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I'd say there's very little progressivism baked into Star Trek (at least up to ds9, which is the only stuff I've seen). There's no notion of affirmative action. People are subordinate to their superiors. Race and gender is simply not salient at all.
Here's the classic scene: https://youtube.com/watch?v=HKII3sFUCgs?feature=shared
Acting commander Data (a (simulacrum of) a white man) takes Whorf (an Underrepresented Minority in Starfleet) into his office to give him a dressing down about being insubordinate. Whorf takes it like a man and apologizes. Could such a scene be made today?
Relative to the time period this was extremely progressive.
There's a reason Martin luther king jr. famously publicly fanboyed over star trek.
I think the main difference is you're used to post 2010 ish idea's of DEI, and those are definitely much different from the 1960s progressivism in star trek
It seems to me that "treat people as individuals rather than members of groups" is the sine qua non of classical liberalism. Progressivism must necessarily be about the Marxist struggle of the oppressed (groups) versus the oppressor (group).
And that sort of classical liberalism was controversial in the 60's when Star Trek was doing it with the OS and, if not controversial, at least something people had in mind as a sore point when TNG was doing it in the 80's.
And how is that relevant? I don't think progressives should get to claim movents from the past, that they are now vehemently rejecting.
Progressive just wasn't a word used much at the time, but the kind of liberalism TOS/TNG Star Trek embodied could have pretty uncontroversially been called 'progressive'. It's not that modern progressives are claiming some past non-progressive ideology as their own, it's that the word 'progressive' itself has morphed in meaning since the 1960's (and before...), to the point where most people who would identify as 'progressive' today are really just Leftists. Most modern 'liberals' in the old progressive sense are just confused and can't tell this has happened.
It's not about the word, it's about the ideas behind it.
Yes it is. Every single time, when someone complains about the new Star Trek departing from it's original ideals, a modern progressive jumps in to claim the old Star Trek as well, and thus invalidate all complaints about the new one.
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Sure, but it's different from progressivism.
It was at the time, although progressivism was a dead word that only got revived in the 90's after conservatives succeeded in making 'liberal' a dirty word.
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Some would argue that it goes even further than that. If anything this is the sine qua non of enlightenment values and post modernism (of which Marxism is a sub school) is by its nature post/anti-enlightenment.
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