Star Trek Prime Directive Meets Ayn Rand
First of all let me say that I cannot believe I am doing an analysis of the Star Trek prime directive. The prime directive states:
“As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Star Fleet personnel may interfere with the healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes the introduction of superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely. Star Fleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation.”
The associated prohibitions are given below (according to Jbrenner)
1. Providing knowledge of technologies or science
2. Taking actions to generally affect a society's overall development
3. Taking actions which support one faction within a society over another
4. Helping a society escape the negative consequences of its own actions
5. Helping a society escape a natural disaster known to the society, even if inaction would result in a society's extinction.
6. Subverting or avoiding the application of a society's laws
7. Interfering in the internal affairs of a society
What would Ayn Rand say about the prime directive. I bet her first question would be what is a sentient species? According to dictionary “sentient” means “able to perceive or feel things.” Well cows, cats, dogs, and many other species can perceive or feel things, in fact much simpler organisms would fit this definition. Based on this definition Rand would state that only rational beings have rights. Rand defined the hierarchy of knowledge integration as sensation, precepts, and conceptual. She explains it perceptual in this example.
“An animal is guided, not merely by immediate sensations, but by percepts. Its actions are not single, discrete responses to single, separate stimuli, but are directed by an integrated awareness of the perceptual reality confronting it. It is able to grasp the perceptual concretes immediately present and it is able to form automatic perceptual associations, but it can go no further.”
My guess is that Rand would then ask what is “normal cultural evolution.” Is it normal cultural evolution to allow Rachel Carson to convince countries to ban DDT and cause 100 million deaths? Is it normal cultural evolution to allow Mao to institute the cultural revolution that will starve over 30 million people to death? There is no such thing a normal cultural evolution. But it rings of Marxist ideas of a scientific progression of society.
Then Rand would ask why normal cultural evolution is considered sacred. According to the dictionary sacred means “connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.” Rand would reject anything based on an appeal to a deity. The proof of the first sentence of the prime directive rests on an appeal to faith, not reason.
It is clear the Prime Directive is based on faith, not reason and is immoral from the first sentence. I will not take on the rest of the directive but I will look at the prohibitions. The first prohibition is “Providing knowledge of technologies or science.” Given that directive was directed to species that are “able to perceive or feel things” this is almost meaningless. Most species that able to perceive are not able to understand or take advantage of knowledge.
But what about rational beings? Why would you not provide knowledge of technologies or science? Does this mean we cannot teach our kids science and technology? That would clearly be immoral. Your objection might be that they are within our culture, but what about African cultures? Should we have not introduced DDT, or steam engines, or the Internet? While we have no obligation to introduce these sciences and technologies, to purposely prohibit them would be immoral.
All the prohibitions and the prime directives are based group think (and written by Hollywood TV writers!). The word society is mentioned nine times in the Prime Directive and in the prohibitions. Individual is not mentioned once. Societies are based on a collection of people and only have rights based on the rights of the individuals, who make up the society, but none separate from them.
Start Trek’s Prime Directive is an inherently Socialist Ideal and Evil.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM8lXIAM...
I'd like to hear some people's view on the storyline presented, from an Objectivist point of view.
If you take the "normal cultural evolution" prong literally, it is that advanced societies wipe out less advanced societies (Until very recent history). This just shows that the whole statement is nonsense. There is nothing rational about it.
In AS there is no analogy to the PD. Galt cannot use force to convince Dagny or Rearden. So he has to let them see the consequences on their own. That is not the PD.
I'm on the side of *my* society; that is an evolutionary imperative. I will interfere if it benefits my society, and refrain if it benefits my society to do so, or at least doesn't harm my society to refrain.
Either do commerce to get the oil or conquer them for the oil? Would our economic need for the oil override the prime directive or property rights?
(Remember Kirk's promise to the Halkans in Mirror Mirror. )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwBO39Cu...
Best foreign policy the US ever had was entering WWII. The worst foreign policy was not pushing east after defeating Germany.
Had we entered and ended WWII as history meant, we'd have a globe-girdling empire right now, with our cultural values imposed on the entire world, to its benefit.
And let me be clear: we would have imposed our cutural values on the world the same way the f*ing communists have imposed theirs on us since WWII.
"The Fighting Philosopher"
"Here There be Witches"
by E.B. Cole.
They tell the story of an incredibly advanced civilization that practices the Prime Directive; non-interference. In the first story, 3 wayward members of the civilization are picked up from a planet where they've been taking advantage of the locals with their superior technology. When captured, they are re-educated.
Then, the protagonist is given permission to interfere in a culture like the ancient Mayans, with human sacrifice. Using a brainwashed local, they take over the priesthood, overthrow the government, and guide the society to eventual membership in the galactic civilization.
In the 2nd story, they're monitoring a primitive society, and it turns out that in the course of "witch hunts", done for profit of the priesthood, the society is wiping out all its telepaths.
The men involved violate the prime directive and interfere when an innocent farmer is tortured and about to be burned at the stake. They then "clean house", at which point their commanding officer shows up, and as they're getting ready to face punishment, they find out they've just been promoted to the "X Corps"... a special division charged with "guiding" primitive civilizations.
Personally... I hate the stories, although they're well written.
The US is falling apart not because of a collective, but because individuals are buying into the ideals of that collective and choosing to live by them.
Everything boils down to individual choice and how its used.
Definition: "A creature of volitional consciousness." Armed with that definition,
we may treat the species as we would treat ourselves at any particular stage of development. Which means a different form of encounter based on the different degree of societal evolution. And then, of course, There's the decision as to how to encounter a life form superior in development to us either technically, morally or both.
The other is that it arbitrarily limits trade to those civilized peoples who have risen at least to the planet-hopping level.
But in the third season of the original series, the Prime Directive was ignored completely.
And there's more. One episode ("The Paradise Syndrome") develops evidence of earlier "intervention" in human affairs--and specifically the transplantation of American Indians (Navajo, Mohican and Delaware, and maybe other nations as well) and other humans to other worlds. Which now is their way of explaining the existence of so many rational species that could walk and talk like us! But did not these Preservers violate any concept of non-interference?
So I'll throw a minor wrench in the works here: All Starfleet officers are MILITARY officers responsible to a chain of command. They are not independent merchants or travelers. They are bound by the oaths they swore when they joined Starfleet, one of which is the Prime Directive. To me, my personal oath and honor are bound in my doing the best I can to abide by my agreements. To casually dismiss them because I didn't think they were convenient at the time is an excuse at best.
I personally can't take the Prime Directive so rigidly. There are many episodes in TNG that dealt with Prime Directive issues. There was the one where Wesley Crusher falls into a greenhouse and is sentenced to death. According to the Prime Directive, Picard should have allowed the boy to die - even though to the crew of the Enterprise the law that was broken was A) unknown at the time and B) rather arbitrary. It was pretty hard not to sympathize with the crew on that one.
Then you have the one where Riker and Troi are in disguise on a planet and a native follows them, gets critically wounded, and the crew heals him. The native then goes back and makes a big stink about "the Picard" and his "magical" powers. According to the PD, they should have let him die - not only to protect their own identities, but to prevent the cultural shock that occurred as a result. I'm more ambivalent about that one.
A third one is where the Enterprise is sent on a potential First Contact mission to a civilization whose religion paints them as alone in the universe. They have to back out after presenting themselves to the planet's ruler because the culture of the people would endure such a shock that it might destroy them. In that case, I think the only reasonable plan was to obey the Prime Directive.
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