Star Trek: The Next Interpretation; Changing Notions of American Citizenship in The Original Series

By

McKenzie Marie Taranto

Honors Thesis Department of English and Comparative Literature University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 2020

Approved:

(signature of advisor)

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I. Introduction

Writers and thinkers of the 1960s became increasingly interested in defining

ethics and morality, outlining desirability character traits that delineate humanity as being complex and multifaceted, requiring creativity, courage, utility, intuition, integrity, justice, respect, compassion, and a duty.1 Infused with these interests, popular media of

this period, moreover, became a rich source for depicting and interrogating these

qualities. Comprised of three seasons, Star Trek: The Original Series ran from 1966 to

1969. The show follows the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and his team on the

USS Enterprise as they travel through the galaxy exploring new worlds and civilizations under the command of Starfleet, the military force behind the Federation. Believing that individuals had the duty to examine what it means to be human, creator Gene

Roddenberry used the show as a platform for exploring the terms and conditions of humanity (Fern 5). Thus, as a response to post-World War II nihilism, Star Trek, in particular, provided direction for baby boomers by defining humanity in terms of

American citizenship.

As the lead character in the series, Captain Kirk portrays many of the key human qualities above, most significantly in his sense of courage, intuition, integrity, compassion, as well as his strong sense of duty during the commission of his work for the

Federation. Throughout the three seasons, Captain Kirk serves as a moral guide for the audience by defining what it means to be a good human and a productive member of

American society. According to the show, the ideal citizen has compassion, integrity,

1 I derived this synthesis from a number of contemporary and scholarly sources including Robert Coles, “On Courage”; Louis Rubin, Life Skills in School and Society; John Kleinig, “Mercy and Justice”; Kurt Baier, “Moral Obligation”; David Benatar, Life, Death, and Meaning; Marcia Bok, Civil Rights and the Social Programs of the 1960s. 2

intuition, courage, mercy, and discipline—all of which are essential aspects of Captain

Kirk’s personality.

While these same basic characteristics are present in all three seasons, series

writers transform their application in subtle ways as the show progresses. In the first half

of the series, Kirk promotes these traits on an individual level to improve social cohesion

and create a sense of community within the USS Enterprise as they encounter alien

species on their missions. When issues arise in the first half of the series, they tend to be

between individuals, either within the Enterprise crew or between crew members and

other humanoid individuals in the alien communities they encounter; in other words,

these conflicts are effectively man versus man, even with so-called “alien” life. Kirk

models how one should solve these “micro” man versus man conflicts, as he employs all

of the above character traits in his decision-making processes and strategies for conflict

resolution. In this initial part of the series, Kirk demonstrates the ideals of good

citizenship through his actions, which emphasize the moral obligation for compassion,

integrity, and courage in the discharge of his duties as commander of the Enterprise.

As the series progresses, the show’s emphasis on the above ideals of citizenship

change in subtle ways. While Kirk continues to affirm compassion, integrity and courage

in the commission of his duty as commander of a starship, his duty to the Federation

takes precedence. Thus, by the close of the third season, Kirk’s command of the

Enterprise is driven by a moral obligation to do his duty to the Federation, informed, of course, by his compassion, integrity, and courage, but with these traits subordinated to his commitment to upholding his responsibility to Starfleet operations.

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Accordingly, the focus of the show’s primary conflicts shifts in kind to reflect

problems between individuals and institutions and/or the ideology they represent; the conflicts are no longer man versus man, but rather become man versus institution. In these broader “macro” conflicts the same basic characteristics mentioned above are folded into a more deontological praxis or duty-based practice. In this evolution, the focus of the series shifts from instructing viewers on how to be a model citizen through compassion, integrity, intuition, courage, mercy, and discipline to defining citizenship through adherence to regulations and doing a prescribed duty that is informed by these qualities instead of these qualities informing one’s duty. In effect, Starfleet plays a bigger role in overcoming the challenges presented in the show.

The show discriminates between “right” and “wrong” in its depiction of Kirk’s shifting emphasis on character trait-informed duty to duty-informed actions, primarily through the use of the following literary devices and plot elements: foil characters and doubling, excessive or extreme personality traits, and mirror/alternative universes. Foil characters and doubling provide two examples of a character, each with opposite personality traits. The show does two things with this device: either both characters are too extreme and fail in the challenges that they encounter, or the character with the more preferable traits triumphs over the other “bad” example. For instance, in “The Enemy

Within,” airing on October 6th, 1966, season 1 episode 5, Kirk is literally split into two opposite counterparts when he uses a faulty transporter that is experiencing issues due to the magnetic dust from the planet that the ship is orbiting.2 This episode plunges the

2 In 1966, American military action in Vietnam is escalating and there is an increasing number of American service members being taken prisoner. The lesson from this episode could connect to American justification for the Vietnam war in the sense that necessary evils may be used to bring about a greater good. 4

viewer into a mirror image of the good and bad of Kirk’s soul, bringing the good-evil

dichotomy to life. “Good” Kirk is compassionate, docile, personable, and incredibly

dedicated to his crew. However, he cannot make any decisions and is exceedingly

insecure in his role as Captain to the point where he is no longer an effective leader.

“Bad” Kirk, on the other hand, is selfish, hyper-focused, overly ambitious, violent with men, and a sexual predator towards women. Bad Kirk’s character traits allow him to make decisions for the Enterprise, but his words and actions horrify the crew, who lose faith in him as their leader. In both Good and Bad Kirk’s case, neither double can function properly without the other’s traits, so they both fail in their duty as Captain. This resolution serves as a lesson that in order to be a good human and Captain, Kirk needs both sides of his personality, which he regains by the end of the episode.3

Extreme personality traits work in a similar way, the extreme character fails and

Kirk provides some kind of commentary on their plight, offering some insight into why

being so extreme is a bad thing. Kirk serves as a focal point through which viewers

experience these words and how viewers receive his commentary on how to read these

situations primarily through his Captain’s log, but also through his discussions with his officers, Spock and Bones. Finally, mirror or alternative universes, in particular, usually compare a way of life that starkly contrasts with the way that Kirk and Federation civilizations live, which distinguishes the “correct” behaviors and ways of living from the

“incorrect” in regards to different values, human qualities, and virtues.

3 This is a strange dichotomy; it suggests something interesting about human nature-- that every man has the capacity for committing violence but his “good” qualities balance or restrain the “bad.” Or at least according to 1960s culture that believed that good and bad qualities were needed to be balanced in order to be a good leader. 5

Mirror universes do not always have to be a literal parallel universe—they can

also be two entirely different societies, like the Federation and the Romulans. Both live in

the same universe per se, but they exist in entirely different sectors with different values,

norms, and cultures, so they serve as contrasting existences. Modern critic Paul Manuel

uses season 1, episode 14, “Balance of Terror,” to discuss the role of aliens in the series.

He argues that aliens are often structured in stark contrast to the Federation/Starfleet and

their customs, traits, and actions. Airing on December 15th, 1966, the episode represents

the first encounter between the Enterprise and the Romulans when a Romulan ship

undertakes a hostile invasion of Federation territory. In examining Kirk’s interactions

with aliens in this episode, Manuel implies that the Federation is set up as having the

“right qualities” as they are fighting in order to save innocent people from harm, while

the Romulans are taking over because they want more power. The show portrays

Romulans as hyper-militaristic, emotionless, xenophobic, and disdainful.4 This allows the

viewer to understand that the Federation members’ traits are “right” and those possessed by the Romulans are “wrong” (172-3).

Beyond Manuel’s analysis, this episode also provides insight into two entirely different civilizations, ultimately suggesting that the Federation civilization is the “right”

way to live, as Kirk and his team are triumphant, while the Romulans perish. As Kirk is

engaged in a fight against the cloaked Romulan ship that is attacking the Enterprise, both

Captains have to carefully plot out every move. Romulans are just as intelligent as

Vulcans, as the two species are cousins, and therefore, Kirk must use his ingenuity to win

4 Broadly, the Romulans could represent communist leaders at the time like Mao Tse Tung, Fidel Castro, and Leonid Brezhnev. Although, the Romulan society’s lack of emotion, uniformity, and xenophobia most closely align with outside perceptions of Mao Tse Tung and his push for China’s Cultural Revolution. 6

the battle without breaking any Starfleet regulations or treaties. Eventually, the Romulan

ship is in critical condition and all of the Romulans, except for the commander, are dead.

Before he self-destructs, the commander says to Kirk: “I regret that we meet in this way.

You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend… We are

creatures of duty, Captain. I have lived my life by it.” This interaction reveals that Kirk is

unique in his character, wit, and ability to lead through his adherence to duty, which is

more valued in Romulan society. The Romulan commander’s sentiment emphasizes

Kirk’s role as both a model for behavior and a military leader with honor and discipline.

As a critique on an entire lifestyle, mirror universes provide a big picture schema for how the show advocates for having certain qualities in society. The clearest example of this literary device appears in season 2, episode 4, “Mirror, Mirror,” which

offers a clear critique of a social order driven solely by selfishness and ambition. As a

crucial pivotal (and pivoting) episode, it underscores the importance of core values from

the first half of the series while carrying out the institutional duty so important to the

latter half by providing an example of a brutal, savage Federation without those key

character traits underscored throughout the first season. Airing October 6th, 1967,

“Mirror, Mirror,” depicts a mirror universe in which the Federation’s values, culture, and

regulations align more closely with the merciless violence of the Klingon empire.5 In

both the “normal” or “Good Federation” universe and the mirror, or “Bad Federation” universe, the Enterprise is equally as powerful, but the morality of the people differs dramatically. The episode opens with Good Federation Kirk from the “normal” universe

5 The themes of “Mirror, Mirror” closely align with those represented in “The Balance of Terror.” However, this moment of Kirk and the Romulan Captain see eye to eye is a reminder of Roddenberry’s commitment to unity, which I will discuss later. It also shows that Roddenberry valued other or foreign ways of thinking. 7

appearing in the “mirror” universe. Good Federation Kirk’s first encounter with Bad

Federation Spock, who is using a torture device—called an “agonizer”—on a crew member who made a simple mistake with equipment, dramatizes this difference.

Recoiling immediately at this brutal act, Good Federation Kirk later records his horror with Bad Federation Spock and other crew member’s behavior in his Captain’s log as

soon as he is alone and able to reflect on this strange alternate universe: “During an ion

storm, my landing party has beamed back to the Enterprise and found it and the

personnel aboard changed…Behavior and discipline has become brutal, savage.”

Throughout this pivotal episode, Good Federation Kirk’s Captain’s log becomes his tool

for direct critique on this mirror society in which duty is carried out without empathy or

mercy and ingenuity is used to fuel ambitious plots of advancement in rank. Good

Federation Kirk’s disapproval of this unbridled ambition is evident after his encounter

with Bad Federation Checkov, who tries to assassinate him in order to move up in rank.

Good Federation Kirk employs a blatantly displeased tone when he reports in his

Captain’s log that in this world, “assassination of superiors is a common means of

advancing in rank.”

Good Federation Kirk’s disdain for his crew’s behavior in the mirror universe parallels his crew’s disdain for Bad Federation Kirk’s behavior in the normal universe. In

the normal universe, Bad Federation Kirk is extremely rude to everyone, makes

derogatory comments about Good Federation Spock’s ears, and threatens to have

everyone on the ship executed. When Good Federation Spock tries to lock him up, Bad

Federation Kirk attempts to bribe him with money and power. Meanwhile, Good

Federation Kirk in the alternate universe is under suspicion for granting 12 hours of

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mercy to an alien race that the Enterprise was going to destroy. Once the two Kirks are

returned to their proper universes, Spock makes the comment that the mirror Enterprise

crew was “brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous. In every way, splendid

examples of homo sapiens, the very flower of humanity.” Kirk and McCoy, however,

agree that Spock’s assessment is an insult to humanity. Kirk makes his decisions as a

model citizen, which is starkly different from the alternate Kirk and his crew. Bad

Federation Kirk was the epitome of how not to be a citizen, partly because, as Spock

pointed out, he was not civilized at all. This contrast implies that humanity needs to have

the key qualities of compassion, integrity, intuition, courage, mercy, and discipline to be

a good, civilized citizen.

II. Background/History

American society in the 1960s valued all of the above mentioned qualities, but

most particularly, compassion, mercy, justice, courage, and ingenuity based upon the

social push for reformation of civil rights and social programs. Marcia Bok’s Civil Rights

and the Social Programs of the 1960, for example, identifies the key movements and

legal shifts of the 1960s such as the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts, Employee

Rights, Affirmative Action, Equal Protection, Desegregation, and the amendments to

Social Security. All of these programs involve the improvement of the lives of others, but

especially more vulnerable populations: minorities, women, children, the poor, and the elderly. The passage of these acts and amendments points to the collective value in the

1960s to legislate compassion for other human beings. This new legislation for social programs construct an ideal of American citizenship based on the highlighted core values. The new ethnicities that the Civil Rights Era fostered also created desire for self-

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cultivation. The values that the new social movements emphasized could account for the

focus on compassion, mercy, courage, integrity, and ingenuity in the series and why they

are trying to define what it means to be human.

Writers of the time were incorporating similar values in their works as a way to

improve American citizenship through education. Louis Rubin’s book, Life Skills in

School and Society (1969), offers a useful window into the values of the 1960s as it

serves as a roadmap for how to socially educate children to become useful members of

society. Rubin begins with the observation that science was thrust into an unscientific,

pre-Cold War world. The Cold War brought a new emphasis on physics and hard sciences during the space and arms races. Rubin explains that need for moral teachings

appeared because of this shift in thinking (36, 41). The new empirical, scientific society

created a need for moral guidance, which could explain the Roddenberry’s creation of

Captain Kirk as a moral figure. Roddenberry explored the key components of humanity

through Kirk (Fern 18). Consequently, as Roddenberry analyzed the composition of the human personality, certain traits stood out as being more desirable: courage, integrity, ingenuity, compassion, and a strong sense of duty. Kirk’s purpose would then be to give

moral direction to the youth in the 1960s and to show them how to act as an ideal

American citizen.

With the second half of the series, the shift to an emphasis on duty and regulation

could have been a remedy to the sentiments that Americans were feeling after World War

II, the Korean War, and entering into the Vietnam War. In 1965, President Johnson sent

troops to Vietnam, and Americans reacted with very strong anti-bureaucracy and anti- militarism sentiments. Dean Hoge studied this phenomenon and published his findings in

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his research study “College Students' Value Patterns in the 1950's and 1960's.” He found that a person’s personal commitments are central to motivation and behavior. He studied

University of Michigan and Dartmouth students, theorizing that college students did not focus on group acceptance or group embeddedness in their attempts to achieve success

(172). He discovered that college students felt that bureaucracy was dehumanizing and oppressive (184). As the military is one of the largest bureaucracies in the U.S., college students’ negative sentiments are contrary to the positively-presented militaristic focus of

The Original Series. At both Dartmouth and Michigan, the American economy and military action “became very important in forming attitudes” (191). Although in reality, the American economy and military action repulsed American students, in Star Trek,

American ideals and militarism is cast in a positive light. In the series, the military culture forms the attitudes of the Starfleet crew, who are examples of good citizens.

Therefore, the show suggests that military action is not as disagreeable as the student population believes.

That Star Trek writers project militarism positively suggests its second purpose: to counter baby boomers’ feeling of banality and interest in existentialism. In Never a

Matter of Indifference: Sustaining Virtue in a Free Republic, Stanley Kurtz’s essay

“Culture and Values in the 1960s” provides a historical explanation for the rise in the popularity of existentialism. After World War II, the baby boomers were “weighed down by a sense of banality of their existence” that correlates with the writings of the time on the meaninglessness in life (37). Due to the post-World War II world that baby boomers

grew up in, Kurtz claims that boomers wanted a life of service in some larger purpose or

at least the appearance of it (37). The military provides the perfect opportunity to fulfill

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the desire for service or a higher purpose and allows anyone from any background to rise to the highest ranks. However, as Hoge found, many baby boomers held anti-military and anti-bureaucracy sentiments. The existence of this collective feeling of meaninglessness is an explanation for why there is a focus in The Original Series on needing a challenge

in life and an emphasis on a sense of duty, in the case of Kirk, to a military branch of

service.

Kirk as a model of citizenship arose from Star Trek the series, motivating an idea of citizenship and the overall purpose of the show to create good American citizens who feel like they have a purpose in life. Modern Star Trek scholars, like Paul Manuel,

point to the prevalence of this theme in the original series. One of Manuel’s main

arguments points to how the show positions significant actors in history and follows their

effects on others, citing a number of episodes— “The City on the Edge of Forever,”

“Patterns of Force,” “Bread and Circuses,” and “The Alternative Factor” —in which an

individual had an impact on a large number of other people (174-6). Manuel’s argument

demonstrates that the shows themes combatted the existential belief in the 1960s that

there is no meaning to life and that individuals do not matter and do not have control over

anything.6 This idea supports one of the goals of the series: to prove that there is meaning

to life to counteract the feeling of banality in the baby boomers. Manuel’s examples

illustrate the show’s ability to provide hope for the baby boomers, sending the message

that one person really can affect change, iterating that life is not meaningless and that one

person can make a difference, which stands in direct opposition to the popular belief in

nihilism in the 1960s. In each of these episodes, there is one character whose poor

6 This theme is not directly related to Kirk as a model of citizenship, but it is important to note that Manuel acknowledges that there is a theme in Star Trek that implies that individuals can have an impact in the world. 12

decision-making radically changes the lives of many innocent people; Kirk’s primary job

in each is to try to fix the situation and return it to normal.

In these episodes, and throughout the series, Kirk exhibits compassion,

integrity, intuition, courage, mercy, and discipline in his character and actions. Kirk

mainly reveals these specifically in his decision-making process, which viewers are privy

to through his star ship logs, his discussions with fellow officers like Bones and Spock,

his monologues at the conclusion of earlier episodes, and his dialogues with antagonists.7

Duty, integrity and compassion are most prevalent out of all the character traits and most explicitly depicted in Kirk’s decision-making process.

While these main traits above are all at play in the decision-making process of the

Kirk, there is a final key human quality that Star Trek emphasizes: ambition. Ambition and the desire to always improve life are integrated into Star Trek as a cure for the banality of life that the baby boomer generation was experiencing after World War II. In many Original Series episodes, Kirk encounters alien societies that have no ambition.

George Gonzalez synthesizes the reasoning behind this lack of ambition by isolating three episodes: “Return of the Archons,” “This Side of Paradise,” and “The Apple.” In all of them, he finds the trope of a civilization being held back from progress, stagnating in a primitive state, and being kept from developing into the utopian ideal represented by the

U.S. (51). The key problem in all of these episodes is the lack of ambition which has various causes and various solutions in the series.

7 Kirk’s compassionate monologues at the end of each episode lose some of their potency. Kirk’s dramatic monologues generalizing about human nature and goodness are less philosophical towards the end. This shift in Kirk’s monologues is another signal of the transformation of the series. 13

Viewers most vividly see the show’s emphasis on a need for ambition in two key

episodes that both appear towards the end of the first season. In episode 24, “This Side of

Paradise,” which aired on March 2nd 1967, Kirk and the Enterprise crew beam down to

Omicron Ceti III to check on an old Federation colony that is presumed dead due to

harmful rays. Instead, they find the five original colonists in perfect health. They have not

only survived, but developed a society organized around the principle that “men should

return to a less complicated life.” Reminiscent of Amish communities in the U.S., the

colonists refrain from having or using mechanical or technological advancements. As

Elias, the ostensible leader of this colony, tells Kirk, “[we] have few mechanical things

here. No vehicles, no weapons.” Elias goes on to elaborate how they “have harmony...

complete peace.” But Kirk and his crew later learn that the foundation of this harmony is

due, not to the “perfected” social structures, but to the spores of a plant on the planet that

inhabit the bodies of the colonists and keep them in perfect health with perfect mental

peace.8 They are, in essence, infected with a parasite that controls their behavior and

heals their bodies, leaving them devoid of desires and, as a result, free will.

This infection threatens the integrity of the Enterprise when infected crew

members return to the ship carrying more spores. In a short time, the entirety of the

Enterprise crew beams down to the planet, infected with the spores. Kirk argues with

Elias to get them to return to the starship, but Elias, along with everyone except Kirk, is

too placid. Humans, Kirk explains, “weren't meant for [having no needs or wants]. None

of us. Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is.” When Elias told him that they have everything that they desire, Kirk responds by pointing out that

8 This episode could be a metaphor for the spread of communism in America because this show was made during the Cold War. 14

they have everything “except a challenge.” This interaction emphasizes Kirk’s belief that

humans need to have ambition or strife as part of their experience. One cannot be a

complete human without a challenge. The spore-infected people have everything they could need or want, but this does not make them fully human, according to Kirk.

Kirk’s underscores this belief in his final speech about humanity, which comes at the end of the episode; he tells Spock that “we were meant to fight our way through.

Struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute.” Eventually, once the spores have been eliminated from everyone’s systems, Elias deeply regrets being under the influence of the spores and realizes that he and his peers have done nothing over the past three years. “We've done nothing here. No accomplishments, no progress. Three years wasted,” he laments to Bones, before he

agrees to go to the new star base to start a new life. Elias’ reaction and decision in the end

indicates that Kirk was right that ambition is a fundamental part of human thriving. Elias

and the colonists could not be fully human again until they regained their sense of

purpose and their desire to do more in life than just exist wanting, in both senses of the

word, nothing.

Appearing just a few weeks prior to “This Side of Paradise,” episode 21, the

“Return of the Archons,” fleshes out Kirk’s disdainful attitude towards a complacent life.

The Enterprise team finds themselves on a planet in which the minds of the citizens have been absorbed by a computer called “Landru,” who ensures peace but again at the cost of free will and desire. Landru sees the team as an infection in the world that he has created.

In the computer’s programming, it has created “a world without hate, without fear, without conflict. No war, no disease, no crime. None of the ancient evils.” It then

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explains that it “seeks tranquility. Peace for all. The universal good.” Kirk and Spock

disagree with Landru’s definition of the absolute good. The world without ambition,

tension, some selfishness, or any negative traits “is a soulless society,” Spock notes.

Continuing, Spock says “it has no spirit, no spark,” echoing Kirk’s early assessment of

the society. The world without evil or negative human traits becomes mechanical with no

purpose or life. The comparison to a factory dehumanizes Landru’s inhabitants into

machines, emphasizing the lack of real life in absolute peace. Kirk and Spock’s

interpretations of Landru’s society underline the idea that humans need a higher purpose,

a goal, or a desire in order to live. This distinction between living and just being alive is an important theme throughout The Original Series, with ambition being a key component to living a quality life.

The very next episode, “Space Seed,” which contrasts with the lack of ambition in

“This Side of Paradise” and “Return of the Archons,” warns against having too much ambition. Airing on February 16th, 1967, the episode highlights the need to strike a balance between having meaning in life and having too much ambition. The sequential placement of “Space Seed” following “The Return of Acheron” demonstrates the show’s drive to present the idea that having a purpose in life is a key aspect to being a balanced citizen. In it, the Enterprise discovers an old ship in space that is filled with 84 genetically modified “perfect” humans. These seemingly “perfect” humans, however, turn out to be overly ambitious superhuman warlords. Due to their genetic perfection, they decide that they should rule the galaxy after forcibly taking over the Enterprise.

Khan, the leader of the super race, believes that he would benefit the human race if he became their dictator in “an attempt to unify humanity.” Kirk scolds Khan for thinking

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too much in “military terms” when the conversation that they are having is much more

relaxed in a more social setting, rather than a strategic military brief. Kirk’s correction

emphasizes the need for moderation in ambition and a more even temperament in leaders.

Eventually, Kirk is able to banish the super humans down to a planet and regains control

of his ship. In a conversation with Spock at the end of the episode, Kirk lists qualities that

Khan had too much of, which, in fact, are traits he usually advocates for: strength,

ambition, daringness, and bravery. Kirk even admits to his first officer that “humans have

a streak of barbarism.” He implies that all of these qualities are necessary in humans, but

they must be controlled and not be in excess.

In both of these episodes, “Return of Archons” and “Space Seed,” Kirk’s man

versus man or “micro” conflict is against an adversary with an extreme personality: either

with too much or too little ambition. In the first episode, he defeats the creator of a world

without conflict or ambition, and in the other, he triumphs over an overly-ambitious

leader who plans to unite the galaxy under a violent, autocratic rule. His resolution to both of these enemies involves bringing balance to their society: Landru is defeated and strife is introduced to his society just as Khan is isolated on a planet to limit the boundaries of his rule. Rather than support any singular utopian vision, whether humans are unified by forceful rule or by placid compliance, the show ultimately argues for a more complicated version of humanity—one where perfection is not only not possible but never desirable. The show then suggests that life is not about ultimate peace or having everything fulfilled because that would take the humanity out of humans, making them more robotic. Humanity’s continued existence in the universe of The Original Series, it seems, hinges on strife and difficulty, which ensures an imperfect, yet fulfilling, society.

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Succeeding through strife and having ambition is what is necessary to thrive in life,

according to the show. Historically, ambition and meaning in life is what was missing

from the lives of baby boomers after World War II. Star Trek uses Kirk to provide the

model for how much ambition one should have.

In addition to having a careful balance of ambition, courage, intuition, integrity,

and compassion, a strong sense of duty also aligns with the ideal way to portray these

traits in 1960s literature. Star Trek uses these traits as a template for the ideal person in

the 1960s. Each characteristic is emphasized in the show holding Kirk and the team of the

Enterprise responsible for behaving as ideal citizens. The show’s writers impose moral obligation on Kirk to embody these key qualities. In the first half of the series, the writers demonstrate a moral obligation for American citizens to absorb these six main aspects of humanity into their personality. However, as the series progresses, the focus of the moral obligation changes. In the first half of the series, Kirk’s moral obligation is to be make decisions with compassion, integrity, courage, and intuition and use these qualities in his exchanges with crew members and aliens alike; in the second half of the series, however,

Kirk’s moral obligation is to do is duty to Starfleet. In this second half, the more emotional, compassionate qualities take a back seat to duty. There are two competing

versions of moral obligation in the series – these two definitions fall along a continuum

as the show progresses, moral obligation to live by the key qualities transforms into

moral obligation to do one’s duty. Moral obligation is defined in two different ways for

Kirk: moral obligation as a human to interact with others with all of the aforementioned

character traits and the moral obligation as a service member of the Starfleet to do his

duty justly. In other words, in the first half, Kirk must do what is morally right according

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to what compassion, courage, ambition, integrity, and ingenuity would dictate, while in

the second half of the series, what is morally right is defined by Starfleet regulation,

regardless of what our key character traits would dictate.

These two competing versions of obligation stem from how moral theorists were

thinking about moral obligation at the time. In his 1966 article, “Moral Obligation,” Kurt

Baier defines the foundation of this obligation, which can be interpreted as duty, equating tasks done with self-discipline as “productive” as crucial features of moral obligation

(212). Moral obligations, he says, are first something that someone ought to do because it is right; and second as being morally binding, meaning that it is something that someone has to do because it is right (212). He also notes that there is a difference between morally binding and legally binding obligations, the latter being required by law (213).

Baier’s definitions indeed align with the explanation of duty according to the Oxford

English Dictionary: a duty is an “action, or an act, that is due in the way of moral or legal obligation.”

In Star Trek, duty appears in two different ways: duty as a moral obligation to be a good citizen and the moral obligation to fulfill institutional orders and follow regulations. The source of the obligation differs in each of these interpretations. Baier theorizes that obligations, whether moral or legal, are governed by Will Theory, Emotive

Theory, or Rational Egoism. In Will Theory, the obligation derives from desires, expressions, or commands outside of the self (213). Emotive Theory, on the other hand, requires the subject to have internalized the rationale behind a given task; meaning, the subject understands the basis of and believes in the reasoning behind the task. Whereas

Rational Egoism expands upon Emotive Theory by adding that humans are rational and

19 can make decisions based on their interpretations of the internalized rationale. Thus, with

Rational Egoism and Emotive Theory, Kirk has internalized the qualities of compassion, courage, integrity, ingenuity, and ambition, innately using them in his decision-making which allows him to make the most moral decision every episode. Society and its values determine what qualities are preferable and the individual internalizes them. In Star Trek, the writers are establishing what character traits the American citizen should internalize and then use in daily life.

In practice, Will Theory appears more in the latter half of the series. In the instances where Kirk must carry out morally tough regulations despite not wanting to because it is his duty to carry out the will of the higher organization. If someone does not carry out the will, peril may come to them in various levels according to Baier’s Will

Theory (214). For example, usually junior military personnel carry out orders because their superior officer tells them to do it, not because they believe in it. In the higher levels of leadership, Will Theory could involve a Captain, like Kirk, making a decision he does not agree with, but does it anyway because it is the will of the larger organization,

Starfleet. In the military context of The Original Series, if a junior personnel does not follow an order, he can be punished and if Kirk does not follow Starfleet regulations, he could get court martialed and removed.

Baier’s obligation theories manifest in all seasons of The Original Series depending on the character who is making the decision. In general, Kirk is faced with a moral dilemma or is pitted against an enemy whose poor character leads them to make bad decisions that hurt others. Kirk then has to use either his internalized moral reasoning or the strict regulations of Starfleet to help him solve the conflict and normalize the

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situation. The latter two theories apply more to the first half of the series. Emotive

Theory, which states that obligations stem from the internalization of the reasoning for

completing a task, explains how Kirk makes decisions through a combination of

internalized values from Starfleet and his own moral compass based on his positive

character traits mentioned previously. For example, if Captain Kirk protects a little girl

from harm, he is acting because he has internalized the idea that it is just to protect

children, according to Emotive Theory. Unlike the passive, internal decision-making in

Emotive theory, Rational Egoism requires self-reflection and asks: “what must I do?”

This theory applies to the first half of the series when Kirk makes decisions in a way that aligns with the concepts of courage, compassion, mercy, and integrity. However, all of the above theories of moral obligation rely on the idea that the obligation will bring about a desirable end and must conflict with inclinations and desires or self-interest (224).

As discussed above, the early episodes of the show depict ideal American citizenship through Kirk, whose thoughts and actions reinforce a moral obligation to internalize positive character traits like integrity, ingenuity, courage, compassion, and mercy in solving problems. But the types of problems Kirk encounters and successfully navigates during the first half of the series also map out how a good citizen should work through man versus man conflicts, between crew members or between crew members and the humanoid alien species they encounter, using the positive character traits that the show provides. Captain Kirk’s example works to fulfill the need for setting up stronger cultural and social values in post-World War II, Cold War, and early Vietnam War

America. Doing so highlights these key qualities that promote and ensure social cohesion through good citizenship. Social cohesion was essential during this time period due to the

21

baby boomer’s post-War banality, the need for country unity and strength during the Cold

War, and the social division caused by Vietnam War.

III. Micro-Analysis

In the first half of Star Trek, Kirk has an obligation to be merciful, compassionate,

and empathetic to everyone— crew member and alien alike. As a Starfleet Captain, he

must always consider the rights and the lives of the alien life that the Enterprise

encounters. This obligation is, at first, because of his character traits, but it becomes clear later in the series that his behavior is also in adherence with the mission of Starfleet “to explore strange new worlds [and] to seek out new life and new civilizations” while following Federation regulations. But mercy, compassion, and empathy alone aren’t sufficient to make Kirk an ideal leader. In “The Enemy Within,” when Kirk is split into

Good Kirk/Bad Kirk, for example, Bones offers this commentary, noting that Bad Kirk, who represents the “negative” traits in humanity may be “where man's essential courage comes from.” In this episode, the writers emphasize that courage is key to both Kirk as

Starfleet Commander and as a good citizen.

In further defining personhood, various authors meditated on specific human qualities in the 1960s: courage, compassion, and mercy. In his 1966 article “On

Courage,” Robert Coles defines courage as the confrontation of danger without apparent weakening or flight (85). This definition represents Coles’ response to contemporary concerns about courage. Some of his contemporaries saw the characteristic as dangerous or weak due to the belief that courage represented rashness. Coles theorizes that courage is a quality of mind when one recognizes the full extent of the danger and still decides to

22

abandon fear (88). Some elements that Coles identifies as being essential to courage are:

organization of mind, mastery of emotions, and capacity for effective action (94).

Courage is not the only important human quality in Star Trek, though courage is

sometimes required to have compassion and mercy. Robert Johann’s 1966 essay, “Love

and Justice” sheds light on how justice and love were defined and differentiated in the

1960s (28). The concept of love in his essay is a substitute for compassion and empathy,

while justice is the counterpart to mercy. Justice is a group effort, so every moral being in

a society has the responsibility to care about the rights of others just as much as they care about their own rights. He argues that if people are only occupied with their own rights, then no one would be focused on the rights of others (45). Focusing on the rights of others can be incorporated into the duty to be compassionate and empathetic because a moral person would have to think about the perspectives of others in order to consider their rights as well.

Early in the series Kirk emphasizes the importance of compassion in managing internal, man versus man conflicts within the crew. In the third episode, “Where No Man

Has Gone Before,” for example, the way that Kirk resolves his man versus man conflict

with one of his crew begins to flesh out the idea that one has a duty to be compassionate.

Airing on September 22nd, 1966, the episode follows Captain Kirk as he grapples with

how to handle two of his crew members, Mitchell and Dehner, who suddenly develop

god-like powers after being hit by a mystical barrier at the edge of the galaxy. Losing all compassion for their crew mates, Mitchell first becomes hostile towards the Enterprise

crew, so Kirk sedates him, gathers a small team, and brings him down to a holding cell on

the planet. Mitchell uses his powers to escape from his prison, kills a crew member, and

23 then forces Dehner, whose powers are also forming, to find a new place to live on the planet with him.

While looking for them, Captain Kirk finds Dehner and tries to convince her to make Mitchell stand down. Poisoned by her new powers and Mitchell’s influence, she tells him that “Earth is really unimportant” and that he should leave, allowing them to create a new world. Kirk then tells her how important compassion is because “above all else, a god needs compassion.” The need for compassion not only applies to gods but also to humans.9 The early emphasis on the need for compassion stems from show’s creator

Gene Roddenberry, who had immense compassion for the human race; his compassion bled through to the series. In fact, he once said that he thinks “human beings are incredible. They are the most fascinating things in the universe” (Fern 15). Roddenberry thought compassion was essential because he believed that the only way to truly understand humanity was by looking at what traits, actions, interests, and goals tie everyone together, rather than what causes divides (Fern 18). Roddenberry’s relationship with religion also shaped his emphasis on a God needing compassion above all else. In the Bible, Roddenberry saw God as wrathful, valuing respect more than love (Neece 17).

This belief implies that he values the image of a God that is loving, compassionate, and merciful.

Kirk reflects Roddenberry’s views throughout the series, but especially when speaking to Dehner in this episode; here he tries to prove that compassion is a vital character trait by appealing to her human life as a Starfleet psychiatrist before the incident. First, he acknowledges that humans have darker qualities and tells her that,

9 This exchange frames god-like power within a Christian rhetoric. 24

because of her experience in psychiatry, she knows “the ugly, savage things we all keep

buried, that none of us dare expose.” Then he warns her that Mitchell will dare to use his powers to fulfill all the ugly, savage desires that we all have. Kirk points out that in

Mitchell’s current state, “who's to stop him [from doing awful things]? He doesn't need to care.” Kirk pleads with Dehner, “Be a psychiatrist for one minute longer.” In this moment, Kirk tries to impress upon Dehner the realization that that she is the only one with the ability to stop Mitchell’s power-driven rampage. Fortunately, Dehner does listen to Kirk and helps him defeat Mitchell, but she dies in the process, ending all potential future conflicts with them.

Kirk’s statements about Mitchell, moreover, are designed to impress upon viewers the idea that humanity needs compassion in order to act morally in society. In this episode, Mitchell is a proxy for a person with no compassion. Dehner has more compassion because she has a background in studying human qualities—the good and the bad.10 Kirk’s statement about gods can therefore be interpreted to explain that we have a duty to be compassionate because without it, all of the nasty, savage qualities will be unregulated. As Mitchell lost all of his human compassion, Kirk had to uphold his duty to humanity by putting an end to his terror, demonstrating that compassion is an absolutely necessary component to being a good human and a good citizen. The show uses the example of a human suddenly having god-like power as a contrast between the model citizens that Mitchell and Dehner were while they were compassionate, “normal” human

10 She may also be portrayed as being more compassionate because she is a woman and women are stereotypically portrayed as soft and emotional or sexual and devious in Star Trek. Her ability to understand the need for compassion, then, has a basis in potentially sexist ideology prevalent in the 1960s and in the series as well.

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beings versus what happens when, at least in Mitchell’s case, all the compassion is

drained from his humanity.

Humans need more than compassion alone, however, to develop into good

American citizens or effective leaders. Episode 13 of season 1, “Conscience of the King,” promotes the importance of mercy by both defining how mercy ought to be used and its

importance to humanity when Kirk is confronted with a villain from his past. Airing on

December 8th, 1966, the episode features a troupe of traveling actors who perform

throughout the galaxy on various planets. Before long, a spectator identifies one of the

actors, Karidian, as actually being Kodos, the former governor of Tarsus IV who mass murdered 4,000 people on the planet to fix the issue of overpopulation.11 Growing up on

Tarsus IV, Kirk recognizes and confronts Karidian for his crimes against humanity.

Karidian’s role in the mass murder may reflect the social concerns of the 1950s

and 1960s in regards to the post-War pursuit of holding Nazi war criminals accountable

for their part in the mass murders and human rights abuses during the Holocaust. Kirk’s

task of proving that Karidian is a war criminal living in plain sight under a false name

reflects a small portion of the tireless work of Holocaust survivors, like Tuvia Freedman

and Simon Wiesenthal in finding the escaped war criminals, like Adolf Eichmann, many

of whom fled Europe to South America (“Nazi Hunting”). Karidian may also reflect the

ongoing civil unrest and mass murders occurring around the world in the 1950s and

1960s as the former colonial powers relinquished their control over their colonies. For

example, American President John F. Kennedy pushed the United Nations take

responsibility for the unrest and start a decade of development to help advance the

11 This idea is still being pondered in modern media, for example, Thanos in the Marvel Universe had a similar goal and reasoning. 26 infrastructure and social progress of former colonies (“UNA-UK”). Many organizations were created like UNICEF, UNRRA, The World Food Programme, and the Research

Institute for Social Development in order to assist the developing countries in the world.

This sense of responsibility is reflected in how Star Trek broadly – but this more particularly - defines good citizenship as taking care of your fellow humans and showing them the mercy that they are entitled to as human begins. For example, Kirk acts as a global role model of mercy and compassion when he interrogates Karidian, accusing the former governor of ruthlessly killing half of his citizens without mercy. Karidian, in turn, informs Kirk that his use of mercy is inappropriate and that, in his view, Kirk is the epitome of what is wrong in modern society: mechanized, electronicized, and not very human. He tells Kirk that man’s striving for greatness has ruined their sense of humanity.

Kirk disagrees and Karidian goads Kirk to kill him out of revenge. Kirk refuses just as

Karidian’s daughter, Lenore, runs into the room and accuses Kirk of using her like a tool to get to her father, equating him to his powerful, inhuman ship without mercy. Karidian, in contrast to Kirk’s version of mercy, defines mercy as killing half of the planet’s population so that the entire colony would not die slowly and painfully due to the famine crisis plaguing the planet at that time. Kirk wholeheartedly disagrees with this notion of

“mercy” killing and believes that killing anybody in that manner is wrong. He tells

Lenore that if her father is The Executioner, then letting him walk out of the room is more mercy than he deserves. Even in the face of someone that he has no empathy for,

Kirk ultimately shows mercy to Karidian by giving him the benefit of the doubt and allowing him to continue his play while he investigates further. Ultimately, Karidian’s

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daughter accidentally shoots him in her attempt to murder Kirk, who has decided that he

has enough evidence to arrest him.

As the first season progresses, series writers draw out the complexities and

nuances of mercy and compassion as it applies to Kirk’s management of micro conflicts.

In episode 25, “Devil in the Dark,” which aired on March 9th, 1967, Kirk employs both mercy and compassion when interacting with alien life, even if it goes against his

Starfleet orders. Kirk and Spock go down to a mining colony, Janus VI, to help them destroy a creature that has killed many miners and destroyed their nuclear reactor. This planet is very important to the Federation because it has a rich and abundant source of different minerals that could supply a thousand planets. Kirk’s duty is to kill the creature and allow the miners to continue their work to benefit the Federation. Kirk and Spock discover that the creature responsible for killing all the men is the last Horta and that she had been attacking the miners because their operations have been destroying her eggs.

The eggs contain the entire next generation of Hortas and the miners have killed thousands of them, reducing their potential population size. Once Kirk finds out about the situation of the Horta species, his “shoot to kill” orders become: “don't fire. First man that fires is dead.” Kirk goes against his duty to kill the creature that had sabotaged Federation property and killed over 50 people, instead choosing to show the Horta empathy and mercy in its situation. He humanized the silicon-based alien life form and prevented others from killing it, modeling how an ideal citizen tries to understand an unknown situation and peacefully resolve it.

Importantly, in this process of showing mercy, he had to go against what Starfleet sent him out to do and decided not to avenge the lives of the men. While explaining the

28 situation to the leader of the miners on the planet, he justified his initial mercy and compassion with the secondary benefit that the Horta are both natural miners and benevolent creatures, therefore, once the Horta hatch, the whole race can help create tunnels for the miners, increasing their productivity. By employing both mercy and compassion towards the Horta, Kirk models how a citizen should make decisions by combining positive character traits in order to produce the best possible outcome in conflicts. As demonstrated, the best outcome, the survival of the Horta and the thriving of the mining colony, was achieved because of the way Kirk used his emotional intelligence in the situation.

In the opening episode of season 2, “Amok Time,” viewers again witness Kirk using both compassion and mercy in his command of the Enterprise, this time to save

Spock’s life. Kirk is faced with a choice that will put his sense of what is right against his

Starfleet orders. At the start of this episode, the Enterprise is on course for Altair VI when pon farr, the periodic biological condition in male Vulcans that forces them to mate or die, hits Spock. Reluctantly, Spock explains that if he does not get to Vulcan within eight days, he will perish. Kirk has to make the decision to either follow his orders from

Starfleet or divert the course for Vulcan to save his friend and second in command. He first tries to get permission from Admiral Komack, who denies his request to go to

Vulcan. In this situation, Kirk must also employ courage to stand up against Starfleet orders and do what is right. Kirk prioritizes Spock’s life above his position and changes the course to Vulcan anyway. This decision ultimately allows Spock to live. Eventually,

Starfleet gave belated permission to Kirk to proceed to Vulcan at the request of T’Pau, a high-ranking Vulcan diplomat.

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However, Kirk’s decision to choose Spock over his career demonstrates his value for the character traits of compassion, courage, and mercy rather than his desire to follow his orders from Starfleet command. Instead of following his obligation to carry out

Starfleet orders, Kirk is internally driven by his sense of right and wrong to save Spock.

Kirk’s moral obligation to save Spock reflects the principles of Rational Egoism and

Emotive Theory. Kirk has internalized the qualities of compassion, courage, and mercy, which allowed him to make the most moral decision, saving Spock. Roddenberry, in the context of his military experience in the Air Force during World War II, said that Kirk as a leader has the duty to allow every one of the lives under his command to “have the opportunity to learn and grow to their fullest” (Fern 39). He believed that all leaders, from Hitler to the President of the United States to the Prime Minister of the United

Kingdom, have this responsibility to their people on their shoulders. Kirk is no exception and has the moral obligation to show compassion and allow Spock to live, so that he can also carry out his life to the fullest extent. And since there would not be any tremendous disadvantages to the mission in making a quick stop to Vulcan, Kirk is obligated to save his first officer and friend according to the principles of Emotive Theory and Rational

Egoism.

A culminating episode just seven episodes into the second season, “Catspaw,” focuses on combining compassion, and ingenuity when Kirk fights scary illusions to save his crew as a test to his moral integrity. Airing on October 27th, 1967, this episode focuses on the necessity of the inclusion of compassion, mercy, courage, integrity, and ingenuity in humanity. After one crewman returns from Pyris VII dead, Kirk, Spock, and

Bones beam down to the planet to look for the other crewmen, including Sulu, who were

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sent to explore the planet’s surface. They encounter three witches, a black cat, and a

mysterious robed man who all appear to have some kind of magical powers. In reality,

the planet’s only inhabitants are two aliens, Korob and Sylvia, who are using a

“transmuter” to change their form and create illusions. They use these powers to deter

Kirk and his team from looking for his crewmen. However, Kirk surmounts all of their

obstacles. The robed man, Korob, appears to the three men and addresses them directly:

My analysis of you may have been in some small way in error, but you

were warned to stay away and yet you came to save your comrades. That

proves loyalty. Your bravery was tested and you did not frighten. And

despite my failure with these bright baubles, I perceive that you cannot be

bribed. In many ways you are quite admirable.

Kirk, Bones, and Spock thus prove their bravery, ingenuity, and integrity to the aliens.

Their ability to maintain their morality and integrity, though, is ultimately what enables

them to pass this test. The test was to gauge whether Kirk was only courageous and

compassionate on the surface or if he was able to retain these qualities during hardships.

Without any of these qualities, Kirk would not have been able to save his crewmembers

from the aliens.

As the series shifts from a micro- to a macro-focus in the second season, conflicts

start to transform; prior conflicts were between Kirk and an opposing character who makes the wrong decisions because they lack the “right” values and character traits that the show uses to define good citizenship. In the second half of the series, conflicts arise when Kirk bases his decisions off of Federation or Starfleet rules and regulations when he has to solve conflicts with opposing individuals or organizations. While Kirk is the doer

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in the episodes, he serves as a stand-in for the institutions of Starfleet and/or the

Federation. These transitional episodes mid-series tend to depict Kirk as having to put

aside his emotions —compassion, mercy, ingenuity, intuition, courage— to follow

Starfleet regulations and do his duty as a commanding officer. He still uses these good character traits in the commission of his duty, but his focus becomes increasingly about duty over the key values. A different way to conceptualize Kirk’s decision-making in the second half of the series is to equate all the positive character traits— courage, intuition,

integrity, compassion, and ambition— with emotion, and a strong sense of duty with

logic. In his discussion of Star Trek, Paul Manuel notes that a prevalent theme in the

show is that logic is needed to overcome emotion (168). Applying this theme to this

argument, logic is needed to surmount the influence of the “emotional” character traits in

order to successfully carry out one’s institutional duty.12

It is clear that by season 2 episode 20, which aired on February 9th, 1968, duty

begins to overshadow emotions and positive character traits. In this episode, “Return to

Tomorrow,” Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Mulhall’s bodies are taken over by the three entities,

one of whom tries to destroy Spock’s consciousness in order to keep his body. Kirk had

to destroy the receptacles, one of which contained Spock’s consciousness, in order to stop

the entity, Henoch, from terrorizing his crew. Bones incredulously scolds Kirk after

seeing the broken consciousness receptacles: “Jim, the receptacles. Spock's consciousness

was in one of them!” To which Kirk responds “it was necessary.” Bones spits back:

“What are you talking about? There is no Spock to return to his body. You've killed a

12 This is not to say that the Vulcan way of having only logic, no emotion is the best way to be. It should be noted that the emotional, positive traits are still needed to carry out duty, but they are no longer at the forefront of decision- making. 32

loyal officer, your best friend.” Kirk knows that he has a duty to his ship and his crew, so

he decided that the most merciful thing to do to save the most lives was to kill Henoch,

even if it meant sacrificing Spock. Using both his duty to save his people as quickly as

possible and his compassion for his former officer, Kirk orders McCoy to “prepare a

hypo. The fastest, deadliest poison to Vulcans. Spock's consciousness is gone. We must

kill his body, the thing in it.” Even though Spock was gone, Kirk wanted to ensure that

his body had a quick death. Fortunately, Spock was alive in Nurse Chapel’s mind and

was able to return to his body before the poison was administered. After this act of duty,

Kirk shows tremendous compassion for the two remaining entities, Sargon and Thalassa.

He allows them to take over his and Mulhall’s bodies to give them a few last minutes

together before their consciousness’s are lost in the oblivion without a body. This was an

act of compassion, as Kirk’s duty to his crew would be to not risk being taken over again

by these foreign entities. In this episode, his duty was carried out with compassion for the

main example, while at the end, he still abided by his duty to be compassionate.

Putting duty at the forefront of decision-making and forcing the more

emotional, positive traits of humanity to the backburner can be a difficult process. In his

book, The Politics of Star Trek: Justice, War, and the Future, George Gonzalez takes a

look at how “The City on the Edge of Forever” confronts such a hardship and emphasizes the importance of combining compassion and mercy so long as they are within the scope

of duty. This 28th episode of season 1 aired on April 6th, 1967, and forced the viewer to

think about how Kirk makes decisions balancing duty, compassion, and mercy under

morally difficult situations. “The City on the Edge of Forever” begins with Bones getting

transported back in time to before the U.S. entered World War II. He meets and later

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saves Edith, who, in this timeline, uses her extended life to create such a powerful pacifist

movement that the U.S. never decides to enter World War II. Edith’s pacifist movement

changes all of history: first by allowing Nazi Germany to win the war and later by

preventing the great space race so that man never has the opportunity to get to space and

create Starfleet or the Federation (39).13 Kirk and Bones discover from newspapers that

in the normal timeline, Edith was killed by a car on a particular day and time, but in the

timeline that Bones and Kirk were introduced, Bones saves her life. The decision to let

Edith live creates a conflict between empathy and duty: on one hand, Bones would be sparing a woman from death, but on the other, he would be guaranteeing the success of the Nazis and their genocide, altering the course of space travel in the process. In stopping the U.S. from stopping the Nazis, Edith ended up making the world a horrible place indefinitely. On the other hand, the war killed thousands of young men and innocent civilians. Compassion and empathy for saving her life and the compassion to save the potential future victims of the undefeated Nazis stand in opposition to one another in this episode. Kirk, knowing what happens in the timeline that Bones’ compassionate saving of Edith created, ultimately makes the decision that it is his duty to stop an evil force that will do great amounts of harm in the future is greater than his duty

to protect one innocent life from a tragic death. Kirk stops Bones from saving Edith,

which allows the normal timeline to be reinstated and they return to their own time.

This hard decision-making process of putting duty first is prevalent in the military. According to author Steffen Hantke, the militarism in Star Trek includes

“military hierarchy, discipline, conflict, and political rationale” (562). His essay, titled

13 This may be a criticism of passivism regarding the hundreds of American protests against the Vietnam War, warning what might happen if the U.S. does not militarily intervene in Vietnam and prevent the spread of Communism. 34

“Star Trek’s Mirror Universe Episodes and U.S. Military Culture through the Eyes of the

Other” stresses the need for both generic good qualities like kindness, sympathy, love,

and mercy, as well as traditionally bad qualities like ambition, selfishness, and riskiness

in humanity in order to be a well-functioning member of society. Many Star Trek

episodes, Hantke notes, also promote the idea that a person needs qualities traditionally

viewed as good just as much as they need traditionally bad qualities. He argues that

American military primacy favors military intervention and uses war as diplomacy; while

war is generally considered “bad,” it can lead to positive outcomes, which reflects the

dichotomy of good and bad portrayed in the show (564-5). Hantke uses the mirror

universe episodes and, more specifically, the values that Kirk portrays in his Captain’s

log in the “Mirror, Mirror” episode to explain how the series reflected what American

military values are: “democratic decision-making, authority based on mutual respect, the

pursuit of shared goals based on internalized consent, rejection of cruelty and torture,

[and] privileging of negotiation over aggression” (567). Hantke stresses that these values

may not be a reality in the time period, but an ideal to strive for (568).

The emotional side of American citizenship—being empathetic, courageous,

ingenious, and merciful— become ideals, rather than what is ultimately possible. Duty

and the discipline that allows one to carry out orders take the forefront of how Star Trek

defines citizenship. However, duty should be carried out with the “emotional” side of

citizenship in mind; in other words, putting the values of courage, integrity, ingenuity, compassion, and mercy secondary to institutional duty. In season 2 episode 13,

“Obsession,” Kirk’s emotions get in the way of him performing his duty as a Starfleet

commanding officer and he learns that he has to put his duty before his doubt in order to

35 lead the ship effectively. This episode involves a visit from an enemy in Kirk’s past. As a young Lieutenant, the ship he was assigned to, the Farragut, encountered a mysterious gaseous creature that drains human blood of its hemoglobin, killing them. When first encountering the entity, Lieutenant Kirk froze in fear and did not fire his phaser at it.

Right after this encounter, it killed half of the crew. Kirk blamed his hesitation for the death of half of his former crew and Captain, carrying guilt with him every day since.

Now, on the Enterprise, the creature has returned. In a similar situation, young security officer Garrrovick, whose father was Lieutenant Kirk’s Captain, also hesitates when confronted by the alien. Like Kirk, he is broken up about his hesitation and resigns. This time, when given a clear shot at the gas creature, Kirk fires the Enterprise phasers at it, which go right through the creature. Spock confronts Kirk and tells him,

the creature's ability to throw itself out of time sync makes it possible for

it to be elsewhere in the instant the phaser hits. There is, therefore, no

basis for your self-recrimination. If you had fired on time and on target

eleven years ago, it would have made no more difference than it did an

hour ago. Captain Garrovick would still be dead. The fault was not yours,

Jim. In fact, there was no fault.

This leads to Kirk realizing that, for years, he had let his emotions get in the way of logic concerning this situation. This realization begins the turning point of the series. In the latter half, duty is placed at the forefront of citizenship, while emotions like compassion, courage, and ingenuity begin to orbit doing one’s duty.

IV. Macro-Analysis The shift that occurs in the middle of the series transforms depicting compassion, mercy, ingenuity, intuition, and courage as crucial components of one’s duty to other

36 living beings to a framework in which these key traits are subordinate to rules, regulations, and Starfleet duty. When conflicts arise, Kirk solves them with ideas related to the institutions that he swears allegiance to: Starfleet and the Federation. He no longer defines what is right through character traits and moral citizenship, defining it through how Federation or Starfleet protocol would resolve an issue. When thinking about morality, Kirk defines what is moral by what the higher institutions indicate would be moral, not his own emotional moral compass. Kirk displays this evolving sense of duty in seven key episodes. “The Savage Curtain” establishes the way that Kirk defines good as doing your duty to your people, while “Court Martial” establishes Kirk’s dedication to procedure and Starfleet protocol. “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” involves Kirk actually following through with his dedication to protocol even if it means blowing up the

Enterprise in order to prevent it from falling into enemy hands, rather than trying to mediate an ethical conflict between two aliens. “Elaan of Troyius” provides medical proof that Kirk’s love for the Enterprise and his duty to Starfleet runs deeper than even magical enslavement from a woman of Elas. “The Mark of Gideon” and “And the

Children Shall Lead” both emphasize that Kirk puts his Federation duty before his compassion and mercy for other beings. Finally, “The Cloud Miners” offers a unique break in the emphasis on duty by fleshing out the hierarchy that Kirk uses when he is making decisions during conflicts.

In this half of the series, the moral obligation to follow the orders and regulations from Starfleet and the Federation comes from the institutions themselves. The moral obligation to do one’s duty comes from the higher powers of Starfleet and the Federation, rather than the internalized drive to do what is considered morally correct defined by

37 societal values. Kurt Baier’s Will Theory accounts for this shift; Will Theory states that the moral obligation to act a certain way, in this case acting in accordance with Starfleet, comes from a higher institution, rather than an internal level.

The clearest representation of this shift comes in Season 3 Episode 22 on March

7th, 1969, “The Savage Curtain.” In this episode, Kirk and Spock are looking for life on the planet, Excalbia, where they have unwittingly stumbled upon an Excalbian experiment of sorts. The inhabitants of Excalbia want to test the “earthling” ideas of good and evil, so they artificially brought back the best and worst figures in Human and

Vulcan history to pit them against each other in a mortal combat, with two living specimens, Kirk and Spock, being part of the experiment. Kirk and Spock encounter

Surak, the father of modern Vulcan civilization as well as his presumed counterpart from

U.S. history, Abraham Lincoln. The Exalbian experimenters pit these four heroes against four of the worst evil-doers in Star Trek history: Colonel Green, Kahless, Zora, and

Genghis Khan. Colonel Green, an eco-terrorist and mass murderer, Kahless, the first

Klingon emperor, and Zora, a genetic experimenter, are all fictional characters in the Star

Trek universe. Genghis Khan was a real figure in human history who conquered much of

Asia and is sometimes thought of as a brutal, genocidal leader. All four of these people and aliens represent brutality, mercilessness, and over ambition, while the other four are founders of Western, peaceful civilizations or are protectors of different races. The show’s selection of them as good or evil demonstrates that good people are those that protect, nurture, or fight for their people, while evil fights for their own gain or takes actions that are antithetical to Western morality.

38

As the contest concludes, Kirk and Spock alone survive battling the bad characters. In assessing the results of this contest, Excalbians decree that “your good and your evil use the same methods, achieve the same results.” The Excalbians define good and evil based on the fighting styles that each individual used, rather than the purpose for their fighting. Kirk, however, objects to this conclusion by offering a different definition of good and evil that focuses on the ends rather than the means.14 Kirk defines good and evil by their intentions rather than by their methods or character traits. He argues that everyone on the good side wanted to save and protect their people, while the evil side wanted power. Even Kirk’s rationale for participating in the experience the aligned with this core value. He only participated in the experiment because the aliens “offered [him] the lives of [his] crew.” As a result, the audience sees that Kirk’ sense of duty to his crew superseded how he personally felt about fighting, which would have influenced his decision-making in the first half of the series. The most important takeaway from this episode is that Kirk defines “goodness” as duty to your people, rather than arguing that goodness encompasses the traditional “good” character traits.

Continuing on this deontological trend, in “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,”

Kirk must put the safety of the entire Federation before his own life and the lives of his crew. This decision is in opposition to the first half of the show because Kirk establishes duty over compassion. Airing on January 10th, 1969, the episode follows two aliens, Bele and Lokai, the last two of their race, in their constant battle because of minute differences in their coloring. Bele, a government official of Cheron, their home planet, wants Kirk to allow him to capture Lokai in order to persecute him for his coloring. When Kirk refuses,

14 However, this does not mean that Kirk subscribes to Machiavellian thought. 39

Bele takes control of The Enterprise and will not relinquish control until Kirk allows him to take Lokai as his prisoner. Kirk, seeing that there is no reason why either alien should hate each other, follows Starfleet procedure to end their fight. He activates the self- destruct sequence of the ship. Kirk knows that Starfleet regulations state that a foreign entity cannot have control of the ship, so he is determined to blow it up rather than allow

Bele to remain in control. The safest decision for the Enterprise and the crew would be allowing Bele to capture Lokai—Bele would let go of his control over the ship and leave—causing no harm to anyone else. However, Kirk refuses to do that because allowing an innocent humanoid to be persecuted would go against Federation morality.

Even though Kirk chooses to follow Starfleet self-destruction procedure rather than allowing either alien party to use the Enterprise as leverage, he uses his duty to show compassion for Lokai by protecting him from certain death. This may be a manipulation of Kirk’s duty to do the right thing and not hand Lokai over to Bele, however, it is also

Kirk’s duty as a starship Captain to not let anyone use the Enterprise for their own purposes. Bele eventually relinquishes control of the ship in the last few seconds of the countdown, but the two flee to the transporter and continue their chase down on the nearest planet. Kirk allows them to continue their struggle and leaves orbit with his crew and ship safe from harm.

Outside of duty and Kirk’s decision to follow Starfleet protocol and initiate the self-destruct sequence, this episode reflects ideal American society in regards to the treatment of others. “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” aired in early 1969, placing it in the context of the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power movement, and the recent assassination of Martin Luther King. Kirk’s reaction to the alien conflict models how the

40

average American citizen should be compassionate. During the episode, Kirk and his

crew don’t see the difference between Bele and Lokai, even though their government

persecuted its own citizens for being black on the left side of their body and white on the

right, rather than the “preferable” white on the left side and black on the right. This

episode creates an outsider perspective to critique American society, pointing out how

ridiculous it is to persecute someone based on the color of their skin. Its takeaway is the

importance of compassion for fellow citizens, regardless of their physical characteristics.

Two key episodes stake the claim that the Federation’s rules and regulations are put above all else, specifically, compassion and mercy, in the third and final season of the series. In “The Mark of Gideon” and “And the Children Shall Lead,” Federation rules ultimately trump both compassion and mercy. Season 3 Episode 16, “The Mark of

Gideon,” aired one week after “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” on January 17th, 1969.

In this episode, Kirk is sent to the planet Gideon under Federation orders to discuss the potential for Gideon to be part of the United Federation of Planets. Gideon is a planet where the people enjoy incredible health and healing powers, making them essentially immortal reproducers, so they are plagued with overpopulation and over-crowding. Kirk accuses the Gideon council of lying to the Federation for reporting that they are in a paradise, when their severe population problem indicates otherwise. Offering his counsel to Hodin, the Gideon ambassador, Kirk recommends that Gideonites practice the use of reproductive education about birth control and other contraceptives methods to help curb the Gideon population boom. Hodin, however, balks at such a proposition, which runs counter to their belief that any measures to prevent life is unthinkable.15

15 This belief reflects a rather Catholic ideology 41

Instead, Hodin proposes using Kirk’s human blood, which contains a virus that

will shorten the naturally long lifespans of the Gideon people, therefore solving their

population problem. Hodin explains this reasoning, telling Kirk that birth control cannot

be used on Gideon because the people value love and life more than anything— even if it

means the planet is encased in flesh. In the historical context of the show, the content of

this episode is timely. Scientists in the late 1960s engendered popular fears that the world

would face massive overpopulation problems when their predictive models suggested

exponential population growth by the end of the century.16 These popular fears likely

influenced writers in the creation of the problem facing the Gideon people in this episode.

Moreover, the episode aired in January 1969 —amidst the fight for oral contraceptive

birth control— when human population management was being considered in U.S.

courts. Only four short years prior to this episode, oral contraceptives had been ruled as a

married couple’s right to plan their family size and timing (Griswold v. Connecticut). It wasn’t until the 1972 landmark case, Baird v. Eisenstadt that oral contraceptives became widely available for all citizens regardless of marital status. These rulings demonstrate the society’s value on compassion towards women and the family unit by allowing them to determine when and if they start having children (“Reproductive Rights”).

This compassion, however, is put aside when Kirk refuses to help the Gideon people with an alternate method of population control because contraception is culturally out of the question for them. Because the people of Gideon are driven by this pro-life ideology, the council wants to use Kirk’s blood as a way to make the planet a paradise once more. Compassion and mercy would dictate that Kirk try to help the miserable

16 See Paul Eharlich, 1968 book, The Population Bomb. 42

people of Gideon—whether it be from the virus in his blood or through transporting half

of the people to another location. However, Kirk chooses to not help in any way, which is

different from his previous desire in the series to use his ingenuity to be compassionate

and protect human and alien life in the galaxy. Kirk’s duty is only to help with the

potential treaty. He cannot interfere with events on Gideon because of the non-

interference policy of the Federation. In this case, Kirk cannot interfere with the Gideon’s

problems or their population control plans.

The idea that Kirk would rather follow protocol than save people from potential

harm, as demonstrated in “The Mark of Gideon”, first appears earlier in Season 3 with

episode 3, “And the Children Shall Lead,” airing on October 11th, 1968. Kirk must make

the decision to choose the Enterprise over preventing potential harm or deaths of human

colonist children. The Enterprise is sent to the planet Triacus, where all the adults have

mysteriously died by apparent suicide. Curiously, the orphaned children do not seem to care about their parents’ deaths at all. Kirk brings them all aboard the ship to protect them from further harm. However, the children are under the spell of a glowing alien called

Gorgan. The children trick the crew with Gorgan’s powers of illusion and take control of the ship in order to bring it to a planet that Gorgan wants to be delivered to. Kirk has to save his ship and the children from Gorgan, but Bones warns him that he must be careful because “unless the normal grief is tapped and released from these children, [he would be] treading dangerously,” meaning the children could suffer mental trauma or death. In the first half of the series, Kirk’s response would be focused on saving the individual children, following the theme of good citizenship and dedication to individual people.

However, in this half of the series, Kirk focuses on being a good soldier rather than a

43

compassionate man towards innocent children. He tells Bones that he respects his

opinion, as a good officer would take compassion and mercy into his decision-making

process, but he ultimately chooses the ship over the potential harm to the children.17 Kirk

explains: “I understand your diagnosis, Doctor, and I'll respect it. But not to the exclusion

and safety of the Enterprise.” This episode provides a clear example of the shift between

the show’s initial focus on human qualities and being a good citizen, as seen in “Devil in

the Dark” and being a good soldier in this episode, where Kirk chooses his starship over

the children.

Kirk’s reactions to the situations that he is thrown into in the latter half of the

series prove that he puts his duty and following protocol before anything else. Two key

episodes—one early indicator from the first season, the other from the last season—

underscore the steady trajectory of this shift: “Court Martial” and “Elaan of Troyius.”

Indeed, late in season one, writers have already started to plant the seeds of emphasis on

duty and protocol with episode 21, “Court Martial,” which aired on February 2nd, 1967.

The episode follows Kirk as he attempts to defend his actions as Captain of the

Enterprise when he is accused of causing the death of his crew mate and former peer in

Starfleet academy, Finney, before Red Alert was issued. Finney was working in an ion pod to repair damages to the ship when Kirk had to jettison the pod away from the ship, otherwise the security of the entire Enterprise would be at risk. Kirk testified he did everything that his experience and training required him to do, took the proper steps in the proper order to do exactly what had to be done exactly as he was supposed to.

17 This is an especially surprising decision considering the time period in which President Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s included an immense amount of reforms in children’s rights, welfare, healthcare, and education. It is even more surprising when Gene Roddenerry’s own views are considered. He hated the exploitation of human begins (Fern 119). 44

However, the computer evidence showed that he jettisoned the pod, supposedly killing

Finney, at Yellow Alert, which is considered negligent on his part. Upon reviewing the

incident from the computer log, Commodore Stone says that Kirk is guilty of willful

perjury and suggests that he take a cushy ground assignment as punishment. Instead of

accepting this offer, Kirk demands that a general court is drawn immediately, believing a

formal court martial will exonerate him by demonstrating he followed the right protocol

during the time of the accident that killed Finney. In the end, it is revealed that, not only

did Kirk follow the correct protocol, but that Finney is alive and well, hiding in the

engineering room after faking his own death in an attempt to blacken Kirk’s name and

ruin his career. Though somewhat impassioned and insubordinate in insisting on a court

martial and investigation, Kirk insists that the incident is not swept “under the rug, and

[him] along with it” displaying his dedication to proving himself as a Starfleet

Commanding Officer who follows all the correct procedures and is confident in his

abilities. A permanent ground assignment would mean tarnishing his name and forfeiting all of the work he had put into his duty as a Captain, which he will not stand for.

In a similar show of dedication to his duty as a starship Captain, Kirk’s love of his

Starfleet duty defies even incurable magical enslavement. The third season’s emphasis on doing one’s duty and following Federation protocols—above all else—appears with the

most clarity in episode 13, “Elaan of Troyius,” where Kirk’s commitment to Starfleet

duty defies even incurable magical enslavement. Airing on December 20th, 1968, in

“Elaan of Troyius,” the Enterprise has been tasked with ferrying Elaan, the Dohlman of

Elas, to the king of Troyias in an attempt to bring peace to the two nations which have

been at war for years with no end in sight. The problem is that Elaan is not very civilized

45

and treats everyone with disdain and cruelty. The Troyian ambassador is so appalled by

her behavior that he tells Kirk that his king will refuse to marry her unless Kirk can tame

her, teaching her proper manners and discipline.18 In a reflection of the first half of the

series, Kirk teaches her how to be merciful, compassionate, kind, and respectful, similar

to the character traits that the show defines as part of good citizenship.

The main issue is that Elaan falls in love with Kirk and cries on him. The

ambassador explains to the Enterprise crew that the tears of a woman of Elas, if they

touch a man, will enslave his heart forever, making him fall in love with her. According

to the Troyians, there is no cure for the tears that anyone in the galaxy knows of, except

the death of the man. Kirk and Elaan begin to have an affair, but this proves to be good

for her temperament as she learns and absorbs his noble qualities. Eventually, Kirk

convinces Elaan that she must go to marry the king of Troyius for the good of her

kingdom as well as for the Federation. Their star system is full of dilithium crystals,

which fuel the Federation’s star ships, making Troyius and Elas very useful allies against

the Klingons. Kirk not only chooses the Federation above his new-found love, but his devotion to the Enterprise breaks the effect of Elaan’s tears. Spock explains in a conversation with Bones that “The antidote to a woman of Elas, Doctor, is a starship. The

Enterprise infected the Captain long before the Dohlman did.” This observation is accurate and emphasizes that Kirk’s discipline and devotion to his duty is more important

than his emotions or magical enslavement.

One episode in the third season, however, breaks in some small ways from this

overall trend when Kirk breaks Federation protocol in order to carry out his Starfleet

18 This “taming of the woman” ties into the conclusion of the thesis. 46

mission. Airing on Feb 28th, 1969, episode 21, “The Clouded Miners” demonstrates that

Kirk does have a hierarchy to his decision-making process. In this episode, Kirk

abandons the non-interference policy of the Federation in order to complete Starfleet’s

assigned, overarching mission. Kirk and Spock beam down to Ardana, a planet that mines

zenite, the only substance that can stop an outbreak of a botanical plague which is

destroying an entire quadrant of the galaxy that the Enterprise is patrolling. There, Kirk

and Spock find an oppressed group, called the Troglytes, who are forced to work in

dangerous conditions in the mines all the time while the Ardananians live safely, high

above them on a mountaintop.19 Some Troglytes have formed a resistance and disrupt

Kirk and Spock from obtaining the zenite.

Instead of investigating the mistreatment of the Troglytes, Kirk reminds the high

councilman that “Ardana is a member of the Federation, and it is your council's

responsibility that nothing interferes with its obligation to another member of the

Federation.” He also says that he is “more concerned with the zenite consignment” than

with the plight of the Troglytes. However, once he sees that Vanna, a beautiful female

Troglyte, is about to be tortured, Kirk says that he “will not stand by while someone is tortured” and that aside from this humanitarian concern, he must fulfill his Starfleet orders to get the zenite. While Kirk negotiates this internal conflict between his duty to

the Federation and his humanitarianism, the high councilman, Plasus, threatens to use

force to remove Kirk from command. Kirk’s response is not one of justice or morality—

rather, he threatens Plasus back, declaring that “Starfleet command won't take kindly to

19 The 1960s contained a wave of French de-colonialization. This episode may be a commentary on American society’s reaction to/opinion of the way that the French treated their colonies. Americans had an attitude of general disapproval, but also had an unwillingness to interfere in or condemn an ally’s affairs. 47

having either rays or physical force used against one of its command personnel.”

Enraged, Plasus tells Kirk that he has to honor the Federation’s non-interference policy.

Due to the desperate need for the zenite and his pressing Starfleet orders, Kirk and Bones

decide that “Plasus' method of accomplishing delivery will not succeed,” so they must

interfere themselves. Duty is the priority in the situation and Kirk’s desire to help the

Troglytes because it is the just, humanitarian, and compassionate thing to do, comes

second to that. Kirk interferes with the affairs on Ardana, proving that the working conditions for the Troglytes is inhumane, which leads to Plasus begrudgingly make the mining environment safer. Once the Troglytes are satisfied and resume their work, Kirk gets the zenite he needs for the Federation.

Unlike the episodes in the first half of the series, the Federation is a huge factor in the decision-making process for choosing interactions between Kirk and the aliens. Once

Kirk obtains the zenite, he leaves the planet, agreeing not to press Federation charges against the oppressive Ardananians. In this episode, Kirk’s sense of duty and desire for the end result is so strong that he intentionally violates the Federation’s non-interference order, in order to carry out this duty.20 Kirk justifies that violation by saying that it was

necessary to complete the overarching Starfleet mission. In the first half of the show,

when he subverted the non-interference rule, he did so for moral reasons, while this time,

the frame was on duty and carrying out orders. Indeed, there was hardly any mention of

the non-interference orders in the first half of the show because it was focused on Kirk as

a humanitarian rather than Kirk as a member of the intergalactic military.

20 But only when a beautiful woman is suffering. This may imply that his sense of “duty” may be altered by his overwhelming need to protect women. There may be some underlying sexist/patriarchal themes. 48

V. Conclusion

Using Captain Kirk as a model for how to be a citizen in the 1960s filled a gap in

the education of the baby boomers. Growing up with the horrors of World War II still

very fresh in human memory left boomers with a sense of banality and instability. Star

Trek served as a supplemental education, instructing them on how to be good citizens again, how to live, and how to interact with others. However, at the same time in history, there was so much anti-war, anti-militarism sentiment due to the Vietnam War. As the

first publicized war, and a terribly brutal one at that, the American people were shocked

by the violence and reality of war. In an effort to promote social cohesion and heal the

country, Star Trek provided a model for being a good human, citizen, and soldier as

reflected in the shift.

In the first half of the series, the moral and emotional guidance instructing

viewers to have compassion, integrity, intuition, courage, mercy, (moderate) ambition,

and discipline in daily life, allowed the writers to build up the ethical foundation for

humanity. This ethical foundation created the basic structure for how Americans should

act in their daily lives, instructing them on how to be good people. However, the writers

also had to try to heal the country as it became more tumultuous over the entry of

America into the Vietnam War during the Cold War. As anti-bureaucratic and anti-

militaristic tensions rose in the country during the close of the 1960s, the writers adjusted

the second half of the series, so that Star Trek could try to portray the military in a more

positive light. The writers began to emphasize all of these important, human qualities

within the scope of duty—therefore desensitizing the American public’s anti-war, anti-

49 military sentiment—which attempted to promote social cohesion in a different way and

promote specifically American citizenship rather than simply how to be human.

It is important to note that during this series, the definition of American

citizenship and how to be a good human is very American male-oriented. There are still some problematic ways that womanhood is defined in the series, particularly in regards to women in power. For example, the show acknowledges that while Uhura is a Lieutenant, a woman cannot rise to the position of Captain. This regulation is seen most vividly in the last episode of the series that aired on June 3rd, 1969, “Turnabout Intruder,” which

follows Kirk as he visits his former Starfleet school-mate, Dr. Lester, who is dying.

Unbeknownst to him, she created a machine to switch consciousnesses with him in order to achieve her goal of being a Starfleet Captain. Kirk, who is now trapped in Dr. Lester’s body, decides his compassion, ingenuity, courage, and integrity are useless, presumably because no one takes a woman with these character traits seriously. No one believes what

he is saying because they can only see a woman raising fantastic ideas. Only following

Starfleet regulation, acting in a disciplined manner, and conforming to the female officer

role allows them to recognize Kirk for who he really is, despite not being in his own

body. The crew likewise discovers he is telling the truth when Lester, as Kirk, starts

acting irrationally, too emotionally, and losing her cool in public settings. This episode implies that women are too emotional to be completely dedicated to their duty and should stick to subordinate roles. Clearly this is a troubling conclusion in comparison to the respect and honor that comes with living the lifestyle of good citizenship that the show pushes.

50

The gender dynamics in the series are more complex than the series finale portrays. An early episode from season 2, “Catspaw,” depicts Kirk simultaneously defining womanhood in a stereotypical way and in a more human way. Throughout the three seasons of Star Trek, there are many examples of women playing the role of seductress or a trickster using their feminine beauty to manipulate a man. “Catspaw” is no exception. The main female in the episode, Sylvia, tries to seduce Kirk and then tries to kill him and his crew when he refuses to play into her fantasy. During his confrontation with her, Kirk ascribes one of the most important human qualities to the personality of a woman: compassion. In this episode, he tells Sylvia, that she should not drain the knowledge and will from his crewmen’s minds, which she does not believe to be wrong. Kirk, forgetting that she is an alien, explains to her that she would understand if she had compassion, because “a woman should have compassion.” From this episode,

Kirk ascribes certain valuable characteristics to women, so long as the traits stay inside the box of “femininity” and in a secondary role.

Ultimately, Star Trek was very progressive for its time: it preached compassion, love, acceptance, and overall good citizenship. It filled the gap of moral guidance that the baby boomers needed after the world was shattered by World War II. It also prepared the country for the next war, Vietnam, by trying to change the perception of militarism and duty in society into something more positive and desirable. While acceptance for other races and nationalities was emphasized, the show did not do much to advance the rights and equal treatment of women, which is problematic. As the Star Trek franchise has evolved, this has changed. The most recent iteration, Star Trek: Discovery, portrays a black, female protagonist who is incredibly smart, independent, and comfortable with her

51

decidedly masculine name and potential non-binary gender identity.21 This ground- breaking change indicates that the series is headed in a more progressive and diverse direction, improving upon the principles that were laid out by Gene Roddenberry in The

Original Series and will continue to go where no show has gone before.

21 Using she/her/hers pronouns thus far, the main character’s name is Michael Burnham who works alongside the first openly gay, albino character, Lieutenant Stamets 52

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