Star Trek is a useful way of thinking about the intergenerational conflict between a nostalgic Orthodoxy (going back to an earlier time, when the authority of the Rabbinate was under less critical challenge) and (what Im calling) future-centric Modern Orthodoxy. (A book was titled The Next Generation of Modern Orthodoxy, whether it was a conscious reference to ST is not clear to me.....) So in Star Trek, TOS and TNG are part of the same universe as each other. However, TOS is set in the 23rd Century and TNG is in the 24th century. This means there are differences between them. E.g. so the most blatant example is the voiceover in the opening credits. WIlliam Shatner (TOS) says Where No Man Has Gone Before and Patrick Stewart (reflecting more gender-egalitarian sensibility) says Where No One Has Gone Before. https://youtube/watch?v=hdjL8WXjlGI https://youtube/watch?v=XsxgcLf0TSY Could not the same principle apply to the Orthodox world—where Open Orthodoxy is still Orthodox, but reflects a more gender-egalitarian sentiment. But the premises of Nostalgic Orthodox essentially reifies an earlier period as the identity of Orthodoxy. (So just as there was this insular turn in the 1980s, where there was an attempt to proclaim that Orthodoxy is defined against Reform et al. as one of stasis (religious practices dont change.....And nostalgic Orthodoxy wants to reassert this ideology, in a time, where its extremely difficult to make stasis as appealing ideology (esp. when the premises of the Messianic Age is one of radical social change.) So it is like a (fundamentalist) Star Trek fan, declaring only TOS is authentic Star Trek. TNG is not authentic Star Trek (it must be purged from the canon)? But is this not the same logic as trying to declare Open Orthodoxy et al. as a heresy (in earlier times, the religious establishment was so powerful, that it could declare dissident thinking as a heresy (from Spinoza to Mordecai Kaplan—now the erosion of the authority of religious figures makes this far more difficult to achieve.). I suspect sectarian thinking is a species of totalitarian thought: not being able to tolerate diverse voices on issues, is a sectarian logic. This is despite the literature on the importance of diversity to avoid group-think (as in the Wisdom of the Crowd literature). The problem today has to do with HOW we aggregate diverse voices from different walks of life. So sectarian thinking has to be transformed into pluralist thinking (we have to avoid this: my way or the highway mentality—because this is epistemological arrogance—we have to recognize ourselves as epistemologically modest (as human beings we have distinct limits to our knowledge, and the only way of making us more epistemologically secure, is by aggregating our knowledge, through dialogue/discussion/debate etc.).
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 20:11:27 +0000
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