Vulcans have feelings, feelings so intense they've learned to repress them in order to function as a society. As part of that they deny they even have feelings at all. That's quite illogical. One may argue that in fact, Vulcan's have repressed their feelings beyond what is needed to function as a society, and that that is both illogical and unhealthy (and then point to the intensity of Pon farr or diseases like Bendii Syndrome as a sign of too much repression). Vulcans are aware that other humanoids have feelings, yet are continuously surprised when those humanoids act on those feelings, and can never account for such feelings (even when they are aware of them) when considering humanoid behavior. This seems highly illogical. Vulcan's often engage in, or permit, irrational/illogical behavior, or behave based on specious or fallacious logic, even at the highest levels, without question, meaning this is acceptable in their society. Quite illogical. If Romulans are an offshoot of Vulcans but they didn't embrace logic, why didn't they destroy themselves? In fact, how did pre-Surak Vulcan even achieve interstellar space travel? Could the story of Romulans as Vulcan re be something about Vulcan (the planet) that affected Vulcan (the species) evolution, creating these extreme emotional states? If indeed the Vulcans are the species from which other Vulcanoid races evolved, and their emotional instability is inherent in that species, shouldn't they all show signs of that? How did the "proto-Vulcan" Mintakans get there, evade the emotional instability and come to embrace logic? The logical answer seems to be that Vulcans, Romulans, Mintakans and other Vulcanoid species are descended from another species (and I don't mean Sargon and his species... something in between), that the emotional instability (and perhaps also a tendency for logic) is inherent in that "missing link" species, and that Vulcan (the planet) had the effect of magnifying that trait in those evolved there... also seems like maybe the Romulans didn't come from Vulcan at all. Or maybe early Vulcans weren't as bad as they say, though they did in the end almost destroy themselves. Then this extreme view of pre-Surak Vulcans would be propaganda by pro-logic-extremists to justify their absolutist views on emotional repression.
Yeah, they have feelings, and biological uncontrollable drives, and two of those feelings are embarrassment and pride. Openly admitting their feelings and flaws with outsiders and off worlders is like airing one's family's dirty laundry in public. Surak's discipline of logic and repressed emotionalism helps them function better as a society without resorting to mass murder or war on a planetary scale, as they have done before. It might be "unhealthy" from a human perspective, but it's frequently unhealthy to let those emotions lose on others, particularly those closest to us, which is also unhealthy. Neither approach to life is perfect. But considering how far Vulcans have been known to go, expressing their emotions to the fullest has proven to be less healthy, on the whole. Logically, the lesser of two evils would be to acquire command and control and discipline over one's self, and yes, if need be, suffer a little for it, than the alternative of potentially making many more suffer. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. I'm not sure Vulcans are surprised by other races expressing their emotion or acting irrationally based upon emotions, but disappointed, perhaps, and likely think there are better ways to do things. If they are surprised, it is probably because they have been repressing their emotions so long or from such an early age, they have less experience with their full-blown expressions, and how such short-term concerns might override more obvious and long-term logical goals. Logic does not guarantee a correct result, even when it's flawless. Nellie is an elephant. All elephants are pink. Therefore, logically, Nellie is pink. The logic is absolutely flawless, but since at least one premise is unsound, the conclusion's value is dubious. Without carefully examining a Vulcan's motives and therefore individual's premises, I'm not sure one can assuredly claim they are being illogical when you may simply disagree with one or more of their premises. Achieving space flight apparently can be done – even in a hard to communicate new and technical detailed information, like in the Tamarians. Spock, his eyebrow raised highly. But hey, warfare has caused greater technical advancements than most anything else in our history, so why not there? I can see them achieving space flight, maybe warp capability, cryogenics, or multigenerational ships, before a particularly bad war brought most societies on Vulcan crashing down for a thousand or more years. As for the Romulans, who have maintained their martial philosophy, they've been in fighting and killing each other for centuries. Imagine how much further along they might have been had they worked together more and fought each other less - perhaps centuries ahead of humans by the 23rd century. I'm pretty sure the Mintakans, while being proto-vulcan or Vulcan-like, evolved independently and were not another offshoot of the Vulcan race. I believe assuming they would similarly have such deep and violent emotional tendencies lacks foundation. Surak's teachings were lost until Archer's time, so maybe it is still not fully embraced planet-wide, but yeah, possibly Surak exaggerated the problem during a particularly bad war and overstated the certainty emotions would lead to social destruction, but such extreme points of view is nothing new. Though when Spock did go back in time 5,000 years without benefit of adjustment from the atavochron, in All Our Yesterdays, he did show a marked tendency toward greater violence and less logical thought, just as his ancestors "really" did back then, so it can't be all propaganda. Still, it might not be as bad as they say. The Romulans seem to work, after a fashion. Perhaps it's better for the Federation that the Vulcans have chosen another path, a less emotional and more logical one, even if they aren't perfect and we don't always appreciate their logic or agree with their premises. But insisting everyone act and think just like we do is perhaps one of our problems - arrogance. Interesting topic. Thanks.
Well I don't think we know exactly when Vulcan's discovered Warp Drive, but pre-surak the Vulcas might have been more war like, and wars can lead to technical inovations.
Vulcans have emotions so intense that it was necessary for the survival of the race, to suppress them. They don't deny they have feelings. They deny themselves access TO those feelings through rigorous practice & meditation. While it might be illogical to deny themselves something that exists, it is more illogical to risk the future of their race by leaving that thing unchecked. They tell themselves it is illogical to feel an emotion, which while incorrect, is part of that meditation. It's not illogical to feel an emotion. It's illogical to allow that feeling to drive you into unhealthy living, which is what the intensity of Vulcan emotions do. So preventatively, they choose to reject them. So think of it like this, when the ailing Sarek, in the episode of the same name, grits these words through his teeth "It is illogical to feel anger" what he's really saying is that it is illogical to feel the Vulcan anger that brought down a whole people, which could very well be true & quite logical
Specifically, no, but for the Romulans to have left the Vulcan system after the split, and then to have reached Romulus and set up and "Empire" it seems they were traveling at some sort of warp, unless Romulus is the system right next door maybe... A certain amount of war can (and certainly has) led to technical innovation... but from the stories, and the few examples, we're not talking war-like... "paranoia and homicidal rage were common"... protracted violent cultures do not produce a lot of innovation... either they stagnate, self-destruct, or find a functional level of social cooperation. The Vulcans built up to self destruction... so either they never had a functional society before that, and so lacked the means to develop advanced technologies, or they were far more functional that all the stories make it seem, but still extreme enough to lead to destruction.
What we know about Vulcan history comes from Vulcan's, At the time of the Awakening they might have played up those tendacies as a need for change and over the course of centuries those played up beliefs became what was thought to be true.
Actually they do, I can send you all the transcipts and you can search them yourself for exact quotes from Vulcans saying things like "Vulcans do not experience such emotions." And you seem to have missed my making the points that you went on to make (yes they apparently have such intense emotions they need to control them to function as a society, and that yes, it seems like letting any emotion could open up those floodgates) but that still leave the questions why deny their existence (which yes, I insist they do), and if it's really that bad, why is it not so in other Vulcanoid species (specifically the Romulans, which are supposed to be directly descended from those psycho Vulcans, as well as other, which I maintain are), and how did they ever manage a functional society before Surak, given their extremes? I agree with the way your portraying their philosophy, and the reasons behind it, but I don't feel that's how it's portrayed.
Very true. I keep coming to it being a propaganda campaign by the logicalists in an effort to save their species... which has now become part of a totalitarian doctrine and is leading to deep seated psychological problems for the whole species. It seems at this point it is true, as whenever Vulcans lose control of their emotions they go pretty much insane... perhaps to their ultimate demise.
Part of the problem of inconsistency is more likely the fact they hadn't made up their minds yet while writing the series. It's pretty much revealed that Vulcans have emotions. Even claiming they pride themselves on their logic is an admission they have emotions. Some are just worse than others. But they control them, or try. Maybe they deny them to outsiders, and we see that, but not really to each other, since they would know better. They certainly were doing less well pre Surak/Archer, and better by the time of Spock (though Abrams has the Vulcan academy still being a bit racist (for emotional prideful reasons) and Spock blowing them off (politely telling them it's not that, really) though he's pissed. So even then, they struggle to accept the philosophy, and only few work toward the Kolinahr to purge all emotions. I don't think the majority of Vulcan society even tries to achieve that level of discipline. Good thing Vulcans have emotions then and just repress them, unlike sociopaths who might just learn to game the system and manipulate people, and never acquire empathy, the lack of which is perhaps the source of what is commonly thought of as evil. The Nellie example is logical, and you were given the premises. Whether those are sound or true premises is a matter beyond logic. I think Vulcans would assume most humans would wish to act in a way to their maximum benefit, but are probably disappointed to find some short-term emotional goal got in the way. They saw past it. What couldn't you? The fact you didn't, obviously, is most often your emotional reaction and your inability to control your emotions, so shouldn't you be less emotional and more logical? If you wish to believe that language premises is realistic, then yeah. My point was I doubt it would be since it relies too much as old concepts to quickly adopt and adapt to new discoveries or changing circumstances. I found the story silly. I don't know if it was ever the case that, to a man, all Vulcans could be described as emotionally unbalanced and homicidal. Surak wasn't, and he lived then, even if others were nuking whole cities out of existance. Many scientists care more about their science than the petty social concerns, though that doesn't stop the warlords from using them. So I think they could have achieved spaceflight, but lost it through a devastating war, and been bombed back into the stone age after the Romulans left, taking some time working with stone knives and bear skins before they got back to where they were before, technologically speaking. How would you fair if you were suddenly denied electricity, computers, communication satellites, etc. and perhaps even access to books? Would you even survive? Naïve or simplistic? And here most every alien we meet looks like a human dressed up in some weird way or with strange head markings and little else to distinguish them. Those proto-Vulcans were in no way suggested to have been related to other Vulcans. Have they not spoken of proto-humans or proto-hominids, too? It just means they resemble this other race we know - not that they have common ancestry. I'm pretty sure Trek is implying the Vulcan/Romulan relationship has a common origin, but not most humanoids have a similar shared origin story just because they look similar. Yeah, some stories suggested ancient races seeded many local planets with some DNA millions of years ago, but after that, each evolved independently. This was mostly done to explain why most the aliens look like humans. I don't think the change between Romulans and Vulcans is much of a evolutionary one (in only a few thousand years at most) but cultural ones. And I don't think it's a myth so much as a choice - they are "better off" with the discipline of logic. Corrupted works could be so far off, the original work so different, one can hardly claim IT is the basis, but the corruption was the basis for their society. Spock's behavior (5000 years ago) doesn't preclude all Vulcans from achieving space flight, or even him when somebody isn't stomping on his dreams. You shouldn't ever paint the entire race with one brush at any time. Vulcan may be hypocrites, but that doesn't automatically make them wrong, or incapable of even proving had you acted differently, less emotionally, more logically, you would have had demonstrably better results. Hard to argue with success.
Of course bad writing, or at least inconsistent writing, is almost always at fault for most of these kinds of issues in a work like this... I was looking more, in-world. And, there is no maybe about it, they do explicitly deny them to outsiders, and if not to each other, neither do they admit them either. It has been explicitly said that Vulcans not only don't express their feelings, but never voice them, even to their families. It was a matter of course that Sarek had never told Spock he loved him or was proud of him or any other such feelings, because that's the way it is between Vulcans (other vague examples come to mind, very similar situations)... I think that you're right in that, in reality, they don't really try to be as completely without emotion as their entire culture purports them to be (and as they present themselves to the word) but it seems like that facade is on all the time. Again, the humanoid aliens is an obvious real world issue with budget and make-up, just as the aliens that looked entirely human also happened to not only have evolved some known human culture, but all the same accoutrements and iconography as well (TOS: Magna Roma). But the specifically Vulcan appearance and philosophy is not so common... thus it's use is more purposeful and begs for more explanation. Each evolved independently, but from the same basic DNA, making them similar not only in appearance, but in other ways as well... so independent but still connected... if the emotional problems are part of the seed DNA then it would be a problem for all races which may share it (as many are suspected of doing... I think I already listed them)... if it is a product of their evolution, then there's something about Vulcan that has made this the case. It's been stated that Romulans and Vulcans have biologically diverged so much that they can't interbreed... which if true would make them less genetically compatible than Vulcan's and Humans, and certainly evolutionarily divergent. The "myth"... myths actually are that they have no emotion (which is what they keep saying to other races and to each other) and that they must suppress all emotion lest they go berserk (which they also say... despite having said that they have no emotions...). Both of these statements seem to be totally incorrect. I can accept the "we don't experience emotion" as a way of saying "we do not allow ourselves to acknowledge or express emotions"... but then it still seems like a conscious lie, and leaves us with the myth o total emotional control. Spock's behavior does seem preclude warp flight, since the most minor grievance could become a rage, resulting in dead assistants, or partners, or a destroyed project because it's not working, or a war for the resources you need. That experience is only one of many examples of what modern Vulcans consider early Vulcan behavior. I'm sure It was said that the Pon farr was a return to that state of being, and Bendii is the loss of their emotional control (with at least some dementia it seemed)... which would also basically mean a return to that state. In every case except ENT:Fusion, Vulcan's who don't control their emotions are volatile and violent to the point of murderous rages. Of course I agree that we shouldn't stereotype... but it is the Vulcan's who are saying these things about their ancestors, I am in fact arguing that it wasn't like that, that they were indeed more war-like, with perhaps a high incidence of emotional issues and even issues like psychosis in the population, but with plenty of highly functional individuals. I am saying that it is in fact the Vulcan philosophy of repressing emotions that make them that have made it so that modern Vulcans can't allow any emotion or risk of total loss of control. It is hard to argue with success... but also, with reality. Really, not matter how much sense it would make, or how much you'd like them to, other humanoids don't always act logically, they have feelings, express them, act on them. To keep denying that reality in favor of one in which everyone acts logically seems pretty ridiculous for such an intellectually advanced race (even Data can predict human emotional responses and anticipate/account for them, i not always accurately, or appropriately). Maybe their main characteristic isn't logic, it's denial.
Earth built the Neutral Zone, but the Romulans never paid for it. From the subspace treaty: "The present lack of Terran currency, providing no means of payment, relieves for all time the [Romulan Star] Empire of any all debt associated with the construction of outposts outside territory claimed by the Empire."
The Vulcans in season 4 of Enterprise are so ridiculously emotional. They can't go one scene without an outburst. Not just the prime minister-Romalin puppet guy, but T'Pau, T'Pol's mom, the ambassador (name? The one that Shran tortures), the council members, etc. They all need to get on Troi's schedule for some family psychotherapy sessions ASAP.
That's one interpretation. For continuity's sake, I tend to lean more toward interpreting comments like that differently. That someone says they don't feel an emotion or experience one is not in itself a denial of the existence of one, only that they don't allow it I could be wrong, but to my recollection, No Vulcan ever said they can not feel emotions, only that they don't, which I'm free to interpret as them saying they've taken precautions such that they won't, because clearly, from day one it's been made known that it is possible for them.
My in-world explanation was Vulcans present this myth to off worlders, or at least do not correct them when they say you Vulcans have no feelings, since it only enhances their reputation for pure logic, but they are not plagued by it themselves like they are living in denial since they know they have them. They are just socially embarrassed should their discipline break down and they too openly show them to strangers or in public. Even Spock's moderate look of astonishment at seeing Surak (or the image of Surak) had him apologizing for it - not denying it. The greatest trick the Vulcan people ever played on the galaxy was perpetuating the idea that Vulcans never bluff, or lie. And wow, and with their poker faces, how can they not encourage that idea? It's a cultural advantage. +1 to bluff, at least! I don't know how common pointed ears are, but beyond that, were they really that different from most other humanoids? Even a tendency toward logic is not solely the purview of the Vulcan race. We have the same sort of DNA with every living things on this planet, so humans and chickens and fish and jellyfish and bacteria are using that some thing - DNA - to make duplicates of itself. If Vulcans and humans both use DNA, that doesn't impress me any more than the fact humans and mice use the same DNA. So no, the emotional problems are not rooted in the simple fact they also use DNA. Why Vulcans (or humans) are generally so violent, I couldn't tell you, or even be sure that was all that rare, preying upon one another, killing each other not for resource competition but for differing beliefs. None of that really comes just from using DNA. The particular code that makes up a human, the whole sequence or genome for a chimp or human, makes us beings that are pretty violent and aggressive, but the code that makes up the bonobo is the same % we share with chimps, and Bonobos prefer sexual contact to violent contact. Don't go blaming the chemical - DNA. The odd tendency for the galaxy to favor "humanoid" form isn't really explained. Maybe it's efficient - even more so than many other forms. Some life doesn't use DNA - the Horta, for example - but maybe many others do. I dislike it when our good doctor talks of another species DNA, as if it's a certainty they even use it, or DNA is synonymous with genetic code. It's not. Wow, really? Somebody said that? Was it canon? I seriously doubt it's true. I mean, I also feel Romulans and Humans and Klingons and humans, etc. can't interbreed on their own already and must use advanced medical knowledge to make a test tube baby with genetic manipulation and maybe transplant it back into the mother for incubation, and if they mean Romulans and Vulcans are at that point, too, I'd be amazed. But even if, I'd think it would be far easier to make a test tube baby there. BTW, FYI, even stories of a product of rape could be (beyond the forced act of sexual abuse) forcibly taking another's genetic code, too. In fact, I proposed Sela (Denise Crosby's Romulan) looked so much like Tasha because her Romulan father directed the doctor to use certain genetic traits to make his daughter so she'd look like Tasha since, let's face it, he apparently really thought that looked good. Vulcan? What they do? It may be a deliberate . . . exaggeration. No matter how many examples you've seen, there are 6 billion Vulcans or so, and I think it's just wrong to assume they are all the same, equally murderous, irrationally emotional, illogical animals, at all times. We've seen differently. And while I agree this could make it harder to develop space flight, it might also provide more incentive, too. To simply say it's impossible for such a race to develop space flight would be an erroneous assumption. Another Vulcan example might be the Romulan Nero (assuming they are sort of the same thing to a high degree - pre logic discipline). Look at that moron. He had the power (an advanced ship) and the knowledge (temporal mechanics sufficient to predict when Spock would appear to the minute) and even captured Spock's ship, who claims his only problem was he was too late. And yet plan A was let's go kill a bunch of people who didn't really cause our demise instead of plan B, let's go back in time and save our families and our world from destruction. And his whole crew was like, yeah, captain, plan A sounds good to us too. We're behind you, 100%. Screw our families and our whole world. We're MAD!!! But I don't want to get into how much I dislike those last 3 movies. Suffice it to say, if you like them, that's fine with me. I simply think the Vulcans are suggesting a more logical approach, and greater discipline over emotions, would probably do a lot of people a great deal of good. The fact many often don't head those words of wisdom is no real reason to not continue to suggest them to new individuals or new races as they happen upon them, or to think they are in self denial about having emotions themselves.
I am willing to go with the inconsistency inaccuracies, and then accept any part of Vulcan denying the existence of their feelings (even if it is said that they "can not feel,") as a way of meaning they do not allow themselves to... indulge let's call it, in those emotions. But to leave the existence of emotions out of the equation, especially as it applies to humanoids other than themselves, is still illogical. I have to point out that I am not the one making sweeping generalizations about ancient Vulcans, Vulcans are. I am just trying to reconcile their descriptions of their ancestors with the reality of a society functional enough to achieve warp flight, and with things like the Romulans (which according to popular thought are directly related to those same early Vulcans). It just doesn't make sense. I welcome anyone who has canon info of early Vulcans described as anything other than totally unstable. As far as I recall the only early Vulcan we ever meet is Surak's katra, 2000 years after the fact, existing in a mental world of his own memories, but also having awareness and consciousness, so having had 2000 years to keep working on his logic and control... hardly representative. My contention is in fact that early Vulcans were far more stable than they are described, but highly militant and war-like.. They were able to build great societies and cultures, but were never able to achieve stability, and ultimately, their empires would fall to internal turmoil. I then assert that all current descriptions of those Vulcans is a myth started as propaganda by logic extremists at the time as a way to create monocultural totalitarianism, which they felt was the only way for Vulcan to avert disaster. Of course I could paint a darker picture: maybe these stories of early Vulcans are true. Some (a minority of) Vulcans practiced logic before Surak. Maybe that minority united, created a society, great technology, and flourished, in a small tucked away area... but they eventually came into conflict with their savage and less technologically advanced neighbors, leading to all out global conflict: the "savages" had the numbers, but the logicals had the weapons. It was then in fact the logicals (giving into remnants of their own violent emotions) who used those weapons in an extermination campaign against the savages, setting their world ablaze. In the wake of their "victory" Surak (a citizen of the hypothetical logical city) arose to condemn their actions and promote not only logic, but peace... which his supporters took (down the ages) to a totalitarian extreme. The whole DNA rant... specious. The fact that DNA is the building block of all life (as we know it) isn't in contention or the issue... in fact it's part o my point. All life on Earth not only shares DNA as a building block, they share genetic structures, and as we can see, they share traits because of that. This is also the "proof" that all life on Earth came evolved from one common ancestor (allso proving my point). My pemise was that all vulcanoid races share a large part of that DNA structure, as we do with primates... they are close genetic relatives. Like we share many traits with primates (beyond the physical similarities), Vulcanoids share many identifying traits. If the Vulcan emotional instability is genetic (and in fact pre-Vulcan), then all related species might suffer from it. This doesn't seem true for the Romulans (but maybe it's just one of their many secrets), and certainly not for other Vulcanoid races (which I contend ARE related to Vulcans, via a common ancestor). Pointy ears were not the only things Mintakan's shared with Vulcans: the also had pointed brows, and a greenish cast to their complexion (which I know is inconsistent, but generally meant to imply the green blood in Vulcans and Romulans). The society was also more than just also based on logic, it was very much Vulcan-like. That many similar traits begs for more investigation. This is especially true in light of the fact that they have many times discussed all humanoid life being seeded by older races (in-world)... so all humanoid races are (probably) related, and then I say all Vulcanoid races are possibly more closely related. The thing about Vulcan/Romulan interbreeding... I am pretty sure it was said (definitely in canon... I've never read the novels/other media)... but to be fair I'm pretty sure it was either a theory or speculation. Sorry but I've been binge watching ENT TOS and TNG and it's run a bit together, so I can't pin it down (I want to say it was TOS and Spock who said it, not sure)... But to reiterate: Vulcans have emotions. They technically lie about that ("we do not feel x"). Vulcans can lie. They most certainly lie about that (or, if we give them a pass on language for them to mean they "do not" lie, they still again technically lie about it, and since some of them do lie, then it becomes a total lie). Vulcan's discard emotional considerations when dealing with emotional humanoid species (something "even Data" can account for). Pre-Surak Vulcan emotional instability is exaggerated. The Vulcan "need for total emotional repression" is a myth. Vulcan dominant social culture (that which we've seen) is (apparently very successfully) promoting a totalitarian monoculture of absolute emotional repression, contrary to their philosophy of "infinite diversity in infinite combination." All of which is illogical.
Whenever any Vulcan makes fun of humans for being illogical, it always comes back to this: Humans have an excuse. We GET to be illogical. Of course we're supposed to be irrational and emotional - it's what we do! Vulcans should be held to a higher standard.