[kevin]

Originally Posted by horatio

Of course I am exaggerating but to me the point of Vulcans is precisely that they are not like us. They are in the good Roddenberryian sense real aliens.
We are life-loving democrats but Klingons are death-loving aristocrats. We are good liberal humans but they are anti-liberal Vulcans and they have to be like that because they cannot be free like us. If they were they would destroy themselves.

Yes, but they are also devious, conniving, controlling and use their logic to mask their darker side as well at times.

That said, it seems to work for them..............go figure.

[kevin]

Originally Posted by omegaman

I like Sybok… he's more in tune with the Vulcans now more than ever!

Never was a fan of him......................

[omegaman]

Originally Posted by kevin

Never was a fan of him......................

Cool idea… lousy attempt at a movie though… my least favourite.

[horatio]

Originally Posted by kevin

Yes, but they are also devious, conniving, controlling and use their logic to mask their darker side as well at times.

That said, it seems to work for them..............go figure.

Of course they are like us, they can be dicks. I don't wanna justify it but isn't Vulcan racism or rather Vulcan supremacy necessary? After all their society can only work if everybody follows the dogmas, aliens have different ideas and these ideas can be dangerous for Vulcan society.
So the options are to look down on other species to some extent, this typical Vulcan arrogance, and to stay close at home, to do it the Romulan way or to regress to the uncivilized times of nasty civil wars.

[kevin]

It's one way...............but then humans also managed to build an Empire (depsite also being dicks) while still having emotions.

There's more than one way to skin a cat...................and organise a society.

[horatio]

I disagree, Klingons could not adapt Federation ideology.

That's what I love about Trek, real aliens and the Prime Directive. Of course nobody of us wanted to live like a Vulcan or a Klingon, although I am not totally sure about the latter, but we can respect them nonetheless.
This isn't the typical everyday fake tolerance nonsense, real tolerance is to live side by side with a bunch of foul-smelling brutes who kill for fun.
I love this scene in the finale of DS9 where Sisko and the Admiral who's name I have forgotten turn around their bloodwine cups. They have fought with Martok, they respect each other but there are things they don't do like celebrating death. It isn't a Prime Directive story but it's about the same thing, how to live together with people who are and will always be fundamentally different from you.

[kevin]

Personally I wouldn't want to live like a Klingon OR a Vulcan (not in a xenophobic way but no emotion and constant swordplay aint my bag baby - im a proud fallible human) in the grand scheme, but to each society its own. But then, have the Vulcans tried to see how it goes. They upended their society 20000 years ago, and orthodoxy says they cant go back. Have they tried? It's not as if Vulcans dont use emotions anyway.............they blatantly do, they just kid themselves otherwise.

I'm not even starting on the cheesecloth that is the PD tonight, i gotta go sleep.

[horatio]

I wouldn't equate suppression with hypocrisy. Freud's big discovery was that the hysteric and neurotic people he treated weren't some crazy freaks who didn't make it, they were rather normal people.
If somebody has a sexual neurosis it is usually caused by the culture he lives in. So psychoanalysis is not like psychology about treating an individual, it's rather about understanding that you can't really distinguish between individuals and the whole of society. After all Freud wrote books like "Das Unbehagen in the Kultur", the uneasiness in culture.

Culture is always something artificial, something constructed that includes all kind of pathologies. Even free societies like our own one work like that (the most hedonistic activities are often the implicitly most regulated ones) and that's why I don't buy the notion that Vulcans would be better off if they would stop to fool themselves.
Every idiot realizes that Sarek loves Amanda after having watched Journey to Babel, it doesn't have to be spelled out like in TNG (I don't remember precisely but I think there it's more about Spock) or in ST09. Now compare this to some stupid teenagers who tell that they love each other after having been together for two days. Who is more sincere?

[kevin]

I'd say the teenagers were every bit as sincere as the older couple, if in their more limited experience of 'love'. So thats not a good comparison because they are only stupid to adults who forget they often did the same things as a teenager.

Fall in and out of love with frequency. Adult love isnt the same.

And I didnt use the word hypocrisy (i save that for the PD) but if Vulcans wany to trade the image they hdave no emotions thats fine. I dont have to purchse it is all.

[horatio]

Of course they have strong emotions, suppress them and thus fool themselves, that's not the point.
We rather disagree on whether stopping to behave like this would do any good for them.

I basically side with TFF and Fusion, i.e. that whoever tries to become more open and relaxed with his emotions has to fail, whereas you side more with TUC, Unification and ST09, i.e. that the late Spock shows that it does work.
Of course all arguments are valid, I merely want to point out that the idea that the Vulcans would leave behind an oppressive system and choose a more free one is problematic. The guy from Fusion fell into a void, there was nothing so he became primordially violent, whereas Sybok filled the gap with the search for paradise.
So when Vulcans free themselves from their bonds they need another God, in Sybok's case even literally, or they regress into uncivilized, again meant to be taken literally, being out of civilization, brutes.

Perhaps I should apply for a job in the Vulcan propaganda, eh, information ministry.