Star Trek was about social justice from day one

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Title:	Star Trek was about social justice from day one (Note: the essay does not officially have a title; the title used here on Fanlore is a line from the essay)
Creator:	David Gerrold
Date(s):	February 17, 2015
Medium:	Facebook post
Fandom:	Star Trek
Topic:
External Links:	[1], Archived version
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Star Trek was about social justice from day one is a 2015 essay by David Gerrold.

As of January 2019, it has 1.6K Likes, 186 Comments, and 950 Shares.

Gerrold's essay was written in response to an essay by William Lehman, one that Gerrold calls a "screed." Gerrold wrote: "William Lehman has written a screed about how he who controls the mythology of a nation controls the identity of the nation. I'll agree with that original assertion. But then he uses that as a springboard for a somewhat ill-considered extrapolation that people afflicted with fuzzy-wuzzy thinking have spoiled his precious nuts-and-bolts science fiction."

Gerrold quotes this part of Lehman's essay:

"Say what you will about the SJW Glittery hoo ha crowd, they get this. I speculate that they get it because while we (the guys that grew up watching STOG and said “Hey those doors are COOL, how would you do that for real? Those communicators, could you do that?) went to engineering and hard science classes and started building the future that we wanted, the aforementioned individuals where going to the soft sciences (not real sciences at all in my NSHO) and studied how cultures work....So, since they DIDN’T go to engineering schools, they use the tools that they have to try to drive the future they want. They have been working diligently at it for about forty years now. They are doing it by attempting to destroy the myths that are the foundations of our societies, and replacing them with their own, or with NOTHING."

Other Comments by Gerrold

... I think that's a very stupid position to take. SF is also about economics, mathematics, chemistery, medicine, history, biology, evolution, anthropology, sociology, ecology, psychology, and even the studies of the technology of consciousness that the human potential movement explores as part of the next evolution of the human species. And if SF is the mythology of the nation, then we have to include music, art, literature, and drama in the above. SF is not a narrow domain, it's a smorgasbord.

And if nothing else, science fiction is about sociology -- because it's not just about the engineering, it's also about who we become when we reinvent our technology. It's about the continuing evolution of the human culture. Lehman's essay seems to imply that even after we have jet packs and flying cars, robots and starships, we should still keep our twentieth century "golden age" attitudes. Um, no. The history of the last seventy years isn't just about computers and smart phones and the internet and electric cars -- it's also about how we as a people have progressed in our attitudes, some good, some not so.

So ... here's where I kinda pull rank. He points to Star Trek, The Original Series as a catalyst for the engineering students. And to a great degree, he is right. The optical disk happened because two engineers saw "All Our Yesterdays" and wondered how you would store data on a big silver record. Sliding doors and flip phones and tablets and phasers all showed up on Star Trek and certainly there were people wondering how to make those devices.

But where Lehman has completely missed the point is that he uses Star Trek to justify his own beliefs while overlooking the much more important fact that Star Trek, The Original Series wasn't about the engineering as much as it was about the "Social Justice Warriors Glittery hoo ha" stuff.

I was there. I know what Gene Roddenberry envisioned. He went on at length about it in almost every meeting. He wasn't about technology, he was about envisioning a world that works for everyone, with no one and nothing left out. Gene Roddenberry was one of the great Social Justice Warriors. You don't get to claim him or his show as a shield of virtue for a cause he would have disdained.

Star Trek was about social justice from day one -- the stories were about the human pursuit for a better world, a better way of being, the next step up the ladder of sentience. The stories weren't about who we were going to fight, but who we were going to make friends with. It wasn't about defining an enemy -- it was about creating a new partnership. That's why when Next Gen came along, we had a Klingon on the bridge.

Lehman blew it. He missed the point. He uses science fiction -- and Star Trek -- as a justification for playing a game of "us" v. "them." Here's a clue. When you divide humanity into us and them, you automatically become one of them.

The continuing denigration of women and minorities as "the Social Justice Warrior Glittery Hoo Ha crowd" leaves me wondering ... are you folks in favor of social injustice?

If you're against "the Social Justice Warrior Glittery Hoo Ha crowd" then we to wonder if you're in favor of the denial of civil rights to women, blacks, LGBT, immigrants, and other minorities?

Because if that's what you stand for -- a return to the days of sexism, racism, misogyny, and discrimination -- then you really shouldn't be pointing to Star Trek as your inspiration. Because that's not what Star Trek was about. Honest. I was there.