  My Dear Excellent Will, I urge you to not stay too much long talking and discussing in the closed loop of the UN. To me it’s like the Chinese society in the Middle Age. No openness, a choice to remain closed and isolated in its own stereotypes: in ultimate analysis no progress. no boldness, no achievement. The most ardent supporter of the UN among Western people are simply misguided by a philosophical idea, that dates back to a French Enlightenment thinker and pedagogue, Rousseau. According to this sophisticated philosopher in the dim and distant past the mankind lived happily, mostly because we have not discovered yet the ownership of an object: everything was common.
Curse be that day when the first man told the others: this is mine! And worse luck the others believed him! This is a sheer utopia. Actually a very dangerous one. Immediately after Rousseau socialistic and communist visions of the World and our lives start to pop up! Lot of people are not having a decent quality of life today for this kind of ideas.
I lean more for an understanding of the primitive mankind as envisioned by the English philosopher Hobbes: “homo homini lupus est”. In plain English: we’d better organize soon and defend from ill-intentioned people and animal. We need then a social contract: the upshot is a society with hierarchies and orders. While historically the Rousseau vision could have match some isolated German tribe during the Late Roman Empire, the Hobbes political theory is closer to the reality of man, and nature too. I remind you incidentally that we – humans – are part of the Mother Nature and, except the fact that we think about ourselves, our past and future, we are not so different from the other animals, especially if you look at the big picture. In final analysis the UN IS LIKE THE ROUSSEAU DREAM, TO WIT A FRIENDLY-PEACELOVING-STATE- OF-NATURE SOCIETY.
UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS A SOMETIMES-APPEALING-BUT-ACTUALLY UTOPIA. The UN has no meaning even if compared to future Space experiences by the mankind. Here starts a philosophical excursus aimed to demonstrate the flimsy and baseless nature of the so-called United Nations: they are not in our DNA, today, in the past, tomorrow. Will succeed the mankind to fill the vast emptiness of the Outer Space with love and warm-heartedness, passion and heat? Star Trek can be considered an autonomous culture, able to provide a literature, a political and law philosophy and an ethics. Many myths and fantastic tales are based on realities and old truths.
Star Trek offers a pluralistic and polycentric culture, where differences are welcome. There’s a common belief that, once united, we can be better than before. In the Star Trek doesn’t exist a predominant or ruling philosophical system. This is why maybe such a predominant system doesn’t exist. The Star Trek Weltanschaung is not characterized by certainties: it is very difficult to hold in a more and more amazing Universe. The ability to keep united, combined and blended opposite views and cultures is the biggest Star Trek Utopia.
Star Trek is an example of possible coexistence, even if not always peaceful: if you want peace, get ready to wage war. According to some philosopher the human being is always searching for something missing, searching for a further explanation. The and aspiration for seeking out is a direct consequence of a pluralistic society: when you have in front of you such a huge variety of interpretations and views, starting your own quest, research and exploration is a natural upshot. And perhaps we are talking about an endless quest, for always new meanings and visions. The Prime Directive is the main provision in the Star Fleet legal system and states that no Star Fleet Member will interfere with the normal development of a less advanced civilization. Sometimes the implementation of this rule is strict and harsh: an entire Planet could be left to its ill-fate.
Why choosing to not act? What right to interfere in other lives and destinies? We must remember though that many times this paramount norm is violated. Is really conceivable an exploration activity based on the non-interference principle? This type of approach should be based on a profound respect toward the other one. If you want to be a Captain in Star Trek one of the requisite is to be able to communicate with the other, the alien.
Ability to cope with any situation deriving from the contact with a different, often radically diverse, culture. In Star Trek is fundamental to preserve and record the history, the memory of the past: this is one of the main features typical of a human being, ever since. Once solved the problem of different languages thanks to the universal translator, what actually comes out is the difficulty to communicate due to incompatible and conflicting cultures. Even if we have the more open and gentle attitude possible, historically the encounter of different cultures has ended up in a clash. Some frequent questions by the Federation of the Planet explorer are: our alien interlocutor is able to talk to us? Is he interested in us, in talking with us?
Is it right or wrong if he doesn’t understand us? These are all typical ethical questions in the Star Trek Universe. In Star Trek is difficult to talk about superior or inferior cultures, because simply a contact among different (from a scientific and philosophical point of view) civilizations is going to modify them. Star Trek addresses in a very artistic way a classical inferiority complex of some parts of the Western World after the conquest and pillage of the New World. Sometimes in Star Trek a permanent damage to a culture is interpreted as a harm and detriment to the future itself. In Star Trek is possible to apply these ethical and legal directive, because the immense vastness and great extent of the Space, of the Universe, of our Galaxy allows so many different people and beings to coexist.
Nevertheless the more the Galaxy become crowded with new actors and cultures, the more it resembles our own World. The Prime Directive is not applied anymore when a culture reaches the warp drive, a technological factor that allows cosmic-scale exploration. After the first contact, follows the invitation to join the Federation The risk of a strict application, implementation, and enforcement of the Prime Directive is to have a museum, not a Universe to discover and to interact with. When you are in front of different values, how can you decide what’s wrong and what’s right? It is right to be involved or not? Star Trek shows us its weaknesses and contradictions.
This is why it is so humane and tragic. Anyway the Prime Directive starting from its name is not something strict per se. The Prime Directive pretty often comes into conflict with the personal ethics of the main characters. Many violations rain down: the Prime Directive is not felt as an absolute principle or a mandatory rule, but as an attempt to find an answer for a really complicated, complex and elaborate problem: how to relate with the other in an extreme context like that represented by the Space Exploration? In Star Trek the mankind doesn’t expect or insist to know always the answer, about what’s wrong and what’s right. The Ethics of Star Trek is mostly an elastic, flexible, adaptable moral philosophy, to wit ethics.
Infinite are the ambits of application of the ethics. Frequently the Prime Directive is violated in the name more fundamental principles like preserving life or when for one of the protagonist the situation is a matter of conscience. In Star Trek, a really utopian society, people don’t deny the existence of conflicts, they are exorcized, neither sublimed, nor repressed. They are instead faced up and confronted. To me sounds really current and past American Society. When you have a non definitive and incomplete decision as the Prime directive, it could be unenforced or ignored.
Since is difficult to have clear rules, laws and regulations in the Outer Space, many times the context is more important than the norm. All Good Things Come To An End: the death is a inevitable and unavoidable part of our life. The way we face up and cope with the Inevitable is an important personality test: depends on us, on our passion and steadfastness, how to manage and succeed in changing and transforming the unavoidability of the death in a struggle for life, to survive. In the Star Trek Universe we find ourselves often involved in dealing with the irrationality of seeking out a definitive answer about the mystery of our life and Universe. There’s something we can’t talk about. Sometimes we must recognize that.
The real commandment in the Federation is to preserve life. Try every means to achieve this. Star Trek teach us that there’s always another way to survive, through trust and mutual help, instead of a ruthless fight. How is organized the Federation? It is a very soft form of Government, that hold the monopoly of the use of force and the exploration. These tasks are implemented through the Star Fleet.
For the remainder the members are Autonomous Planetary System Governments. In Star Trek Universe we don’t use money anymore, and the mankind has started to building its own society on new bases: profit and personal wealth are no more the main drivers in the individual life. The last goal of each individual and the society itself is to improve himself or herself. And this could mean in the end a more simple way of life. These amazing possibilities are allowed by extraordinary technological achievements: they seem almost magic. Indeed each new technological advancement appears in the hindsight as a form of magic.
Never say never! The human being can free and unleash all his/her best intellectual qualities and skills. Once we become citizen of the Universe, the immeasurable amount of Space and opportunities is in front of us. And a new equality among humans is established. What kind of take on Star Trek about the Military? The Star Fleet undertake military actions not for conquest, but for guarantee and ensuring a peaceful coexistence among the members of the Federation.
The last resort, however, is always the use of force. The main mission of the Star Fleet is to explore: it is not always an easy and not dangerous task. To explore could be a good insurance for our future, because we don’t know what kind of dangers, perils and hazards are out there. It could be a wise choice. Who’s going first in Deep Space? The military or the civilian part of a society?
The Star Fleet hierarchy is a very peculiar one, since the personnel is all made of volunteers. Sometimes to disobey orders is considered acceptable or even deserving of the highest praise! Gandhi: I believe that in case of you have really to choose between cowardice and violence, I think I would choose the last one. For Gandhi non violence means abstinence from doing somebody wrong. Something very similar happens in the Star Fleet. Star Fleet is ready to fight to preserve life: this is the Second directive.
Even in the worst kind of conflict this tenet is always highly regarded. When a Star Trek Official face an unjustified use of force, he or she usually thinks is non only mandatory, but also morally correct to fight against these forces. In the movie Star Trek – First Contact, Captain Picard deliberately kills a dying Borg Queen. The Borg represent a mortal enemy for the Federation. Acting this way, the Captain violated current basic rules and conventions like Geneva, being pitiless toward a defeated enemy. One of the teaching we can draw is that when one of the players in the Cosmic arena is not ready to follow a common set of rules and customs, the only way to deal is to get rid of him.
On the other hand we could say simply that Picard in this circumstance made a mistake, due to his personal experience with this cruel species. Even if I respectfully disagree with Patrick Stewart who embodied the mythical Captain Picard, I agree about the sanctity, preciousness, and dignity of the human life. http://www.gruhlke.de/stewart/ps-speaks.html These are only few, really few of the ideas, cues and hints you can get from the Star Trek Universe, a future only seemingly and apparently distant from us. In the star trek's world the mankind is finally gone beyond hunger, poverty, wars (at least among humans), and inequalities. We are now able to develop all our potential! Characters like the mythical Captain Kirk or Captain Picard and their adventurous lifes are the embodiment of the Homeric and Dantean Odysseus: "Fatti non foste per viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza", where no one has gone before!
= you aren't born to live like beast, but to seek out virtue and knowledge! Star Trek represent what human kind could realized, if we could finally keep steady in our mind that we have to be united and cooperate, for building a better world for all of us. So, don’t forget: we can improve ourselves, our life, and the conditions of the other people: we need only, even if it is not a simple thing, to pass some kind of test, to discover after lot of wandering, that united we can be better. I'm sure we have this chance, cuz we got the scientific method and the ability to survive winning the challenges of life in our Planet. Star Trek give us a deep simple message, in addition to be a very well done art work. You can depends on The Next Generation, my fave series ever: sometimes I like to empathize with the Captain Picard character, the thoughtful captain, or the Commander Data, an android who want to become more human!
In all fairness I tend to appreciate almost all the episodes, starting from the Original Series with the mythical James T. Kirk to the more recent spin-offs Deep Space 9 and Voyager. I really hope you are curious to hear some of my thoughts about death, religion and destiny. Sooner or later in everybody’s life will pop up a series of interesting and difficult questions. Up to date I can’t consider myself a believer in any classic religion, even if I leaned to distrust too much radical statements. Religion derives from the ancient Latin "re-ligare"= “to be tied by something or somebody”. Often I perceive religion as a kind of restraint to our potentialities.
What I mean is that sometimes we’re offered a too simplistic answer to the fundamental and essential question: "What is the Truth about us and about our Universe, about our own role in this World of galaxies and space, time and matter? " A quick answer could be: the Creation explains everything! Personally I regard as more commendable and humble the Modern Science approach to the reality. Since Galileo and many others after him have introduced the fundamental notion of experiment, things are working better, even if w/ some drawbacks. Mainly, but not exclusively thru the glasses of the Science, we can reach a better understanding of many mysteries that surround us. Mainly, but not exclusively, because our World, our life, ourselves are kind of evasive, enigmatic, and obscure sometimes: perhaps this is the beautiful aspect of all.
By the way I agree with Charles Darwin and his thoughts in "The Origin of the Species": his scientific theory, until proved otherwise, explains a lot of the life’s dynamics. I like the idea of religion suggested by Albert Einstein too, when he goes back to the Spanish philosopher Spinoza: in his opinion God is the order that we see permeating our Universe, at any level of complexity. How can we answer to the fear of die? We have already a way to seek immortality, a gift courtesy provided by "Mother Nature": we can breed, and transmit to our descendants our genetic and cultural message. Maybe we don’t need to care about our existence after death, cuz we have already an answer. This is the simple and simultaneously complicated way created by an Evolutionary process on Planet Earth.
But what is really peculiar of any human being is that we can transmit to the future generations our thoughts, memories, inner ideas and beliefs. We have "free will", but the matter is dominated by not accidental Physics Laws, even if you wouldn’t think this once you are familiar w/ the subatomic world of quanta: This is the real challenge to the human comprehension and knowledge: how is possible that from seemingly chaotic subatomic particles we can arrive to the human consciousness? How in conclusion the Universe succeeds to be aware and conscious of his/its existence? What is the mystery of the Life? It's up to us try to find an answer. Undoubtedly science could help, but keeping always in mind that at the bottom of our choice, we act so irrationally and arbitrarily.
I like to end my thoughts citing from the C. Sagan novel-based movie “Contact”. An alien creature referring to the mankind told the protagonist, Ellie : You are capable of such wonderful dreams, but also terrible nightmares. And you feel so alone, searching for answers to pressing questions. But you are not alone! This remind me the value of Space exploration: Space is the last Frontier of Science. For a better understanding of our Universe and of ourselves, we need to go outside and take new comparisons and perspective.
Star Trek inculcate and insinuate such attitude and motivation: amazing stuff is waiting for us just out there. Please, don't hesitate to contact me to discuss issues like these above, ok? Wish you all the best, Dear William! ^_^ End of the long excursus aimed at demonstrate the intrinsic fallacy of the UN building. Why I told you all this stuff, Dear William? My purpose was just to give an idea on how the UN cannot be - neither remotely and distantly - able to be a valuable, functioning and effective model in a near or distant future, where the Mankind really has evolved and improved toward a higher level of civilization and understanding of the Universe and ourselves.
To make a long story short, US now is simply trying to keep up appereances. UN have never been effective in any meaning or sense at all. Do you really believe the US want to dominate this strange organization? The only practical reason it is still in place is because of the tourism for New York City, even if for a person like me the UN would be the last place to visit. Indeed I know about many people asking for getting rid of the UN and packing it up and make it leave for Paris or some place in Africa or Asia. The UN is simply a place to see where the wind is blowing.
THE WORLD HAS WORKED WELL FOR LONG TIME WITH BILATERALS AGREEMNTS. WHEN THERE ARE REALLY MULTILATERAL NEED, YOU CAN RELY ON MORE AGILE AND EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS. Dear William, you talk to me about Globalization, but you are misguided once again. Globalization is another big big hoax. GLOBALIZATION IS NOT SO CERTAIN, DEFINITE, AND SETTLED. ARE YOU SO SURE WE ARE GOING A MORE AND MORE STANDARDIZE WORLD?
I am not so sure. And please, give me the or a scientific or even plausible explanation of why we should be all equal in our diversity? I really don’t understand: we are all equal? Are you all diverse? Another paramount problem is one of your first assumption: we are not equal. Well, this is blatantly NOT TRUE!
Only if we start recognizing that we are actually not equal, we can really start to work in finding tangible solutions to concrete problems. It is important to discover the historical and historic reasons for these big and small differences, but they are there, displaying all their meaning, value, influence, and power. All the Countries in the World are not equal, first of all because many of them are not real Countries at all: they fake or failed States. It would’ve been much better for them to remain Western colonies: trust me. In too many cases they demonstrate to don’t be able to keep up and cope with the challenges a modern State and Government sooner or later need to face up and confront. How can you talk about the US needing to pay its dues to an organization such as the UN?
How can the most advanced Democracy in the Planet pay taxes to an organization where you can’t find any sign of accountability, transparency and effectiveness? DO YOU LOVE BUREAUCRACIES? BUREAUCRACIES ARE NOT GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH. Bureaucracies are like many form of cancer: once they took root, it is very difficult, if not often impossible to eradicate and extirpate them. How, please, tell me how can you even consider the UN as a neutral arbiter in international disputes??? Where’s the neutrality in a body where most of the Countries Members are moved by hate and envy???
Why do you trust people who basically hate you? Why the most advanced democracy on Earth must be or should be restrain and curbed, if it feels threatened by anti-democratic tyrannical, despotic and dictatorial forces? It’s a sheer complete non sense. We are by a far extent much better than this bunch of barbaric thugs! How can be the UN a legitimate body? Given all these clarifying conditions, Why the Bush Administration sought a UN mandate?
This is a good question. We could investigate more this need of the current U.S. administration to go searching support overseas, but mainly we would end up talking about the immense and powerful pressure exercised by the public opinion all over the Planet. Pomerantz: “The way to democracy is not unilateralism, military force, or might-is-right-ism. “ ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THIS STATEMENT? I REMIND with urgency YOU THAT IN EUROPE WAR ULTIMATELY BROUGHT DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS. You talked about a more active role by the US in the UN.
I really don’t know how to convince you, whereas I know I’m repeating myself, but DEAR WILLIAM, HISTORICALLY THE U.N. WORKED ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY AFTER A UNITED STATES INTERVENTION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF OTHERWISE COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE STATEMENTS. The Third World Countries don’t want a free global market. They are turning over in their mind very strange ideas and firm beliefs, like those regarding the fact that everything is due to them, because they are poor. There is a real serious danger in all of this. All the best, Dear William.
And to quote Takeshi Maruki: “Respect! Always.” 
