There is nothing that illuminates humanity more than her fiction; and, perhaps, none that illuminates it in such a way than science fiction. In it, as through a glass, we see ourselves. Not just ourselves, but our ambitions, our hopes, and our fears. Fiction is thus more real than any asinine reality TV show

I was just watching star trek tng on bbc2. it is imbedded with an optimism peculiar to the late eighties: the hope that humanity can become more than what it is today; the hope that we can unite. The hope, the most profound hope that humankind will one day work together as one.

Nothing sheds more light on ourselves than the tales we tell. TNG seemed to know it. This is why,, I think, it referenced so many other fictions, especially classical literature. We see Picard quoting Shakespeare regularly, for it is in Shakespeare that we see ourselves most clearly. Thus, TNG seems to relish, not just in the tale but in it’s telling. And it is in that telling that we find the human spirit itself.

It may or may not be a coincidence that Patrick Stewart is currently playing Prospero – to whom Picard alluded many times – in Stratford-Upon-Avon. I should go watch.