Are Vulcans lying to themselves about their emotions?

[SG-17]

No spoilers, but a recent depiction of Vulcans got me thinking again. The Vulcans claim that they mastered their emotions and live according to the rules of logic, but I think to anyone that pays attention to the behavior of Vulcans or their society then this isn't true at all. They might not visibly express emotion, but their emotions are just as much of a driving factor of their existence, decision making, and personalities as pretty much every other race.

I'm not just reading too much into this, am I?

 

[Bork359]

The Vulcans' emotions have really burned them in the past throughout their long history. First of all their species split in two thousands of years ago, with their former brothers the Romulans fucking off to another planer and becoming the assholes of the galaxy. Second, they were unable to leverage their discovery of warp drive into an era of peace like humans, instead nearly destroying their planet in a prolonged nuclear war. It took them hundreds of years to come back from that evolve into the place of peaceful enlightenment they were at by Earth first contact. Yeah they paid a big cost in terms of their "humanity" by suppressing their emotions but given their history it seemed like a logical trade that put them in a much stronger position when compared to their turbulent early history.

 

[Kor]

Janeway said that logic can be used to justify almost anything, or something like that.
A lot of times a Vulcan's motivation seems to amount to personal preference, when you get right down to it. And then it's couched in terms of logic, or logical steps are used to attain the goal or whatever. Take for instance T'Pring's motivation in Amok Time: "And as the years went by, I came to know that I did not want to be the consort of a legend."

Kor

 

[yotsuya]

It is not the Vulcans don't have emotions, it is that they have tamed them and trained their minds so that logic rules. As we see with the Kolinahr, achieving the level of pure logic is hard and difficult and arduous. Not something every Vulcan strives to achieve. Most satisfy themselves with the normal level of logic and suppressed emotions. We see in Sarek a typical Vulcan who is stoic but not totally without emotions. Sarek's reaction to Spock shows some level of emotion underneath the cool exterior, as does T'Pring's logic for why she didn't want Spock.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

It's not a lie, it's a generalization. It's true to the extent that any psychological characteristics are accurate, communicating useful information about the behaviors of vulcans and how they would like to be seen. Are Vulcans emotionless? Short answer, yes. Long answer, ... .

 

[1001001]

It's not a lie, it's a generalization.

“You lied.”
“I exaggerated.”

“A lie?”
“An error.”

“So you lied?”
“Oh…I implied.”

 

[Qonundrum]

Sarek was the most through-and-through example, though he did shed emotion when he spat "Spare me your human platitudes" - of course, this was over Spock's death rather than Spock mentioning his favorite flavor of cake but to a species said to be devoted to logic and got rid of their emotions zillions of years ago, it's a tad hard to swallow.

Spock was half-human and trying to keep his human side from hounding him like a dog. Not sure if Spock's "I exaggerated" shtick from ST2 and ST6 was some sort of 4th wall gag, though more obvious for ST6 thanks to ST4 and 5 shattering the 4th wall too many times already...

Tuvok was arguably not neurotypical as he had his rituals and needed medication in some episodes as I recall (so had Sarek in his latter-point in life). He's my favorite Vulcan of the bunch.

 

[Tim Thomason]

“You lied.”
“I exaggerated.”

“A lie?”
“An error.”

“So you lied?”
“Oh…I implied.”

"The simple fact that he's a Vulcan means he's incapable of telling a lie." - Dr. Leonard McCoy, The Menagerie

"Vulcans are incapable of lying." - Lt. Cmdr. Data, Data's Day

"We are capable of telling lies." - Lt. Cmdr. Tuvok, Hunters

Star Trek in a nutshell, on any subject.

 

[Oddish]

Vulcans feel emotion like any other species. They simply have learned, courtesy of the teachings of Surak, to set their emotions aside and carry out the most logical course of action. I don't see how that would preclude telling lies when necessary.

 

[C.E. Evans]

A wise man named Flava Flav once said, "Don't believe the hype."

Only those few Vulcans who have successfully completed Kolinahr can truly claim they have mastered their emotions. For most Vulcans, though, it's a daily constant struggle to control themselves as they otherwise would be worse than Humans. Vulcans can look down on Humans, but only because we remind them of what they could easily be on a bad day...

 

[Kor]

I think the arrogant and superior attitude that Vulcans often display toward more "emotional" species is in itself an expression of emotion.

Kor

 

[BoTWoT]

Yes, they are. Everyone else has already pointed out that they just repress the emotions they have. But, more than that, they show emotions constantly, and not very good ones. Pride, xenophobic race baiting, arrogance, and overconfidence. Most are constantly showing these emotions openly, and as the OP question, they lie to themselves about said emotions.

 

[plynch]

In TOS, my first love, when Spocko is doing his "my human side" schtick, that should really be the less passionate of the two sides. Vulcans aren't calm and rational by nature, it's a tool/repress ion humans could use too, e.g. stoics, Buddhists.

 

[fireproof78]

Is it repression or control? Stoics experience emotions but are not driven by them. It's a balance to be struck.

 

[XCV330]

people concentrate on the "Emotion" aspect of stoicism but seldom the concept of virtues, which seems fare more important to their treatment of emotion, but one aspect is part of the more important whole: leading a better life. But this thread is about Vulcans and their handling of emotions.

While the Vulcan idea of repressing emotions is counter to Stoicsm, and does not work well for humans, what about Vulcan virtues?

Stoics like Cicero believed in the greater good. They were members of society and their actions were to promote betterment of all (and yes, it can be debated at times of many of the stoics lived lives we would regard as such now, but life is always viewed refracted through history and lessons learned). anyway i am going to get too verbose. I think in that regard, the greater good, vulcans are like stoics and in other virtues as well, wisdom, courage, temperance. They value those things and keeping their emotions in tact is the method they have fallen on to achieve it. And while its fictional and they are not even the same species, for them it works.

 

[Deks]

"The simple fact that he's a Vulcan means he's incapable of telling a lie." - Dr. Leonard McCoy, The Menagerie

"Vulcans are incapable of lying." - Lt. Cmdr. Data, Data's Day

"We are capable of telling lies." - Lt. Cmdr. Tuvok, Hunters

Star Trek in a nutshell, on any subject.

This has more to do with what Vulans PROJECT to other species about themselvesvs on how they function.
They do experience emotions, they just developed high level of emotional control to deal with those emotions internally and to a point where they will be minimally impacted by them to remain as objective as possible (which btw is very much possible to achieve in real life for Humans as well with intensive meditation practice).

There is a great deal of 'shame' attached to emotions from a Vulcan perspective which will limit cultural information sharing, so it makes sense that other species will make their own conclusions/assumptions about Vulcan behavior (so, there is no real lie... just an assumption based on infrequent interaction and limited information). In essence, you will have to live on Vulcan, or among Vulcans who would deem it logical to share that kind of information about themselves to others (which does seem to happen).

Even in the 24th century, the EMH on VOY had very little or nothing about Vulcan mating practices because its considered extremely private (which seems very stupid to me - any technologically advanced species with emotional maturity would have overcome such cultural hangups in the future most likely... or at least to the point where necessary medical files would be freely accessible [if not confidential] for Vulcans who join Starfleet because basic aspects of ones biology can be a bit difficult to hide - especially in Trek where they can be so pronounced).

 

[Oddish]

A scene from "Voyager" that shows the way the Vulcan mind thinks is when Tuvok receives a letter from his family ["Hunters"]. After Neelix delivers it and departs, Tuvok resumed perusing the tactical review he was reading (it was his duty to do so and logically, it took priority). Then, he pauses and looks at the letter. And then, he sets aside the review and picks up the letter, and sits down with it. Though Tuvok knew the "logical" course of action, his feelings (love for his family) were very real and very present. Usually, in the Vulcan mind, logic clashes with feelings and logic wins. In this case, Tuvok's feelings won out.

 

[Deks]

A scene from "Voyager" that shows the way the Vulcan mind thinks is when Tuvok receives a letter from his family ["Hunters"]. After Neelix delivers it and departs, Tuvok resumed perusing the tactical review he was reading (it was his duty to do so and logically, it took priority). Then, he pauses and looks at the letter. And then, he sets aside the review and picks up the letter, and sits down with it. Though Tuvok knew the "logical" course of action, his feelings (love for his family) were very real and very present. Usually, in the Vulcan mind, logic clashes with feelings and logic wins. In this case, Tuvok's feelings won out.

It was more like Neelix's persistent nagging (and reading out that letter) that did that and living on Voyager.
Tuvok may be a Vulcan, but he isn't immune to outside influence (environment shapes behavior after all)... and while there was at least one more Vulcan on Voyager (Vorik), they both work in an environment with alien species which are quite emotional.

I think that if Neelix actually hadn't started reading out that letter and bombarded Tuvok with his own perceptions on how he should approach this, Tuvok would have likely returned to his tactical review, finished it, and then read the letter. Tuvok may 'tolerate Neelix', but at this point they've been on the same ship for nearly half a decade... he has grown to respect Neelix in a certain way, so that also contributed in listening to him.

I still think Neelix was being a bit too pushy.

 

[Oddish]

Regardless of influences, the logical course of action was to finish reading the report. The emotional course of action was to turn his attentions to the letter. Tuvok's initial decision to do the former, and then his changing his mind illustrate the conflict between emotion and logic in the Vulcan mind. Tim Russ might have been a comedian, but he really "got" Vulcans.

 

[Mister Spock]

It's worth noting that Tuvok does admit to missing his family in Caretaker, he only contends that Vulcans do not worry. Although the inference is that Janeway was right and knows him and his family well enough to know they're concerned.