Why are Klingons so evil?
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Are Klingons evil? Do they have a nature or culture that's any more innately imperialistic than Human cultures have been?
Or have they just not yet reached a point where they've recognized that imperialism is ultimately bad and self-defeating?
Warlike is warlike - nothing more, nothing less. Warlike doesn't necessarily mean evil. Even if individual Klingons can be considered evil - and I would agree that some of them could - that doesn't make the entire species evil, nor does it make it predisposed to evil.
Edit: To an evil, yes - that of war and conquest. But irredeemably evil? I just don't see it.
Edit: To an evil, yes - that of war and conquest. But irredeemably evil? I just don't see it.
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Klingons are not evil, understandably or not. Some of them surely are, and given their bikers/vikings/mongols aesthetics they serve well as villains of the piece, but that's it.
I think it was implied- and the novels have expanded on this- that a racial fear resulting from invasion by the Hur'q has, shall we say, traumatized Klingon culture to the point where they became defined by that fear. They're obssessed with strength, war and being "tough" because they have a deep, deep fear of the "can't let it happen again" variety. If you posture and stab and conquer and grab resources and build fleets of warships, you feel safer. Of course, being scared isn't something you'd ever permit yourself to admit to as a society, so you ignore that fear and allow aggression to drive you without confronting where that anger and aggression is coming from. The Klingons are unpleasant and they really need to self-examine a lot more, but they're not "evil". I wouldn't call any alien race in Trek "evil", which suits me just fine
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I remember coming up with a random theory that the Klingons were originally an artificially created race bred with the express purpose of being soldiers, but killed their creators (or at least enough of them to make them run away) and their culture and race evolved from there. Hence some aspects of their mythology and their innately violent nature.
However, it bordered on epic-level fanwankery, picking the most isolated of quotes and linking the most distant facts, to complete the theory
However, it bordered on epic-level fanwankery, picking the most isolated of quotes and linking the most distant facts, to complete the theory
I don't think that the Klingons are fearful, or that they're genetically prediposed to violence. Frankly, I think that it's just that Klingon culture is more violent.
In a strange way, Klingon culture is based on a certain idea of equality: To the Klingons, the only thing that makes one person -- or culture -- truly "superior" to another is physical combat occurring according to a certain set of rules ("honorable combat"). So, to Klingons, all combatants have an equal opportunity to win in honorable combat; if they lose, they believe they deserved to lose, and if they win, they believe they deserved to win.
To the Klingon mindset, this is more fair and like tyrannical than what it likely views the Federation's ideas of persuading other cultures to adopt its egalitarian values as being; after all, Klingons won't judge you for being less intelligent than them, or worshipping the wrong gods, or even for not being Klingon. They'll only judge you on whether or not you are brave enough to face possible death in an assertive manner according to the dictates of honorable combat.
Are they right? I don't think so. I think that the aspect of Klingon culture that compels them to conquer and subjugate others is deeply immoral. But I also think it's wrong to equate their entire culture with pure evil. There are good and admirable things about Klingon culture, and as Klingons are exposed to the Federation's ideology, I suspect that the parts of Klingon culture we view as immoral will eventually be willfully abandoned.
In a strange way, Klingon culture is based on a certain idea of equality: To the Klingons, the only thing that makes one person -- or culture -- truly "superior" to another is physical combat occurring according to a certain set of rules ("honorable combat"). So, to Klingons, all combatants have an equal opportunity to win in honorable combat; if they lose, they believe they deserved to lose, and if they win, they believe they deserved to win.
To the Klingon mindset, this is more fair and like tyrannical than what it likely views the Federation's ideas of persuading other cultures to adopt its egalitarian values as being; after all, Klingons won't judge you for being less intelligent than them, or worshipping the wrong gods, or even for not being Klingon. They'll only judge you on whether or not you are brave enough to face possible death in an assertive manner according to the dictates of honorable combat.
Are they right? I don't think so. I think that the aspect of Klingon culture that compels them to conquer and subjugate others is deeply immoral. But I also think it's wrong to equate their entire culture with pure evil. There are good and admirable things about Klingon culture, and as Klingons are exposed to the Federation's ideology, I suspect that the parts of Klingon culture we view as immoral will eventually be willfully abandoned.
While I like this interpretation, I think it reflects the Klingon culture in its "ideal" form, and that form has developed to legitimate the means by which Klingons deal with their collective fears. The fact that so often the system of honour is disgarded or ignored in favour of irrational violence or treachery suggests to me there's something other than mere cultural differences going on. I think that culture is informed by something collective to the Klingon psyche- not inherent or biological in basis, but the result of a civilization-wide trauma. The culture of strength through combat and strict honour codes allows for those fears to be put to rest in a manner that supports an advanced civilization. I think your analysis of Klingon culture is great, but I think that culture is only one manifestation of something else, which also manifests in those Klingons who reject the honour codes and embrace deceit, etc.
But then I'm inclined to define real-life humans in similar ways (minus the alien invasion bit), so I guess I would read this into the presentation of their culture.
L
Lord Garth
Guest
I don't see the Klingons as evil and I don't think they were meant to be even as far back as the '60s. Adversaries? Yes. Brutal? Yes. Evil? No.
From their first appearance in "Errand of Mercy", the Organian said the Federation and the Klingons would become friends.
In "Day of the Dove", Kang is introduced and is probably the first honorable Klingon.
In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Kruge was acting against the Klingons' interests as Kruge said, "Even as our emissaries negotiate for peace with the Federation..."
Then hawks like the Klingon Ambassador in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, probably among others, used the events in the previous movie as an excuse to cut off peace talks -- until they were forced into them again by the explosion of Praxis.
From their first appearance in "Errand of Mercy", the Organian said the Federation and the Klingons would become friends.
In "Day of the Dove", Kang is introduced and is probably the first honorable Klingon.
In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Kruge was acting against the Klingons' interests as Kruge said, "Even as our emissaries negotiate for peace with the Federation..."
Then hawks like the Klingon Ambassador in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, probably among others, used the events in the previous movie as an excuse to cut off peace talks -- until they were forced into them again by the explosion of Praxis.
To me, Klingons are no more evil than we are today--but they are a bit more aggressive and have a tendency not to take any shit from anyone, IMO...
But there's so little we actually know about the worlds within the Klingon Empire. Were they all taken by force or did some worlds willingly join and enter into a protectorate status with the Empire? Some worlds may even be indistinguishable from those within the Federation except that they fly the Klingon flag, who knows?
But there's so little we actually know about the worlds within the Klingon Empire. Were they all taken by force or did some worlds willingly join and enter into a protectorate status with the Empire? Some worlds may even be indistinguishable from those within the Federation except that they fly the Klingon flag, who knows?
One might say that the Klingon Empire is famed for its ruthless conquest and oppression, judging by Kirk's description of the differences between the enemy reign and the UFP way of things in "Errand of Mercy". Whether one took this ruthlessness as a sign of innate evil, or proof of similarities with those expansionist reigns on Earth that have kept on conquering because this was the only way to support their economies (say, China and Rome at certain points of their history), or equated the latter with the former and saw no mitigation of guilt in the necessity, would be up to one's personal preferences and interpretations.
Then again, Kirk could be taken as sprouting very thick propaganda in that episode. The differences in the expansionist policies of the two interstellar powers may not be that big - this was one of the points of the episode, after all. And objective proof of Klingon expansionism is actually miissing; all their attempts in TOS were thwarted, while comparable UFP attemps were at least implied to have succeeded.
As for the "honor" thing and the positive and negative aspects of the Kahlessian code, I'd argue that this is classic samurai stuff. It's nothing ingrained in the Klingon psyche - merely an externally imposed code intended to control the warrior class and to stop it from becoming a peacetime nuisance. The average Klingon probably isn't all that different from the average human. But the Klingon a human is most likely to meet is a warrior, and his behavior is dictated by the needs of his government. The warrior has to have ways to vent his aggression without jeopardizing his command structure, even in peacetime. This may take violent and "evil" forms that are not found in those armed forces that do not constitute an actual warrior class.
The degree of evil would have its ebbs and tides, then. Kahlessian honor code would be in fashion whenever the Empire was suffering from peace and was afraid of its idled warriors. When there was the possibility for glorious wars, the warriors would be given looser rein, and the honor code would be simplified to the classic "nothing is more honorable than victory". Which version of the Klingons would be nicer is anyone's guess: the seething but chained-down warrior and the loose cannon both have their mean sides, but both also have a degree of predictability and even likeability.
That said, I do like to think that the Hur'q oppression of the past has left marks in the Klingon politics, if not in the individual psyche. And the cure to the Hur'q hangover, the Kahlessian myth, is probably worse than the disease, because Kahless is written to have launched the Klingon expansion to stars by pointing to a distant star and essentially saying "meet me there". Whatever the pragmatic reasons for Klingon expansion, they can always be justified to the population through the Kahless mythology.
The Feds would have different excuses for their expansion, but the root causes need not be different, nor must the individual's psyche be particularly dissimilar.
Timo Saloniemi
Then again, Kirk could be taken as sprouting very thick propaganda in that episode. The differences in the expansionist policies of the two interstellar powers may not be that big - this was one of the points of the episode, after all. And objective proof of Klingon expansionism is actually miissing; all their attempts in TOS were thwarted, while comparable UFP attemps were at least implied to have succeeded.
As for the "honor" thing and the positive and negative aspects of the Kahlessian code, I'd argue that this is classic samurai stuff. It's nothing ingrained in the Klingon psyche - merely an externally imposed code intended to control the warrior class and to stop it from becoming a peacetime nuisance. The average Klingon probably isn't all that different from the average human. But the Klingon a human is most likely to meet is a warrior, and his behavior is dictated by the needs of his government. The warrior has to have ways to vent his aggression without jeopardizing his command structure, even in peacetime. This may take violent and "evil" forms that are not found in those armed forces that do not constitute an actual warrior class.
The degree of evil would have its ebbs and tides, then. Kahlessian honor code would be in fashion whenever the Empire was suffering from peace and was afraid of its idled warriors. When there was the possibility for glorious wars, the warriors would be given looser rein, and the honor code would be simplified to the classic "nothing is more honorable than victory". Which version of the Klingons would be nicer is anyone's guess: the seething but chained-down warrior and the loose cannon both have their mean sides, but both also have a degree of predictability and even likeability.
That said, I do like to think that the Hur'q oppression of the past has left marks in the Klingon politics, if not in the individual psyche. And the cure to the Hur'q hangover, the Kahlessian myth, is probably worse than the disease, because Kahless is written to have launched the Klingon expansion to stars by pointing to a distant star and essentially saying "meet me there". Whatever the pragmatic reasons for Klingon expansion, they can always be justified to the population through the Kahless mythology.
The Feds would have different excuses for their expansion, but the root causes need not be different, nor must the individual's psyche be particularly dissimilar.
Timo Saloniemi
I don't remember ever hearing about this, when did this happen? Just curious.
I could see a 'lost writing of Kahless' being found after the Hur'q attack to help convince the Klingons to go forth into the galaxy, but as to Kahless being connected to the Hur'q directly, I wouldn't have thought possible, since I'm sure the two (Kahless and the Hur'q) are separated by a time period of about 400 years?
Agreed.
I don't see Klingons as evil, they just have competing interests with the UFP and other neighbors and have a different means to obtain it.
Yeah, because an individual being an asshole is just what it takes to judge an entire species.
^^ I never actually cared much for Klingons either -- all that clashing weaponry and all that testosterone sloshing around. But that doesn't make the entire species evil. Nor do the boasts of one group of Klingons. There are human beings alive today who are JUST as boastful as those Klingons, and yet I like to think not all humans are evil.
Klingons were created as a metaphor of the Soviet Union. When relations were bad, they were the villain like in the Trek movies. Then relations improved, the Berlin wall, ect. and we got 'the final frontier'. Relations improved. Then a Klingon is a crew member in the next generation. I think basically they tend to get evil and less evil is similar to how the west views Russia. Not to say Russia is evil, its just a good metaphor of world events.
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