caprica

[sophiaserpentia]

I've been watching Caprica with cowgrrl, and she posed this question last night. It's a good one, so I'm curious to see what other people think.

Caprica is a society with legalized pot, sanctioned group marriage, total acceptance of homosexuality, and general sexual freedom. But since this is a prequel to Battlestar Galactica, we know that there is soon going to be a war between Cylons and Humans leading to the eventual destruction of Caprica and the other 11 colonies.

So... is this portrayal of Caprica as a pleasure-permissive society an indication that the writers and producers believe these are features of an advanced human civilization? Or, do they indicate that Caprica is a decadent society ready to fall due to its own hubris? Or is it wrong to interpret this portrayal as delivering any sort of political statement?

Comments

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

There is quite possibly an issue with vocabulary and definition. I am notoriously averse to history as a course of study, so you definition of barbarian and mine likely differ. If "barbarian" is a purely relative term, then it would depend on the two societies being compared. In our history, I can see where empires tend to dominate barbarians. If evolved/barbarian are objective terms, with certain traits being attained only when one has "evolved", then our history may consist entirely of various levels of barbarians. Have we had what would be considered an evolved/advanced civilization on par with what Caprica is presenting? One of the traits you indicated in their portrayal is a lack of focus on military efforts. If evolving as a society means dropping military forces, that would leave the evolved society open to overthrow from those "barbarian" societies like most of our history's empires.

My original comment was based essentially on an objective definition of evolved/barbarian, where all of our current societies would likely be termed "barbarian", and Caprica being the utopian "evolved" society people aim for - much like the search for spiritual enlightenment.