Patrick Stewart dies; Vox remembers his Picard as a model of liberal power
Following the actor's death, Vox's Ian Millhiser argues Captain Jean-Luc Picard modeled the ethical use of American power for a generation.
What to know
- Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 onward, died on Wednesday.
- Vox's Ian Millhiser argues Picard's Federation offered an idealized, restrained model of how a dominant power should act, contrasting it with the current US government.
- The essay spread across Mastodon, Google News, and Hacker News in the days following Stewart's death.
Patrick Stewart Actor who played Captain Jean-Luc PicardIan Millhiser Vox senior correspondent
How it unfolded 2 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlesposts
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Essay reaches Hacker News front page
The Vox essay was resubmitted to Hacker News, drawing dozens of points and over twenty comments, extending the piece's reach beyond its original publication.
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'The children of nearly four decades ago watched Stewart’s portrayal of Picard and saw a role model for how the most powerful people in society should behave. Those lessons are just as relevant today as they were then.' https://www. msn.com/en-us/news/other/patri ck-stewart-taught-us-what-good-men-do-with-power/ar-AA2gsZgz
2 more of the top 3 · 37 posts in this stretch
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> I have a deep affection for stories where people are depicted as good, or even just good at their jobs. ...I've mentioned the series before... and I'll pitch it again. Nathan Lowell's solar clipper series. It starts with Quarter Share. The first book starts with: Call me Ishmael. Yeah, I know, but in this case it’s really my name. Ishmael…
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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…
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Vox's Millhiser frames Picard as a liberal model of power
Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser published an essay arguing that Picard's Federation, though fictional, embodied a just and restrained use of overwhelming power that mirrored 1990s liberal ideals, and that these lessons remain relevant even as the US has fallen short of them.
“Great leaders, and great nations, need role models like Jean-Luc Picard.”
— Ian Millhiser -
background
Patrick Stewart dies — The actor, best known for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation beginning in 1987, died on a Wednesday, as noted in Vox's tribute essay.
Also covered reported alongside — the timeline has no entry for these yet
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first by HN Best, 11d ago · also HN Frontpage, Vox
What people are saying 21 voices from 1 site · best of 37 · verbatim
- Nov 2
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>It's much easier to make a story of relatable bumbleheads, especially if you yourself are somewhat uninteresting and never got much life experience.I don't even think this is true, people just started claiming it. People love excellence. Characters don't need to be mediocre to be relatable. A character like Picard motivates us to be better than…
- Nov 1
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One of my favorite episodes of TNG was Tapestry, to the point that it significantly influenced my life perspective. It emphasizes that even in this sort of idealized world, the things you might want to avoid are still unavoidable. [1][1] -
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There was scene in one of my favorite movies, Star Trek: First Contact.Not to spoil it too much, but there is a scene where a woman from the past (from the 21st century) gets beamed up to the Starship Enterprise. She asks how much it cost. Full dialog below:> Lily: "How much did this thing cost?"> Picard: “The economics of the future are somewhat…
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Dunno, Picard always struck me as the middle manager type. The kind of guy who enables his subordinates to good work. Which is a very valuable skill, considering I had my share of total psycho bosses, but it's hardly inspirational, and doesn't really exceed expectations.(And doesn't make very good television either.)
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I agree - I almost feel guilty holding characters to such a high standard that I don’t often match myself. Conversely, I worry that our willingness to embrace so many anti-heroes in media has affected us adversely. Too many shows like Breaking Bad and The Apprentice may eventually take its toll.
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Hah, I had no idea that he was based on Horatio. I always really loved Horatio as a character and I found his way of observing and reacting to the world in such uncertainty unparalleled. I also always loved Captain Picard for the same reason, but I never realized one may be an influence for the other. Thanks for sharing this.
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I haven't liked much tv sci-fi other than TNG and DS9. In recent times, The Expanse was a huge standout for me. It's also full of characters trying to effectively handle extremely difficult situations, and striving to be good people within their context.It's very different from TNG in most ways, but it does share the emphasis on retaining…
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It's interesting how I've been seeing posts about how Steward-as-Picard exemplified goodness. Sure he was a really great actor, but he was... an actor, tasked to help bring to life a universe envisioned by Gene Roddenberry. And there's like nothing about the latter.
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As an aside, Jean-Luc Picard's character was explicitly based on Horatio Hornblower (Stewart was given a stack of Forrester novels to prepare for the role).In comparison between the two, Hornblower was a rather unimaginative person bound by his deep sense of duty and the extreme pressure of the Navy. Picard (as a character) replaces duty with the…
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I should do a write-up but my Claude Code and Pi have been personalised to assume the persona of Jean-Luc Picard for almost a year. I find the output generated to be more useful and of a higher "quality".I also enjoy the occasional salted phrase that is included in generated out e.g. "Tea, Earl Grey, hot!", when I have been Claude'ing too…
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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…
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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.)
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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…
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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.
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So odd the arguments I've been reading when this is brought up since his death.> He's fictional thoughAren'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…
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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.
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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".
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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…
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In part, yes of course. One thing that I respect a lot about Roddenberry was that when Isaac Asimov gave Star Trek a "bad review" publicly, he reached out and asked for feedback. They ended up becoming friends and Asimov helped advise him on the character development of Kirk and Spock's friendship that became central to the original series.But, if…
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I disagree. Not only did he continually & substantially contribute to Picard's character, it clearly aligns with his own values and ethics as demonstrated over and over in interviews. Why not both? That seems like the obviously best perspective.
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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 ..."