The Wrath of Kahn has always been my favorite Star Trek movie. I’ve enjoyed everything about that movie, except for that one scene where Spock states emphatically that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of few”
That quote has always bothered me, even the first time I saw the movie back in the early 1980s. This was well before my political enlightenment that led me to becoming a Libertarian. I had read enough history then to know that totalitarian regimes always sacrificed the few and the individual, all in the name of the common good of the majority.
After my great political awakening, which consisted of reading a couple hundred books on all types of political philosophies, I now understand the evils and horrors of collectivism. I know Spock’s quote reeks of collectivism. That is not surprising since Gene Roddenberry was very much to the left politically. Mr. Roddenberry should have read Ayn Rand, especially these two quotes about collectivism:
“Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group—whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called “the common good.”
If Mr. Roddenberry had encountered this Ayn Rand quote, maybe Spock’s quote would not have marred an otherwise fantastic movie.
Individualism regards man – every man – as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights – and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.
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