"Joy is not a word that naturally rhymes with communism, at least the Soviet variety. But pleasure is central to Star Trek‘s version of communism, which rejects the notion that escaping the logic of accumulation requires individuals to submit to a collective. Star Trek‘s writers make this point brilliantly by contrasting the Federation, made up of creative individuals who are free to choose their projects and partners, with the Borg — a dystopian cyborg collective made up of drones linked together in a beehive-like social order that expands by assimilating every species it encounters.

Star Trek rejects collectivism while still avoiding lazy critiques. We are treated to the traumatic reintroduction of a Borg drone to humanity, who experiences debilitating withdrawal symptoms, missing desperately the collective’s voice in her head. It is a reminder of how authoritarianism can be dangerously attractive to the lonely, but also of how important it is to pay the price of personhood.

But Star Trek does not just offer a vision of a splendid future. Like any other practical manifesto, it offers a theory of change: of social evolution founded on solid historical materialist tenets."

https://unherd.com/2025/01/why-the-left-needs-to-watch-star-trek/

#Communism #StarTrek #HistoricalMaterialism #SciFi #ScienceFiction