What Would Jean-Luc Do?: A Tribute to Humanist Hero, Gene Roddenberry
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
September 18, 2016
by Barbara Lambert Hale
These days, I have no interest in pop culture. I don’t know who most of the newest movies stars or celebrities are or anything about the personal lives of the ones I’ve heard of. I don’t know who people are listening to on the radio. Do people even listen to the radio anymore? I don’t watch “reality TV.” I just don’t care and I really don’t pay much attention.
For quite a while after people started talking about the Kardashians, I thought they were talking about the Cardassians – the extraterrestrials who invaded Bajor on the TV show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Imagine my surprise when I realized that they were talking about a completely different form of alien life -- alien to me at least.
But, of course, I wasn’t always like this. When I was young, I cared deeply about the current music, movies and celebrity. I paid close attention to everything about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I knew when the next Dustin Hoffman movie was going to be released. And I never, I MEAN NEVER, missed watching Twilight Zone or Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Of course, most of those feelings have faded into the recesses of my memory banks the way pop cultural icons tend to fade out of popularity. But the one youthful obsession I had back then that I have remained passionate about for all these many years is Star Trek.
Now, I know that not everyone here is into boldly going where no one has gone before, either on TV or in their real lives, but bear with me, because I do not technically consider myself a Trekkie or Trekker either, even though I’ve probably seen 99% of all the Star Trek episodes and movies and many of them multiple times. And, of course, I looked forward to the release of the new movie “Beyond” and I’m anticipating the new tv show probably much more than is dignified for a person of my vintage.
By the way, here’s an interesting aside that speaks to the popularity and endurance of the creation of Star Trek, which began its life on television exactly 50 years and 10 days ago: If you want to go home today and binge watch Star Trek in all its iterations, you can. All you need is a Netflix subscription. But it will take you 546 hours. I’ve done the math. We’ll see you in about 23 days if you take no breaks, including sleeping at night. If you want to add the 12 movies, that will add another 23 hours and 15 minutes, but that doesn’t include the new movie “Beyond.” Sorry. It does sort of boggle my mind that I have spent that much time on any particular form of entertainment – besides reading murder mysteries and watching baseball, of course.
But I’m not a Trekkie. Not in the true sense of the word. I’ve never had the brain power to remember many of the esoteric details of the show that a true Trekkie can.
I can only speak one word of Klingon – Qapla’ – which means something roughly like what Ciao means in Italian or it’s a way of saying that one is successful. Like today if I were a Klingon, I might say, “Qapla’! You all managed to get to church on time!”
No, I’m not a Trekker. I’ve never been to a Star Trek convention. I don’t own a pair of Spock ears. Sadly, there is no “Star Fleet Academy” bumper sticker on my car.
And I don’t own a uniform, although I have to admit to browsing on line for one. I’ve never pushed the “put this in my cart” button though, because I just can’t decide which series I want to go with and which branch of the Starfleet crew I want to be identified with. Am I more The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager or even Enterprise? Am I intrinsically “command,” “communications,” “science and medical” or “engineering and security”? Figuring this out is important, you know, if one is going to spend well north of $50 on a uniform one can really only wear to retro nights at the Cinemagic. You don’t have to know the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition to know that that’s too much gold-plated latinum to waste.
Still, in the back of my mind and in my heart, I would love to have a Star Trek uniform even if I just end up hanging it in my closet 364 days of the year. And I think the reason why simply boils down to this: despite all the “religious training” I received from my many years in a Catholic school, the ethics and morality of Star Trek have really stuck with me in a much more positive, realistic, and long lasting way, because Star Trek introduced me to humanism and thereby changed my life.
The world that is depicted in Star Trek is unlike the world most science fiction writers create – you know, those worlds where humanity lives in a morass of dark and violent dystopia with little hope for the future. The creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry – a professed humanist who received The Humanist Arts Award from the American Humanist Association shortly before his death – had a different future vision. The idea behind the concept of Star Trek was that after a catastrophe of huge proportions, instead of descending into that dark dystopian morass, humans, in an effort to survive, finally find their humanity and the resulting world, while still very complicated and not always completely peaceful, is a bright one. I think that Roddenberry believed that humans will always be “human” even well into the 23rd century. In other words, man will always have a tendency toward wanton violence as well as a tendency toward great compassion. Still, the future Roddenberry envisioned is one where men and women stand on equal footing and people of many races, including alien races, work together toward common goals. Education, curiosity, and exploration are of great importance. Roddenberry believed that religion for humans, by the 23rd Century, will be a thing of the past, but in the world of Star Trek respect for other beings’ cultures and beliefs is paramount.
Roddenberry’s vision is stated much more succinctly by Victor Grech in his paper Philosophical Concepts in Star Trek. He says, “Rodenberry’s (sic) values are expressed repeatedly in ST and emphasize the notions of voluntary cooperation, attempts at non-violent conflict resolution while retaining the right to self-defense, dignity and respect for all life forms, the absence of the imposition of dogmas and doctrines while respecting personal beliefs, and the reliance on science and reason in the search for truths, while enjoying human emotions, spirituality and intuition (Alexander, 1991). Rodenberry (sic) hoped that this quest for enlightenment would lead to the banishment of racism, superstition, conflict and poverty, not only in ST, but also in the real world (Alexander, 1991).”[1]
These concepts, which I picked up watching Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock boldly go where no man had gone before, certainly made heady stuff to mull over for a young teenage kid who was dealing with religious doubts in the 1960s, before the end of the collective paranoia of the Cold War, when the Viet Nam War raged and race riots were a pretty common occurrence. While I couldn’t put a name to it back then, Roddenberry’s form of humanism colored my outlook on life and gave me a concrete example of the kind of world that I really hoped for, even if that world was fictional.
And now, here on Star Date 1842.9, after many years of watching Star Trek and then finding my way to Unitarian Universalism, I have firmly embraced humanism as my “religion.”
This philosophy of “humanism” didn’t begin with Roddenberry and Star Trek, of course, even if in my youthful ignorance and excitement, I may have thought so. Humanism is actually a very, very old philosophy. While it became widely known by the designation “humanism” in the time of the European Renaissance, humanistic values and ethics can be traced back to ancient China and India, as well as ancient Greece, long before the birth of Jesus Christ or Mohammed.
These days, though there are Christian and Jewish humanists around, the majority of those who profess to be humanist are agnostic or atheist. So it would follow that many of those people consider themselves to be Secular Humanists and chose to have no affiliation to organized religion of any kind.
And in reality, there but for the presence of the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church, go I.
However, through the years, I’ve learned that the Unitarian Universalist Association includes the UU Humanist Association which, in part, defines the Core Values and Aspirations of being a religious humanist as follows:
“We are Naturalists: Although we do not consider Humanism to be a ‘religion’ within the wide-spread use of the term to denote beliefs and practices resting on some hypothetical supernatural entity, we are ‘religious’ in that we share with most Unitarian Universalists the natural human desires for a beloved and accepting community; a purpose greater than ourselves; rituals and practices that resonate with our common humanity and shared mortality; and opportunities to work with other tough-minded, warm- hearted people to do good in the world and to help one another attain the greatest possible fulfillment in life.”[2]
Let’s see:
Sort of sounds to me like being a humanist member of a Unitarian Universalist Church is a lot like being a member of Starfleet and serving on the Starship Enterprise. How cool is that?! Maybe I should buy that Star Trek uniform after all and wear it to church. Hmmm….
Gene Roddenberry was born in 1921 and grew up in Los Angeles, California, studying aeronautical engineering as a young adult. He became a pilot and flew missions in World War II for which he was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. While still in the military, he began writing. Eventually, he joined The Pan American World Airways and also studied literature at Columbia University. He survived two plane crashes during his life. At the site of one crash in 1947, he helped to save several people and, after the crash, was awarded a Civil Aeronautics commendation for his efforts. The plane crashes didn’t keep him from looking skyward. But after seeing television for the first time, Roddenberry left his flying career behind and went to Hollywood to write. But he found that TV writing jobs were scarce and joined the LA police force to make ends meet. While still on the LAPD, Roddenberry began selling scripts for a number of television shows and was finally able to sell his series Star Trek in 1966. Approximately, 20 years later, after working on various other projects in Hollywood, he was involved in the writing and production of Star Trek the Next Generation. While The Next Generation was still in production, Gene Roddenberry died on October 24, 1991. Fittingly, the first space burial occurred in 1992 when the NASA space shuttle Columbia carried a portion of Gene Roddenberry's cremains into space and returned them to Earth.
If, after you leave here, you decide to read a bit more about Gene Roddenberry’s life, you will find that he was by no means perfect; in reality he was very human. After all, he famously had an extra-marital affair and dabbled in drugs.
But Roddenberry did much to change the face of television in the 1960s with the introduction of The Original Series of Star Trek and again in the late 80s and early 90s with Star Trek the Next Generation and, in doing so, he also helped to change the face of society for the better.
At Roddenberry’s insistence and against the network’s wishes, Star Trek featured the first scripted interracial kiss on television when Captain Kirk kissed Lieutenant Uhura. At Roddenberry’s insistence, the bridge crew of the Starship Enterprise was multi-ethnic and multi-racial and featured both genders in positions of authority and importance – something practically unheard of in the 1960s and only slightly improved in the 1980s both on TV and in real life and, unfortunately, though things are better, it’s something our society continues to struggle with even today. At Roddenberry’s insistence, Star Trek presented a positive image of the future at a time when the news was filled with stories of racism, social strife and war.[3]
In a time of uneasiness and distress, Roddenberry concocted a unique and entertaining message of hope that resonates to this day fifty years later. Roddenberry, himself, said of Star Trek: “We stress humanity, and this is done at considerable cost. We can't have a lot of dramatics that other shows get away with - promiscuity, greed, jealousy. None of those have a place in Star Trek.”
“When many people wondered if the world would emerge intact from the Cold War,” says Dwayne Day in his essay Star Trek as a Cultural Phenomenon, “Star Trek depicted many different races working peacefully together several hundred years into the future. At its most basic level, Star Trek had a simple humanistic message: humanity will be okay.”[4]
Now today in this very challenging time of looming apprehension, social uneasiness, and political unrest, I think that many of us wonder if humanity will indeed be okay. It seems that now we need a message of hope more than ever. I like what Michelle Obama said about hope. She said: “You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.”
Apparently this is true about Star Trek. For fifty years, Gene Roddenberry’s message of hope has been alive and well. It is one of my greatest and most fervent hopes that someday his civilized and humane message will actually be taken into our hearts and that we will begin to live every day according to the hopeful optimism and simple humanity that Roddenberry depicted in Star Trek so that we may boldly go where no one has gone before – toward a world at peace.
Some people approach life by asking the question “What would Jesus do?” But today, to honor the memory of Gene Roddenberry and in tribute to the strength and endurance of his creation Star Trek and its message of hope, I think I’ll ask, “What would Jean-Luc do?” What advice would the Captain of the Enterprise impart to those of us who are looking for answers? Here’s what I think he would say:
Live long and prosper, my friends.
Make it so.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
[1] Philosophical Concepts in Star Trek: Using Star Trek as a curriculum guide introducing fans to the subject of Philosophy By Victor Grech http://www.adastrasf.com/philosophical-concepts-in-star-trek/
[2] About Religious Humanism on the UU Humanist website: http://huumanists.org/about/religious-humanism
[3] Star Trek as a Cultural Phenomenon by Dwayne Day http://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Social/star_trek/SH7.htm
[4] Ibid.
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
September 18, 2016
by Barbara Lambert Hale
These days, I have no interest in pop culture. I don’t know who most of the newest movies stars or celebrities are or anything about the personal lives of the ones I’ve heard of. I don’t know who people are listening to on the radio. Do people even listen to the radio anymore? I don’t watch “reality TV.” I just don’t care and I really don’t pay much attention.
For quite a while after people started talking about the Kardashians, I thought they were talking about the Cardassians – the extraterrestrials who invaded Bajor on the TV show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Imagine my surprise when I realized that they were talking about a completely different form of alien life -- alien to me at least.
But, of course, I wasn’t always like this. When I was young, I cared deeply about the current music, movies and celebrity. I paid close attention to everything about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I knew when the next Dustin Hoffman movie was going to be released. And I never, I MEAN NEVER, missed watching Twilight Zone or Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Of course, most of those feelings have faded into the recesses of my memory banks the way pop cultural icons tend to fade out of popularity. But the one youthful obsession I had back then that I have remained passionate about for all these many years is Star Trek.
Now, I know that not everyone here is into boldly going where no one has gone before, either on TV or in their real lives, but bear with me, because I do not technically consider myself a Trekkie or Trekker either, even though I’ve probably seen 99% of all the Star Trek episodes and movies and many of them multiple times. And, of course, I looked forward to the release of the new movie “Beyond” and I’m anticipating the new tv show probably much more than is dignified for a person of my vintage.
By the way, here’s an interesting aside that speaks to the popularity and endurance of the creation of Star Trek, which began its life on television exactly 50 years and 10 days ago: If you want to go home today and binge watch Star Trek in all its iterations, you can. All you need is a Netflix subscription. But it will take you 546 hours. I’ve done the math. We’ll see you in about 23 days if you take no breaks, including sleeping at night. If you want to add the 12 movies, that will add another 23 hours and 15 minutes, but that doesn’t include the new movie “Beyond.” Sorry. It does sort of boggle my mind that I have spent that much time on any particular form of entertainment – besides reading murder mysteries and watching baseball, of course.
But I’m not a Trekkie. Not in the true sense of the word. I’ve never had the brain power to remember many of the esoteric details of the show that a true Trekkie can.
I can only speak one word of Klingon – Qapla’ – which means something roughly like what Ciao means in Italian or it’s a way of saying that one is successful. Like today if I were a Klingon, I might say, “Qapla’! You all managed to get to church on time!”
No, I’m not a Trekker. I’ve never been to a Star Trek convention. I don’t own a pair of Spock ears. Sadly, there is no “Star Fleet Academy” bumper sticker on my car.
And I don’t own a uniform, although I have to admit to browsing on line for one. I’ve never pushed the “put this in my cart” button though, because I just can’t decide which series I want to go with and which branch of the Starfleet crew I want to be identified with. Am I more The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager or even Enterprise? Am I intrinsically “command,” “communications,” “science and medical” or “engineering and security”? Figuring this out is important, you know, if one is going to spend well north of $50 on a uniform one can really only wear to retro nights at the Cinemagic. You don’t have to know the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition to know that that’s too much gold-plated latinum to waste.
Still, in the back of my mind and in my heart, I would love to have a Star Trek uniform even if I just end up hanging it in my closet 364 days of the year. And I think the reason why simply boils down to this: despite all the “religious training” I received from my many years in a Catholic school, the ethics and morality of Star Trek have really stuck with me in a much more positive, realistic, and long lasting way, because Star Trek introduced me to humanism and thereby changed my life.
The world that is depicted in Star Trek is unlike the world most science fiction writers create – you know, those worlds where humanity lives in a morass of dark and violent dystopia with little hope for the future. The creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry – a professed humanist who received The Humanist Arts Award from the American Humanist Association shortly before his death – had a different future vision. The idea behind the concept of Star Trek was that after a catastrophe of huge proportions, instead of descending into that dark dystopian morass, humans, in an effort to survive, finally find their humanity and the resulting world, while still very complicated and not always completely peaceful, is a bright one. I think that Roddenberry believed that humans will always be “human” even well into the 23rd century. In other words, man will always have a tendency toward wanton violence as well as a tendency toward great compassion. Still, the future Roddenberry envisioned is one where men and women stand on equal footing and people of many races, including alien races, work together toward common goals. Education, curiosity, and exploration are of great importance. Roddenberry believed that religion for humans, by the 23rd Century, will be a thing of the past, but in the world of Star Trek respect for other beings’ cultures and beliefs is paramount.
Roddenberry’s vision is stated much more succinctly by Victor Grech in his paper Philosophical Concepts in Star Trek. He says, “Rodenberry’s (sic) values are expressed repeatedly in ST and emphasize the notions of voluntary cooperation, attempts at non-violent conflict resolution while retaining the right to self-defense, dignity and respect for all life forms, the absence of the imposition of dogmas and doctrines while respecting personal beliefs, and the reliance on science and reason in the search for truths, while enjoying human emotions, spirituality and intuition (Alexander, 1991). Rodenberry (sic) hoped that this quest for enlightenment would lead to the banishment of racism, superstition, conflict and poverty, not only in ST, but also in the real world (Alexander, 1991).”[1]
These concepts, which I picked up watching Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock boldly go where no man had gone before, certainly made heady stuff to mull over for a young teenage kid who was dealing with religious doubts in the 1960s, before the end of the collective paranoia of the Cold War, when the Viet Nam War raged and race riots were a pretty common occurrence. While I couldn’t put a name to it back then, Roddenberry’s form of humanism colored my outlook on life and gave me a concrete example of the kind of world that I really hoped for, even if that world was fictional.
And now, here on Star Date 1842.9, after many years of watching Star Trek and then finding my way to Unitarian Universalism, I have firmly embraced humanism as my “religion.”
This philosophy of “humanism” didn’t begin with Roddenberry and Star Trek, of course, even if in my youthful ignorance and excitement, I may have thought so. Humanism is actually a very, very old philosophy. While it became widely known by the designation “humanism” in the time of the European Renaissance, humanistic values and ethics can be traced back to ancient China and India, as well as ancient Greece, long before the birth of Jesus Christ or Mohammed.
These days, though there are Christian and Jewish humanists around, the majority of those who profess to be humanist are agnostic or atheist. So it would follow that many of those people consider themselves to be Secular Humanists and chose to have no affiliation to organized religion of any kind.
And in reality, there but for the presence of the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church, go I.
However, through the years, I’ve learned that the Unitarian Universalist Association includes the UU Humanist Association which, in part, defines the Core Values and Aspirations of being a religious humanist as follows:
“We are Naturalists: Although we do not consider Humanism to be a ‘religion’ within the wide-spread use of the term to denote beliefs and practices resting on some hypothetical supernatural entity, we are ‘religious’ in that we share with most Unitarian Universalists the natural human desires for a beloved and accepting community; a purpose greater than ourselves; rituals and practices that resonate with our common humanity and shared mortality; and opportunities to work with other tough-minded, warm- hearted people to do good in the world and to help one another attain the greatest possible fulfillment in life.”[2]
Let’s see:
- A beloved and accepting community;
- a purpose greater than ourselves;
- rituals and practices that resonate with our common humanity and shared mortality;
- opportunities to work with other tough-minded, warm- hearted people to do good in the world and to help one another attain the greatest possible fulfillment in life.
Sort of sounds to me like being a humanist member of a Unitarian Universalist Church is a lot like being a member of Starfleet and serving on the Starship Enterprise. How cool is that?! Maybe I should buy that Star Trek uniform after all and wear it to church. Hmmm….
Gene Roddenberry was born in 1921 and grew up in Los Angeles, California, studying aeronautical engineering as a young adult. He became a pilot and flew missions in World War II for which he was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. While still in the military, he began writing. Eventually, he joined The Pan American World Airways and also studied literature at Columbia University. He survived two plane crashes during his life. At the site of one crash in 1947, he helped to save several people and, after the crash, was awarded a Civil Aeronautics commendation for his efforts. The plane crashes didn’t keep him from looking skyward. But after seeing television for the first time, Roddenberry left his flying career behind and went to Hollywood to write. But he found that TV writing jobs were scarce and joined the LA police force to make ends meet. While still on the LAPD, Roddenberry began selling scripts for a number of television shows and was finally able to sell his series Star Trek in 1966. Approximately, 20 years later, after working on various other projects in Hollywood, he was involved in the writing and production of Star Trek the Next Generation. While The Next Generation was still in production, Gene Roddenberry died on October 24, 1991. Fittingly, the first space burial occurred in 1992 when the NASA space shuttle Columbia carried a portion of Gene Roddenberry's cremains into space and returned them to Earth.
If, after you leave here, you decide to read a bit more about Gene Roddenberry’s life, you will find that he was by no means perfect; in reality he was very human. After all, he famously had an extra-marital affair and dabbled in drugs.
But Roddenberry did much to change the face of television in the 1960s with the introduction of The Original Series of Star Trek and again in the late 80s and early 90s with Star Trek the Next Generation and, in doing so, he also helped to change the face of society for the better.
At Roddenberry’s insistence and against the network’s wishes, Star Trek featured the first scripted interracial kiss on television when Captain Kirk kissed Lieutenant Uhura. At Roddenberry’s insistence, the bridge crew of the Starship Enterprise was multi-ethnic and multi-racial and featured both genders in positions of authority and importance – something practically unheard of in the 1960s and only slightly improved in the 1980s both on TV and in real life and, unfortunately, though things are better, it’s something our society continues to struggle with even today. At Roddenberry’s insistence, Star Trek presented a positive image of the future at a time when the news was filled with stories of racism, social strife and war.[3]
In a time of uneasiness and distress, Roddenberry concocted a unique and entertaining message of hope that resonates to this day fifty years later. Roddenberry, himself, said of Star Trek: “We stress humanity, and this is done at considerable cost. We can't have a lot of dramatics that other shows get away with - promiscuity, greed, jealousy. None of those have a place in Star Trek.”
“When many people wondered if the world would emerge intact from the Cold War,” says Dwayne Day in his essay Star Trek as a Cultural Phenomenon, “Star Trek depicted many different races working peacefully together several hundred years into the future. At its most basic level, Star Trek had a simple humanistic message: humanity will be okay.”[4]
Now today in this very challenging time of looming apprehension, social uneasiness, and political unrest, I think that many of us wonder if humanity will indeed be okay. It seems that now we need a message of hope more than ever. I like what Michelle Obama said about hope. She said: “You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.”
Apparently this is true about Star Trek. For fifty years, Gene Roddenberry’s message of hope has been alive and well. It is one of my greatest and most fervent hopes that someday his civilized and humane message will actually be taken into our hearts and that we will begin to live every day according to the hopeful optimism and simple humanity that Roddenberry depicted in Star Trek so that we may boldly go where no one has gone before – toward a world at peace.
Some people approach life by asking the question “What would Jesus do?” But today, to honor the memory of Gene Roddenberry and in tribute to the strength and endurance of his creation Star Trek and its message of hope, I think I’ll ask, “What would Jean-Luc do?” What advice would the Captain of the Enterprise impart to those of us who are looking for answers? Here’s what I think he would say:
- Set off on a voyage of exploration.
- Don’t be afraid to seek out new life and new civilizations.
- When you encounter someone alien to you, work to find common ground.
- If you hear a distress call, answer it.
- Gaze at the universe with great awe and respect.
- Split infinitives if you must, but it’s of vital importance to boldly go toward the world you want to create!
Live long and prosper, my friends.
Make it so.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
[1] Philosophical Concepts in Star Trek: Using Star Trek as a curriculum guide introducing fans to the subject of Philosophy By Victor Grech http://www.adastrasf.com/philosophical-concepts-in-star-trek/
[2] About Religious Humanism on the UU Humanist website: http://huumanists.org/about/religious-humanism
[3] Star Trek as a Cultural Phenomenon by Dwayne Day http://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Social/star_trek/SH7.htm
[4] Ibid.
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