Omar Syed

Ever felt like you just don't belong? We can help: The Borg Collective

Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, I watched Star Trek the Next Generation, which had the space explorers of the Starfleet Federation boldly going where no one had gone before. A new show called for new enemies, which took the shape of the Borg, a race of technologically advanced beings that had a collective mindset. This collective mindset struck me as being very close to the collective mindset of the inhabitants of the community in Ayn Rand’s Anthem. I began wondering if the Borg were a Utopia or Dystopia in of themselves?

           An initial question might be is the term Borg singular or plural? “[T]he plural of Borg is Borg, it's singular, plural, and possessive at once” according to MajorD, a member at the startrekonline forum. Note that having a singular term be singular, plural and possessive cuts down the need to have personal pronouns, such as I, me and myself, which harks back to Ayn Rand’s Anthem, and the concept of the Unspeakable Word, which itself is an umbrella term encapsulating the possessives I, Me, Myself, and Egos.

             According to Maurice Hurley’s Star Trek the Next Generation script entitled “Q Who?” the Borg are “born as biological life form. Almost immediately after birth they begin getting artificial implants. They have apparently developed the technology to link artificial intelligence directly into a humanoid brain,” and also notes that “I haven't seen any females.” We have eugenics working at overtime in the Borg Cube, as the ship is called, and eugenics is a key feature of Utopian literature, being seen in Thomas More’s Utopia, Lois Lowry’s The Giver and Ayn Rand’s Anthem. The same script notes that the Borg reside in their cube shaped starship by being plugged into stasis when not needed at “slots along the wall, kind of like compartments. There are two Borg in each.” And that “the Borg are somehow interconnected through these slots and are working collectively,” This collective mentality is a characteristic of Utopian cultures and is referenced in Ayn Rand’s Anthem and George Orwell’s 1984.

           The word perfect, ideal or problem-free often shows up in Utopian and Dystopian literature. An unnamed user at the Straight Dope message board began a thread questioning how to coerce individuals to join the Borg. Their positing mirrors much of the Utopian catch phrases, including perfect, improving, noble, beautiful and undistracted, “Envision a perfect Collective, undistracted by the mundane, trivial desires and resultant bickering that lesser species so often fall prey to, a Collective ever maturing, ever improving, ever striving to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations... it is a noble, beautiful goal, is it not?” These exhortations on the Borg sound very much like how Jonas’ world in The Giver was described in an Amazon.com review that portrayed the community as “a world with no poverty, no crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where every family is happy”

           BigT, a member at the Straight Dope message refutes the original question, thus casting the Borg in a Dystopian light, “Is this your propaganda example? Because the Borg are nowhere near peaceful. They are at war with pretty much every other species in the galaxy. -- They are genocidal: If we can't convert you, we kill you. They are fascist: they think they are better than everyone else, and in fact won't add species that won't improve their "society" somewhat. Also, what's to say they won't go back and remove the drones that are not helping their perfection? But basically, it's because it's really, really easy for any species to see that the Borg don't live up to the promises in your example.” Between the dialogue between the original post creator and BigT, we see the Utopian/Dystopian push and pull of the Borg, as they appear to promise a peaceful future with no fighting, but bring this into fruition by removing all choice and free will, as Ayn Rand’s community in Anthem and Lois Lowry’s community in The Giver, which both involved the higher ups taking control of all life decisions, from the job the individual (as part of the collective) would do in their life, to family planning, end of life decisions and even mind control  as seen in the pills for the “stirrings” in The Giver, and the chants and communal plays in Anthem.

Tom Tildrum, a member at the Straight Dope message compares the Borg to other Dystopian novels, “John C. Wright's Golden Age novels posit a far future where neuroscience has rendered the mind as alterable as one's clothing. In this world, hive minds exist as one option in the market for states of consciousness. They advertise serenity and ever-present friendship, as you turn all of your problems over to the group. Some have [specialized] causes, such as charity and education, and some market themselves to the poor as the best way to improve themselves.” However, while the Wright’s science fiction novels deal with hive minds that might specialize themselves for educational purposes or charitable causes, The Borg propagates itself for the assimilation of knowledge and destroys the individuality of anything that comes in its way, much like how Jonas’ father, a Nurturer “releases” or destroys the life of those who do not fit into the Utopian plans of the community in The Giver.

Mike Magin writes in an article entitled, “Facebook, the Borg, and Utopias”, that “Facebook and related social networking media have brought us closer to a Borg hive-mind utopia than ever before in human history.”, “this sort of media places its users in contact with a lot of people all the time.”, “I can certainly understand how it may feel as if we are building a more perfect human society with these tools. In a way, it seems like the same utopian vision that has inspired fictional societies such as the Borg.”, “imagine if an individual or clique could not lie to the society at all,” and “the failure of utopias is that they, almost by definition, fail to admit that they may be wrong.”

           Claes Wallin and JamesHollidge write in the Borg Wiki that “the Borg are used as an example of -- and -- as an analog of unthinking technological collectivism” That collectivist idea is the heart of Utopian cultures, be they the promulgate the idea that communal communities are the solution to the unrest of the world, as seen in Anthem, The Giver, Utopia and other novels, as even people are seen in terms of their usefulness or uselessness alone and not as intrinsic or individuals. Remember the conversation between the Giver and Jonas regarding his parents and their position in his and other families, “As long as they're still working and contributing to the community, they'll go and live with the other Childless Adults. And they won't be part of my life anymore.” (124) and he makes the realization that, “So our children, if we have them, won't know who their parents-of-the-parents are, either.” (125)

Peter Wall, an attorney in Fresno, California, writes in his blog post, “We are the Borg” that “Gene Roddenberry created an optimistic utopia to suggest that if we matured at home, we might travel the galaxy to teach and learn from others. -- [T]he Borg --was the first alien species that was essentially us. And then the Starfleet protagonists were caught in a battle with distilled humanity. -- But the Borg were a pretty good distillation of humanity into its essence; -- The writers, having no way to actually transcend the true humanity of the Borg, had to descend from the realm of idealism.” Because the writers had created an enemy for the Starfleet Federation that no one could beat, the writers ended up coming up with creative solutions that while workable for television, have no bearing in real life and are another example of how the Borg can be seen as a Utopian or Dystopian community because they are so ideal in terms of a collective mindset.

Tanbarkie, a member at the Straight Dope message, humorously writes about a Borg debate. Note how much is sounds like Ayn Rand’s Anthem, with the lack of the words, I, me, myself and ego,

"We believe that health care should be available to all drones."
"We agree."
"As do we."
"I can't believe anyone would disagree."
"Disagreement would be futile, it is true."
"Agreed."
"...Wait a minute. Did that drone over there just say 'I'?"
"What? No! Not me."
"Yes, see, you just did it again!"
"I did not! Agh! Dammit!"
"Get him!"

Compare this to Equality’s remembrance of his community’s mandates in chapter 1 of Anthem, “We strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be alike.” The communal chants had been dinned in his mind long enough for him to continue believing them until he had reason to think otherwise. When Equality finally began thinking for himself, the community leaders beat him with lashes, much as Tanbarkie’s humorous dialogue (can there be a dialogue if there is only one mindset?) that ends with the Borg threatening to destroy the unremitting Borg drone who has began thinking for itself.

           In the end, what are the Borg? They are nothing more than a reflection of ourselves, as we current century humans are hooked up into our electronic world of internet, online friends and being connected to the world at large, but sitting alone in a room and staring at a screen. Are the Borg a Utopian society or Dystopian? It truly depends on who you as and their disposition and preferences of Utopian and Dystopian society. The Borg clearly are collective in their mindset, which is taken directly from Ayn Rand’s Anthem, Lois Lowery’s The Giver and other Dystopian literature. The Borg destroy whatever stands in their way and assimilate or take control of the knowledge they find along the way during their travels through deep space, much like how Plato’s Republic exhorted the acquisition of knowledge, though Plato might not have suggested killing or taking over the person whose knowledge you wanted. Perhaps we may never know whether the Borg are Utopain or Dystopian, but let us, like Plato and the Borg, take a page from Gene Roddenberry and go forth, seek knowledge and “boldly go where no one has gone before”

Works Cited

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=528908

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheBorg

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=9991&highlight=borg&page=52&langid=3

http://mike.magin.org/2011/01/26/facebook-the-borg-and-utopias/

http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?200944-The-Borg-Queen-Fail

http://www.peterwall.net/2011/04/12/we-are-the-borg/

http://www.st-minutiae.com/academy/literature329/142.txt