The Vulcan Dogma of Logic?

[Emperor Norton]

Vulcan is a society where their dogma is the teachings of Surak and a life of logic and emotional control. However, that philosophy is not critically reviewed. What if a Vulcan does not want to follow the teachings of Surak? Are they ostracized and cast out from society? If so, that undercuts the idea of logic and no emotion as a passive, peaceful ideology which unifies people. Indeed, it undercuts the very idea of diversity found in the IDIC.

There is also the question of if emotions really are that bad for the Vulcan people. The Vulcans blamed their wars on their lack of logic and emotions. It is not only a belief that logic and no emotion are better. It is a taboo to consider emotions because the Vulcans think they would lose total control, and would be shamed. But there is evidence that Vulcan emotions are no more passionate than a human. There's a lot of things that Vulcan characters say were true in the past, while speaking centuries after the time they are referring to. But when we see it on screen, and I may be wrong, I cannot remember a time where Vulcan emotions shown in their natural state (and not as the result of some "everyone's crazy too" mcguffin) have been different from normal humans. The Mintakans were not flying into homicidal, barely function rage. Sybok was misguided, but he certainly was not flying into murderous fits of rage. And there is the example of the Romulans, who specifically rejected Surak. Their government is a dictatorship and individuals and organizations of the Romulan Empire are very much the bad guy. But as individuals, there is no sign that they are, as a people, irrational and destructively emotional. They act normally, and are not like the descriptions of earlier Vulcans that later Vulcans describe. Which makes me think emotions are not so bad for Vulcans.

 

[FormerLurker]

Passionate emotional states are not confined to fits of madness or uncontrollable rage. The Vulcan view is that any passionate emotional state, even one of love or affection, is too easy to lead to overzealous expression of that emotion, and that is why it must be avoided. The Vulcans could just as easily be attempting to avoid embarrassing Public Displays of Affection as dangerous displays of violence and mayhem.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Except for STAR TREK 2009, the Romulans have never offered us any glimpse of why the Vulcans would need to resort to becoming an emotionally constipated race. In fact, STAR TREK Television reveals a people who are nothing but ordinary Human beings with pointed ears and nappy wigs. As well, I'm very disappointed with how Amok Time demonstrates Life on Vulcan. It's all done to entertain, solely, rather than being "true" to its framework. Mark Lenard really nailed that down, though, with Sarek. It's easy to see why Spock chose to emulate his father. Tim Russ' Tuvok, also, was a magnificent demonstration of how the Vulcan philosophy is lived. But practically every other Vulcan we meet, including T'Pol, is pretty much "anything goes." I know there's a fanbase out there, for that kind of an approach, but I never cared for it. Spock, Sarek and Tuvok embody the Vulcan Way, much better.

 

[Vandervecken]

I know there's a fanbase out there, for that kind of an approach, but I never cared for it. Spock, Sarek and Tuvok embody the Vulcan Way, much better.

Real Spock, not NuSpock. He's in the anything goes crowd too.

 

[Mojochi]

I just never understood the unification of principles. The idea of possessing both emotion & an ability to be logical are not mutually exclusive. Surely, the healthiest & thereby most logical assumption about emotions is that allowing yourself to have them, & then conditioning yourself to deal constructively with them, is far superior to suppressing them altogether, & probably less likely to backfire

Case in point: When I had a weight problem, the best methods for motivating myself to get in better shape were all emotional. Being angry, or upset, drove me to work on it. Drive is indelibly linked to emotion. I imagine a very opposite type of people when I think of them pushing away all emotion, complacent, lacking drive, etc...

While emotion is surely the undoing of people quite often, it's also the major part of them pushing to be doing anything at all

 

[Ronald Held]

I can see Sarek and Tuvok as prime examples of upholding the teachings of Surak. Spock perhaps outdoes most other Vulcans, due to his mixed heritage. Until "Kir'Shara" T'Pol was no role model, but so were the vast majority of vulcans .

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Always seems in the show the Vulcans experience such a powerful stream of emotions that it's difficult to control without discipline.

We've also seen a lot of intolerance in Vulcan society toward the idea that the emotions shouldn't be controlled. Some of it is dogmatism and some of it is fear of what they might be capable of if they don't.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I actually think it's the Vulcan natural inclination toward stoicism that is the problem with their emotions. They mostly lack the human "circuit breaker" of a quick cycle of rage and regret to reset things when they get really angry - and so instead of a single bout of flying off the handle like a human might have, they plot extremely crafty and intelligent ways of indulging their anger. Even Nero, who was perhaps the most impulsive Romulan adversary we had seen, waited and planned the best way to take his revenge on Spock for *25 freaking years*. That sort of thing when their species was still dividing among nations on a single planet could be disasterous - especially once they developed nuclear and anti-matter weapons, or large scale psionic ones.

 

[Paradise City]

The Vulcans haven't just fiery innate emotions but are telepaths. Vulcans given over to the passions is probably like crossing a Betazed with a Klingon! A hair raising species indeed!

And the Vulcans deciding upon the path of Surak en-mass may simply be an attempt to ensure a 'Vulcan Hitler' never emerges.It doesn't neccesarily mean that all Vulcans in an emotional state must give themselves over to ambition. But some powerful destructive men might and signing everyone up to Surak means no Vulcan Hitler can ever reach a critical mass of support. Even the well meaning Sybok himself had an ambition that ultimately destroyed him.

That the Mintakins and the Romulans are functional may have more to do with their telepathic machinery being dormant. Maybe they don't get the Pon Farr for these reasons or that it just isn't intense enough without the powerful telepathy.

The Vulcans strive to conduct themselves in a manner of pure logic unencumbered by the passions. It's their particular strategy in dealing with the kind of emotions that almost destroyed them and it's a permanent struggle that surges to the surface during the Pon Farr process. And emotions do regularly interfere with rationality in countless of ways, often in ways we don't acknowledge ourselves. But of course the disciplined Vulcans themselves have varying interpretations of what logic entails and sometimes their pursuit of this logic has had bad results.

Scratching away the surface of Vulcan, there's alot of politics, ambition and self denial going on in that society.

But the Vulcans are cool and I'm glad Trek has one species that strives to give themselves over to pure logic and who keep their emotions at bay in the way that they do. Can't do without Mr Spock afterall.

 

[matthunter]

The Last Unicorn Games Trek RPG had a Vulcan philosophy in their sourcebook called the Way of Nirak whose followers held that some display of emotion was OK, as long as it wasn't taken to extremes. A Vulcan might express happiness, but not ecstatic joy. They would also display emotion privately when possible. But they still try to make decisions logically, it's simply that they see the fact that they have emotions and the expression of them (as long as it doesn't affect their objectivity) as logical too.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think Vulcans cling to logic to ensure a certain level of stability (or intentional stagnation) in their society. IMO, they don't want major upheavals and are hesitant to change--unless logic deems it necessary. In that capacity, logic is a crutch Vulcans use to safeguard against them ever returning to "the dark times."

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I view Picard's experience in Sarek as a view to what emotions Vulcans have to hold back every single day.

I kind of agree with a variation of the 'Circuit breaker'. One mechanism of the human brain is that when they get too much of a neurotransmitter they build up a short term resistance against it. Maybe Vulcans lack this mechanism.

Maybe the reason Romulans don't have this problem is that because they didn't develop logic, they evolved this mechanism because without logic, a 'circuit breaker' became a genetically selective trait.