Data, or The Borg?

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

Do you prefer living in a more individualist society or a more collectivist society?

As someone who was born, raised and lived his entire life in the United States, I think it’s almost instinct for me to say that I prefer more of an individualist society. However, I will be one of the first people to admit that our American society is FAR from perfect. after all, we are the people who unleashed The Orange TACO upon the Earth. I swear to God, I never voted for him once. Of course, that says nothing about other horrible things in my country has done to the rest of the world over the last 2 1/2 centuries, but I digress.

That’s from our political leanings, I would probably categorize myself as a Democratic socialist. This runs quite contrary to the political ideology held by the majority of Americans. in my country , we’ve been told our all our lives that collectivism = socialism = BAD.

If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time, you’ve probably come to realize that I am a big fan of the Star Trek franchise. In all of Star Trek lore, there’s probably no greater examples of the differences between individualism and collectivism than those of Data and the Borg.

Fully Functional

In Star Trek, The Next Generation, Data is an android, created by a human being. To the best of his knowledge, he is the only one of his kind in existence. Throughout the series- and eventually in the movies – we meet Lore, his evil twin brother; Lal. Data‘s daughter; and B4, a prototype of both Data and Lore. I guess we could say that Data is the only android in Star Trek in much the same way we say that Superman is the last Kryptonian in the DC Universe, don’t even get me started on the android situation on Star Trek: Picard…

From a creative standpoint , Data serves as perhaps the shows greatest example of humanity. He is a 24th century version of Pinocchio – the puppet who wants to become a real boy. A recurring plot thread throughout TNG is Data’s exploration of his own humanity. The android serves as same function that Spock did in the original Al Star Trek. He is the on character who will ask why humans do this or that. Captain Picard serves as a father figure type to Data as learns about love, humanity’s need for competition, even death. As Data explores deeper philosophical realms like interpreting his own dreams and art, Picard reminds the android that even though he is “a culture of one” his values are just as valid as those of a culture of 1 billion.

Resistance is Futile

Perhaps Starfleet’s greatest threat on not just TNG, but the Trek franchise altogether is the Borg. . Unlike other alien races in the franchise, the Borg are interested in expanding their territory or political conquest. They seek to assimilate other races; taking the best of their biological and technological advances in order to improve their own species. Some members of the Enterprise crew see the Borg as being not in a traditional war with the Federation’s, but rather in a way with the Federations’s way of life.

From story-telling standpoint the Borg are the ultimate example of conformity. They are not unlike a beehive. In most cases, the Borg have no individual identity., with all of the drones referring to themselves using the “we“ pronoun. In his own encounters with the Borg, Captain Picard preaches to the Borg about how humanity is built upon and values freedom and self determination – concepts of which the Borg have no understanding.

Data or the Borg?

I say all this about Data and the Borg because it goes back to the original question presented in the prompt. Do you choose to be like Data or do you choose to be like a Borg? Would you prefer life in a society something like the federation, or existing as a drone in the Borg collective? Should we be an individualist or a collectivist?

For me personally, the greatest appeal of the Star Trk franchise is how everyday living in the 24th century is presented. It is a place l that real-world political scientists describe as “post scarcity“. On the 24th century Earth, there is no hunger, there is no greed and everyone is seen as equals.. It’s very much an ideal society. Earth itself is even referred to “paradise” within the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It is seen by other planets as a world where its people “figured it all out”.

Be like Star Trek

Once again, I find myself wishing that the real world was more like Star Trek. As the lyrics to the theme song of Enterprise famous )or infamously) say “it’s been a long road and getting from there to here”. The greatest lesson that Star Trek teaches us may be that we as people need to address needs of the many before we can pursue the wants of the one. To take these ideas of Star Trek and implement them into the real world, we would have to take a collectivist approach to being sure that humanity’s needs are met. From there we would be able to allow our selves the luxury of an individualist lifestyle which would allow us to pursue our own enrichment or enlightenment.

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