“In SNW, Vulcans are most often the butt of jokes, and that joke is, just about universally, look at how logical these Vulcans are! In season two’s “Charades,” Spock (already half-human) is turned fully human by a noncorporeal intelligence. This immediately makes him smelly, horny, hungry, and catastrophically emotional, things he apparently was unable to be when he was biologically part Vulcan. Later, in season three’s “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans,” four human crew members are turned into Vulcans, which makes them into science-loving assholes obsessed with facts and logic, save for one who, because she got turned into a Romulan, turns scheming and mutineering and altogether evil. There is little nuance in the show’s portrayal of Spock and his emotions, and even less in how it regards anyone with two Vulcan parents. Vulcans in SNW, to oversimplify (but not by much), are cruel, petty beings obsessed with logic and science simply because they are Vulcans.”
"Bioessentialism, in brief, is the ultimate anti-liberty philosophy: a bioessentialist universe is a clockwork universe, one where every choice a person makes can be traced back to a fundamental and irrevocable feature of their DNA. A bioessentialist wants nothing from you but your cooperation in the role they’ve decided you must play in their world; God help you if you say no. It’s an ideology so self-evidently evil that it’s at the center of just about any young adult dystopian novel my fellow Millennials may have read in middle school. If you believe in human self-determination in any way, it’s a concept you must not only refuse but actively resist.
Which, of course, makes it all the stranger that it’s so present in a television show that’s been celebrated since its debut for its progressive politics."
The premise fails right off the bat as Vulcan logic is cultural not biological
When Kirk was turned Romulan, he had to act Romulan. When Troi was turned Romulan, she had to learn to think like a Romulan in spite of her empathy. When Kira was turned Cardasian, she (felt she) had to behave like a Cardassian. When Sisko was turned Klingon, he just kept being Sisko and that was enough.
Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one. In this case, Kurtzman is just a poor steward of the Star Trek legacy.
Picard and Troi only had cosmetic surgery to look Romulan. One papercut would have outed them. The SNW crew were made fully Vulcan.
The transformation was also basically space magic since it was based on whatever the Kerkohvians did to turn Spock fully human. And it’s mentioned that it’s influenced by his experiences rather than just straight biology. They took on the aspects that Spock associates with Vulcans, which includes racism, hubris, and flawed logic.
It’s not the greatest, but it is internally consistent.
didn’t care for this season much.
spoiler
the main story arc was barely sci-fi, more like fantasy with lasers a la star wars. some of the standalone episodes were okay, but a lot of them were way too silly (Q wedding, becoming Vulcans), or retreaded ideas (malfunctioning holodecks, enemy mine).
Admittedly I haven’t seen this episode, however…
Isn’t “bioessentialist” a little absurd in the context actual different species? Much less individuals who have just actually had their bodies abruptly rewritten into an entirely different species - and all the hormonal and neurological impacts that would imply?
I get wanting to reject bioessentialism in the context of real-world ethnic groups. But we’re also talking about species who - from the start - have been represented as having fundamentally non-human views on the universe… and then we’re surprised those bubble to the fore when people are unexpectedly dealing with a massive hormonal cocktail dumped straight into them?
Vulcans are naturally a violent emotional race, biologically. That’s why, societally, they have adopted strict logical regimens and control. Otherwise they go wild and crazy. Pon Farr is a time when their emotional controls are essentially broken and their biological natures surface.
If it were just a biological thing, the opposite effect would have likely happened. Unless their entire psyche and history was re-written at the same time.
Yep, I had in fact completely forgotten about that. My bad. Unless whatever did all this species-swapping also implanted cultural behavior into them, this is in fact just really cruddy writing.
EDIT: Actually new question then: When did Spock’s parentage being a source of discrimination first appear? Because if Vulcan logic is truly a cultural thing, not a biological one, then discrimination makes no sense. Any “pure”, “logical” vulcan could recognize that parentage did not reflect on personal philosophy?
I’ve never watched TOS all the way. Best I can recall is the 2009 movie in which the Vulcan kids bullied Spock and the High command “complimenting” Spock for being accepted into the academy despite his biological disadvantage. In the main timeline, I think Disco mentions it.
It’s a logical point that since vulcans don’t have the disadvantages of humanity that they are superior, from a certain point of view. When the faux vulcans said something speciest, Spock commented that it was “technically” logical. This implies even Vulcans understand Logic can be a spectrum of finesse. Infinite diversity in Infinite Combinations is a Vulcan idiom after all.
the TNG episode where Picard mind melds with Sarek and becomes very emotional also comes to my mind
