Blog 2022-11-22
STNG Darmok [∞]
Star Trek: The Next Generation - Darmok
The Enterprise encountered a race of people who spoke in metaphor. They could understand the words, but they could not understand the intent or meaning of them.
He was transported to the surface of a planet with the captain of the Tamarian ship to battle a common enemy together. In the course of the battle, they lived out a dinner theater for the others who added the experience to their metaphoric vocabulary.
All language is metaphoric. A child learns by seeing a pattern of action associated with words. We point to a variety of critters or pictures of them and say 'dog', in order to imprint a shared experience, which can then be expressed in a variety of symbols or words.
It is sometimes difficult to unlearn mispronounced words, because they have become foundational to anchoring the ideas behind them. Names invented by children stick for a very long time. 'Sketti' and 'pasketti' serve just as well as 'spaghetti' when they are part of a shared experience.
The fictional Tamarians spoke in ideas. The lives of people were the pen and ink. This is a great analogy for the language of God contained in the 'mystery hidden from the beginning'. These are 'Tamarian' synonyms:
Baby Moses in his mother's arms, the Hebrews in Goshem, Noah among men, Abram in Ur, Tablets in an ark, spies under Tamar's sheaves, Jesus in Bethlehem.
Can you identify the Tamarian idea?
BTW, Roddenberry did an excellent job of illustrating the language of God's mystery; the lives of people made into the foundational ideas for communication.
Can you tell the next Tamarian scene? It begins: Moses under threat,...
