You Will Comply: Cultural Relativism, the Prime Directive, and the Noble Borg

By

Heidi Nelson Hochenedel

Marshall McLuhan proclaimed that artists are cultural prophets, members of a sacred caste with the unique gift of grasping the realities of the present to intuit the future. Unlike most people, artists do not live in the past, but are fully cognizant of the current impact of new media on the human psyche. In no art form is this more evident than in popular science fiction, in which creators often address current reality in the context of futuristic fantasy- landscapes. Most people are so numb to the new media that permeate their lives that they cannot see a simple truth - that the future prophesied by artists is the current state in which we are living. Star Trek, for example, addresses not our interaction with future technology, but also our present relation to it. In this paper I shall argue that the Borg and the Prime Directive in the science fiction television series: Star Trek: the Next Generation reflect our current relationship to technology, and the conflict that exists between democratic moral commitment and anti-imperialist moral relativism.

In the postmodern age, there can be little doubt that we have become the Borg. Like the Borg, our very bodies have melded with our technology. Computers and other electronic media have extended our consciousness such that our central nervous systems are centered as much on our hard drives as on our brains. We cannot function without our machines. They connect us to our community, with which we live in a state of interdependence. Those who do not share our way of life are ultimately assimilated via the introduction of education and technology, making us one with them. We are living in a global village, sharing a global consciousness, and assimilating those who would resist us.

Marshall McLuhan prophesied that in the not too distant future, verbal language would become obsolete because modern technology would create an ESP culture [can't you put this in a better way?] in which human consciousness would be united electronically. This notion is reflected in the Borg, who exist in a telepathic tribal communion made possible by the marriage of flesh and machinery. Significantly, the creators of Star Trek have portrayed the Borg as the enemy, the absolute nemesis of humanity, when it seems clear that they are our mirror image. The feminine values of community, telepathy, and social interdependence characterized by the Borg are demonized in the show, while the left-brain, literate, masculine values of individuality, difference, and division are glorified. Significantly , the Borg leader (the Queen) is female, while the leader of the Enterprise crew is male. The masculine values embodied by Picard and his crew are represented by Picard's slavish devotion to the Prime Directive, the first and only commandment to which the crew is absolutely committed. But like the Hebrews below Mt. Sinai, who could not resist fashioning a golden calf to worship in spite of the repudiations from their leader Moses (and supposedly from Yahweh himself), the crew members of the Enterprise find themselves in constant conflict with their leader and their one commandment: Thou shalt not interfere with the practices of primitive cultures. Picard is a modern Moses, the receiver and the enforcer of patriarchal Law. The Prime Directive is a metaphor for modern moral relativism, which, paradoxically, lives in conjunction with our burgeoning global village. As we become one with our fellow man, we paradoxically feel that we must continue to resist seeing the other as one of us.

The Star Trekian notion of the Prime Directive is a metaphor for anti-imperialist moral relativism. It depends upon the belief that there is an "other" - different from one's own group - not beholden to one's own moral imperatives. The Prime Directive is a reflection of modern relativist ethics in currency in Western democratic nations, an ethics committed to the celebration of diversity and anti-imperialist foreign policies. The Borg, on the other hand, have no prime directive, and see all sentient beings as extensions of their own culture, to be absorbed and assimilated into the tribe. The Prime Directive is individualistic, alienated, and masculine, while the Borg are inclusive, tribal, and feminine.

In Star Trek, the result of the crew's commitment to the Prime Directive is often to allow "primitive cultures" to suffer and die unjustly and unnecessarily in the name of anti-imperialism and non-interference. Likewise in real life, as a result of our modern commitment to moral relativism, to our moral commitment not to make moral judgments, the torture and oppression of women and children in Arabian and African countries is tolerated (among other things). The Prime Directive and modern moral relativism rely on the notion that there are "others" outside of our group over which we can have no jurisdiction. The Borg, on the other hand, see all sentient beings as potential members of their group and refuse to adhere to a Prime Directive.

I submit that the Prime Directive, like moral relativism, is based on a left-brained, individualistic, masculine paradigm of reality. If oppressed women living in distant countries were not described as "other," and re-described as being a part of woman- kind, part of the human race, part of our group, their torture and oppression could not be tolerated. As members of a democratic society, we do not willingly permit our own women and children to be tortured at the hands of anybody for any reason. (Imagine allowing a human baby to be tortured by gorillas because they have a "right" to treat their children the way they see fit. It's absurd.) [I don't get your gorilla example: I think you're just monkeying around here.] Moral relativism and the Prime Directive depend on the notion of the "other", a notion dispensed with by the inclusive, feminine Borg. To illustrate this point, let us consider two thought experiments:

(1) An American woman who has just arrived in Arabia is not "other" to her fellow Americans, and mistreatment of her at the hands of Kuwaitis would not be acceptable. For example, an American woman arriving in Kuwait could not be forcibly taken off a plane, cloaked, sold into an arranged marriage and forbidden to leave her husband's house without permission. This is true because she is "one of us", and we would not knowingly permit these circumstances to befall her. Because Arabian women are "other", democratic nations permit their mistreatment and oppression.

(2) An American child could not be forcibly subjugated to female circumcision without an outcry from the Western world because she is one of us. Yet an African child is other, and therefore of no interest to us. Her fate cannot concern us. Moreover, because she is other, it is our moral duty (our Prime Directive) not to interfere with the activities of her oppressors. We have espoused this attitude in the name of anti-imperialism.

If, on the other hand, we chose to describe this child as a little girl, as a member of the human race, as one of us, we could not permit such atrocities to occur. Moral relativism only makes sense in the context of a vocabulary of otherness. This is true of all oppression: only the other is oppressed. This is possible because the oppressor has the mistaken belief that he has a metaphysical moral right to oppress the other, or to treat the other in accordance with an oppressive tradition. From the postmodern perspective this is ABSOLUTELY wrong. [I'm not sure that pomos would subscribe to any absolutes.] There are no metaphysical moral rights, and to believe that there are is to commit an intellectual error.

I submit that in the age of the global village, it is appropriate to give up the vocabulary of otherness in favor of a vocabulary of inclusion. Global moral progress will require discarding the notion of otherness. As members of a democratic society committed to social justice for all, we must re-describe the notion of "otherness" as a puerile fantasy, as an illusion. We are one human race. The differences between us are trivial, and cannot justify the torture and oppression of our fellow human beings.

Likewise, we must discard the notion of metaphysical moral rights, which do not exist. Absolutely nobody has the metaphysical moral right to oppress (torture, mutilate, sequester, or humiliate) anybody else. Postmodern morality should consider all people to be members of the same group - the human race. Postmodern ethics, then, is necessarily imperialist - not fascist - but democratic. As such, we must reject moral relativism and the Prime Directive in favor of the inclusive and feminine Borg mentality in which all sentient being are potential members of our group. This is not to say we should forcibly overtake other cultures and dictate how they are to behave; this would be just another form of oppressive patriarchy. Rather, we should respect and honor differences, but not to point of tolerating the oppression and torture of our fellow human beings. Like the Borg, we must take a stand and not be afraid to tell oppressors: "You will comply."