Star Trek: The Next Generation-- "The Masterpiece Society"

I hate this episode. If I have watched it beyond its initial airing, I would be surprised to learn it. Anytime eugenics is dealt with in any sort of positive light, I get a squeamish feeling. Here it all hinges on one exchange between la Forge and a scientist with show runner and final draft writer Michael Piller’s comments in a making of book that kill it for me.

“The Masterpiece Society” is based on another script that had been bouncing around the TNG office. The plot centers around a genetically engineered “perfect” society which does not want the ’inferior’ Enterprise crew among them, even when the crew is trying to save the colony from being damaged by space debris. Virtually every writer on staff at the time has described their aversion to working on the script and have since expressed disappointment with the outcome in various interviews. All of them, save Piller.

Here is the problem: at one point, La Forge is talking to one of the genetically engineered scientists. He asks if he would have been allowed to live with his disability. She tells him no. The founders of the colony deemed that everyone should live without any physical deformities. La forge replies that the founders have no business deciding whether his life is worth living. She has no answer.

This exchange raised some hackles because it came across as a pro-life argument. Piller piped up in the press and denied the accusation. Everyone on staff is solidly pro-choice, according to him. I do not doubt it--or at least I did not until Ronald D. Moore presented a brutally honest abortion storyline on Battlestar Galactica in which the pro-lifer advocates were heroic even to the point they were about to use violence to prevent the non-consensual abortion. Bt what ’the masterpiece society” did was inadvertently expose the ugliness of abortion, then swept the matter under the rug when it realized that had been done.

“It is okay to abort a cripple. La Forge? Well, yeah, we like him and he is valuable, but we do not really need another cripple, do we?”

Therein lies the heart of what is wrong with the episode. The overall message is supposed to be that eugenics is a bad thing. Piller tries his darnedest to get to that point,, but he stupidly failsandwinds up advocating creating a utopian society through exterminating the so called unfit to live instead.

That is all abortion is. Ruth Bader Ginsburg admitted in an interview a few months ago the rationale behind the Roe decision was to limit the minority population. When liberals accuse others of racism, they are projecting what in their vile social engineering hearts. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Sacrifices have to be made for utopia.

Such a rationale hits me twice. First of all, I was born with disabilities, yet have gone on to a full productive life. Granted, I hit the wall a few yearsago, but with health issues unrelated to my physical disabilities. There is not one valid reason I should have missed out on what was a fulfilling life because of a major setback 27 years after I was born. I do not like people who take it upon themselves to make that decision for others. I have an extremely difficult time with the concept of wrongful life--the idea it would be better if a child who will be disabled or grindingly impoverished or the product of rape should be aborted over speculation his life will have no value.

Second, I studied lot of political philosophy in college. One of the things that most made me regret studying political science was the realization that every ideology had utopia as its ultimate goal and every path to utopia ends in tragedy. It does not matter if it is something as evil as Hitler’s vision of Aryans ruling over “lesser” races or something as naïve as Jimmy Carter’s pacifist utopianism which continually allows brutal regimes to oppress and murder. There is no good end to any political idea carried out to its fullest conclusion.

Piller manages both social engineering through abortion and its ensuing utopia with only whispers as to the folly of creating a genetically perfect society. I am going to givew him the benefit of the doubt by chalking it up to incompetence rather than evil. Talk about killing with faint praise.

There is a side story with Troi falling in love with an ubermensch, but who cares?

Rating: * (out of 5)