7 ms·

If American propaganda owes so much to Scifi, I wonder why optimistic visions of the future have gone out of vogue to such a great degree. Endemic conservatism

If American propaganda owes so much to Scifi, I wonder why optimistic visions of the future have gone out of vogue to such a great degree. Endemic conservatism in the military arm of the deep state?

KittenInABox 3y ago
People are easier to manipulate when they're frightened.
pjc50 3y ago
Optimistic visions pretty much ended with the 1971 oil crisis, in much the same way as all those graphs showing wage divergence starting then. It became apparent that progress was not linear and only upwards, and there would be significant downsides for at least some groups. You don't have to presume that it's all propaganda.
- suoduandao3 3y ago
  right, but I'm wondering specifically about the part that is propaganda.
  - theendisney 3y ago
    They change star trek into a space [war] opera.
    - krapp 3y ago
      TOS was literally the Cold War and Vietnam in space. TNG brought us a world-consuming machine hivemind, a military bureaucracy in which admirals being corrupt or incompetent was so common it's become a meme, and the Maquis. DS9 obviously had the Dominion War. Enterprise had the Xindi/temporal cold war nonsense. And I'm pretty sure Janeway is guilty of war crimes all across the Delta Quadrant. Star Trek was always space opera, and has always involved war. Not because of "the deep state" or propaganda, but because pew pew lasers make for compelling television.
      - theendisney 3y ago
        Its an interesting paradox, why yould piew piew make compelling television? It was always part of the scope of genres but some serious money and equipment was made available to portray the military favorably. It doesnt have to go towards this production to have an effect on expectations. The series definetly portrayed an interesting future be it slightly simplistic. Is there anything else that isnt dystopia? What harm is there if we turn the only non dystopian sf series into more piew piew? I dunno, but it seems it could turn out very expensive.
        krapp 3y ago
        >Its an interesting paradox, why yould piew piew make compelling television? It isn't a paradox. Star Trek is entertainment, first and foremost, and conflict is entertaining. Gene Roddenberry may have wanted to portray a post-human utopia of luxury space communism, as it were, where humans all evolved beyond their base desires and vices and everyone was a paragon of superior intellect and virtue, but no one wants to watch that all the time. His ideal of the perfect Federation human was Wesley Crusher, the most hated character in Star Trek history (long before the identity politics around hating the new Star Trek series came about.) People want dogfights in space and snarling Klingons and scheming Romulans. Drama and violence. Sturm und Drang. >Is there anything else that isnt dystopia? There is no utopia or dystopia. Star Trek was never very utopian, except maybe on paper. Idealistic and hopeful, sure, but the struggle for liberation from an oppressive order is by definition idealistic and hopeful. Star Trek doesn't become dystopian when it bothers to examine its own ideals, or acknowledge the flaws in human nature, nor is it utopian when it pretends they don't exist. I think that looking at science fiction in terms of utopia and dystopia is missing the forest for the trees. These are two opposing and impossible ideals, while most stories (excepting purposely grimdark stuff like 40K) take place in the middle. And that's fine. Humans can't aspire to perfection, but we can be inspired by the struggle to be better than we are.
        theendisney 3y ago
        Of course it has to be entertaining, we wouldnt watch it if it wasn't. > Gene Roddenberry may have wanted to portray a post-human utopia of luxury space communism He went a bit further than wanting. If the goal was communist propaganda he couldn't have done a better job. From a reddit post: > There are a lot of mentions throughout multiple series about how the Federation civilization is post scarcity and doesn't internally use currency. It is stated that they work for personal fulfillment, almost as volunteers in a fashion. > The series also has a number of time travel related episodes that venture back to near the end of the capitalism system and describes in detail an America that's suffering from massive income inequality and collapsing. Generally that period isn't painted in a favourable light by any of the characters often being referred to as a period of unchecked greed and ignorance And then there were the ferengi? Lmao
netbioserror 3y ago
Do we have the same DoD and State Department? Whiggist progressive ideals are the reigning ideology of the executive bureaucracy, and the idea of a benevolent, democratic US empire enforcing prosperity and freedom on tyrannical despotic regimes rules the roost in the halls of the Pentagon. By contrast, American conservatism has been isolationist for far longer than anyone currently alive has been around. The Reagan and Bush neoconservative (read: Whiggist) years were a blip in a very consistent longer trend. Or am I reading too much history to be taken seriously in this myopic place?
- lyu07282 3y ago
  I'm not sure how much you can learn from history when you take claims of "democratic US empire enforcing prosperity and freedom on tyrannical despotic regimes" on face value. The justifications to project power changed greatly over time and vary between the set of political ideologies in charge at any given time, but US and western foreign policy was always rooted in unspoken, consistent motivations. That's why the transition between pre- and post- cold war foreign policy was so seamless. The covert action, coups, interventions, military support, economic warfare didn't change at all. Afganistan 1 was about the "red scare", 2 was about "international terrorism". Iraq, Syria and Libya was about "tyrannical despotic regimes". etc.
  - netbioserror 3y ago
    Those are nominal justifications. They reflect persuasive arguments (aka propaganda), not true beliefs and actions. The true beliefs and actions of the military and state bureaucracy for many decades has had an imperial focus that is crystal clear through the prism of action and belief. I could cite the revealed preferences of many prominent figures in the military and state policy world: Rice, Power, Rumsfeld, Kissinger, Bolton, Nuland, etc. And those are just the people at the top; the hierarchy is stocked with true believers.
    - lyu07282 3y ago
      > the hierarchy is stocked with true believers Yes, the belief in the empire, it was always about (neo)colonialism/imperialism, I think even neoliberalism and LIO is just justification rather than a true belief of the people that drive foreign policy of western nations. > They reflect persuasive arguments (aka propaganda), not true beliefs and actions. People have been so infantilized by this propaganda, its really frustrating to talk with most people about it.
psunavy03 3y ago
Any argument that unironically uses words like "military arm of the deep state" is not worth taking seriously.
- suoduandao3 3y ago
  I'd ask what you disagree with, but you're calling an open-ended question an argument so I doubt it would be a productive discussion. I doubt you'd have had the same initial response if I'd said 'decision makers in the security and intelligence branches of the civil service'. Incidentally, I think a lot of insights can be gotten into psychological warfare if one likens it to cellular biology and the games viruses and engineers play to get a cell to accept foreign code. What we're seeing here is an excellent example of an immune response that looks for 'tells' of hostile activity causing an allergic reaction.
  - psunavy03 3y ago
    > I doubt you'd have had the same initial response if I'd said 'decision makers in the security and intelligence branches of the civil service'. I doubt I'd have had the same response if you'd used any kind of phrasing that demonstrated the most basic level of competence in the subject matter. Talking about "the military arm of the deep state" is like claiming to understand aerospace engineering and then talking unironically with a straight face about "the spinny thing on the front of the plane."
    - kelipso 3y ago
      Deep state is now commonly used lingo. You're just behind the times I guess.
      - immibis 3y ago
        It's commonly used among people who don't know what it means and still uncommon but valid among people who do.
        3y ago

If American propaganda owes so much to Scifi, I wonder why optimistic visions of the future have gone out of vogue to such a great degree. Endemic conservatism in the military arm of the deep state?

KittenInABox 3y ago

People are easier to manipulate when they're frightened.

pjc50 3y ago

Optimistic visions pretty much ended with the 1971 oil crisis, in much the same way as all those graphs showing wage divergence starting then. It became apparent that progress was not linear and only upwards, and there would be significant downsides for at least some groups. You don't have to presume that it's all propaganda.

suoduandao3 3y ago
right, but I'm wondering specifically about the part that is propaganda.
- theendisney 3y ago
  They change star trek into a space [war] opera.
  - krapp 3y ago
    TOS was literally the Cold War and Vietnam in space. TNG brought us a world-consuming machine hivemind, a military bureaucracy in which admirals being corrupt or incompetent was so common it's become a meme, and the Maquis. DS9 obviously had the Dominion War. Enterprise had the Xindi/temporal cold war nonsense. And I'm pretty sure Janeway is guilty of war crimes all across the Delta Quadrant. Star Trek was always space opera, and has always involved war. Not because of "the deep state" or propaganda, but because pew pew lasers make for compelling television.
    - theendisney 3y ago
      Its an interesting paradox, why yould piew piew make compelling television? It was always part of the scope of genres but some serious money and equipment was made available to portray the military favorably. It doesnt have to go towards this production to have an effect on expectations. The series definetly portrayed an interesting future be it slightly simplistic. Is there anything else that isnt dystopia? What harm is there if we turn the only non dystopian sf series into more piew piew? I dunno, but it seems it could turn out very expensive.
      - krapp 3y ago
        >Its an interesting paradox, why yould piew piew make compelling television? It isn't a paradox. Star Trek is entertainment, first and foremost, and conflict is entertaining. Gene Roddenberry may have wanted to portray a post-human utopia of luxury space communism, as it were, where humans all evolved beyond their base desires and vices and everyone was a paragon of superior intellect and virtue, but no one wants to watch that all the time. His ideal of the perfect Federation human was Wesley Crusher, the most hated character in Star Trek history (long before the identity politics around hating the new Star Trek series came about.) People want dogfights in space and snarling Klingons and scheming Romulans. Drama and violence. Sturm und Drang. >Is there anything else that isnt dystopia? There is no utopia or dystopia. Star Trek was never very utopian, except maybe on paper. Idealistic and hopeful, sure, but the struggle for liberation from an oppressive order is by definition idealistic and hopeful. Star Trek doesn't become dystopian when it bothers to examine its own ideals, or acknowledge the flaws in human nature, nor is it utopian when it pretends they don't exist. I think that looking at science fiction in terms of utopia and dystopia is missing the forest for the trees. These are two opposing and impossible ideals, while most stories (excepting purposely grimdark stuff like 40K) take place in the middle. And that's fine. Humans can't aspire to perfection, but we can be inspired by the struggle to be better than we are.
        theendisney 3y ago
        Of course it has to be entertaining, we wouldnt watch it if it wasn't. > Gene Roddenberry may have wanted to portray a post-human utopia of luxury space communism He went a bit further than wanting. If the goal was communist propaganda he couldn't have done a better job. From a reddit post: > There are a lot of mentions throughout multiple series about how the Federation civilization is post scarcity and doesn't internally use currency. It is stated that they work for personal fulfillment, almost as volunteers in a fashion. > The series also has a number of time travel related episodes that venture back to near the end of the capitalism system and describes in detail an America that's suffering from massive income inequality and collapsing. Generally that period isn't painted in a favourable light by any of the characters often being referred to as a period of unchecked greed and ignorance And then there were the ferengi? Lmao

netbioserror 3y ago

Do we have the same DoD and State Department? Whiggist progressive ideals are the reigning ideology of the executive bureaucracy, and the idea of a benevolent, democratic US empire enforcing prosperity and freedom on tyrannical despotic regimes rules the roost in the halls of the Pentagon. By contrast, American conservatism has been isolationist for far longer than anyone currently alive has been around. The Reagan and Bush neoconservative (read: Whiggist) years were a blip in a very consistent longer trend. Or am I reading too much history to be taken seriously in this myopic place?

lyu07282 3y ago
I'm not sure how much you can learn from history when you take claims of "democratic US empire enforcing prosperity and freedom on tyrannical despotic regimes" on face value. The justifications to project power changed greatly over time and vary between the set of political ideologies in charge at any given time, but US and western foreign policy was always rooted in unspoken, consistent motivations. That's why the transition between pre- and post- cold war foreign policy was so seamless. The covert action, coups, interventions, military support, economic warfare didn't change at all. Afganistan 1 was about the "red scare", 2 was about "international terrorism". Iraq, Syria and Libya was about "tyrannical despotic regimes". etc.
- netbioserror 3y ago
  Those are nominal justifications. They reflect persuasive arguments (aka propaganda), not true beliefs and actions. The true beliefs and actions of the military and state bureaucracy for many decades has had an imperial focus that is crystal clear through the prism of action and belief. I could cite the revealed preferences of many prominent figures in the military and state policy world: Rice, Power, Rumsfeld, Kissinger, Bolton, Nuland, etc. And those are just the people at the top; the hierarchy is stocked with true believers.
  - lyu07282 3y ago
    > the hierarchy is stocked with true believers Yes, the belief in the empire, it was always about (neo)colonialism/imperialism, I think even neoliberalism and LIO is just justification rather than a true belief of the people that drive foreign policy of western nations. > They reflect persuasive arguments (aka propaganda), not true beliefs and actions. People have been so infantilized by this propaganda, its really frustrating to talk with most people about it.

psunavy03 3y ago

Any argument that unironically uses words like "military arm of the deep state" is not worth taking seriously.

suoduandao3 3y ago
I'd ask what you disagree with, but you're calling an open-ended question an argument so I doubt it would be a productive discussion. I doubt you'd have had the same initial response if I'd said 'decision makers in the security and intelligence branches of the civil service'. Incidentally, I think a lot of insights can be gotten into psychological warfare if one likens it to cellular biology and the games viruses and engineers play to get a cell to accept foreign code. What we're seeing here is an excellent example of an immune response that looks for 'tells' of hostile activity causing an allergic reaction.
- psunavy03 3y ago
  > I doubt you'd have had the same initial response if I'd said 'decision makers in the security and intelligence branches of the civil service'. I doubt I'd have had the same response if you'd used any kind of phrasing that demonstrated the most basic level of competence in the subject matter. Talking about "the military arm of the deep state" is like claiming to understand aerospace engineering and then talking unironically with a straight face about "the spinny thing on the front of the plane."
  - kelipso 3y ago
    Deep state is now commonly used lingo. You're just behind the times I guess.
    - immibis 3y ago
      It's commonly used among people who don't know what it means and still uncommon but valid among people who do.
      - 3y ago