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The Prime Directive

By Anonymous
Some brothers came to a holy hermit who lived in the desert and outside the hermitage they found a boy tending the sheep and using uncouth words. After they had told the hermit their thoughts and profited from his reply, they said, “Abba, why do you allow those boys to be here, and why don’t you order them to stop hurling abuse at each other?” He said, “Indeed, my brothers, there are days when I want to order them to stop it, but I hold myself back, saying, if I can’t put up with this little thing, how shall I put up with a serious temptation, if God ever lets me be so tempted? So I say nothing to them, and try to get into the habit of bearing whatever happens.”

—

I should start off by admitting to you that I watch Star Trek. You don’t have to watch Star Trek to understand this blog post, but why wouldn’t you? It’s a quarantine, y’all, and it’s a great show.

I do, however, have one problem with Star Trek. Set in a time centuries from now, it depicts the human race as having reached a certain level of enlightenment, but we have done so by dispensing of religion entirely. In Star Trek, religion is irrational, archaic; it leads to division. Beliefs are fine in others as we observe them from our scientific worldview, but are generally unhelpful to the rational pursuit of truth our heroes undertake.

So imagine my surprise when I found the desert fathers and Star Trek espousing the same belief in this short story of the monk and the boys with “uncouth mouths.” The very highest rule for our Star Trek heroes is called “the prime directive,” which states that our explorers are not to interfere with the developments of species. More primitive worlds and societies must be left alone, observed and respected in whatever its developmental trajectory.

Despite the repeated insistence on this single non-negotiable rule, it’s also the most-broken command in the show. Heroes must rush in and set things right. I get it. I see something going wrong and I feel a righteous, moral drive to step in and correct it. So sure am I in my superior vantage point that, so benevolent in my motives, my correction becomes a kind of cause. This situation needs me. It’s for their own good. And silencing the uncouth mouths of young boys? I wouldn’t even have a second thought.

Why does the holy hermit refuse even this simple interference? Why is the Prime Directive such an absolute belief? Maybe because they both recognize the path my mind went down in the last paragraph. The hermit could trace the line from when he took offense to the corrective action all the way down, past benevolence and righteousness, all the way down to that insidious layer of judgment and presumption that let me imagine I could look down on anyone at all. So, rather continuing to justify his corrections, he stops it at the source. Not even uncouth boys will receive their deserving reprimands. There will be no judgment at all.


In the Christian life, we often excuse our small sins (if we even see them as sins) by comparing our behaviors with the easy targets of judgment around us. The holy hermit withdraws because he knows we are all on the same level. Do you know this? 



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