My Office Is Gone. What Will I Do? How Will I Live?

I love Star Trek because it gives us a vision of the future where reasonable people resolve conflicts by talking.

Our heroes fly around on a 1,000-person spaceship run by Starfleet, which is Earth’s peacekeeping/military organization. Earth, along with a bunch of alien planets, is part of the United Federation of Planets (The Federation) which is a like a space U.N., devoted to universal liberty, rights, equality, sharing knowledge, and exploring the galaxy.

In the world of Star Trek, hunger and poverty have been eliminated. Energy comes from matter-antimatter reactors (or something). Food is created instantly in replicators. Humanity has dedicated itself to exploration and self-improvement.

In the first season, in an episode I’m going to tell you to watch, Captain Picard defrosts a cryogenically frozen Gordon Gecko type figure from our century named Ralph Offenhouse, and they have this conversation:

Offenhouse: There’s no trace of my money — my office is gone — what will I do? How will I live? Picard: [Amused] This is the 24th century. Those material needs no longer exist. Offenhouse: Then what’s the challenge? Picard: To improve yourself… enrich yourself. Enjoy it, Mister Offenhouse.

This depiction of the future feels impossible in 2015. Corny. Twee. Look at the big science fiction films that came out last year: The Hunger Games, Days of Future Past, Planet of the Apes, Interstellar, Transformers: Age of Extinction (I didn’t see this but I’m guessing based on the title), Snowpiercer… all of those movies show us a future where humanity gives in to its worst impulses, with apocalyptic results.

The politics of Star Trek point to something important in our culture that we don’t think about as being fundamental to the way we live. Author Daniel Quinn writes:

Nothing is more fundamental than food. There’s only one way you can force people to accept an intolerable lifestyle. You have to lock up the food. Though it surely isn’t recognized at the time, locking up the food is the beginning of the hierarchical life we call civilization. As soon as the storehouse appears, someone must step forward to guard it, and this custodian needs assistants, who depend on him entirely, since they no longer earn their living as farmers. A manager class soon emerged to look after the accumulation and storage of surpluses — something that had never been necessary when everyone was just working a few hours a day. They soon came to be regarded as social and political leaders. In a single stroke, a figure of power appears on the scene to control the community’s wealth, surrounded by a cadre of loyal vassals, ready to evolve into a ruling class of royals and nobles. What these founders of our culture fundamentally invented for us was the notion of work. They developed a hard way to live — the hardest way to live ever found on this planet. Their revolution wasn’t about food, it was about power. That’s still what it’s all about.

Star Trek has a special place in my heart because it shows us a future where we continue to advance technology and explore without destroying ourselves or shouting over each other on Twitter all day. We should all be aware of the many difficult material concerns in our lives, and the unjust power structures that we’re implicated in. But what does life look like without them? Who’s thinking about what comes next? Captain Picard, that’s who.