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Jedi Knights and Vulcans Both Suck Now. What Happened?

Jedi Master Plo Koon and T'Lyn, a Vulcan character on Star Trek: Lower Decks Something strange happened to both Star Wars and Star Trek around the turn of the millennium: they both became suddenly disillusioned with their spritual, selfless bands of heroes. The Jedi knights and the Vulcans had been an essential part of these iconic universes from the very beginning. And 20th century viewers would have come away with a pretty positive impression of them. That changed drastically, starting around 25 years ago, when both franchises decided to start portraying their respective bands of detached, disciplined seekers of truth as uptight jerks. It was a fairly stark transformation, and I'm still wondering what exactly happened. Star Trek had featured the lovable Mr. Spock, and we mostly saw Vulcan culture through his eyes, as a sometimes bewildering but noble exercise in pursuing pure logic through a variety of rituals and the occasional hand to hand combat with big pointy shovels. True, we occasionally heard rumblings that Spock was judged for being too human and for wanting to join Starfleet, but Spock's dead, sarek, regularly turned out to have a heart of gold. Voyager gave us Tuvok, a full volcan who was still noble, self abnegating, and frequently kind and wise. I know what you're going to say now: yes, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a congenital liar. But I would argue Obi-Wan's habit of bending. The truth plays into a long tradition of unreliable mentors, who hide key facts from their protegees for a reasons. Reasons. And Obi-Wan does a wonderful job of making the Jedi knights sound awesome-- heroic, epic, refined. His mantra is" trust your feelings," which feels actually quite reassuring. A terrible mentor would tell you not to trust your feelings after all. And Yoda is a prankster monk in hiding, a delightful source of wisdom wrapped in playfulness. In the 20th century, everyone wanted to be a Jedi Knight. I would argue that Vulcans and Jedi occupy a pretty similar space in both Star Trek and Star Wars. They are the wise counselor, who advised the hero on how to navigate frustrating situations. They are the other, but a friendly, even aspirational other-- something to which we can all aspire. And they both borrow heavily from Eastern traditions, including Zen, Buddhism and daoism. They come out of a time when Alan Watts and other European people were repackaging and reinventing Asian beliefs for white people. Both groups wear cool robes and spout wisdom. And then? Everything changed. The Vulcans first start turning into jerks with that baseball episode of Star Trek: deep space nine, in which a group of Vulcans challenge Cisco and his crew to a not so friendly game. But it's really with Star Trek: Enterprise that the Vulcans begin to seem like judgmental assholes, who tried to hold humanity back and harbor severe doubts that we belong out in the galaxy. Captain Archer regularly butt's heads with the Vulcan command, though he grows to have a decent report with his one Vulcan officer, T'Pol. The JJ Abrams movies take it further, showing Spock being bullied and mistreated as a child on Vulcan -- something the animated series had hinted at but hadn't delved into. In Abrams is Star Trek, it's pretty much taken for granted that the Vulcans have sticks up their butts. Star Trek: Discovery takes this even further, introducing the idea that Vulcan has logic extremists, who are willing to resort to violence in the service of pure logic. (This doesn't feel very logical to me, but the needs of the plot outweigh...) Finally, on Star Trek: lower decks, we see how T'Lin is bullied by her crewmates on a Vulcan ship for displaying curiosity and taking initiative, in ways that actually seem quite logical and which contribute to saving a lot of lives. And then there are the Star Wars prequels, which show us a functioning Jedi order for the first time-- and it's terrible. Where are the noble sages that Obi-Wan and Yoda had let us to expect in the original trilogy?  Obi-Wan to Luke: trust your feelings! Obi-Wan to Anakin: under no circumstances should you ever trust your feelings. ? The plot of the prequels also requires the Jedi to be hopelessly naive and ridiculously hawkish, not to mention utterly lacking in humility. The Jedi come off even worse in the animated clone Wars series, where they rush to judgment after Ahsoka is framed for bombing a Jedi Temple. When the Jedi aren't being reckless warmongers, they are behaving like mindless bureaucrats. So what happened? I have theories. Because I have like for starters, we can't ignore the increasing cynicism of pop culture in the late 20th century. In comics, creators like Alan Moore and Frank Miller were making huge waves, mostly by turning the simplistic good- versus- evil fantasies of superhero comics into something more morally, gray and disturbing. Did you see this across all of pop culture -- geeks who grew up loving colorful stories set in worlds of manichean ethics got older and wanted those worlds to reflect their disillusionment, rather than letting them appeal to the next generation of young fans. The 1990s sees the rise of grimdark fantasy, for example. But I also think there's just a lot more cynicism going into the late 20th century. Polls showed a decreasing level of trust in institutions among Americans. To some extent, this reflected actual conditions in the real world, where the quote good guys" were often ineffectual at best and corrupt at worst, while the quote bad guys" were worse than you could possibly imagine. But I don't think that's the whole story. I think in part, we have to go back to the thing I mentioned. Earlier-- The popularity of heavily sanitized and commodified versions of Asian, spiritual and religious traditions in the West , which was at its height in the 1960s and 1970s. Both the Jedi and the Vulcans borrow the trappings of Buddhism, daoism and other traditions, while only lightly touching on the substance of their teachings. But the late 20th century season increasing paranoia about Asia, first directed at Japan and then at China. And many of the people who were young in the 1960s and 1970s abandoned they're mostly superficial interest in things like Buddhism, as the baby boomers in particular gravitated more towards materialism and the notion that greed was good. Obviously I'm oversimplifying a lot here, and I welcome any and all corrections and attempts to add nuance. And the late 20th century felt as though it was a time of increasing xenophobia in general –  – which translated into seeing the other as sympathetic or friendly. But there's also just the fact that familiarity breeds contempt. Mostly benevolent, wise beings are only really feasible in small doses. The more we saw of the Vulcans and the Jedi, the likelier we were to start noticing all of their negative qualities. The time lords on Doctor who were never as lovable as either the Vulcans or the Jedi, but they went through a similar process of demystification, going from powerful and mysterious gods to venal, patty people in the space of just seven years. To be honest, I don't really have, a single compelling explanation for the jerkification of both Jedi and Vulcans about 25 years ago. I'm speculating wildly. But I do think it's kind of sad, in a way: we lost two aspirational symbols around the same time, and now we have fewer examples of mass selflessness and dedication to higher thoughts by people who worked to overcome their worst impulses.  The thing that unites the Vulcans and the Jedi is there extreme capacity for rage and violence, and their determination not to succumb. Vulcans, as every Star Trek fan knows, have stronger and more extreme emotions than humans, but they have learned to control those emotions through severe mental discipline and a devotion to reason. The Jedi, meanwhile, seem constantly tempted to fall to the dark side of the force, which happens when passion and in particular rage overtake you. (I really want a Disney Plus show about the therapist who works with Jedi.) The Jedi achieved benevolence through training and constant mindfulness. These were two rare examples in pop culture of people choosing mindfulness over mindless rage. There's a stock scene in 21st century. Pop culture: a hero who has been pushed too far fights a snaring bad guy and ends up crouched over their defeated opponent, beating them across the face and shoulders over and over again with mind. Numbing savagery. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this sequence in the past 20 years. Generally, we're supposed to understand that the hero has snapped, and this is not a good thing-- but it's understandable, and cathartic, and beating your enemies to a pulp is sometimes the only way. I fear this is what we get when we stop believing in Space Buddhists.Jedi Master Plo Koon and T'Lyn, a Vulcan character on Star Trek: Lower Decks

Something strange happened to both Star Wars and Star Trek around twenty-five years ago: both franchises suddenly became disillusioned with their spritual, selfless bands of heroes.

The Jedi knights and the Vulcans had been an essential part of these iconic universes from the very beginning, and twentieth century viewers would have come away with a mostly positive impression of them. That changed drastically in the late...

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Published on October 10, 2023 17:18
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message 1: by Matthew (new)
Oct 11, 2023 06:50AM

Matthew Kilpatrick maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places but there seems to be a mentality, especially among the younger generation, that the only sensible thing to do is to give up on ever achieving a better world and to find stuff to laugh at as it all burns down around us.


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