A short walk through any of our broken and dystopian cities makes us long for the rosy age when the Earth was a beautiful garden, unspoiled by human progress. It seems that our running water and food on demand were delivered at a deep and devastating price. If only we could go back to a time when we lived in harmony with nature. Would it be possible to bathe in crystal waters and eat the most nutritious foods falling from lush trees? A weird alien cult that the Enterprise finds aboard a renegade ship thinks so. While interrupting their misguided search for a better life, Kirk and crew encounter Spaaaace Hippies!
After tracking down the stolen space cruiser, the Enterprise beams aboard six members of a strange cult who are in search of a planet called “Eden”. They are part of a wider movement, which has rejected modern technology for a simpler and unspoiled life. To everyone’s surprise, Spock is familiar with the group and is sympathetic to their cause. The new passengers are given a medical examination to treat any injuries, and it is revealed that one member, a scientist named Sevrin, carries deadly bacteria. He is convinced that the artificial modern environments of the future inflicted this condition, and the planet Eden will cure him of it.
Sevrin’s unwavering belief, as well as this article’s sappy introduction, are examples of a bias toward nature and primitivism. It is a belief that the natural world is superior to anything synthetically made, and therefore everything from nature is good. This view is a vast oversimplification. Nature has produced many toxic compounds, venomous animals, and dangerous contamination. Nothing ‘natural’ tries to cater to human needs, it only wants to survive. The idea that humans were living in harmony with the environment is also a fallacy. Ancient cultures may have deeply respected nature, but they fought just as hard for their survival. The Biblical Garden of Eden was a perfect paradise, to which we could never return once we stole the ability to discern right from wrong. A taste of the knowledge that destroyed our innocence forever would be the barrier that seals us out of a more harmonious state of consciousness. The Space Hippies think Eden is a place, but really it represented purity.
Nevertheless, Sevrin is so fixated on the possibility of a cure for his condition, convinced that he will find relief in the harmony and beauty of nature, that he seizes the Enterprise and locates the planet Eden. The Hippie group steals a shuttle and enters a poisoned paradise. When the Enterprise crew finally catch up, they find Sevrin dead from the toxic fruit, and the others with acid burns on their feet.
There is no shortage of ailments in our modern, industrial jungle, but the actual jungle offers up some whammies itself. Sevrin was convinced that his bacterial infection was the result of modern science, and perhaps it was. As long as he stayed within an advanced civilization, he would have remained a harmless carrier, buffered by a vaccinated population. His condition was only dangerous for isolated and undeveloped peoples. Modern science was both a cause and mitigation of his condition. However, it is understandable that he simply wanted to be fully rid of the infection, and perhaps harboured deep resentment toward the modern world which caused it. If technology did this to him, it must be bad, and the opposite of man-made technology is nature, which is good. This simplistic analysis prevented him from proceeding with caution into a hostile environment, which looked on the surface like a garden. Those who cry so loudly that we should return to nature have often forgotten why we left it in the first place.
Hopeless Trekkie 