Growing up, and to this present day, I enjoyed Star Trek. Besides the questing beyond our world to fascinating cultures and worlds, the episodes taught precepts and principles that could not be addressed otherwise in the vernacular. I watched Galaxy Quest this weekend, which I must say is the best amalgamated collection of sci-fi satire I’ve ever seen. When I run on the treadmill for speed trial (part of my fitness regimen I started when I first tried to join the military), I watch reruns of Star Trek.
The fascination with extraterrestrial eventualities points to something larger and greater than cosmic chance. Rush Limbaugh once said that if you do not believe in anything you will live in fear. Believing in something bigger and better than ourselves brings us purpose and direction- to boldly go where no one has gone before. If there is life somewhere else, we are not alone. If we are not alone, chances are at least one of those cultures is more advanced than we. If one of those cultures is more advanced than we, could it not have created ours?
Statistics teach us that once something occurs once, the odds of it occurring again increase by orders of magnitude. The fact that we exist beats the odds of chance, and America has always been a nation interested with beating the odds. Sometimes, that fascination leads to detrimental activities (Nevada gambling for example), but it also leads to our taking risks that pay huge dividends. Americans pioneered many things that improved upon the human condition, and so like those worlds depicted in Sci-Fi, we have made the world more utopian.
Finally, in the sci-fi world, good always triumphs over evil, even if good is the underdog, which is often the case. Americans love an underdog. They want good to triumph. Science fiction is truly an American phenomenon, depicting our drive to boldly go.
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