Why did the the Vulcans hate humans so much in Abrams' movie?

In the new Star Trek 2009 film directed by JJ Abrams, young Spock was continually ridiculed for having a human mother. Certain peers in school even went so far as to call his father a traitor for marrying a human. This seems to be in direct conflict with the Federation's basic ideals of acceptance and tolerance. And if the Vulcans hated humans so much, why would they ever establish an alliance with them?

 

Vulcan hate Humans because Humans aren't Vulcans.

 

Um, they've pretty much been assholes to humans since TOS.

 

Because those few young school boys aren't in charge of Vulcan's government, nor do they represent the entirety of Vulcan society. Those same boys probably matured as they got older anyway, IMO (even Vulcan children have to grow up into Vulcan adults).

 

When I was in my early twenties on a trip to Vulcan I saw a gazelle giving birth ...

 

The Spock-childhood scenes from the 2009 movie were based on the equivalent scenes from D.C. Fontana's "Yesteryear," a 1973 episode of the animated series. There, the children call Spock a "barbarian" and say his father "brought shame to Vulcan" by marrying outside his species.

Children can be extremely cruel and intolerant toward anyone different from what they're used to. If they're raised to believe in certain social conventions, they can be ruthless in shaming anyone who doesn't fit them.

But we saw Vulcan prejudice against humans among adults as well in "Amok Time," when T'Pau seemed scornful of Spock's choice to bring humans to a sacred Vulcan ceremony. Even Spock himself purported to be insulted when compared to a human, although he was presumably joking. We saw other portrayals of Vulcan condescension toward humans in later series, notably the overt Vulcan supremacist Solok in Deep Space Nine's "Take Me Out to the Holosuite." And of course Enterprise showed that such Vulcan attitudes toward humans had been even more pervasive in the 22nd century. But it's been part of the franchise for almost its entire history.

 

Exactly. This was nothing new. Vulcans have been giving humans attitude since day one.

Vulcans are not roles models for humanity and never have been. Spock and McCoy are at opposite sides of the spectrum, with Kirk comfortably in the middle.

 

Yet, humans are portrayed as being above intolerance of this sort (by the 23rd century at least). So, are humans "better" or more enlightened than Vulcans?

Could this be the reason why the Federation is based on Earth?

 

Not really. McCoy was pretty quick with the speciesist remarks toward Spock, and Lt. Stiles was racist toward Romulans. And then there's Kirk's "You Klingon bastard" and "Let them die." Sure, he and Stiles had reason to be angry, but blaming an entire race for the actions of some of its members is still racism. TOS showed a humanity that had overcome prejudice toward other humans, but interspecies prejudice was still a part of its world.

 

Honestly,that's more of a TNG thing. The characters in TOS, while arguably more advanced than twentieth-century human, were not supposed to be enlightened paragons of future humanity. They were flesh-and-blood human being with flaws, not unlike the characters you'd find in a 1940s submarine movie. All their rough edges had not been smoothed out by the more "utopian" mindset of TNG.

Indeed, as we were often reminded, humanity was still a half-savage "child" race that constantly wrestled with its more primitive impulses. (Remember "The Enemy Within" or "A Taste of Armageddon.")

"We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands. But we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today!"--Captain Kirk.

 

Vulcan logic and control of emotion is, apparently, a learned skill. It is no stretch of the imagination that children of that age would 1) not have mastered it yet fully and 2) not be fully aware of the necessity for controlling their emotions. Maybe the really violent tendencies only come out at puberty, if not controlled properly.

To Vulcans, being around emotional beings for an extended period of time must be very trying indeed, and also a bitter reminder of their race's weakness. Perhaps a bit like an ex smoker being around those who do smoke. Also, if emotional races (ie most non-vulcans) probably remind Vulcans of children, and they can't help but treat them as such, perhaps with a bit of a 'you are adults now but you should 'grow up' thrown in.

Yes jmampilly does have a good point, why do the Vulcans bother themselves with other races so much? The logical reason is that they are actually doing what they did to humans for the purposes of preventing a newly spacefaring species from becoming an enemy, rather than for any other altruistic goal.

Makes one wonder how Vulcans coped with young children in general, if Vulcan kids can be just as much of a pain in the neck as human ones.

 

And, honestly, the Vulcans aren't nearly as logical and enlightened as they think they are. Sarek didn't speak to his son for eighteen years because of his pride and inability to get over an old grudge. T'Pring was a schemer who plotted to get her fiancee killed so she could be with another guy. And those were the first full-blooded Vulcans we ever saw on STAR TREK, long before Enterprise or the new movies.

And then, of course, there's Valeris . . . .

Heck, the institution of Kohlinahr would not need to exist if "perfect" logic and lack of emotion was not something that most Vulcans failed to achieve.

As with all cultures, there was often a yawning chasm between a society's ideals and its behavior. (Ditto for Klingon "honor.") Ideals are just that. They're something to aspire to, but often fall short of . . . .

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but in addition to that, in Journey to Babel didn't Amanda (while pleading to Spock to turn command over to Scotty to save Sarek) say something to the effect how she would comfort Spock as a child, due to how cruelly the other Vulcan children would mock him?

 

Yes, that's right. "Journey to Babel" was also by D.C. Fontana. It was also there that she established the sehlat that had been Spock's pet in childhood. "Yesteryear" let her flesh out what she'd established in JtB.

 

Why do you speak as though all Vulcans hated Humans in ST09, when it is very clear that there are Vulcans, such as Sarek, who do not?



I ask that to point out to you how even you fell into the mental trap of painting all of "them" as being alike, whoever "they" are. Those Vulcans with anti-Human prejudices in ST09 fell into that same mental trap and went further along in it.

In any event, TOS itself (in "Journey to Babel") established that Spock suffered from anti-Human bullying as a child, and made it clear (through Spock and Bones's arguments) that there was some prejudice on both sides -- how many times did Spock make an arrogant comment about Vulcan intellectual superiority, and how many times did Bones yell some variation on "you heartless green-blooded freak?" And yet, at the end of the day, both Spock and Bones overcame their prejudices and were friends -- just like, at the end of the day, both Earth and Vulcan overcame their prejudices to unite in the Federation.

 

That's right. I forgot that "Journey to Babel" established (via Amanda) that Spock was bullied a child, long before "Yesteryear" picked up on that thread . . . .

So this was not remotely something invented by the reboot.

 

The Federation is based on Earth because the writers are from Earth, of course.

 

And because it took a while for TOS to invent the Federation. At first, the Enterprise was referred to as an Earth ship, and then it was retconned into a Federation ship. Indeed, in "Friday's Child" Kirk referred to "the Earth Federation."

 

I don't doubt that Sarek respected humans, and genuinely loved Amanda, but I am wondering why he didn't speak up on their behalf during the Science Council scene. And I'm sure he could have phrased it in a Vulcan manner.