Voyager's next three episodes have proved useless, and seems to be obsessed with time.
One thing stuck out, though. When Janeway and Paris are sent to the past of a soon to be destroyed planet, they acquire clothing without paying for it... possibly (an unknown trade for their old clothes may have occurred, but I sincerely doubt it). And it's evident that this world has a economic system based on currency exchange as the clock in the beginning was priced.
So instead of paying more attention, I pondered the following questions:
1. They work, but no salary. What exactly is labour if it is not purchased? (But then again, there all sorts of labour I can conceive of that requires no purchase... is it for self and societal improvement may be the better question. For what purpose is work?)
2. How can such a powerfully military-like structure exist in a "peaceful" civilization? (I say peaceful because war only happens in defense. Assuming no one attacks the Federation, why purpose could a military hierarchy provide? )
3. How can space and time being considered one affect current theories of spatialization in Political Science?
1. William Morris wrote: "...art is the expression of man's [sic] pleasure in his labour." Maybe that's a hint at the answer to your question?
ReplyDelete2. I don't know how to answer this: if you're speculating about the nature of a social system after capitalism, then maybe the Federation is a renunciation of strictly individual freedom in favor of a freedom built and expressed collectively; if the Federation is a metaphor, though, you'd have to think about the places of peace and war in the Cold War (TOS) and after the collapse of the USSR (TMG, DS9, V).
3. We conceptualize abstract space as separate from time but subsantive, concrete spaces -- can they ever be outside of time?