You make it sound like this is some kind of rarity. That’s ridiculous: Shakespeare plays are incredibly common and popular, and lots of people watch them for fun – because they’re fun! You can probably find one in any major metropolitan area on any given weekend.
I can also find dog fighting in any major metropolitan area on any given weekend, this doesn't necessarily mean its common and popular. The most common plays performed are in the public domain and most of the time still struggle horribly to survive. Despite (A) being easily recognizable and (B) cheaper to produce.
The plays people actually go see, and I hear regular people discuss are like Mama Mia and Spamalot. Basically, if it wasn't on broadway you have no hope of getting a general audience in.
It is some kind of rarity, because the list of things that 99% of the population do in their free time does not include 'enjoy shakespeare'. I rarely watch a movie twice, and I haven't seen a shakespeare film since I was forced to in high school. But get this, I actually enjoy the writings of shakespeare it's just that there's things that are culturally relevant today.
You're speaking, of course, solely for the US.
But in Eastern Europe, sure.
Music's another good example--from any objective standpoint, there's music being produced today that matches or exceeds the artistic merit of any of the old composers; likewise, tons of the old composers were popular musicians in their own day. But there's an awkward separation between high culture and popular culture, mostly based on how old something is.
It might come off as silly to actually portray this in science fiction, but it's interesting to wonder how people a century or two from now will approach the art we're producing today. Will there be cover bands performing Metallica's "Master of Puppets" who are treated with the same reverence as contemporary orchestras performing Wagner operas? Will people wear formal clothing and sit quietly, not realizing that it was meant to be music for sweaty teenagers to run around and body-slam each other to?
That's an interesting notion that may prove true in the future, but a few exceptions aside, I don't think it accurately describes the history of what you'd call "the western canon." The reality is that in the past, most popular art has been completely forgotten a few generations out. Of course there are exceptions, but the overwhelming number of plays, songs, novels, paintings, etc are dust. Your example of Shakespeare was a bit off the mark, because while he certainly had and has popular appeal, Shakespeare was in no way 'basically popular entertainment'; Lord Chamberlain's Men, The Kings Men—they were not performing for the sole benefit of the groundlings, they were performing primarily for very wealthy patrons.
Also, Shakespeare created perhaps the finest and most elevated art in the English language, and was recognized for it then, even more so today; the plays that were basically popular entertainment in his time are footnotes or worse today.
And as a side note, I'm one of those people who enjoys seeing Shakespeare performed. I think you'd be surprised how much audiences enjoy it, and not just in that insufferable, look-how-cultured-I-am, self-congratulatory way.
>When I think of the most talented and driven people I know (and surely it takes driven and talented people to make it in Starfleet), I think of people who work long hours, spend much of their spare time cultivating their talents, and generally don't waste much time.
I totally agree. Not only is it specifically discussed that man has begun to evolve in a way that they can better themselves, through cooperation and self discovery, but it's also a mindset I see quite often. People who work tirelessly, and do incredible work, and then enjoy the small hobbies they have? Sounds like a lot of people I know, though not nearly in as large a quantity that one might find in a star trekesque future.
This goes directly against how Facebook got started on college campuses. Campuses are already hypersocial places, are self-contained to some extent, and you constantly run into everyone you know - but this environment proved to be the most fertile ground for social networking.
There are many, many, many very real limitations to communication that face-to-face communication introduces. Even most of the 'advantages' that (usually older or hipster) people claim are actually disadvantages. 'You can tell more what someone is feeling'. Bullshit. We know this. When you talk to someone, you think you know what they are thinking. And you are wrong. Even the ability of decades-experienced police officers who SWEAR they can read people only perform as well as random chance. 50% of the time, when you think you know what someone is feeling or thinking, you are wrong. 50% of the time you are right, of course, but that's not much to recommend it. You are far more likely to be mislead (not necessarily intentionally!) in person. The brain has real biological limitations. Our technology is designed to help us work around these limitations. There is no grace or honor in foregoing the 'assistance' of technology any more than it is cowardice to take a vaccine.
If you want to communicate effectively with someone - do it electronically. There's a learning curve, sure, and there are certainly social considerations (like you don't want to propose marriage over SMS) but in the vast majority of situations, doing it electronically will be faster, more effective, and enable every participant to get more out of the time spent communicating.
Or maybe I'm just a hipster (I don't think I'm old yet...)
Even the ability of decades-experienced police officers who SWEAR they can read people only perform as well as random chance.
Some people (perhaps 0.25% of the population) can do significantly better than chance. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_Project
This kind of discussion always makes me think of how in the Star Trek universe, Baseball is no longer a professional sport, the final World Series being played in 2042[1] due to a lack of interest from the public.
So what kind of social changes could possibly have the by-product of turning Baseball into a niche, amateur sport? I don't know, but I'd wager the changes would have to be pretty sweeping. And from there, would it be such a leap to think that perhaps similar sweeping changes might also massively alter the trajectory of social media and/or other apparently 'too big to fail' juggernauts in this fictionalised and hypothetical future?
Disclaimer: I'm not a rabid trekker trying to retcon so that my fondly remembered childhood reality can remain intact. I just like to think about this stuff sometimes because I was/am just a trekker.
North America finally gains an interest in soccer? People's attention spans keep getting shorter?
And people's attention spans seem better in the future if anything, don't they?
I guess getting back to my actual point though, if an entrenched and perennial favourite like Baseball can topple in this version of our future, then conceivably just about anything else can too.
While it's no Clockwork Orange Star Trek had rape scenes like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v... Plenty disturbing.
Then you have the roving rape gangs that were a big part of Tasha Yar's back story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasha_Yar
The prevalence of things like Shakespeare and classical music is mostly a writing conceit--it always comes off as contrived and awkward when Star Trek writers either invent futuristic forms of art or awkwardly shoehorn in the 20th century.
I would posit that the world of Star Trek eliminates the alienation of everyday life on Earth that leads one to social networking in the first place. Furthermore, and this is admittedly handwavy, but any analog to the internet would either only cover the station itself (in which case why bother, because the whole station hangs out at the bar anyway) or require subspace radio to communicate with thousands of planets at once, which is very plausibly impractical if not outright prevented by security requirements.
More nitpicks:
> 90s! YOU WERE THE BEST! With your adorable WE ARE SO DARK plots that seem like Strawberry Shortcake Goes to Space by today's standards.
Well, compared to BSG I guess there's no on-camera rape scenes, but all the rest, torture and genocide included, is there. It isn't portrayed with the same realism, granted.
> In fact, the war correspondence he so longs to write--and he believes he is the only one who can write it--would be one of many, many voices escaping from occupied DS9 in the post Arab Spring networked news hivemind.
Well they evacuated nearly all the civilians. Jake is quite possibly the only civilian left who doesn't have anything better to do than to be a war correspondent. Quark has his bar, Rom has his undercover mission, and the Bajoran crew are still military officers who have to run the station and pretend to collaborate with the Dominion.
To the point that "nobody blogs", the actual crew all keep "personal logs", and while they're classified and not shared to the world (more on that later), it's not that far off.
> Can you imagine the subreddit for the station? How many atheists would tear down Sisko the messiah, how every decision would be questioned, mocked, dissected where the actors and the acted upon could see it?
Who, exactly? The crew? No, that would be insubordination. The crew's families? Not technically insubordination but still awkward. The business owners on the Promenade? Right, Quark and the owner of the Klingon restaurant are going to openly criticize the one thing that makes DS9 a tourist destination for Bajoran pilgrims.
> Because of this, and because of the lack of a social network, it is possible to be alone in the Star Trek world in a way which I would have to deliberately take action to achieve in my world. Even when we are alone, most of us check a number of communication vectors and leave them live--Twitter, email, text messages, Facebook, our blogs, Reddit, news feeds. We are a baby hivemind spinning our training wheels. To be alone as profoundly (to me) as Sisko, Kira, and the rest often are, I would have to make a decision to shut down all of those streams.
These people are living in space. Only the highest ranking officers have their own quarters, and the unmarried ones seem to spend half their leisure time dating or hanging out in the bar. Even the station commander's son has to have a roommate when he moves out of his dad's quarters. There's even a scene where Worf and Odo, the introverted loners of the cast, discuss their respective strategies for getting away from it all to finally spend some time alone.
EDIT: Come to think of it, the station does have a network. Quark is constantly hacking into it, probably with Rom's help. In one amusing scene, he does it to spam everybody with poorly produced advertisements for his bar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-9tw2mx_gE