Maybe not lessons learned, so much, as observations.
Kirk hates working societies
Throughout the series, Starfleet’s Prime Directive is often brought up as the reason why a character should or should not act in a certain manner. At its heart the philosophy is meant to protect less developed civilizations from being screwed up by more advanced civilizations, i.e. the Federation of Planets. Under the directive, Starfleet personnel aren’t supposed to identify themselves as aliens to lesser civilizations, nor interfere with the civilization’s development, or make any references to more advanced species, space, tech or other worlds.
Despite this, Kirk seems to go out of his way to ignore the Prime Directive. Yes, it makes the story more dramatic, but Kirk always imposes his view of things on to other cultures.
For example, in the episode The Apple, Kirk and crew beam down to a planet run by a computer / machine that seems to have created an idyllic society. The planet is beautiful, food plentiful, a virtual paradise. The inhabitants are happy and healthy and have no complaints. It works for all involved. Yet Kirk thinks the culture has stagnated, and the people are little better than robots serving their ‘god.’ So, he ups and destroys the computer / machine, forcing the inhabitants to have to develop on their own. They now have to struggle to get their own food, to survive, even to procreate. They will grow old and die and have to figure out social / family dynamics. They may end up with crime, poverty, disease, and war. But this is “all for their own good” according to Kirk. The moral of the story is that even though it is chaotic and disruptive, it is better to live life free from a controlling influence and be in control of your own destiny, never mind the fact that Kirk traded one controlling influence (a machine that made everything work and idyllic) for another (the Federation is going to step in and guide them in developing their own culture.)
There are other examples of this in other episodes. The same moral seems to apply – freedom to choose your own way rather than have someone else do it for you. I tend to favor the first part, but if having someone or something else control things, and it works without otherwise being harmful to all involved, where’s the harm?
Sex in spaaaace!
Admittedly, the series was made in the 1960’s and they had different views on the topic back then. They go through great pains to not bring up the subject explicitly in conversation, even to point of being painful to watch now.
The episode Amok Time has Spock getting all kinds of cranky as he goes through pon farr, the Vulcan mating cycle. Every seven years the Vulcans get horny and must mate or die. Sort of like salmon returning to their spawning grounds. As Kirk queries Spock as to what is bothering him, Spock can’t just come out and say he needs sex. Instead Spock states it is a deeply personal matter.
When Kirk presses him on it, Spock says the problem is of a biological nature. Kirk puts the pieces together. “Reproduction?” he asks. Spock acknowledges they have hit the proverbial nail on the head.
Even though they can’t openly talk about the subject, it is all through the series. Kirk makes out with a beautiful alien in nearly every episode. Green-skinned Orion slave girls dance alluringly to distract males. The costuming shows as much skin as possible without exposing the naughty bits.
Sex sells, even in space operas.
It’s interesting, looking back and seeing how both naive and titillating ways the topic was handled throughout the series. The 60’s had the space race, the Viet Nam War, and the hippy flower child free love culture all going on. Culture was changing how sex was seen in the media and would both continue and remain the same on into the 70’s when the Sexual Revolution played a big factor. Maybe the fine line of censorship needs to have Kirk come in and throw it out, in order for media to develop on it owns terms.
Then again, I think cable TV, and now steaming services have done that. You can get sex, violence, drug abuse and any number of vices portrayed in stories now. Is it better than when you couldn’t talk about sex directly and had to dance around the topic in your stories?
I’ll let you make that determination for yourself, my Hordeling.
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Even as far back as the late ’60s, there was commentary to the effect that Star Trek’s Prime Directive was a great, moral, even noble idea, but it also was a barrier to good stories.
Of course, real non-interference would require humans to mothball Starfleet and stay put on Earth. Observation without interference is impossible; to observe inherently interferes with the object being observed. We’ve known this ever since Heisenberg.
There are times when I think the human race should definitely NOT be allowed off this dirtball to spread their wooly thinking throughout the rest of the galaxy. But it has always been a lifelong dream of mine, thanks to Gene Rodenberry and Star Trek, to see what’s out there. Dualistic nature ca be a PITA sometimes.