The Prime Directive

Remove all ads!

This has likely been discussed before, but not in my recent memory, and I've been thinking about it since I've been watching more Star Trek lately.

For those who don't know Star Trek, it says that during their travels, they are not permitted to interfere with the development of technologically less advanced cultures -- they are to stay neutral. The Directive was honored more in the breach than in the observance.

I think that it is pretty safe to say that the directive has its roots in the real world consequences of European adventurism. To this day, the effects of the influence of Euros on Canadian Aboriginal communities are problematic, to say the least, and I don't think it's a problem limited to Canada.

I have a lot more to say, but before I do I want to hear what you folks think of the idea, in terms of real life (that's why I didn't put this in the Sensorium -- I want to talk about real world anthropology, philosophy, ethics, etc.)

Engage.

 

I'm not sure that I'd go that far... in TOS, if a there were a couple of main characters and a "red shirt" security officer in a landing party, you knew that the "red shirt" wasn't coming back, regardless of his race.

I won't say that you're outright wrong on this, but it would be interesting to see some research on the percentages of red shirts killed broken down by race.

Something else to consider ... somehow, I doubt that the script writers even bothered describing the race of a red shirt that was to die in any episode. I expect that red shirts were just extras that were picked out of some pool, meaning that any results of such a red shirt killed breakdown by race may be nothing but random chance.

 

Actually I saw the Enterprise episode that supposedly led to the development of the prime directive.

Didn't care for the way they took it.

Story had 2 self aware/intelligent species on the planet. One emerged to take control of the planet and basically put the other in reservations where it was out of the way, didn't have access to the best resources, but wasn't killed off genocide style.

The dominant group was suffering from a plaque which looked likely to wipe them out. They were asking help from any passing ship but didn't yet have warp technology (which served as the technological barrier to membership of the federation if I remember my Next Gen movies correctly).

They asked Archer for copies of early Earth (still pre-Federation) warp technology so they could look for someone advanced enough to find a cure (they didn't know the ship's doctor was able to already).

The doctor didn't want to give them the cure because he realized without it the other group would have a chance to grow to taking control of the planet instead of whatever the other group left them.

The doctor may have said his race's medical core operated by a prime directive like them already but I'm not sure. In any case he was able to make the argument to Archer (the captain) that they shouldn't provide the cure and help so much and change the overall situation. He provided some drugs that would give the other group a few more years against the plague but wouldn't stop its general trend of taking down the dominant group.

Thus the prime directive was born out of a combination of a willingness to let an entire species die, a desire to see an underdog be treated better, and possible the desire to be hands off when it came to weaker peoples.

I think it is BS, they could have provided the cure with the demand for social equality but didn't.

Anyway there is your prime directive which generally gets observed until a crisis pushes a captain to break the rules (they may not always but some have in tough situations). Though if it has already been violated by a party (crashed ship crew or Klingon instigators/manipulators) it may be thought of as already compromised and therefore no longer in place.

Is it inspired by bad treatment of American Indians? Maybe. Star Trek did arise during a time when the US had started to question some of its past actions. Still, I think it is possible that a reasonable person could argue that rules for contact with other groups can be put in place but they don't have to go as far as it did.

 

This is an interesting topic, pplr.

I believe that I remember that episode of Enterprise. I think that a problem with the Prime Directive in ST is that it seems to be extremely inconsistent. Sometimes it seems to be "no contact whatsoever", and then at other times, it seems to be some contact allowed, but no "interference". The problem that I see is that with a total "no contact" version, things tend to be simpler and more straight forward. But a "contact but no interference" version seems to create MANY potential problems, such as those described in the episode you describe. Contacting these people but refusing to assist with their plague may make the afflicted people VERY angry at you. If you are the afflicted people, it would be cold comfort to have the Federation refuse to help your people due to a "prime directive". And if there are two races or sides on a planet and the plague is only affecting one race/side, the refusal of the Federation to assist can easily be seen as a de facto decision to "help" the unaffected race/side.



Anyways, some of my favorite ST-NG episodes were first contact episodes, such as the one with the Mintaka (the proto-vulcanoid race), or the one where Riker was injured in a riot (prior to the start of the ep) and was in a hospital which discovered that he wasn't of their race.

 

I think the overall idea of the Prime Directive is ok, but, like others, it's application is messy. If you make contact at all, you've already interfered, and our own history tells us that you don't have to take over their government to radically reshape their culture. Hell, we've managed to spawn whole religions just by ignorantly flying over people and tossing out trash!

All in all, I think an 'absolutely no contact until we have to' precept is probably best. Distanced, discrete observation until they discover you, then tentative first contact. No matter what, though, any contact between a technologically superior culture and a technologically inferior one is messy, even if both are capable of space flight.

 

The prime directive never stopped Kirk from having sex with anything female on any planet.

 

...yeah, but that's to be expected. Once we finally developed dependable non-hormonal male birth control and found the cure for space herpes, the sexual mores of the future-verse were forever changed. Kirk's "affections" wouldn't alter the trajectory of an entire species when they wouldn't lead to pregnancy.

 

True Drew, but someone comes down from the heavens, has incredible powers at his disposal, AND manages to impregnate a young woman on the planet ... that could be the start of a new religion which would alter the world. Especially if no penetration was required and the birth was a virginal birth (Legal Disclaimer: Any similarities with past or future events on this world are purely a coincidence.) ... I'm just sayin'....

 

In one of the ST:NG ep's (the one where Riker is injured in the riot and discovered to not be one of the locals in a hospital), Picard states that first contact is only supposed to occur when a race became capable of warp travel.

That actually seems like a fairly rational standard, within the overall ST paradigm. If a race (such as our own) is capable of a minimal degree of sublight space travel and is limited to their own system, unless they're willing to build and use STL ships for interstellar flights, they aren't terribly likely to be initiating any first contacts.

I suppose that there is a caveat here, however. It's all well and good to say that the "Federation" won't make first contact with non-warp races, but what if other star nations will do so? If some other race contacts a non-warp race because they don't have the same "prime directive", isn't the damage done? Should the Federation stick to a prime directive and avoid all contact, or should it recognize that the damage is done and set the PD aside?

And what if such a planet were between two unfriendly star nations (the Feds and the Romulans, for example), and the Romulans decide to make FC. Heck, what if they decide to simply occupy the world? Should the Feds stick to the PD and do nothing? or should the Feds try to stop or reverse the occupation?


I think that this prime directive question can get a lot more complex when you start including other star faring races that may not have the same first contact beliefs, policies, and procedures as your own.

 

Don't you watch Dr. Who? We're lucky it was only with the females! Apparently humans are doomed to go out into space and *ahem* 'dance' with everything we find.

My point, though, is that, at least as far as the consequences are concered, that's a meaningless division. A just-warp culture isn't going to fare much better against an ST:Voyager-level culture than a pre-warp culture will. The only reason that warp should be used as a guideline is because once they reach warp, you can't avoid making first contact. All the problems of first contact are still there, though.

 

I would have boinked a few of his assistants ... the lady timelord, Leila, Sarah....

 

I'm not the only one who believes that Star Trek is a mirror of Earth's geopolitical issues. To me, the whole "warp drive technology" thing is analogous to the whole concept of construction technologies -- while the moral superiority of Europeans is no longer an accepted concept, the fact that their technologies were far superior to those of the peoples they encountered is not in dispute. The exposure to superior weapons, mass market goods (like blankets, beads, etc) and other such things seriously damaged those cultures, leading some to think that cultures with superior tech should not interfere with the natural progression of less advanced societies.

This, to me, is naive bullpuckey. Most civilizations have a moral code of some sort that values life. If a less advanced group is suffering from some sort of disease, most people believe that it is morally praiseworthy to aid them with advanced medicine.

But what if the disease was CAUSED by the visitors? Or they bring a worse one while helping? (doh!) Is isolation and letting people die the better option based on what MIGHT happen (unintended consequences)? Can we interact at all with a group of people without having an impact on the course of their progress?

I think about the episode with Data when he made contact with a little girl from a non-Federation planet -- their world was undergoing tectonic disasters, and yet according to some definitions of the Prime Directive, the Federation was to just leave them alone because, as near as I can tell, the forces of natural selection had doomed this planet of sentients to death. That's a bit of a stretch, I would say, and yet . . . how many people said we should just let the Haitians die and stop pouring money into them? Not many, but some -- IIRC, it's a portion of Malthusian thought.

Very sticky, very sticky indeed. I have no answers, just a pile of questions, and it's tough to separate the science from the emotions.

 

It's entirely possible that a certain disease that we humans might be fully protected against with anti-bodies, etc. might seriously affect aliens. Of course, it might not as well, since I suppose that it's possible that the bug might be unable to affect the alien biology in the first place. Let's remember that even among us humans, that if someone from an industrialized country happens to visit one of those super-isolated native tribes, such as exist in the depths of the Amzon basin (IIRC), it's entirely possible that if the "civilized" person is carrying some common virus that he's protected against, this same virus could wipe out the tribe because it's never had a chance to develop the anti-bodies. And it would seem entirely possible for this to occur at an inter-species level, as long as the bug was capable of jumping to and harming another species.

I remember this episode. It was in either the first or second season.

It does seem like a MASSIVE stretch of the PD to say that you couldn't even assist a race that's threatened with extinction by massive planetary disaster.

I'm not sure that comparing it to the Haitian earthquake really works, given that on a planetary scale, the Haitian EQ really isn't an extinction threatening event. A better comparison might be if a comet or asteroid were to strike Earth similar to the one that struck the Earth and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

I agree. Frankly, I tend to think that the core part of the Prime Directive concept is about protecting pre-warp societies from being affected from the outside, to allow them to grow and develop on their own without interference from other star-faring races.

But at this point, one might ask what specifically are you trying to protect? The people as individuals? The "society" and societal development? The race as a whole? Each of these could be looked at as having different elements (?) within the PD concept. For example, if you are avoiding any contact whatsoever with a pre-warp race to allow its society and culture to develop without interference, what happens if this race is threatened with an extinction threatening situation? Do you act to protect the race, knowing that you will "harm" the society? Or do you "protect" the society, by allowing the race to be harmed?

It seems to me that if your star-faring race is valuing life, as long as this pre-warp race is under no threat of extinction, you are probably safe enough to take a total hands-off approach to protect their society from "interference". But if extinction is threatened, what's the point of protecting a society and culture, if the race itself dies? At that point, it would seem that the star-faring race would be morally justified (perhaps even obligated, depending on their PoV) to assist the threatened race, even at the risk of harm to their society and culture.

Of course, at this point, depending on how primitive the race is, they might not see the threat and might not be willing to accept any help. Heck, they might be so terrified of the bug-eyed space aliens that they might try to fight you, rather than talk or accept "help". Of course, from the Federation's PoV, there's probably a limit to one's ability to forcibly help such a race doesn't believe that there's a risk or becomes hostile.


Anyways, it's an interesting question.

 

I see it as very close to real life -- I'm not really talking about star-faring races but rather the "have" societies of today and how far their responsibilities go in terms of helping and supporting the "have not" societies while not forcing their values on those "have not" societies. Is it always wrong to force your beliefs on someone? I would say not, particularily if you're doing it to help another somebody who is being.

But it can all devolve into a horrendous morass -- look at Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. Or the indigineous groups in both North and South America.

My thought is this -- if you go out exploring and desiring to learn about other cultures and places, you'd better expect that those other cultures are gonna learn about you, too -- and the consequences of that contact may be far, far beyond anything you ever imagined. You may end up having your beliefs and values tested to the brink.

 

The other problem with the Haitian comparison is that we've already messed up Haiti, and in fact that's the whole reason this earthquake was so devastating. In a very real sense, it's our fault.

 

Frankly, this seems all rather off-topic to me. But of course, to me, this is a theoretical discussion about the ST prime directive, etc., not about real like, but it seems to be just the opposite for you.


As far as "forcing one's beliefs on others", it can be a tough question. Let's say that you have two nations, the Giver nation and the Receiver nation. What if the Receiver nation has some beliefs that the Giver nation finds so abhorrent that it simply cannot bring itself to help the Receiver nation unless it changes its ways? Is or should the Giver nation be obligated to help the Receiver nation in spite of this? What about the rights of the Giver nation (and its citizens) to not be forced into supporting people whose beliefs they find abhorrent?

Well, unless you are doing your "learning" about other cultures covertly (like those covert observation posts shown in some ST:NG eps), one can hardly expect one side to give info without some info coming back in return.

 

We're not talking about forcing someone to give something to someone else so much as forcing someone else to comply with your standards. For example, there are reports of slavery in the Ivory Coast (and a thread about it on these boards). Should western nations step in and force them to stop the practice, at the point of a gun if necessary? We find slavery absolutely abhorrant, but they allow it. Other countries allow prostitution, child marriages to older men (or women), and other things we abhor. Where do you reach a balance between respecting their culture and 'protecting' their citizens, even from themselves or each other?

 

NOG, let me quote LKD here:

I would say that talking about "... their responsibilities go in terms of helping and supporting the 'have not' societies while not forcing their values on those 'have not' societies" amounts to forcing those "have" nations to provide "help and support" even if they may find some aspects of the other nation abhorrent.

If one says that I have a "responsibility" to help someone else while not forcing my values on them, you are indeed forcing ME to help them even if their "values" offend me. ... And frankly, this is wrong. While it may be inappropriate to force one's own values on a receiving nation, it is certainly wrong to force a "giving" nation to ignore its own values when it chooses whom and whether to help.



Moving on ...

You ask "Where do you reach a balance between respecting their culture and 'protecting' their citizens, even from themselves or each other?"

Well, I suppose for starters, one could say international law, or perhaps some sort of commonality of opinion on a given issue.

The slavery issue is a good one to examine. Slavery may be legal in the Ivory Coast. (For argument's sake, let's say that it is...) But slavery is very much illegal in most of the rest of the world, and I think that it'd be safe to say that we consider slavery to be "abhorrent" to our sensibilities.

So, should the US, or any EU country, or any other country be allowed to refuse to do business with the IC while slavery is legal? Should any country be legally able to pass their own laws that forbid the importation of any goods or commodities, etc. from the IC? Would such laws be forcing our beliefs on them? To a degree, yes. But being prevented from having such laws in one's own country may be seen as a forced tolerance of beliefs that we might feel to be abhorent.

It is a fine line. If the offending country has little to offer, it may be easy to embargo them in one's own country, economically speaking. But if the country is large and powerful, and/or possesses certain commodities that are critically important (oil, for example), it may be more difficult to economically justify such an internal embargo, however much one may wish to morally justify it.

 

I don't think refusing to do business with someone is really 'forcing' anything on them. It's just removing your influence. If they don't want to deal with the consequences of that removal, it's their choice. The 'forcing' comes in with military support. If we sent SEAL teams in to arrest the slavers and take them to the US for trial, we'd be forcing our values onto them.