Future Visions

Because my soul longs for a better world, I have a real problem with Star Trek.

It wasn’t always so. I grew up watching re-runs of the original Star Trek series—yes, in those primitive days, prior to the advent of cell phones and personal computers, when the state of the art in computer gaming was computerized ping pong.

Star Trek depicted a utopian society which managed to transcend race, class and cash, leaving behind need and greed.  The post-60’s era was a time shaped with uncertainty and turmoil, but also the optimistic promise of better days in the future.  We watched moon landings and viewed mind-altering images of Earth from lunar orbit.  The rosy dawn of the digital age brightened on the horizon, about to be ushered in by C3PO and R2D2.

There are times, now, when those days seem like a surrealistic memory.  Particularly in the current climate of political and social fanaticism, which I find not only disheartening but socially destructive.

The topic of surviving on minimal wages along with growing economic disparity recently triggered a profound melancholy in me.  I worked my share of minimum wage jobs back in the day, and a combination of hard work and hard choices have brought me to a point which some (who don’t know me) might call privileged, but which I call fortunate to the extent that we create our own luck.  So, I am not so far removed from those times that I do not retain a deep empathy for those who stumble from one day to the next.

What disturbs me most is the vitriol emerging from the battleground of social media, where competing viewpoints wage war for political and social supremacy.  One example is a young woman with the courage to publicly express what countless of her peers silently feel, then someone else publicly responds with scathing criticism.  Personally, a subsequent response to that criticism nicely summarized my own sentiments.

My training in counseling taught me that people tend to judge others through the lens of their own experiences and abilities.  I have to wonder how much the pervasive problems with drug abuse, homelessness and suicide among today’s youth are rooted in an increasing sense of hopelessness, confusion and a sense of being abandoned by society.  A recent column by a millennial nicely summarized the challenges facing this generation, not the least of which is a suicide rate (triple what it was when I was their age) that is now the second leading cause of death.

Those who are indignantly sitting up, muttering that they had a hard life and made something for themselves, so why can’t these people—take a deep breath, appreciate your accomplishments, and search within for some empathy toward those who don’t have the same external and internal resources you have.  Humans are an extremely diverse species, and not everyone can be a mountain climber.  We need each other, even if we don’t realize it.

While we now enjoy some of the technology envisioned in the Star Trek series, the more significant social conditions remain as intractable as ever.  The reality is that, while better technology can make life easier, that in itself does not equate to a better society.  I appreciate a good smartphone app as much as anyone, but our society has not eliminated homelessness; far from it.  Medical care is increasingly sophisticated and comprehensive, yet inaccessible for a significant portion of society, and often financially devastating.

For years I have posed a question to friends, which came up recently during a NOVA episode entitled “Rise of the Robots.”  What happens economically as more work, and even entire job sectors are performed by robots?  An interesting thought experiment is, if 100% of work was done by robots, how would that economic output be distributed to humans?  At what point do we transcend the need for someone to own everything?

This leads to my problem with Star Trek.

I concede unequivocally that, compared to virtually all of human history and too much of the present day world, those of us in the developed world are better off than most of us appreciate—but we could do so much better.  The original series (and for the most part the subsequent sequel series) not only portrayed a richer, brighter world but, more importantly, conveyed the message that we CAN do better.

The problem is that Star Trek takes place centuries in the future; one that is so distant and unreachable that it seems more fantasy than promise.  That utopian vision offers no bridge for us to get from here to there.  I suspect most people would likely agree that we are moving in the wrong direction, and I increasingly get the sense that we have lost that belief in a better future.  We can’t afford to wait hundreds of years for change to show up.  I wrote “The Malhutan Chronicles” to portray that bridge; an example of how a truly cooperative society might work.

The point is that we won’t build a better world by attacking each other.  My contribution is through writing stories that I hope are entertaining as well as thought-provoking.  Whether they are read or not, I will continue to do my genuine best, because what I write is my contribution to promoting change and growth now—not centuries from now.

Because I see the ultimate defining trait of being human as that we are indeed capable of choosing how to be, of changing oneself with intention and deliberate effort.  Certainly, the greed for wealth and power will remain a challenge for individuals, but human society can grow and change if we cooperate and work together.  Genuine change does not come easily, but we must believe we can do it, and do it now.

But we have to choose to change.  And stop tearing each other apart.

Because the bottom line is that, in order to create a better, more cooperative world, we must never stop working at it in whatever way we can.  Together.