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From: williams@ecadjr.DEC (Lather, rinse, repeat...)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re:  \"His was the most human\"
Message-ID: <1117@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Thu, 13-Feb-86 10:08:45 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.1117
Posted: Thu Feb 13 10:08:45 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Feb-86 07:12:23 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 82

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