Robert Picardo, who played the Doctor in Star Trek: Voyager and will reprise his role in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was rebuked after he claimed that “Star Trek’s Heart was ‘woke’” in a feeble attempt to defend the upcoming Starfleet Academy show.
In a post to X, Picardo posted, “Long before the term existed, Star Trek's heart was "woke" & even though that word has been hijacked & made a cudgel to insult, to ridicule & - at the toxic extremes of social media - to justify prejudice & racism, Star Trek's heart is strong & still beating for those listening.”
In response numerous fans didn’t even engage with his claim, but utterly rejected. The Blessed Salt quipped, “To be open-minded in the 60s is absolutely nothing at all like being woke today. Stop acting like it is.”
Picardo replied, “Or . . . humanity changes and grows in 6 decades. Stop acting like it doesn't.”
The Blessed Salt was having none of it, “How do you determine what is good growth and what isn’t? Cancer is a growth, too.
’Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.’ Gk Chesterton”
Emerald Apple posted, “I wanted something with more of this ‘vibe’
Instead, we ended up with obese lesbians in the 32nd century.”
“Star Trek was cool because it was a meritocracy that ignored race or gender. Woke is the opposite, you are defined by it. Unless, like you, you are a tribble,” wrote John Ondrasik.
HVAC Barclay posted, “Star Trek used to be good so people put up with the liberal nonsense”
J. Kevin Tumlinson, the author of the Dan Kotler series including The Coelho Medallion responded, “Star Trek was never ‘woke.’ It taught us that duty, honor, and kindness should be universal. It taught us that differences should be celebrated, rather than dividing us. ‘Woke’ is the antithesis of what Star Trek has always been. It divides. It encourages resentment and hatred. There could be no greater difference than ‘woke’ and real Star Trek.”
The Domes of Calrathia author Isaac Young also responded writing, “Star Trek’s beating heart was a professional 19th century naval crew in space. It was basically a love letter to Rightwing aristocracy and professionalism with a Leftwing coat of paint, and you can literally pinpoint the exact second it died by the BMI of the cast.”
Picardo’s claim is utterly ridiculous and absurd and should be rejected outright. Bishop Barron eloquently explained what woke ideology and what adherents to the ideology’s “principles” are in an interview with Angelus News back in 2021. He outlined:
First, they advocate a deeply antagonistic social theory, whereby the world is divided sharply into the two classes of oppressors and oppressed.
Second, they relativize moral value and see classical morality as an attempt by the ruling class to maintain itself in power.
Third, they focus, not so much on the individual, as on racial and ethnic categories and hence they endorse the idea of collective guilt and recommend a sort of reverse discrimination to address the injustices of the past.
Fourth, they tend to demonize the market economy and the institutions of democracy as part of a superstructure defending the privileged.
Fifth, they push toward equity of outcome throughout the society, rather than equality of opportunity.
And finally, “wokeism” employs divisive and aggressive strategies of accusation that are contrary to the Gospel demand to love our enemies.
He goes on to declare “that Catholic Social Teaching stands athwart all of this. It wants social justice, of course, but not on ‘woke’ terms. Its heroes are not Marx, Nietzsche, and Foucault, but rather Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah, Jesus the Lord, Ambrose, Aquinas, and Teresa of Calcutta.”
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Simpletons like Picardo seemingly don't know anything about wokeness and its history. To think that it somehow started in the US in the 1960s is simply ridiculous and shows either complete ignorance or malicious intent.
One only needs to look at the whole silliness of socialist realism to see where the current woke dictatorship in entertainment and art has its roots. Since early 1920s the same methods and the same philosophy were pushed by the most brutal regimes in our history. The whole communist tyranny was based on forcing people to woke thinking and behaviour, leaving the old and the bourgeois behind, and teaching each individual to judge everyone and everything based on the party political line (or else!). If your kids don't wear a Pavlik Morozov badge, your entire family is enemy of the state, am I right?
The fact that these methods were co-opted later by a specific social movement in the US (presumably seeing their "success" in the communist countries) is certainly an interesting note about how this social cancer metastises, but to think it is the origin and assign it some kind of purity of motive is laughable at best.
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt", Mr Picardo.