Still Can’t Stand How SNW Writes Vulcans
Jul. 15th, 2023 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiYep, I’m going to gripe about Strange New Worlds S2, ep. 5 (the Spock one), so if that’s going to kill your buzz, please feel free to skip.
The (Mostly) Good
To begin with (virtually spoiler free), this episode had a couple of very good things:
1) Amanda. New Trek Amanda has been written very well in general, and this may be the best Amanda episode in all Star Trek. I love how she is now being treated like full, complex person.
2) The aliens. Though they loosely fall under the “super-evolved energy being” trope, they are different from every other ST alien I can recall, and that’s a quite a trick after almost 60 years of media. They’re benevolent but also narrowminded and just culturally different in their communication patterns. Well done.
I have only one complaint, which is the universalization of the “friendship doesn’t matter” trope. Alien as these beings are, they 100% agree with us (21st century US, for ex.) and our heroes (23rd century) that friendship doesn’t matter much, thereby presenting this not as a cultural quirk but a universal law. As a friendship bonder, this sets my teeth on edge exactly as I imagine the “bury your queers” trope does queer people’s: (not exact quote) “We’re friends, but I want something...” (wait for it) “...more.” Okay, I’ll stop now.
3) Bonus good: Pike. He was a minor character in this, but he came through for Spock as a supportive friend and it spoke well of his character.
4) Bonus good: Excellent acting throughout. This includes Chapel, who is bringing her A game.
5) Bonus good: A lot of the jokes, in and of themselves, were funny.
Spoilers and griping follow.
Vulcans
I’ve written about my discontents with New Trek Vulcans elsewhere, but this ep. was one of the worst I’ve seen.
It seems to regard the Vulcans’ ability to be consistently low affect as purely genetic, since Spock loses almost all of it as soon as he becomes genetically all human. I’d buy some genetic component that makes it easier for Vulcans than humans to learn certain types of control and concentration. But to present this as mostly genetic is to contradict the entire history of Vulcans. They adopted “logic” as a cultural construction to contain strong emotion—i.e. the opposite of what this episode suggests. ST writing has never been internally consistent, but this has been shown over and over, through a myriad of Vulcan rituals designed to extinguish emotion through training.
Spock has worked really hard at this training his whole life, and there is no reason that waking up genetically human would instantly make it all go away. In fact, if we follow the bulk of ST canon, that Vulcan emotions are stronger than human, I would imagine this scenario would start as almost the opposite to what they show us. With milder, human emotions, Spock would probably find “Vulcan” emotional containment easier, at least at first.
The best argument I can think of for his joyous full-on human behavior is that it’s not genetic but a psychological excuse to indulge the human side he usually feels he has to suppress. That would be interesting, but the story never explores it. It treats his situation as just “this is how humans/Vulcans are.”
As to the Vulcans in general, virtually all pretense of adherence to established Vulcan culture is gone. Everyone talks easily about their “feelings”; in fact, I suspect “feeling” is mentioned more than “logic,” though I didn’t add it up. The Vulcans behave 98% like humans in a romcom, except they (mostly) don’t smile and have a fairly narrow vocal range: this is the only difference left between humans and Vulcans. (The 2% is T’Pring telling her mother that Mom’s response is not logical, and Mom agreeing/accepting the correction.)
Why This Matters
Beyond my being an old, disgruntled TOS fan (which I am), why does any of this matter?
I’ve said this before but I’ll say again: this type of writing exemplifies a trend on the political left that worries me: not being able to conceptualize a culture different from one’s own.
I expect that from the right. I expect C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy to be Christians-in-Space. I expect all the good people in Middle-earth to accept (more or less explicitly) the existence of a single, all-powerful, all-good God. Being narrow adherents to a certain worldview is almost synonymous with being conservative. I’ve never been attracted to that worldview, but as one stance among many in this world, it has its helpful uses, such as honoring tradition, finding wisdom in the past (there is some), and learning your own tradition well.
But liberalism (in the sense of “broadmindedness”) is needed to counter conservatism. It is the other side of the coin. It’s the side that says, “It’s great that faith in Christ has helped you be a good person, but what about these people who don’t have or want faith in Christ but are also trying to be good people, and we gotta live in society with them?” This work, this broadness, cannot be done when the left regards only one culture as acceptable/possible, i.e. Vulcans are just low-affect humans; all beings everywhere will always understand that being in love is more important than being “just friends.”
Strange New Worlds as a title points to ST’s legacy of interest in cultural diversity. No, ST has not always been great at depicting this. But the amount of energy New Trek puts into allegories about our current Anglophone societies or just “relatable” character beats vs. actual exploration of “strange new worlds” and “new civilizations” throws into stark relief how atrophied the writing room’s ability (or desire?) to present difference is. In a word, a significant portion of ST’s discourse is failing at respect for/awareness of diversity.
It’s admirable and, sadly, desperately needed that ST supports diversity in the sense of representing characters of diverse races, genders, gender/sexual orientations, and (occasionally) abilities. But the reduction of the concept of “diversity” to the trifecta of race/gender and sexual orientation/ability enables a loss of awareness of many other kinds of diversity: from class to religion to culture.
This parochialism blunts imagination (and to some degree, empathy), so that increasingly social arguments from the left exhibit fallacious reasoning I’d associate with the right, like an abrupt shutting down of critique or challenging questions. Alanis Morissette once summed up this experience of being shut down by the right: “In the name of the father, the skeptic, and the son, I have one more stupid question.” Here’s one real-life example of the same from the left:
In a DEI training on racism I attended, one participant asked (not exact quotes), “If the ultimate goal is for people not to be judged by their race but we’re foregrounding race as a way to understand people, how do we move from foregrounding racial identity toward not judging people by it?” And the response was, “I don’t have an answer for that, and we can’t talk about that in this session because one of our agreements [i.e. rules we are forced to follow with no discussion] is that we can’t expect closure and that question expects closure.” (No, it doesn’t.) The session then went on with no space for ever revisiting that crucial question. I’ve seen the “no closure” argument used multiple times as a shorthand for “I refuse to discuss this.” The result is a narrow discourse with increasingly little mechanism for self-reflection or self-critique.
Another fallacy I’ve seen multiple times on the left lately (and frighteningly) is confusing description of violence with prescription for violence: famous leftwing leader X said, “If you oppress people enough, they will become violent.” This means, “I am oppressed, so I am justified in becoming violent (in some limited circumstances).” No, it really doesn’t. To be clear, I'm not saying one is never justified in becoming violent. That's a topic for another day. I'm saying that is not what that kind of descriptive statement about how violence works is saying, that such a statement is not evidence that violence can be acceptable.
I see that illiberalism in much of New Trek, and in its small way, it scares me. To be clear, I think the good New Trek does by its genuine attention to representation will far outweigh any harm it does. Nonetheless, this narrowing of imagination disturbs me, particularly in a show originally premised on expansive imagining of better futures and genuine delight in cultural diversity and learning about the universe.
The (Mostly) Good
To begin with (virtually spoiler free), this episode had a couple of very good things:
1) Amanda. New Trek Amanda has been written very well in general, and this may be the best Amanda episode in all Star Trek. I love how she is now being treated like full, complex person.
2) The aliens. Though they loosely fall under the “super-evolved energy being” trope, they are different from every other ST alien I can recall, and that’s a quite a trick after almost 60 years of media. They’re benevolent but also narrowminded and just culturally different in their communication patterns. Well done.
I have only one complaint, which is the universalization of the “friendship doesn’t matter” trope. Alien as these beings are, they 100% agree with us (21st century US, for ex.) and our heroes (23rd century) that friendship doesn’t matter much, thereby presenting this not as a cultural quirk but a universal law. As a friendship bonder, this sets my teeth on edge exactly as I imagine the “bury your queers” trope does queer people’s: (not exact quote) “We’re friends, but I want something...” (wait for it) “...more.” Okay, I’ll stop now.
3) Bonus good: Pike. He was a minor character in this, but he came through for Spock as a supportive friend and it spoke well of his character.
4) Bonus good: Excellent acting throughout. This includes Chapel, who is bringing her A game.
5) Bonus good: A lot of the jokes, in and of themselves, were funny.
Spoilers and griping follow.
Vulcans
I’ve written about my discontents with New Trek Vulcans elsewhere, but this ep. was one of the worst I’ve seen.
It seems to regard the Vulcans’ ability to be consistently low affect as purely genetic, since Spock loses almost all of it as soon as he becomes genetically all human. I’d buy some genetic component that makes it easier for Vulcans than humans to learn certain types of control and concentration. But to present this as mostly genetic is to contradict the entire history of Vulcans. They adopted “logic” as a cultural construction to contain strong emotion—i.e. the opposite of what this episode suggests. ST writing has never been internally consistent, but this has been shown over and over, through a myriad of Vulcan rituals designed to extinguish emotion through training.
Spock has worked really hard at this training his whole life, and there is no reason that waking up genetically human would instantly make it all go away. In fact, if we follow the bulk of ST canon, that Vulcan emotions are stronger than human, I would imagine this scenario would start as almost the opposite to what they show us. With milder, human emotions, Spock would probably find “Vulcan” emotional containment easier, at least at first.
The best argument I can think of for his joyous full-on human behavior is that it’s not genetic but a psychological excuse to indulge the human side he usually feels he has to suppress. That would be interesting, but the story never explores it. It treats his situation as just “this is how humans/Vulcans are.”
As to the Vulcans in general, virtually all pretense of adherence to established Vulcan culture is gone. Everyone talks easily about their “feelings”; in fact, I suspect “feeling” is mentioned more than “logic,” though I didn’t add it up. The Vulcans behave 98% like humans in a romcom, except they (mostly) don’t smile and have a fairly narrow vocal range: this is the only difference left between humans and Vulcans. (The 2% is T’Pring telling her mother that Mom’s response is not logical, and Mom agreeing/accepting the correction.)
Why This Matters
Beyond my being an old, disgruntled TOS fan (which I am), why does any of this matter?
I’ve said this before but I’ll say again: this type of writing exemplifies a trend on the political left that worries me: not being able to conceptualize a culture different from one’s own.
I expect that from the right. I expect C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy to be Christians-in-Space. I expect all the good people in Middle-earth to accept (more or less explicitly) the existence of a single, all-powerful, all-good God. Being narrow adherents to a certain worldview is almost synonymous with being conservative. I’ve never been attracted to that worldview, but as one stance among many in this world, it has its helpful uses, such as honoring tradition, finding wisdom in the past (there is some), and learning your own tradition well.
But liberalism (in the sense of “broadmindedness”) is needed to counter conservatism. It is the other side of the coin. It’s the side that says, “It’s great that faith in Christ has helped you be a good person, but what about these people who don’t have or want faith in Christ but are also trying to be good people, and we gotta live in society with them?” This work, this broadness, cannot be done when the left regards only one culture as acceptable/possible, i.e. Vulcans are just low-affect humans; all beings everywhere will always understand that being in love is more important than being “just friends.”
Strange New Worlds as a title points to ST’s legacy of interest in cultural diversity. No, ST has not always been great at depicting this. But the amount of energy New Trek puts into allegories about our current Anglophone societies or just “relatable” character beats vs. actual exploration of “strange new worlds” and “new civilizations” throws into stark relief how atrophied the writing room’s ability (or desire?) to present difference is. In a word, a significant portion of ST’s discourse is failing at respect for/awareness of diversity.
It’s admirable and, sadly, desperately needed that ST supports diversity in the sense of representing characters of diverse races, genders, gender/sexual orientations, and (occasionally) abilities. But the reduction of the concept of “diversity” to the trifecta of race/gender and sexual orientation/ability enables a loss of awareness of many other kinds of diversity: from class to religion to culture.
This parochialism blunts imagination (and to some degree, empathy), so that increasingly social arguments from the left exhibit fallacious reasoning I’d associate with the right, like an abrupt shutting down of critique or challenging questions. Alanis Morissette once summed up this experience of being shut down by the right: “In the name of the father, the skeptic, and the son, I have one more stupid question.” Here’s one real-life example of the same from the left:
In a DEI training on racism I attended, one participant asked (not exact quotes), “If the ultimate goal is for people not to be judged by their race but we’re foregrounding race as a way to understand people, how do we move from foregrounding racial identity toward not judging people by it?” And the response was, “I don’t have an answer for that, and we can’t talk about that in this session because one of our agreements [i.e. rules we are forced to follow with no discussion] is that we can’t expect closure and that question expects closure.” (No, it doesn’t.) The session then went on with no space for ever revisiting that crucial question. I’ve seen the “no closure” argument used multiple times as a shorthand for “I refuse to discuss this.” The result is a narrow discourse with increasingly little mechanism for self-reflection or self-critique.
Another fallacy I’ve seen multiple times on the left lately (and frighteningly) is confusing description of violence with prescription for violence: famous leftwing leader X said, “If you oppress people enough, they will become violent.” This means, “I am oppressed, so I am justified in becoming violent (in some limited circumstances).” No, it really doesn’t. To be clear, I'm not saying one is never justified in becoming violent. That's a topic for another day. I'm saying that is not what that kind of descriptive statement about how violence works is saying, that such a statement is not evidence that violence can be acceptable.
I see that illiberalism in much of New Trek, and in its small way, it scares me. To be clear, I think the good New Trek does by its genuine attention to representation will far outweigh any harm it does. Nonetheless, this narrowing of imagination disturbs me, particularly in a show originally premised on expansive imagining of better futures and genuine delight in cultural diversity and learning about the universe.
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