The federation is what most European colonial projects used to justify themselves taken to its more idealistic extreme, handwaving the material emiseration and genocide inherent in colonialism with vague notions of ‘post-scarcity’.
As far as I know there are no indigenous civilizations in the star trek universe who look at the federation and think “nah I’m good, leave us alone please”. Because to the liberal mind sovereignty of their ‘inferiors’ is a foreign concept, so they must be in awe and reverence at the federstion and there can be no differences that can’t be reconciled by assimilation into the dominant culture.
There are examples of cultures which chose to be left alone by the Federation. They do not exist to challenge the liberal zeitgeist from which Star Trek sprung, but its interesting to note that 90s trek could abide things which today’s american culture might not. The civilization with the dying sun, for an instance, is simply isolationist. They’d rather be left alone and the Federation leaves them alone. Helps them when they call for help, but leaves them be afterward. The key issue of the episode is that the locals choose to die at the age of 60 so as to unburden their family and society, which causes the story’s main personal conflict.
The episode as a whole too isn’t limited to showing them as xenophobic backwards people, which they aren’t portrayed as. Rather, the ultimate reading of the episode is that while a liberal struggle for freedom and lives is more than worthwhile it may not be worth people’s livelihoods and community. ‘It will take a courageous person to change things but I can’t be that person’. I think it’s an interesting example because it comes from a time when american liberal hegemony was so sure of itself and so comfortable about its future that it could ‘afford to wait’. As far as it is concerned, the arc of history bends liberal so if some people aren’t ready for it yet then you can let them be.
Then the war on terror happened and now we have rainbow imperialism playing musical chairs with imperialism classic.
As far as I know there are no indigenous civilizations in the star trek universe who look at the federation and think “nah I’m good, leave us alone please”.
As far as I know there are no indigenous civilizations in the star trek universe who look at the federation and think “nah I’m good, leave us alone please”.
There’s an episode in The Next Generation, I think called First Contact, in which a civilization on the verge of FTL travel is covertly contacted for Federation membership but they ultimately decline. The reason they decline though is because a lot of their population is very reactionary and their worldview would’ve been completely shattered by knowledge that they weren’t the most advanced and important species in the universe, and the head of state decides that such a thing would cause far too much social upheval and declines the invitation.
At least they have the prime directive which states they won’t interfere with less technologically advanced societies, so they aren’t just straight up space imperialists. I can’t recall the specific episodes but I feel like there have been people they met once or twice that were like “we got our own thing, we don’t want your federation here.”
As far as I know there are no indigenous civilizations in the star trek universe who look at the federation and think “nah I’m good, leave us alone please”.
The federation is what most European colonial projects used to justify themselves taken to its more idealistic extreme, handwaving the material emiseration and genocide inherent in colonialism with vague notions of ‘post-scarcity’.
As far as I know there are no indigenous civilizations in the star trek universe who look at the federation and think “nah I’m good, leave us alone please”. Because to the liberal mind sovereignty of their ‘inferiors’ is a foreign concept, so they must be in awe and reverence at the federstion and there can be no differences that can’t be reconciled by assimilation into the dominant culture.
There are examples of cultures which chose to be left alone by the Federation. They do not exist to challenge the liberal zeitgeist from which Star Trek sprung, but its interesting to note that 90s trek could abide things which today’s american culture might not. The civilization with the dying sun, for an instance, is simply isolationist. They’d rather be left alone and the Federation leaves them alone. Helps them when they call for help, but leaves them be afterward. The key issue of the episode is that the locals choose to die at the age of 60 so as to unburden their family and society, which causes the story’s main personal conflict.
The episode as a whole too isn’t limited to showing them as xenophobic backwards people, which they aren’t portrayed as. Rather, the ultimate reading of the episode is that while a liberal struggle for freedom and lives is more than worthwhile it may not be worth people’s livelihoods and community. ‘It will take a courageous person to change things but I can’t be that person’. I think it’s an interesting example because it comes from a time when american liberal hegemony was so sure of itself and so comfortable about its future that it could ‘afford to wait’. As far as it is concerned, the arc of history bends liberal so if some people aren’t ready for it yet then you can let them be.
Then the war on terror happened and now we have rainbow imperialism playing musical chairs with imperialism classic.
That’s literally a plot point of one of the most critically acclaimed episodes of Last Generation, an alien race tells the Federation to fuck off because they’re not ready for contact
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
There’s an episode in The Next Generation, I think called First Contact, in which a civilization on the verge of FTL travel is covertly contacted for Federation membership but they ultimately decline. The reason they decline though is because a lot of their population is very reactionary and their worldview would’ve been completely shattered by knowledge that they weren’t the most advanced and important species in the universe, and the head of state decides that such a thing would cause far too much social upheval and declines the invitation.
At least they have the prime directive which states they won’t interfere with less technologically advanced societies, so they aren’t just straight up space imperialists. I can’t recall the specific episodes but I feel like there have been people they met once or twice that were like “we got our own thing, we don’t want your federation here.”
There are many examples of aliens not wanting to join
sounds like it’s time for a re-watch