Out of respect for how long this original post is:
@nerdfishgirl: Oh, I definitely don’t agree with Cardassian social class as described in beta canon! I have serious issues with just about everything a certain beta canon writer (not Andy) has written! Seriously - I actually have any to do with the author blocked on here because it makes me too angry.
So I agree that Cardassia does not have a social class system like 19th century England, or 18th-19th century France, or even like the US now.
I agree that it is a probably a totalitarian socialist/communist society. And I think the closest Earth analogues are probably the USSR or China as it exists today - there are also some parallels with North Korea. In those societies, class still mattered/matters.
But class operates differently than in a capitalist society. In the USSR (and to a large extent in China) social class was/is directly related to how well you had ingratiated yourself with the ruling party and the people in it. And it was/is possible for anyone to do this - even those who grew up very poor (in fact depending on the political climate, it could actually be easier for them). Once you had/have achieved that status, it was/is possible to pass that standing on to your children (because they were raised as good party members with connections to the ruling elite and those who would become the ruling elite). It was also possible for them to loose that status by angering the wrong people.
So part of the ability to succeed in that sort of system was/is knowing the dirt on everyone else to be able to manipulate them (hence the shri-tal in Cardassian society).
In some of these societies (most notably North Korea) loss of status of a family member impacts the status of all the rest of the family - this is less true in China and was less true in the USSR - if the family members of the offender put sufficient political distance between themselves and the offender, or if the offense was sufficiently contrived (as was the case with Dukat’s father).
For earth examples of socialist/communist societies with a class system, check out:
China: hukou system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou
North Korea: songbun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbun
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On to my reply:
I’ve made a few posts before about how the Cardassian Union is heavily inspired by the Soviet Union, but you are correct in that it’s not a perfect analogue, and of course it was also inspired by other governmental institutions with similar policies.
Here are a few key features:
- They do seem to be broadly atheistic, which seemed to be an understated position in TOS (and was the intent, up to what the networks would allow–e.g. “Who Mourns for Adonis?” and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier), but had become gauche by TNG and DS9 (to appear actively irreligious). This was a conspicuous stance of the USSR and was remarked upon contemporaneously.
- Their conflict with the Bajorans heavily, heavily echoes the Soviet-Afghan War. The strategies of the Bajorans echo the mujaheddin almost 1:1 (with a little extra IRA flair that @damnhardwork would ensure I mentioned). You could pull Kira’s tactics directly from The Other Side of the Mountain. There’s a bit more detail on this silly post about why, if I were to do a “modern-day-ish Earth AU” of DS9 it would be set there, which has a bit more detail about this conflict.
- The incessant drinking of kanar, even on the job, was also an unsubtle jab at stereotypes about Soviets and Russians in particular. Probably not even Palantir has developed the necessary AI to figure out why this blog links to this article about Boris Yeltsin so often.
- The Soviets were just culturally relevant at the time. The Soviet Union fell in 1991, and DS9 premiered only two years later. It’s one reason I shrug when people seem to think they’re meant to be Nazis–those people, I assume, are only familiar with one historical adversarial government, because for so many reasons it doesn’t track, not the least of which being that *sigh* Nazis were less relevant in 1993 than they are today.
- The Obsidian Order is described as nothing less than the ‘gator KGB, and plays a similar role in their culture. The Supreme Tribunal as part of the Ministry of Justice, as we witness under Archon Makbar, is reminiscent of the perception of the Soviet justice system.
- Their obsession with the superiority of their artistic output, including literature, ballet, the visual arts… whole gamut. That was a Soviet fixation. The Soviet Union was zealous about the status of its art, even as it disavowed certain aspects of the art scene as they had existed in the Romanov dynasty etc.
- That you could see key leaders (e.g. Gul Madred) come from poverty or extremely meager means, such as the hero Marshal Zhukov (and I’ll call him a hero because, fuck Hitler), who was raised in peasant poverty and rose to become the most-decorated Soviet general alongside Brezhnev, who… I’m just going to quote this:
Two men got the Hero of the Soviet Union four times: Georgy Zhukov and Leonid Brezhnev. Zhukov got them for his actions on the Far Eastern front, being named as the key strategist in multiple battles and fronts across WWII and for the victory over Germany, and on top of those medals he also was the only man to win the Order of Victory three times. Brezhnev got his for actions such as his birthday and because he was the guy in charge of deciding who can get the highest awards.
Ostensibly this would apply to Garak also, as he wasn’t known as Tain’s son publicly. So though Tain might have provided him advantages, they weren’t the result of that familial tie outright. We do know (”Cardassians” season 2) that they value explicit blood ties, but clearly cannot have a society entirely defined by them.
- There doesn’t seem to be “one” leader outside the odd wartime situation that develops with Dukat, Damar, and eventually Broca. I suspect they have more of a Central Committee. And I think it fits better with their sensibility. Yes, the USSR had a Premiere, but in this context (though frankly, I don’t think that Cardassians usually had even that).
- An effort to have women in positions that even in the TNG era were conspicuously masculine among most races, including those of the Federation (certainly including the Vulcans, who had a heavily-gendered society in TOS, which thankfully they tried to walk back as the show progressed, as with Saavik). This tendency to give women certain types of not-traditionally-feminine roles extends back to TNG, with Gul Ocett. However, it carries through particularly to the engineers such as Gilora and Ulani, who make it clear that engineers are overwhelmingly women. This is suggestive of the Soviet Union’s complicated relationship with attempted efforts towards gender equality. (Article 122 of constitution of the USSR stated “Women in the USSR are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social, and political life”, which technically is more constitutional protection than women enjoy in the modern-day United States.) This… phenomenon in the USSR is way too complicated to go into for a Star Trek post, but it was certainly suggestive of what governments the show was drawing inspiration from. Makbar, of the Ministry of Justice, and Iliana Ghemor/Korinas/Dejar of the Obsidian Order also apply here.
There are other things I’m forgetting, surely, but this post is already fairly long. So, moving on:
I agree that the show does have parallels to modern-day China, among other things, though unevenly. Economically, I would say it’s only China pre-1996 or so (that is, pre-Zhuā dà fàng xiǎo). China today has a very strong capitalist bent which we also never really observe in Cardassians. Nothing that even the more sinister Cardassian characters do is ever apparently motivated by material greed. Even Tekeny, someone who is quite influential, and Tain (who ostensibly still is), have apparently modest homes. As Leader Guy of the Union, Damar appears to be sleeping in a… dorm room.
I’d also agree there are parallels with the modern treatment of the Uyghurs (although, “modern”… that’s been happening a fucking while), though I do feel like China is interested in “integrating” the Uyghur, whereas I don’t feel like that was the approach the Cardassians had towards the Bajorans. I think there are also parallels with Tibet as it was discussed at the time the show was written, but I’m out of my depth there, and it’s a bee hive I do not want to poke with a stick.
The “panopticon” aspect is very much modern China, and was very much East Germany and the USSR insofar as technology enabled it at the time. It’s also more of the USA than most people think but… uh, alas, I guess.
(I actually do feel like the Cardassians echo modern American culture substantially more than anybody wants to admit, but… uh, alas^2, I suppose.)
I think the North Korea analogue is crisper, but even there, North Korea is becoming increasingly capitalistic (interesting German documentary here), but Cardassian culture certainly doesn’t seem to have the intense personal, individual “godhood-like” status for its leadership. We know Gul Darhe’el was honored with medals (more USSR-like, again, I’d say) but there’s no indication that people like him are provided almost supernatural reverence. Cardassians never invoke the names of any dead in this way.
I do certainly agree with the influence, however, of having ingratiated oneself and one’s family with the Powers-That-Be. So yes, party ties, as with the USSR, China, North Korea, East Germany, etc. And that this could become, to a degree, effectively dynastic. However, I think this would cap at de facto–never de jure. I think they would always be, at least on paper, meritocracies. Whether that was true in reality is a more complicated question, but certainly I do not get the impression that there are intrinsic limitations based on the circumstances of one’s birth, beyond a lack of material support etc. that would make these hurdles extreme (as with the orphans). Essentially, again, similar to the differences between these aforementioned nominally communist/socialist countries and the experienced reality (and I draw this distinction to ensure that this post doesn’t appear to condemn socialism–there’s a gulf between the behaviors of nominally socialist nations and socialism).
… where the hell was I going with this?
oh yeah IT’S NOT FUCKING 18th CENTURY FRANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
