Why is Spock cool again?

OK, so here comes the geek in me, not that it wasn't already obvious.

Spock is cool again because, we have had far too much deciding from the gut over the last two decades, far too much breaking of the rules because that's how you win the game. Way too much James T. Kirk.

Basically Obama is Spock, and the other way around, too.

Nevermind the total repression of emotions. We have seen Spock's occasional outbursts when the breakdown of civilization is imminent

Spock is popular again because we need the governance of intellect and knowledge over gamesmanship.

If Obama's election was made possible by seeing images of successful black athletes and actors performing at levels beyond anything the public could manage, if Denzel Washington and Michael Jordan were floating around in white swing voters' unconscious, then so was Spock, the mixed race commander, you know you can trust.

Back with the original series, I had always took Spock to represent the struggle of Eastern European Jews to assimilate in WASP American--that comes from growing up brainy in Queens.

Now suddenly the mixed heritage, the struggle between two parents, two cultures has a new allegorical reference. It was always there, but now Spock's complicated cultural and family heritage, his struggles to excel in his mother's society even as he is marked by his father's appearance, all this has a new referent that was always implicit in the myth of immigration and the original show, but now has a concrete historical referent.

So my newest t-shirt design:

Spock=Obama

Same ol’ Same Ol’

I remember back in the 70s when I went to church regularly with my parents, there was a guest pastor who railed in good old fashioned Lutheran fashion against pop culture. He was so engaged in fire and brimstone that we all got a kick out of it. He even skewered me when he pounded against children who watch Star Trek so many times that they can recite the dialogue. Mind you this was 1975.

Today I am off to NYC to hang out with my 45 year old friends at the latest Star Trek film. Over thirty years after receiving my first denunciation of repetition.

Never mind Kierkegaard. Repetition is now built into our environment. It is no longer an existential decision a lá Nietzsche. Now it is all there is.

Culture is indeed over, just as those horrible conservatives claimed. This Hegelian conclusion applies to the upper class of the West. Culturally we have not moved beyond the 70s, whether it’s Star Wars or the Sex Pistols. Technology has moved forward amazingly, but content, otherwise known as quality, has changed only in the sense that 1970s thoughts have been unfolded, rehashed, and disseminated further, but never upended, denounced, overthrown or replaced. You still hear Pink Floyd and Jim Morrison as you drive down the highway.

Is there no avant-garde other than the old guard?