Patrick Stewart taught us what good men do with power

tqi

I think looking to popular entertainment for thought leadership is silly.

vigilantpuma

Big fan of Star Trek and Picard is my captain forever, but this credit seems more due to Gene Roddenberry.

MitPitt

Patrick Stewart or the show writers? I'm not a fan of equating TV character personalities to actors.

umvi

He's fictional though... It's easy to make a fictional ideal leader. How about real life examples? "Dalinar Kholin taught us what good men do with power" vs. "George Washington ..."

jacquesm

As opposed to Gorbachev? Gandhi? Mandela?

fnord77

He was a fictional leader. In a fictional utopia.

throw8393038

Star Trek and Jean-Luc Picard is horrible example of leadersnip! Every time he meets real danger, he gets his crew needlesly killed to make empty gestures! Like with Q, he has to give lectures to literal god! Perhaps shut up for 5 minutes to get more information? Or when meeting borg...? Patrick was great actor, he was still able to carry Star Trek. But writing was horrible! Vegetarian communist utopia tries to imagine real combat!

Veliladon

One of the most interesting things about the clip where Picard defends Data's humanity is the pronouns. Picard consistently uses he/him to refer to Data while Maddox uses it/them. Captain Louvois uses he/him during her ruling. Then, once all is said and done, Maddox finally calls Data by "he".

_wire_

Star Trek is cultish ideological juju in the form of swashbuckling egomania and theme park vacation. Look at the colors: a tribe of C-suite nerds zip around in an atomic powered space-faring Hyatt Regency trying to train the universe to Taylorize all production methods. Its protagonists are utterly entitled and classist, who teach war as the essential force by which their lives incur meaning. It's is a soap-operatic long tail of Western empire indulging in fatuous "adventure", which amounts literally beaming into alien realms to cause disturbance and justifying it through dominion or ignorance, while the executives try to believe they've moved beyond themselves so they can feel noble. As a dramatic art, the show offers some moments of transcendence, but these end up sequestered to the commercial dictates of the franchise, which is an epic advert for consumerist Americana. I feel deep suspicion about anyone who regards cosplay as instructive about what makes for "good men with power". And as Vox is a notable outlet in the great system of commercial attention-whoring that defines our culture, I feel double the suspicion. Also See: Phase IV (1974) Futureworld (1976) Lathe of Heaven (1980)

ralgo

The essential Picard Episodes of TNG The Measure of a Man (S2E9) Q Who (S2E16) The Best of Both Worlds (S3E26 & S4E1) The Drumhead (S4E21) Darmok (S5E2) The Inner Light (S5E25) Tapestry (S6E15) A pretty good use of six hours.

moralestapia

Rest in peace, fleet admiral. See you in Valhalla! *makes salute motion* People make fun of this but cartoons and sci-fi series are great models to learn about and guide the development of society. We lost the best one, no good actors remain.

prhn

So odd the arguments I've been reading when this is brought up since his death. > He's fictional though Aren't most of our heroes? Yes, we create scenarios in art to exemplify extraordinary human behavior. To explore humanity. > Patrick Stewart or the show writers? Both, but mostly Patrick Stewart. Let me give you the same material and crew and see if you can evoke the same cultural reaction.

dofm

So, class: what does this tell you about our current predicament and the people at the helm of it?

j45

Patrick Stewart didn’t teach this. A character he acted did. Patrick Stewart on his deathbed referred being estranged from his children from always putting work before his kids in his own words.

gadders

I think Picard was a good example of positive masculinity. Strong and not a wimp without being overbearing or a bully.

dabinat

The danger is that we give good leaders too much power, and they’re then replaced by someone who abuses it. And that’s why we need to be careful how much power we give someone, even if we’re sure they will use it wisely.

miiiiiike

The worst person that I have ever worked with knew nothing about leadership that wasn’t on Star Trek or in an episode of The West Wing. They even referred to the site as “their ship.” Absolute, total, delusion. Inspired to be better? Of course. Taught? God no. If you’re finding that your leadership style, or really any part of your personality, is being lifted from an 80s/90s TV show, step back and reevaluate things.

AIorNot

I mean forget Picard, the leadership we have in much of the world today is full of egotistical narcissistic, blowhard or mob style and courrpt people -it feels like no one cares that such people ascend to power either via populism or via corruption -forget shithole countries..it feels like we have become a shithole planet Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Netanyahu, Erdogan, ... and so many others. Social media has only intensified this What is wrong with Humanity?

jstummbillig

More than anything, what struck me was the excellence of the team -- a striking combination of morals, skills, sense of responsibility and purpose -- that existed in TNG around Capt Picard. Whatever was done to get that going was an act of absolute geniuses. (Granted, it helps when the hard parts can be explained through fantasy.)

arjie

Bit of a pet-peeve of mine with people confusing fiction with reality. Reality has constraints that fiction doesn't. Every group of people greater than one encounters a misalignment issue at some point. Fiction is useful. Narratives guide our understanding and help bring ideas to people. But real life has friction. CA HSR would fund PEPFAR for 40 years. So...PEPFAR or CA HSR? Is the guy who chooses the former the good man with power or the latter? Or is it a third guy who pays for both through increased taxes so that the United States middle class pays the higher proportion of total taxes that Norway does? Groups of people have priorities and they have their own objectives. Labor unions are generally fairly xenophobic. They were at the forefront of restricting Indians and Chinese from being citizens and the mob Hoffas held power there even till just a few years ago. A Georgian union got a bunch of Koreans deported. Who's the villain here? The Koreans? The union? The Indians? The Chinese? The people who want to employ them? Who's the good man? Constraint-free optimization is trivial. I can do it with no problem. In fact, I shall do so here with a single line: "Make everyone happy".