I’ve started watching Star Trek: Enterprise recently, and it has dredged up all my all frustrations about Vulcans; specifically about how they are not at all logical. All the while being (probably) the least logical species in the universe, they claim that logic is central to their identities.
Interestingly enough, Enterprise episode 17 “Fusion,” depicts Vulcans that think everybody has been interpreting the whole logic philosophy too literally and that a balance of emotion and logic is needed. Never mind that the two are not mutually exclusive. But the strange thing about these characters is that they mostly seemed much more logical than all the other Vulcans. Especially the way Tavin (one of the “emotional Vulcans”) talks about sex – he talks about it in such a precise, open and clinical way whilst other Vulcans are embarrassed by discussions of sex and are reticent to discuss it. Indeed, Tavin is so open about sex that the humans around him feel a bit uncomfortable. But we are supposed to believe that you can only be open and honest about sex if you are illogical and emotional? This enrages me.
I know it is nothing new that TV (and movie) writers often misunderstand logic and how it works, but come on. I’ve also noticed that Vulcans seem to suffer a lot more from the problems of a monolithic patriarchy, compared to the human and Romulan societies as depicted. It seems to me that a purely logical society would have perfect gender equality, as subjugating one gender for the benefit of another is very illogical and harmful to the overall society. But that’s a subject for another post…
