“Vulcans should stick to Logic” - racist?

[Nyotarules]

As the world building in Star Trek developed with the idea of a multispecies Federation and the concept of Starfleet being responsible for its galactic defense made me realise how in universe the Federation is very Anglo - Humancentric. The official language is English, it seems that most of the 430 crew of the TOS Enterprise were white humans from North America, exploring space and supposedly representing a Federation of different species, all of the Admiralty were human males in TOS and even in the TOS movies, (even the HQ scene in STID has not one alien looking admiral in it), its not until DISC we some some diversity at the top of Starfleet. The Admiralty of TNG, VOY, DS9 is even more light, bright and damn near human, the so called flagship of the fleet (Picard's Enterprise D) has a crew that is 99% human and everyone of its heads of department as humans, until Worf gets promoted. No one on that ship has a commited relationship with a non human, 300 years after First Contact, its full of human couples. Maybe its known in the Federation that humans are racist, they will have sex with you but most don't want to socialise with you. Or maybe humans smell so bad they have to stick together! lol
ENT is basically NASA in space, same for the Earth Starfleet admiralty, it represents a United Earth population as well as Paris, Texas represents Paris, France.
Ok the real life T.V production reasons for TOS being the way it was is understandable, the other shows with bigger budgets had no such excuse.
So yes racism/speciesm has been a part of the universe of the Federation from the beginning, including Landry's comment, its as bad as assuming all black people can sing and dance. Even the alien with the human wife practised it with his own son (yeah that's you Sarek!)
The human privilege in the Federation universe is just a tiny reflection of the real life white privilege of life.

 

[Pindar]

The official language is English.

Officially it's Federation Standard but I presume it's some kind of English. What else is it going to be though the programme is made by an English speaking country.

 

[Starflight]

The thing about Trek is Vulcans (and all the other ailens) are a different species. It's a different order of magnitude. Is it racist to say dogs are better at smelling than cats and cats are better at stalking prey?

Are Vulcans inherently more logical than humans, though, or could a human achieve Vulcan-style logic, like Burnham apparently did for a while? And remember that Vulcans, according to several episodes, basically act like everyone else until adolescence, when they have to go to a styrofoam cave and learn the ways of logic, as Tuvok did.

I always just assumed that the sapient species in Star Trek all have identical cognitive abilities unless stated otherwise, and the differences between them are a result of everywhere except Earth apparently being a planet-wide mono culture.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Officially it's Federation Standard but I presume it's some kind of English. What else is it going to be though the programme is made by an English speaking country.

IIRC, FASA called it “Galacta”, or something like that, to make it sound less Earth/Anglo-centric.

Canonically, Khan did recognize it and called it “English” in Space Seed, however. So it’s definitely close enough to possess little distinction from what we use today.

 

[Tuskin38]

Yeah, complaining they speak English in Star Trek doesn’t make much sense.

It’s a show made in an English speaking country. Do you want the entire cast to learn a new language, and have the entire series in subtitles?

Canonically, Khan did recognize it and called it “English” in Space Seed, however. So it’s definitely close enough to possess little distinction from what we use today.

I wonder if countries that dubbed over the original English changed that line to something else.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Good question! No idea. IIRC, the remastered TOS BRD's had Spanish dubs. It would be interesting to check that.

 

[XCV330]

So I was having a conversation when that line came up, I was of the opinion that it’s racist. I mean you wouldn’t say “All Asians should stick to maths” would you?

The other person insisted it wasn’t, since Vulcans out themselves in that small box.

My thoughts were that would be a valid point if a Vulcan said it, but a human said it so it’s a derogatory comment.

Please vote and leave a comment.

Many Vulcans have been shown to have an anti-human bias. That's a good chunk of subtext in Enterprise. So the species-ism goes both way.

People only lob those kind of statements to people they are fearful of competing with, or feel threatened by. Sometimes it is tied to economic reasons, historical reasons, religious reasons (which somehow when you look closely tend to be economic reasons), etc.

Landry was a moron. No doubt she also would have tweeted that Serek should go back to his Sehlat infested dusty hellhole if he didn't like the way the UFP was handling things, given time.

We share the planet with a few other reasonably intelligent species. Maybe not on our same level, but they've been shown to reason, communicate, use tools even. But you don't see the Anti-Chimp League taunting Chimps that they should stick to vine swinging, or people on the beaches telling dolphins "come back when you can make fire!". Generally speaking, we're not threatened by them. We don't imagine that a mantis shrimp is going to open a successful restaurant franchise next door, get involved in local politics and that you find his son's name written on your daughter's notepad. It's all good.

Landry felt threatened by Vulcans, who indeed are physically better at some things, maybe mentally too (side note: I think human technology excelled fast than Vulcans perhaps because they have a strange group-dynamic-in-conflict that Vulcans do not share, essentially humans are a better hive species than Vulcans.. end note) , and she took it out on what she probably saw a species-traitor AND mutineer who had culturally adopted Vulcan methods and teachings.

 

[137th Gebirg]

The Vulcans are an oddly-treated race throughout Trek history. They seem to be technologically advanced compared to humans for the most part, particularly during the Enterprise era, but then we have scenes throughout the movies and shows as appearing not much better than desert nomads. I hate to cite TFF in this context, but do they REALLY still deliver newborns in CAVES? By that measure, 20th century humans were more advanced than Vulcans by several millennia! They barely seemed capable of spaceflight, yet in their distant past, they were advanced enough to allow Romulans to leave Vulcan and travel interstellar distances to found the RSE. Many things never tracked for me with the Vulcans, beyond conventional disbelief suspension. They seem to almost be victims of species-wide cognitive dissonance when it comes to their own established history.

Most illogical.

 

[marlboro]

Hi, I'm an anonymous person on a message board. Recently I had a conversation with an unidentified person about a subject on which I won't give any details. At some point the phrase "Maybe that Ferengi should have hired a duck?" was used. The Ferengi being referenced are a fictional race from a science fiction television show by the way.

Question: should I be outraged? And if so, just how outraged should I be?

 

[ED-209]

Hi, I'm an anonymous person on a message board. Recently I had a conversation with an unidentified person about a subject on which I won't give any details. At some point the phrase "Maybe that Ferengi should have hired a duck?" was used. The Ferengi being referenced are a fictional race from a science fiction television show by the way.

Question: should I be outraged? And if so, just how outraged should I be?

Mate, you should've went Quackers.

 

[Alan Roi]

Are Vulcans inherently more logical than humans, though, or could a human achieve Vulcan-style logic, like Burnham apparently did for a while? And remember that Vulcans, according to several episodes, basically act like everyone else until adolescence, when they have to go to a styrofoam cave and learn the ways of logic, as Tuvok did.

I always just assumed that the sapient species in Star Trek all have identical cognitive abilities unless stated otherwise, and the differences between them are a result of everywhere except Earth apparently being a planet-wide mono culture.

I think that more thought should be put into the established background of the Vulcans is that they are historically much more violent and emotional than human beings and that they as a species gave themselves over to the order provided by logic to keep from wiping themselves out. Humans are capable of embracing logic, but we have been shown that it is kind of a biological necessity for the Vulcan species in order to exist at the stage of development they are at.

Of course there is all sorts of racism directed at Vulcans, and that is often demonstrated as a humans failing to overcome one of their own intrinsic flaws. However, if one wants to view Vulcans as an alien species and not just humans with pointy ears, then biology should be considered.

Cats, for instance, are obligate carnivores. They need to eat meat in order to survive. Now, one can try to find a way around that biology, but as they are, eating meat or meat based foods is a necessity for a cat as they have evolved into that requirement and it pretty unhealthy for a cat to be forced into being a vegetarian. We've yet to see a demonstration a Vulcan abandoning logic being mentally or biologically healthy either.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Officially it's Federation Standard but I presume it's some kind of English. What else is it going to be though the programme is made by an English speaking country.

Canonically, Khan did recognize it and called it “English” in Space Seed, however. So it’s definitely close enough to possess little distinction from what we use today.

Given that the de facto language of aviation has been English since the 1950s, my guess would be that UESF personnel mostly spoke "Aviation English", which became the lingua franca of the UFP for similar reasons to Starfleet became the linch pin of Federation operations.

 

[feek61]

Of course it's racist!!! Since these days nearly every single thing said is racist I can only assume that in a few hundred years that everything will be.

 

[Nyotarules]

Officially it's Federation Standard but I presume it's some kind of English. What else is it going to be though the programme is made by an English speaking country.

My answer is about in universe reasons not real world tv production reasons

I think that more thought should be put into the established background of the Vulcans is that they are historically much more violent and emotional than human beings and that they as a species gave themselves over to the order provided by logic to keep from wiping themselves out. Humans are capable of embracing logic, but we have been shown that it is kind of a biological necessity for the Vulcan species in order to exist at the stage of development they are at.

Of course there is all sorts of racism directed at Vulcans, and that is often demonstrated as a humans failing to overcome one of their own intrinsic flaws. However, if one wants to view Vulcans as an alien species and not just humans with pointy ears, then biology should be considered.

Cats, for instance, are obligate carnivores. They need to eat meat in order to survive. Now, one can try to find a way around that biology, but as they are, eating meat or meat based foods is a necessity for a cat as they have evolved into that requirement and it pretty unhealthy for a cat to be forced into being a vegetarian. We've yet to see a demonstration a Vulcan abandoning logic being mentally or biologically healthy either.

Vulcans without logic are Romulans lol I think Vulcans are psychologically prone to extreme behaviour , they swapped one extreme for another.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Of course it's racist!!! Since these days nearly every single thing said is racist I can only assume that in a few hundred years that everything will be.

No, everything is not racist. I have no problem saying something that is not racist.

 

[Alan Roi]

Vulcans without logic are Romulans lol I think Vulcans are psychologically prone to extreme behaviour , they swapped one extreme for another.

Not exactly. They are an ofshoot that separate from Vulcan a couple thousand years before, who settled on an alien planet where they engaged in crossbreeding with Remans for a good chunk of near a hundred generations. They are related to Vulcans but likely don't even carry as much pure Vulcan in them than Spock does. We still have yet to see an actual Vulcan or even half-Vulcan reject the teachings of logic and have it turn out at all well.

 

[Pindar]

My answer is about in universe reasons not real world tv production reasons.

Sure but I don't think anyone ever says they speak English. So it could be anything in theory. We just hear English.

It could be like the episode when the universal translator goes crazy that everyone just speaks their own language and the com systems do all the work.

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ Khan recognized the language as English in Space Seed and said as much on-screen, also mentioning he never thought he would hear it again. It is canon.

 

[Jinn]

Also, in New Eden, the abducted humans from the USA are speaking Federation Standard, so it pretty much has to be English.

 

[Nyotarules]

No exactly. They are an ofshoot that separate from Vulcan a couple thousand years before, who settled on an alien planet where they engaged in crossbreeding with Remans for a good chunk of near a hundred generations. They are related to Vulcans but likely don't even carry as much pure Vulcan in them than Spock does. We still have yet to see an actual Vulcan or even half-Vulcan reject the teachings of logic and have it turn out at all well.

With a population of over 6 billion they probably do exist, not all humans are like Kirk and co and not all Vulcans are like Sarek and Spock. The V'tosh Katur captain and engineer who ate chicken in ENT seemed ok
The monocultured aliens never made sense to me since humans are diverse.