Long Live the Alliance! 〈同盟万岁！〉

I am not unique in that I fell in love with Joss Whedon's Firefly from the first episode, nor in that I came late to Firefly fandom, having seen it on the DVD's. I felt, as most people did who love the show, that it was solid science-fiction that didn't require too drastic a suspension of disbelief and that even if it had it would have made up for it in spades with its characters. I got involved with the characters such that I was angry enough to bash something with my head when a certain character died in the movie (I won't spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it). It was not a serial; each episode stood on its own and on the strength of the development of its characters. It simply oozed style as a gritty space-western complete with shootouts, last stands and train robberies. It was, all in all, a wonderful piece of science fiction that deserves to be remembered alongside Star Trek.

There is, however, one problem that particularly stands out. I cannot bring myself to agree with the primary messages of the series.

The story centres itself around a chevalier-mal-fait named Mal who, six years ago, fought on the side of the Independent Faction against the Union of Allied Planets (known informally as the Alliance and by the derogatory Purplebellies) in a planetary Civil War of sorts. Suffice to say, the Independents lost, and now the survivors must pick up the pieces and find work where they can (often as pirates or smugglers), on the border planets. Mal bought a small freighter (the titular Firefly) and acquired a crew, which are the foci of the TV show.

There is firstly the issue of the rather unsubtle sympathy with the historical Confederacy and Reconstruction-Era South which I find reprehensible (a country founded on the primary basis of institutionalised racism and exploitation is nowhere near deserving of this kind of sympathy in my book - this aspect goes ignored in the allegorical history of the series). But behind this there is another, deeper issue. I would describe myself as a lower-case 'd' democrat, but I believe that if democracy is going to work, it is going to have to entail some kind of communitarian ethic in which the citizens recognise their responsibilities both to each other and to the rule of law. Firefly's romanticisation of what I call the 'cowboy ethos' is, of course, understandable given the tenor of the series, but at the same time, it is something I see as the Achilles' heel of American-style democracy. As a society, we tend to emphasise the individual rights as sovereign, sometimes to the detriment of the realisation that no man lives in a vacuum - he lives among a community of other people and in a natural environment, both of which should have his respect. The language of independence and rugged self-sufficiency is, of course, a staple of American historical and political rhetoric and practise (and embodied in the mythos of the lone American cowboy), but, in general, very little attention is paid to the aspects of responsibility, of community-building and of interdependence which must also be primary realities of democratic practise.

I bring attention to the dichotomy of the main characters' views in Firefly regarding their situation in the system: on the one hand, you have the former Independents, struggling to survive on the fringes of the system, looking out for number one, exercising their right to live free from Alliance meddling. On the other side you have the Alliance: bureaucratic, heavy-handed, its citizens living in comparative comfort and closer contact with one another under (what appears to be) an oppressive, 1984-esque regime. The main characters (particularly Mal and Zoe)stand in complete support of the former and complete rejection of the latter, no doubt in part because they are still seen as the enemy.

Yes, the Alliance seems quite sketchy from Firefly's perspective. Many of the officials are corrupt in the vast bureaucracy, there are strong corporate ties with megacorps straight out of a cyberpunk novel (the logo of the 蓝日 'Blue Sun' company appears in many places), it dabbles in abduction, assassination and human experimentation (as the backstory of River Tam shows). But the Alliance is also run by a Parliament (perhaps in name only, but even so), its citizens are by and large happy and well-off (and more civilised), and the attitudes portrayed by characters in the series who have a strong Alliance background (Inara, Book, Simon and River Tam) display without a doubt that they have no trouble expressing their own opinions on touchy issues (a good, democratic quality). Joss Whedon even made parallels in the commentary between his Alliance and Gene Roddenberry's more optimistically-portrayed Federation, and admitted that the Alliance was being portrayed from a very specific point-of-view.

In jest, I asked a fellow fan of the series whether she thought me a total fascist for having more sympathy for the Alliance than for the former Independents. She pointed out many of the same points in the Alliance's favour I've made here. It strikes me that if the democratic dream is to come to full fruition, it is going to have to establish a dialectic between individualistic ideals of independence and more communitarian ideals of mutual respect, support and social capital. We should build a democratic society on the twin pillars, to borrow Dr. Amitai Etzioni's metaphor, of individual rights and responsibilities to one's community.

For more good ideas from a radical-centrist with his head screwed on straight, allow me to recommend his weblog: http://www.amitai-notes.com/blog

Here's to finding a balance:

Long Live the Alliance! 同盟万岁！