, as well as examples where Captain Jean-Luc Picard of The Next Generation and other Starfleet officers have followed the directive to the letter.
According to José-Antonio Orosco, “Negative peace usually means a reduction or elimination in violence and war, while positive peace refers to a society with the presence of human rights, economic and political justice, and a commitment to sustainable relationships with the natural world.”
In short, the key difference between negative peace and positive peace concerns human rights and justice – it is possible for a society to be free of violence and war, for instance, while still forbidding certain freedoms for its citizens. The Star Trek: TOS episode “The Return of the Achons” is a prime example of negative peace. While investigating the disappearance of a Federation starship over a century earlier, the crew of the USS Enterprise finds themselves on the planet Beta III, populated by a race of obedient yet contented humans.
As it turns out, the entire population of Beta III has been brainwashed by a powerful artificial intelligence named Landru. “This is a soulless society, Captain,” Science Office Spock tells Captain Kirk. “It has no spirit, no spark. All is indeed peace and tranquility – the peace of a factory; the tranquility of the machine; all parts working in unison.”
After discovering that Landru’s original mission was to care for the people of Beta III, Kirk asks the AI, “What have you done to do justice to the full potential of every individual of the body?” Without creative thought, he continues, humans are nothing more than a mindless species. Realizing that it has failed in its assignment, Landru destroys itself and frees the people of Beta III in the process.
Although Kirk’s actions may have been noble and morally justified, they were likewise in direct violation of the Prime Directive, which prohibits Starfleet personnel from interfering in the natural development of any alien civilizations, no matter how well-intended. As José-Antonio Orosco points out, however, Kirk’s actions in “The Return of the Achons” were meant to keep Landru from brainwashing the crew of the Enterprise as opposed to interfering with an alien civilization. In installments of the series where no direct threat to the Enterprise is present, Kirk is more inclined to follow the directive regardless of the circumstances.
The same holds true for Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the episode “Symbiosis,” for instance, the Enterprise discovers a planet whose inhabitants have become addicted to a drug that makes them compliant to the wishes of a nearby planet. Instead of remedying the situation, Picard decides to not interfere. In the two-part Deep Space Nine episode “The Maquis,” meanwhile, the Federation refuses to assist former citizens fighting for rights in a demilitarized zone in order to maintain the tentative peace that exists between the Federation and Cardassian Empire.
“The decision by most Starfleet captains not to intervene in an alien society to protect positive peace is more than just a convenient trope,” José-Antonio Orosco writes in Star Trek’s Philosophy of Peace and Justice. “It is very much a reflection of today’s international consensus on norms about intervention and human rights.”
While the United States may be willing to take action against another country when it is directly threatened, taking similar actions to prevent human rights violations is another matter. During the Cold War of the twentieth century, for instance, the U.S. failed to come to the aid of countries trapped behind the Iron Curtain – specifically Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in 1981 – due to political considerations and the desire to maintain the status quo with the Soviet Union. The same held true after the protests and resulting massacre at Tiananmen Square in China in 1989.
In the season three episode “There Is a Tide…” of Star Trek: Discovery – which was released in 2020 as opposed to the 1960s of TOS and the late 80s, early 90s of Next Generation – the crew of Discovery find themselves nine hundred years in the future, leaping past Kirk and Picard into a new world in which the Federation of old has effectively collapsed. Twenty-first century diplomacy has apparently been discarded as well. When Admiral Charles Vance tells the leader of the Chain that “he can offer her peace but not at the expense of justice,” he is referring to a positive peace built on human rights as opposed to a negative one that merely eliminates the possibility of war.
As José-Antonio Orosco notes in Star Trek’s Philosophy of Peace and Justice, an examination of sixty years of Star Trek reveals that “the STU does mirror our contemporary world in which realpolitik considerations often compromise the protection of human rights.” He goes on to add, however, “I believe that some of the newer stories in Star Trek demonstrate a renewed awareness that a more humane future can only be built if the eradication of war is grounded in societies arranged to provide opportunities for humans to thrive intellectually, emotionally, economically, politically, and with strong imaginations to conceive of even better worlds.”
Which, when you get down to it, is the basic goal of Peace Studies – even if it is a violation of the Prime Directive.
Anthony Letizia