williams@ecadjr.DEC (Lather, rinse, repeat...) (02/13/86)
First off, as a fan of Star Trek, I don't want to admit that in many of the stories there is a feeling of prejudice towards Spock and his logic, but with the evidence presented in this discussion, it does indeed appear to be true. It doesn't mean that Spock was hated by his human colleagues but the humans were considered to be superior. The irrational, emotional, human mind was a better choice than the devoted logic of the Vulcan mind, or at least to the writers, it was a better choice. I'm not sure which I'd prefer, perhaps the "happy medium" Spock had, I don't know. But I think the thing that bothers me the most about this attitude is the number of times that Spock saved Kirk and company by using logic. I present two examples. One is in "Court-Martial" and the other is in "The Wrath of Khan". In "Court-Martial", everyone seems perfectly happy to leave Kirk's fate in the hands of the grand standing Samuel T. Cogley (I'm pretty sure that's his name), a man whom you'll notice rejected the logic of a computer for books written by "human" minds. That is, everyone but Spock. Spock sets out to test the computer by playing a game of chess. He wins. He's not supposed to. At best, the game should end in a draw because Spock was the one who programmed the computer for chess using his own logic. From the victory, Spock notes that someone must have tampered with the computer in order to create the damning evidence. Kirk is saved. Hurrah! What does Spock get in return? Not much. This episode is interesting in that it depicts the conflict we've been discussing but it's the humans who are at fault and they still come out smelling like a rose. Onto "The Wrath of Khan". The only one who acts in this desperate situation is Spock. Everyone else is content to sit on the bridge, look worried, and say to themselves, "Well, we've got to get out of this one!! We're the good guys!!" Spock acts in a logical fashion. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one." True. It makes sense. It's logical and it's the right decision. Everyone else thinks he acted on an impulse but he didn't. He acted as logic would dictate. In this situation, I'd like to see the roles reversed. Would Kirk sacrifice himself for his ship and his crew? Obviously, in this case, he doesn't. No human does. Of course, this role reversal can go both ways. Would Spock go through what Kirk goes through in "The Search for Spock"? I don't think so. Kirk was motivated by his human emotions. I think logic would stop Spock early on. He'd probably balk at the idea of stealing the Enterprise. But again, the human mind is shown to be superior to the logical mind. "The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many." I could go on and on and probably have, just a bit far, but let me close with two thoughts. First, I'd like to offer a possible "logical" explanation for the "His was the most human..." line Kirk delivers in his eulogy at Spock's funeral. Throughout the series, we've seen the character of Spock go through a lot of internal and external conflict dealing with both his human and Vulcan halves. It appeared in the beginning of "Star Trek - The Motion Picture" that Spock had made a decision to purge his human half and devote himself purely to logic through the Kohlinahr (sp?) ritual. Of course, we know what happens. He rejects the ritual at the last minute because of a great disturbance he feels and he goes to join Kirk and crew to deal with V'ger. He then decides that his place is among the galaxies with his friends. Perhaps this is something that had bothered Kirk. His friend, Spock, sacrificed something very important to his being a Vulcan to being part human. Kirk could've thought that Spock didn't seem to "belong" to the Vulcan culture. In that case, he decided to make him a member of the human race at his friend's death. A noble gesture, perhaps. A little bit late... The other thought that I'd like to close with is that it almost doesn't matter how the writers wrote the character of Spock as long as we don't blindly go along with that attitude of human over logic. I've always felt Spock was the wisest member of the crew. I never felt McCoy won any of those arguments (well, maybe the few he used logic). I just felt that Spock felt it was no longer logical to carry on the conversation with a ranting human. As long as we still govern how we perceive the characters presented in Star Trek, we'll be okay. Blindly following whatever these "human" writers write is foolish. Use your imagination. One thing I've always liked about Star Trek was how it encourage you to dream that such places and situations could exist, maybe, someday. Where a human could be friends with someone like a Vulcan. Let's hope it happens someday and that prejudice and racism don't rear their ugly head. Skip Williams Digital Equipment Corp. Maynard, MA
daveb@amiga.UUCP (Dave Berezowski) (02/14/86)
In article <1117@decwrl.DEC.COM>, williams@ecadjr.DEC (Lather, rinse, repeat...) writes: > > Of course, this role reversal can go both ways. Would Spock go through > what Kirk goes through in "The Search for Spock"? I don't think so. > Kirk was motivated by his human emotions. I think logic would stop > Spock early on. He'd probably balk at the idea of stealing the Enterprise. > But again, the human mind is shown to be superior to the logical mind. Don't forget that Spock did steal the Enterprise for his former Captain Christopher Pike in The Menagerie (sp) I & II.
kayuucee@cvl.UUCP (02/14/86)
> Samuel T. Cogley a man whom you'll notice rejected the logic of a computer > for books written by "human" minds. Cogley did not reject the logic of a computer, he rejected the impersonality of a computer. Having the computer read him pertinent sections of a document, such as The Constitution of the United States, was not as soul-thrilling to him as reading it on his own. That is what I think he was trying to get across to Kirk during his speech and in his gift at the end of the show. Something that was repeated when Spock gave Kirk that copy of "A Tale of Two Cities" in Star Trek II - The Wrath of Kahn. > Would Kirk sacrifice himself for his ship and his crew? Obviously, in this > case, he doesn't. No human does. No, I don't think Kirk would do the same thing thing that Spock did, because he is not the same person. Kirk would spend his time trying to find a way out of the "Life or Death" situation, as in the Kobiyashi Maru sce- nario, without losing anyone's life. ANd, left to Kirk they would have all died because Kirk's way of thinking is wrong for that situation. Which, I think is what Star Trek is all about. Kirk saves the day in most of the stories because he is the star. But, there situations occur when Kirk's way of doing things is inappropre- ate, so things are settled by Spock. There are times also where both of these approaches are wrong and someone else comes up with the winning combination. Neither human or Vulcan way is better, but together they are better then they were. Then when you had in the Klingons, Romulans, Thol- ians and who knows how many other races in the Galaxy, the combination increases even more so. Star-Lord They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally they became heroes.
barb@oliven.UUCP (Barbara Jernigan) (02/14/86)
>Skip Williams >Onto "The Wrath of Khan". The only one who acts in this desperate >situation is Spock. Everyone else is content to sit on the bridge, >look worried, and say to themselves, "Well, we've got to get out of >this one!! We're the good guys!!" Of course not! Scotty has *always* pulled the Enterprise out of the fire before, why not now? In an emergency, the Captain does not leave the bridge -- that's why he has specialists (and Scotty, short of Spock, perhaps, is the best in Star Fleet). >Everyone else thinks he acted on an impulse but he didn't. I didn't think that, and I'm someone. >Would Kirk sacrifice himself for his ship and his crew? Yes. (So far he's always been rescued at the last minute. We call this saving the cast director extra work.) >No human does. Baloney. Read your history. >Would Spock go through >what Kirk goes through in "The Search for Spock"? I don't think so. >...He'd probably balk at the idea of stealing the Enterprise. Wrong. Spock *did* steal the Enterprise in *Menagerie* -- to take Captain Pike to Talos IV. Personally, I'm not sure why we're so fired up about the Human line. People say dumb things at funerals. Of *course* Kirk would think the highest praise he could give Spock is being Human (as opposed to human) -- by Spock's own words (well agreement with Saavik), Kirk is *very* human. As for me, I don't remember what Kirk said at all -- what tore my heart out was Scotty's piping. But then, like Skip, my image of the characters is not limited to the scriptwriters (of whom there are a lot more bad than good -- and, fewer still, excellent). The image on the screen -- tv and movie -- is an imperfect reflection of the characters who *live* in my mind. To reitterate Skip's conclusion, in my head, humans are not better than Vulcans (*or* vice versa) -- just different. And the best Star Trek writers -- the ones who implanted the series in my beloved zone -- knew that. The others, well, I can always change the channel (or rewrite the episode in my head ;-). Ta! Barb