Thursday, August 18, 2016

The federalist message of Star Trek

Now I understand why I always liked Star Trek. It makes me happy that the message of people cooperating at different levels is not limited to Planet Earth, but it goes beyond our own galaxy and extends to the whole universe. The screenplay writer Simon Pegg explains in an interview that the new productions of the mythical series make more explicit than ever a federalist message opposed to populists of the sort of Boris Johnson, one of the leaders of the Brexit campaign and the current Foreign Affairs secretary of the UK. I have to go and see the new movie. The starship Enterprise was like a federalist capsule in my youth navigating the universe trying to bring harmony and reason to rogue planets and tribes. The members of its crew were representatives of diffirent planets and civilizations, and they were helped by a humanoid android, Mr. Data. I guess that lots of people will like the message of Star Trek as it applies to other planets, but many spectators will still be reluctant to apply the same principles to their own countries. I can even imagine Mr. Johnson praising the new movie and the whole series and arguing that he has nothing against applying federalism to the universe, as long as the UK keeps full control of immigration, or something of this sort. That is the main strategy today of national-populism: global federalism is fine, as long as we apply it to others.

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