donzall

[donzall]

It’s not a bad show, but it isn’t Star Trek

I’m a Trekkie, raised on Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). I’m quite open minded, I actually liked the Kelvin movies and was tremendously excited about Star Trek: Discovery (Disco, because who wants STDs?). I won’t talk much about season 1 here, but after seeing episode 1 of Disco’s second season I have to say I’m very disappointed in it. A lot of Trekkies say “it’s not Star Trek” and I tend to be conservative about that statement, because those of us who remember DS9 being introduced can probably remember a lot of the same hoopla about that show. DS9 arguably turned out to be the *most* Star Trek of all the incarnations, but that’s a discussion for another time.

I’m currently rewatching TNG. Before watching the season 2 premiere of Disco, I watched an emotional TNG episode about a Klingon warrior struggling to accept being differently abled after an accident in a cargo bay. In his culture, being differently abled is considered dishonorable, weak and useless as you can’t roll a wheelchair into battle. Keep in mind the Klingon culture and Worf’s exposure to Federation culture was often used as a means to convey being understanding of other cultures, while - admittedly - propagating Federation (Western) culture as being superior. He winds up asking his friends for ritual euthanasia. His friends have to weigh respecting his wishes, in effect helping to killl him, or not. It strongly clashes with their belief that people with disabilities aren’t ‘disabled’ but differently abled and he could still have a wonderful fulfilling life with a disability. Euthanasia has been dealt with before in TNG episodes and it doesn’t advocate against it as much as it cautions not to make rash decisions. Life is worth living, no matter your race, religion, creed or physical restrictions.

Together with his young son, Worf fights to rehabilitate without much success and just wants his honor intact, his legacy secured and continues to wish to die to save himself and his family ‘dishonor’. A second story line tackles the medical ethics of an untested experimental procedure that could save the warrior’s life, but could also kill him. Should it be offered to him or not? The doctor who developed the procedure offers it to him against the resident physician’s wishes. Ethical and personal conflict ensues that makes for great story telling AND reflection. The procedure eventually works of course, but the storylines are powerful, socially relevant, engaging and thought provoking.

Then I watched Discovery. Cue incomprehensible opening scene about an African girl inventing the Milky Way or something. I don’t understand what that was about - it may come later, who knows. The Enterprise is brought in as a weird plot device, most likely to appease older fans with trivia and Easter eggs. Like the transporter chief donning a VISOR. A device created specifically for Geordi LaForge in the 2300s, which somehow this guy already had a couple hundred years earlier.

Pike takes command (yay!). We’re now supposed to feel sorry for the Disco crew for whom I’ve developed no empathy yet in a contrived scene introducing Pike as someone who wins at everything except astrophysics. Michael mansplains stuff about Disco never leaving a brother or sister behind to a seasoned respected captain for some reason. Albino mushroom science guy is grieving the loss of his partner, the doctor. Again I have no empathy for these severely underdeveloped characters yet so it’s not emotional. Tilly is great and doesn’t want albino science guy to leave the ship. We know he won’t, it’s all so transparent, but whatevs Tilly is great. Skip ahead a bit and they warp into a weird exploded planet or asteroid belt with an as of yet unexplained gravity well to rescue a medical frigate stranded there during the Klingon war. Lots of lenses flair their flairs. They somehow change its trajectory and whammy it’s now heading straight into a pulsar, according to flailing arm lizard, for the obvious script reason to create ‘more danger’. Now we’re all worried eh? I wasn’t either. They get into weird scientifically implausible fast falling spinning things. The obnoxious not-Spock science guy who we knew was going to die rather quickly dies rather quickly while being obnoxious. Pike’s spinner thing has a malfunction and Michael has to save him in a totally unnecessary stunt because Pike’s suit also has a malfunction. Said malfunction disappears once the spinner things have landed though. Oh no we almost lost Michael! (Again). The threat was so non existent it was laughable. They find a funny engineer whose quirky-but-brilliant further unexplained and purposeless engineering stuff has kept a bunch of people alive or something. Spectacular but useless props include a heart in jar and a Tellarite leaky brain. They start beaming out survivors using pattern enhancers on transporter pads (one would think transporter pads ARE pattern enhancers, but whatever). More contrived danger leads to Michael not making the beam out, but Pike comes back for her (Oh no we almost lost Michael! (Again)). Back on the Disco it appears Michael has weirdly bonded with Pike during this one mission and wants to visit the Enterprise, Pike is like whatever as long as we have some fun. She fondles her brother’s (don’t get me started) things and an insanely over engineered scene leads to the transparent discovery that Spock went to investigate the same weird red dot MacGuffin things. I hope this Red Angel isn’t an entity whose blood is the completely inexcusable red matter plot device Spock used to travel back in time to trigger the Kelvin timeline. We’re all left amazed and stunned at these developments. Right? I have no idea what this show is about, it has a great cast and wonderful special effects, but it has very little - if anything - to do with what Star Trek was about for me.

After that... whatever that was I went back to watching TNG. A great thought provoking episode about a species called the J’Naii, who don’t have genders. There are those in their species who favor one gender or another and are ostracized because of it. People find it unnatural and sick. If officials find out, these ‘deviants’ are tried and sent to therapy camps where they are ‘cured’. Riker falls in love with one of them before knowing she is one of those so called deviants that has chosen the female gender. During this they talk about issues that face us even today: what personal pronoun to use if any, who leads when they dance (whoever’s tallest in case you’re wondering ;) The authorities do find out though and eventually have her arrested and treated. Riker and Picard struggle with what to do. Can they help her? Offer asylum? Would that violate the prime directive? Riker eventually decides to follow his heart instead of the prime directive, and launches a clandestine rescue attempt with Worf to rescue her, but shows up too late. She’s already been treated. An episode that had wonderful (for its time) special effects in a null-space environment, but also dealt with the struggles LGBTQI folks still deal with today in a reverse psychological type of treatment.

Can you tell the difference? Discovery has a great cast and amazing special effects. The stories are not Star Trek. They don’t allow for deep rich character development that actually makes you care for any of them. It doesn’t deal with societal issues head on. They make up fast paced supposedly emotionally charged scenes for characters you don’t care about yet and superfluous action sequences to speak to younger audiences. If I look at how high a value younger generations put on topics like ethics, equality, the environment, diversity and inclusion, there are SO many stories to tell and they are sorely underestimating young people. Star Trek was always about the story. The story in season two (much like the contrived mirror universe nonsense and magical spore ridiculousness) is nowhere to be found yet. The pending return of one of this incarnation’s worst characters as a Section 31 operative (sigh) already disturbs me. I hope Picard’s return in a contemporary series will bring back some quality to the franchise. In the meantime I also hope Disco will come to tell valuable stories, thinking more about the message than how to tell it.

[donzall]

The naked truth?

So, a supermodel named Bella Thorne showed what’s called a ‘side boob’ on Instagram to make a feminist equality point. The point being ‘if men can show their breasts (e.g. topless on a beach) why can’t women?’

I’m from the Netherlands and we’re pretty okay with female breasts. Watch any (pretty much any) Dutch film and if there are breasts required in a scene, they’re in em. Women don’t consistently keep their underwear on during sex and no weird L-shape sheets (http://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/3/0/2/41302.jpg?v=1). More examples of breasts in (popular) culture being... well... normal are plentiful.

First off, as far as I’m concerned, she can do whatever the heck she wants on her Insta feed of course. However female breasts aren’t quite as innocuous as male chests (with their useless nips). Female breasts were neurologically classified as sexual organs a while ago (e.g. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201305/sexual-wiring-womens-breasts) although they do a lot of guessing about why that is.

So al things being equal, showing a side boob is more like showing the side of a penis or vagina than a useless man boob. Also, for cis gender heterosexual males they cause involuntary neurological responses triggering hormone releases that we just can’t help. (Quick illustrative popular link: https://www.womenshealthsa.co.za/sex-love/the-reason-why-men-love-womens-breasts/) Obviously we don’t have to act on any of those firing neurons and activated synapses (we *can* help that), but I’m just saying, the male breast doesn’t generally elicit the same neurological response in cis gender heterosexual females.

The analogy doesn’t go all the way though, because female breasts are also marvels of nature that are capable of providing nourishment to a new life, the composition of said nourishment adjusted to this new life depending on its age and requirements (I mean come on that’s amazing!)

I also realize they’re just breasts and obviously they’re hers to do with as she pleases. Of all the things you could do with the female breast, using a side view in an Instagram post to make a point actually seems like one of the most innocuous things she could choose 😂

However, it’s not quite ‘equality’ as I’m sure that when I’m at the beach Ms Thorne may not want me to wave my penis in her (or her children’s) face as I would prefer her not to wave her breasts in mine (or my children’s).

[donzall]

Minister Blok

De opmerkingen van Minister Blok dat Suriname een Failed State zou zijn en dat er geen voorbeelden zijn van een vreedzame multiculturele samenleving hebben nogal wat stof doen opwaaien. Daarnaast heeft Blok gezegd dat er wetenschappelijke bases zouden zijn die genetisch bepalen dat bepaalde ‘rassen’ het wel of niet met elkaar kunnen vinden. Gedeeltelijk is dat onzin.

Er zijn wel degelijk wetenschappelijke bases voor genetische verschillen in ‘ras’. Deze zijn echter vrij verwaarloosbaar. Dit artikel is interessant in die context.

Wetenschappelijk gezien is iedereen het er eigenlijk wel over eens dat ‘ras’ een sociaal construct is - geen genetisch bepaalde factor.

Vanuit antropologisch en sociaal-wetenschappelijk opzicht is het een ander verhaal. Er bestaat echter vrij veel bewijs voor evolutionaire vooroordelen die in eerste instantie (lees: een paar honderd duizend jaar geleden) met name gedreven werden door wat we nu uiterlijke of oppervlakkige verschillen zouden beschouwen - slechts sinds een paar honderd jaar zijn daar in aanvulling culturele, religieuze en morele verschillen aan toegevoegd.

Die vooroordelen waren met name bedoeld om bijvoorbeeld het voortbestaan van de eigen ‘stam’ te beschermen. De reactie van mensen op “deze persoon ziet er niet zo uit als ik en is dus een bedreiging” had destijds evolutionair nut en biologisch nut voor wat betreft - bijvoorbeeld - het beschermen van de voortplanting met zo compatibel mogelijke gen-dragers. Zie bijvoorbeeld dit artikel waarin Robert Trivers van Rutgers uitlegt hoe dit evolutionair werkt met in-groepen en uit-groepen en waarin hij veronderstelt waarom. Er zijn overigens ook tegenstanders van deze stroming.

Daarnaast is het in meerdere onderzoeken bewezen dat er zoiets bestaat als een inter-groep vooroordeel. Zie bijvoorbeeld Research Gate en Nature.

Dit vooroordeel beschrijft de neiging van een groep om niet-leden van de groep als bedreigend op te vatten en (zwaarder) te veroordelen voor dezelfde of vergelijkbare infracties op de norm. Wanneer men experts zoals Frans de Waal hierop naslaat, blijkt dat morele acties nog steeds heel instinctief plaatsvinden met een sterkere biologische dan cognitieve basis. Achteraf wordt dan de geprogrammeerde actie cognitief beredeneerd.

Wetenschappelijke afgeleide conclusies

De wetenschappelijk waarschijnlijke conclusies hieruit zijn o.a:

Leden van een groep (een land met gedeelde cultuur) hebben een geprogrammeerde reactie op het verschijnen van personen of groepen die niet voldoen aan de in-groep norm.

Het behoeft moeite oftewel cognitief werk om de programmatuur te overwinnen. Dat cognitieve werk wordt ondersteund door onze natuurlijke empathie - dat ook evolutionair nut had voor het vormen van die stammen die beschermd moesten worden. Het behoeft evenwel cognitief werk om diezelfde empathie aan te wenden. Tenzij het om objectief kwetsbare groepen gaat (kinderen, ouderen, gehandicapten), daarbij blijkt onze empathie automatisch in te grijpen.

Conclusie

Mijn eigen conclusie is dat hoewel de excellentie genen aanhaalt, die redenering niet compleet gestoeld is op wetenschap. Hij heeft gelijk dat het lastig is om een multi-culturele samenleving te vormen, maar het is zeker niet onmogelijk. Recent onderzoek laat bijvoorbeeld namelijk ook zien dat zonder de samenvoeging van Neanderthalers en Denisovanen we nu misschien niet eens konden debatteren over de multiculturele samenleving.

De integratie van culturen en volkeren is niet iets wat snel gebeurt - zeker niet wanneer er grote tegenstellingen zijn.

De VS is een veel aangehaald modern voorbeeld waarbij vele culturen in een smeltkroes samen zijn gekomen. Recente ontwikkelingen in de VS lijken empirisch in ieder geval aan zijn kant te staan; echter het andere veel aangehaalde voorbeeld is Australië en dat wijst weer de andere kant op. (Voor beide voorbeelden zijn de problemen rond aboriginele inwoners een ander complex verhaal).

Evolutionair zijn deze voorbeelden echter piepjong en moeten we zeker nog een paar honderd jaar door voordat we écht kunnen zeggen of de multi-culturele samenleving mogelijk was of niet.

[donzall]

JoomlaCat!