Hank Parnell doesn't think very highly of the original Star Trek.

Reason and logic were almost always ridiculed on Star Trek. Almost always. Ever notice that? Emotion, passion, "faith" were always extolled; reason and logic shown to be empty, inadequate, and worthy only of derision and mockery.

I found that offensive then, as a boy, and I find it even more so now, as a man. We humans need not fear losing our emotions. Show me an animal that doesn't feel, and I'll show you a dead animal. It's logic and reason we have in very short and apparently extremely limited supply; hence this exhortation to passion over reason always seems to me perverse, and self-flagellant, to say nothing of supremely delusional and suicidal.

But I'll confess, there are a couple of episodes I like.

One is called "A Taste of Armageddon," by writer Robert Hamner. This is a very clever show about two planets locked in a 500-year war which they fight "virtually," using computers? and march their casualties off to suicide stations! This is a wonderfully novel idea, and just the sort of stupid, delusional thing you could actually see human beings convincing themselves to do at some future date, for the very reasons expounded in the show: to "preserve" civilization, to deal with our "killer instincts" rationally. (Rationally, you would think that if you had killer instincts, and you found them appalling and self-destructive, you would try to thwart them somehow, not exercise them in a vain and pointless manner; but then, I often wonder if what I mean by "rationality" is a completely different thing from what others mean. Others seem to think rationality means only the ability to rationalize?that is, to use "reason" in the service, or rather self-service, of the emotions, which is hardly the "superior" position!)

Kirk, of course, puts an end to this nonsense, and in a fashion I approve of? by blowing up their suicide stations and their computers, leaving them open to the real thing. And there is also that truly wonderful business of "General Order 24," which Kirk gives Scotty at one point, and which essentially means, "Wipe the bastards out!" I often wonder how that little apocalyptic directive "fit in" with the later almighty and sacrosanct "Prime Directive", which Kirk's gutless, emasculated successor, Little Man Picard, the Cosmic Social-Worker, couldn't bring himself to violate on a technicality.

And there is in this episode a genuine message, which is that war is a serious business that should never be undertaken lightly; effete, bloodless civilized guys should leave it to savage hot-blooded barbarians like James Tiberius Kirk?who nonetheless always managed to be enough of a man to avoid making it, whenever and wherever he could. Kirk may've been a jerk, as I called him in those youthful parodies; but he was at least a man, not a bloodless corpse like Jean-Luc Picard, who was stuffed so full of his own phony self-righteousness that the rotten reek would've gagged the viewer, had we been able to smell him.

I can't agree that reason and logic always took a beating - that was usually a side show in the endless bickering between Spock and McCoy. Sure, often Kirk would make a decision based on "human" factors which may have apparently contradicted Spock's logical anaysis, and yet invariably the aftermath had Spock admitting that logic was only part of the answer, and that a higher logic would also take into account emotional or spiritual or otherwise unquantifiable considerations. In effect, Spock always admitted that pure reason and logic were only part of a just solution. To simplfy and stereotype, McCoy was a leftist Democrat, Spock was a rightwing Republican. Kirk generally staked out a centrist position.

Have to agree with his assessment of Kirk vs. Picard, though. The latter was a bureaucratic automaton in the EU mode, whose highest ideal was to ensure a bland conformist stability in accordance with the regulations. Dot the i's, corss the t's, and sorry if half the planet's population dies, but I'm responsible for the proper completion of Federation paperwork. Kirk, on the other hand, might recognize that the legal solution was not the right one, and he'd act according to his moral dictates. In so doing he also took full responsibility for his actions.

Given the choice, I'd serve under Kirk instead of Picard any day.

The truth of Stephen's assessment happens to be why the Euro-weenie popster Nena dissed Kirk in her simpleminded 1980s anto-NATO screed-set-to-music, "99 Luftballoons":

99 knights of the air
Ride supersonic jet fighters
Every one's a superhero
Every one's a Captain Kirk

'99 Luftballons'... hilarious. I'm still waiting for that leftie wannabe musician to thank us for the blood and treasure we spent to preserve her right to whine about us on MTV (also one of ours, incidentally). As far as Kirk Vs. Picard goes...I would rather have on my side the man who DIDN'T surrender his ship three times in the first season. My vote's for Kirk.

I wouldn't say that reason and logic always took a beating on ST:TOS either. Examples: "Balance of Terror," where they took the logical and rational tactic of chasing and destroying the Romulan raider ship; "Devil in the Dark," where the emotional response was "kill the monster" but the rational one was "get all the data, like why the monster is killing people, before making a decision." Heck, even "The Trouble with Tribbles," where the standard emotional response to small cute furry things kept the humans from seeing the threat they represented til it was almost too late. There are probably other examples too.

As for "A Taste of Armageddon," it has a few lessons applicable today. War becoming a way of life, and in such a way that the common people are insulated from the real horrors of war -- does anyone else see a similarity with the situation in the "occupied territories" as of a few months ago, before the Israeli invasion?

The "Israeli invasion" was really a counterinvasion, against an infiltration of murderous Palestinian human bombs.

I always kinda liked ST:TNG, and even Jean-Luc, ardent American neo-fascist ;-) that I am nonwithstanding. But it is worth noting that as they show it on TNN, about three times in the past month (out of watching maybe ten episodes tops) I have been stunned by the EU-US argument coming to the fore, and we all know where JLP stands. Just last night wen saw an admiral laying into JLP because he chose to heal Hugh the Borg and send him back, for moral reasons, rather than use him to destroy an implacable foe who could kill millions of Federation citizens. At the end of their conversation, she ordered him in no uncertain terms to use every opportunity to destroy the Borg in the future. The grim-faced "yes, sir" that he replied with I am certain mirrored the mood in many a Euro capital today.

I am an ardent US partisan in these issues, but I really hand to TNG for its prescience in confronting these moral dilemmas that resonate so strongly ten years after the fact.