Is it just me, or are Vulcans a bunch of jerks?

[sonak]

I thought the Vulcans were one of the few elements that Enterprise got right.

By S4, they did. Vulcans aren't unemotional, they are violently emotional and must repress their emotions for the sake of the humans who they'd throttle in a heartbeat.

Once you understand that part, their jerkiness is explanable.

I don't see what the suppression of emotions has to do with a rigid society or arranged marriage.

Seems self-evident to me.

OK, so explain it to me. Why would suppressing emotions mean arranged marriage? Vulcans are free to form their own friendships, why wouldn't they be free to form their own romantic relationships?(plus, I don't think Sarek's marriage to Amanda's was arranged, right?) So.... I'm still not getting it.

 

[horatio83]

Vulcans tend to be know-it-alls, because they do... know a hell of a lot. Super smart on average, relative to humans. But their disconnect from emotion handicaps them. It's kind of like the pure socialism experiment stacked up to democracy... The democratic society embraces chance and fewer assumptions about things, allowing for more dramatic innovation, whereas the socialist society tends to stagnate.

Democracy and socialism are not opposites. Democracy and autocracy are respectively capitalism and socialism.
Given Vulcan discipline and their superior mental and bodily skills their economy is most likely more productive than Earth's.

Their suppression of emotions does not handicap them in the least, it merely leads to a rigid society (arranged marriage, all the other stupid, religious-like rituals) which is so rigid in order to prevent Vulcans from doubting the dogma of emotional suppression. The fear behind this orthodoxy is that lack of emotional suppression will initiate a "return to the savage ways".

I don't see what the suppression of emotions has to do with a rigid society or arranged marriage. That seems to be more connected to the way many Vulcans seem to be very Conservative, Orthodox, and tradition-bound. Kind of ironic for a "logical" society.

Vulcans suppress their strong emotions, that has become their way after the Surakian revolution. The folks who left Vulcan at this time found another way to deal with their emotions.
While Surak seems to have advocated pacifism and a suppression of nasty emotions his ideas have become a dogma over time. Vulcans fear the equivalent of liberalism because if everyone could do as he pleases some of them might choose to not suppress their emotions and "return to the savage ways". This dogma has probably been generalized over time, out of "don't question our principle of emotional suppression" became "don't question any Vulcan tradition", hence all these antiquated rituals with priests, arranged marriage and so on.

TFF, "Fusion" and Spock's evolution (TUC, Unification, ST09) show that these fears are only partially justified, that it is very well possible for individual Vulcan to "ease up".
As the whole is greater than the sum of its parts this does not necessarily imply that a more relaxed attitude to emotional suppression can also work on a the social level for the Vulcans.

This is the only potential explanation for Vulcan orthodoxy which stands, as you have pointed out, in sharp contrast to their official ideology I am aware of.

 

[sonak]

Democracy and socialism are not opposites. Democracy and autocracy are respectively capitalism and socialism.
Given Vulcan discipline and their superior mental and bodily skills their economy is most likely more productive than Earth's.

Their suppression of emotions does not handicap them in the least, it merely leads to a rigid society (arranged marriage, all the other stupid, religious-like rituals) which is so rigid in order to prevent Vulcans from doubting the dogma of emotional suppression. The fear behind this orthodoxy is that lack of emotional suppression will initiate a "return to the savage ways".

I don't see what the suppression of emotions has to do with a rigid society or arranged marriage. That seems to be more connected to the way many Vulcans seem to be very Conservative, Orthodox, and tradition-bound. Kind of ironic for a "logical" society.

Vulcans suppress their strong emotions, that has become their way after the Surakian revolution. The folks who left Vulcan at this time found another way to deal with their emotions.
While Surak seems to have advocated pacifism and a suppression of nasty emotions his ideas have become a dogma over time. Vulcans fear the equivalent of liberalism because if everyone could do as he pleases some of them might choose to not suppress their emotions and "return to the savage ways". This dogma has probably been generalized over time, out of "don't question our principle of emotional suppression" became "don't question any Vulcan tradition", hence all these antiquated rituals with priests, arranged marriage and so on.

TFF, "Fusion" and Spock's evolution (TUC, Unification, ST09) show that these fears are only partially justified, that it is very well possible for individual Vulcan to "ease up".
As the whole is greater than the sum of its parts this does not necessarily imply that a more relaxed attitude to emotional suppression can also work on a the social level for the Vulcans.

This is the only potential explanation for Vulcan orthodoxy which stands, as you have pointed out, in sharp contrast to their official ideology I am aware of.

this is a good point. Sybok and other examples of Vulcan "rebels" would prove that easing up on the emotional control wouldn't necessarily lead to savage violence(he's pretty much of a hippie actually) So the fear I guess would be that ordinary Vulcan folks would see this and go "wait, so why are we walking around with somber expressions and not smiling or laughing, when it doesn't really seem to matter anymore?"


What might have been necessary for Vulcan society in Surak's time no longer is. Still, they pay lip service to IDIC, which doesn't exactly scream "traditionalist conservatism."

 

[xortex]

So nobody is even going to consider that it is because they are Romulans! What was that slight difference Checkov was referring to in 'The Enterprise Incident'?

 

[horatio83]

this is a good point. Sybok and other examples of Vulcan "rebels" would prove that easing up on the emotional control wouldn't necessarily lead to savage violence(he's pretty much of a hippie actually) So the fear I guess would be that ordinary Vulcan folks would see this and go "wait, so why are we walking around with somber expressions and not smiling or laughing, when it doesn't really seem to matter anymore?"


What might have been necessary for Vulcan society in Surak's time no longer is. Still, they pay lip service to IDIC, which doesn't exactly scream "traditionalist conservatism."

When humankind experimented with genetics in the fictional history of Trek it went horribly wrong. Khan, the Eugenic Wars, WWIII, Colonel Green ... and even a century later Kodos whose thinking was basically Greenian, kill some people such that the other can survive.
DS9 showed that humans are unwilling to accept even moderate genetics that could be beneficial. They went too far once, the resulting horrors have been burned into the collective unconscious (which makes Kodos a return fo the repressed) and it is impossible to rationally discuss the issue, to find some golden middle.

I think the Vulcan problem is structurally similar, Vulcan nearly teared itself apart once and while this has been long gone it has nonetheless deeply impacted the Vulcan collective unconscious.

A real world comparison would be the incest taboo. Today we think it has to do with the problems of inbreeding but when it was created people lacked the knowledge about the problems of inbreeding. The incest taboo was an answer but we don't know the question. Lévi-Strauss argued that the purpose of it was to enlarge the family/clan via the in-laws which is impossible if you procreate inside the narrow family. I am sure there are other hypotheses.
Whatever the real reason was, it is irrelevant today and nonetheless the incest taboo exists. Note that nobody ever tells you to not desire your parents or siblings, you just know it sooner or later. This indicates that the taboo exists in our collective unconscious. As I already said, changing something that is rooted in the unconscious, even rationally discussing, is pretty difficult, perhaps even more for a society than an individual.

In short, even if some Vulcans realize that they could/should "ease up" it might take a lot of time until Vulcan society opens us.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Vulcans pretend and aspire to be that which they aren't, which is dispassionate and logical. They'll tell anyone who will listen how they've mastered their emotions, but the evidence from just about every significant appearance by them is that they're delusional.

 

[Timewalker]

A real world comparison would be the incest taboo. Today we think it has to do with the problems of inbreeding but when it was created people lacked the knowledge about the problems of inbreeding. The incest taboo was an answer but we don't know the question. Lévi-Strauss argued that the purpose of it was to enlarge the family/clan via the in-laws which is impossible if you procreate inside the narrow family. I am sure there are other hypotheses.
Whatever the real reason was, it is irrelevant today and nonetheless the incest taboo exists. Note that nobody ever tells you to not desire your parents or siblings, you just know it sooner or later. This indicates that the taboo exists in our collective unconscious.

I'm fairly certain that people in millennia past were not so unobservant that they wouldn't have noticed the problems that could happen when siblings had children together, or even cousins. And the taboo is easy: You simply do not harm or "use" your own people (to put it somewhat crudely). The incest taboo is a way of social control, because without it, the group stability would be gone and in the long run would severely weaken or destroy the people.

So it's not only for genetic reasons. As for nobody ever telling people today... maybe you weren't told, but I remember when I was a teenager, my grandmother told me rather emphatically that I was too old to give my father a good-night kiss anymore. I don't know if she told him anything, but it wasn't until after she died that I managed to make him realize that it's okay to touch - we went nearly 20 years without even hugging.

 

[sonak]

um, that's just weird. I'm not sure not being able to give your dad a good-night kiss has anything to do with an incest taboo. Maybe it had more to with your grandmother's issues.

 

[Mr.AtoZ]

Personally I also feel TOS got it best and TNG did an OK job of developing it. Star Trek Enterprise started out unrealistic for me with how Vulcans were depicted but redeemed themselves later on.

 

[TerragonSix]

Being wise or an intellectual are two very different things.

That's my problem with Vulcans. They claim in order for a more harmonic order of society, they have to deprive themselves of all emotion. Logic and intellect only. Because before, when they did have emotion; they were a brutal, savage race. So, they decided to eliminate all feelings all together... Right?

Sure, they are smart on an intellectual level, perhaps even to a somewhat societal and political level...

But in terms of important things like love, anger, joy, sadness, they know as much (or so they claim) as a computer does - or sure, they know the definition, but they deny themselves the ability to understand why these things are important.

What did Kirk say in the new Star Trek movie?

"What's it like not to feel love, heartache... or not feel hate for the man who murdered the one to give birth to you. You feel nothing! It must not even compute for you. You never loved her!"

Of course, even though that is the basis of the current Vulcan psyche, it does NOT mean that Vulcans practice it perfectly all the time. For example, Sarek married an Earth woman, publicly because it was the logical thing to do, privately because he loved her.

I dunno. I don't think ALL Vulcans are jerks; I suppose they have a similar percentage that humans and other races in the series do, it's just well more concealed.

 

[Timewalker]

um, that's just weird. I'm not sure not being able to give your dad a good-night kiss has anything to do with an incest taboo. Maybe it had more to with your grandmother's issues.

My grandmother felt it was improper, as in NOT RIGHT for me, as a teenage girl, to kiss my father. I can only assume that's something SHE was taught by her own elders as a teenage, sexually-mature girl.

To my grandmother, it was a TABOO thing to do. After she died, my father and I were able to overcome some of the things we'd been taught (my grandmother raised both of us), and our relationship is now more demonstrative.


To answer the question of who I'd rather party with... definitely Spock. I'm not a drinker, so his not being a drinker wouldn't bother me. Vulcans do have an appreciation for music, and so do I.

I wouldn't care to party with Klingons, since as mentioned, I don't drink. I also prefer my food to be decently dead before I eat it.

And I just find Romulans boring.

 

[horatio83]

I'm fairly certain that people in millennia past were not so unobservant that they wouldn't have noticed the problems that could happen when siblings had children together, or even cousins. And the taboo is easy: You simply do not harm or "use" your own people (to put it somewhat crudely). The incest taboo is a way of social control, because without it, the group stability would be gone and in the long run would severely weaken or destroy the people.

So it's not only for genetic reasons. As for nobody ever telling people today... maybe you weren't told, but I remember when I was a teenager, my grandmother told me rather emphatically that I was too old to give my father a good-night kiss anymore. I don't know if she told him anything, but it wasn't until after she died that I managed to make him realize that it's okay to touch - we went nearly 20 years without even hugging.

If a taboo is converted into an explicit rule in an exaggerated form (normal tenderness between parents and children is not sexual) it might cause a desire to break the rule. Of course I don't wanna imply that this was so in your case, I merely wanna use your example to make a general point.
During the fifties the official rule was "don't mess with boys/girls" but the implicit rules was "do it, but quietly" and young people might have derived some extra-pleasure from breaking the explicit rule.

That's why an implicit rule like a taboo is much more powerful.

 

[A.V.I.A.F.]

I thought the Vulcans were one of the few elements that Enterprise got right.

By S4, they did. Vulcans aren't unemotional, they are violently emotional and must repress their emotions for the sake of the humans who they'd throttle in a heartbeat.

Once you understand that part, their jerkiness is explanable.

I don't see what the suppression of emotions has to do with a rigid society or arranged marriage.

Seems self-evident to me.

Right, that does make sense!

 

[sonak]

um, that's just weird. I'm not sure not being able to give your dad a good-night kiss has anything to do with an incest taboo. Maybe it had more to with your grandmother's issues.

My grandmother felt it was improper, as in NOT RIGHT for me, as a teenage girl, to kiss my father. I can only assume that's something SHE was taught by her own elders as a teenage, sexually-mature girl.

To my grandmother, it was a TABOO thing to do. After she died, my father and I were able to overcome some of the things we'd been taught (my grandmother raised both of us), and our relationship is now more demonstrative.


To answer the question of who I'd rather party with... definitely Spock. I'm not a drinker, so his not being a drinker wouldn't bother me. Vulcans do have an appreciation for music, and so do I.

I wouldn't care to party with Klingons, since as mentioned, I don't drink. I also prefer my food to be decently dead before I eat it.

And I just find Romulans boring.

yeah, I get that "improper" means "not right," and that your grandmother was probably taught this as a child. What I'm saying is that connecting "hugging or kissing a parent of the opposite sex" to an incest taboo is absurd.

 

[Greg Cox]

Well, we hashed this out in another thread the other day and I don't have time to fight this war all over again. But, briefly, the Vulcans were never supposed to be role models for humanity. They represented one extreme, just like Spock and McCoy represent two ends of a spectrum, with Kirk in the middle.

As Trek demonstrated umpteen times, Kirk needs Spock and McCoy. Just as humanity needs logic and emotion. And Kirk needed his intellect and his primitive impulses in "The Enemy Within."

If the message of Trek is that we should all aspire to be more like Vulcans, then Spock should have completed his Kolihnar training and shed all those primitive human imperfections. Instead his entire narrative arc had him rejecting the extreme unemotionality of Kohlinar and gradually coming to terms with his human side as well. "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris," etc.

And, yeah, those other Vulcans have been a pain since as far back as "Amok Time" . . . .

The problem is, Nimoy is so appealing as Spock, that some fans think that he is supposed to be a role model . . . and not simply the polar opposite of McCoy, whose blatant emotionality is seen as equally valid.

"You are sensualist, doctor."

"Damn right."

 

[F. King Daniel]

Is it just me, or are Vulcans a bunch of jerks?

Yeah. Not all of them, but, yeah.

Certianly not role models for humanity. They follow a well meaning, yet fundamentally flawed phillosophy. They blantantly contradict their supposedly cherished IDIC all the time.

 

[horatio83]

Of course they are not role models, they are aliens with a different culture.
This very culture there is indeed in a conflict between the official stance and the undercurrent. This does not make them hypocrites, every culture functions like this. Take the nazis, when Hitler talked about ending Weimar decadence and so on he actually said between the lines that with him they can march East, kill, rape, pillage and have a lot of fun. Or take our own culture, our official ideology is liberal democracy but e.g. during the financial crisis the message was "cut the crap, this is deadly serious and we have no time to play the democratic game, we gotta bail out our banks".

This might sound problematic to some of you but I think that there is nothing inherently wrong with this structure. There has recently been a movie about a pandemic in the theatres, "Contagion". During the entire movie I was totally on the side of public institutions who tried to deal with the pandemic. At the end of it a conspiracy guy who wanted to make money via selling his fake medicine is arrested by Homeland Security folks and my gut reaction was "cut the crap, ignore the law and put him in prison".
Of course I am not in general against democracy and rule of law but in dire circumstances you have to be a bit Jacobin.

 

[sonak]

Actually, I think that the stated Vulcan ideal of peace, logic, and tolerance is a pretty good one, and it's way I find the Vulcans to be one of the more "fascinating" races in Trek.(Much more so than the boringly one-note TNG-era and beyond Klingons)


Just because many don't end up practicing the philosophy doesn't mean it's not a noble one.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Being wise or an intellectual are two very different things.

That's my problem with Vulcans. They claim in order for a more harmonic order of society, they have to deprive themselves of all emotion. Logic and intellect only. Because before, when they did have emotion; they were a brutal, savage race. So, they decided to eliminate all feelings all together... Right?

Sure, they are smart on an intellectual level, perhaps even to a somewhat societal and political level...

But in terms of important things like love, anger, joy, sadness, they know as much (or so they claim) as a computer does - or sure, they know the definition, but they deny themselves the ability to understand why these things are important.

You're judging them by human standards. But what if (as has been established canonically), Vulcans are very inhuman in the degree to which their emotions are violent?

That is, there's a continuum of serenity to psychosis for individual humans and for individual Vulcans, and each individual will have their own place on that spectrum, but Vulcans as a group are skewed way over to the psychosis end of the spectrum (by human standards, of course, since I'm using human terms and assumptions).

In that case, Vulcans can't just "act human" because they aren't human, and humans like Kirk who just don't get that (because Vulcans will never admit it) are a continual annoyance to Vulcans, who express their annoyance by acting like jerks or throwing the occasional punch.

It's good to see Star Trek depicting aliens as aliens and not as humans with funny foreheads. They should do that more often.

As for Vulcan's arranged marriage, if everyone accepts that marriage is the property of a society and not an individual choice, it becomes ritualized and is out of the hands of the individual, and no longer something that is subject to individual emotions. This will curtail the risk of violent jealousy leading to emotionally based violence.

Anything that takes choice away from the individual and places it in the hands of the group will contribute to emotional repression, which for Vulcans is a good thing, so I'm not at all surprised to see aspects of their society that are ritualized and repressed, and that fetishize ancient traditions. It's all part of the same package.

Certianly not role models for humanity. They follow a well meaning, yet fundamentally flawed phillosophy. They blantantly contradict their supposedly cherished IDIC all the time.

They're not human. That's the first thing to understand about them. If they're not human, why expect them to follow our rules? Our rules are functional for us, dysfunctional for them. It's like expecting a cat to be a vegetarian just because a cow is.

 

[Anwar]

But they were the ones who came up with the IDIC philosophy, and they pretty much educated the humans to follow it or set the example to follow. Then it turns out they never really have followed it at all.