Thursday, May 07, 2009
Where's the Vulcan mind-meld?
Jeff Greenwald writes in Salon that President Barack Obama is much like the "Star Trek" character Spock -- mixed race, very cool and logical:
"Obama, Jenkins points out, positioned himself in the primaries as a man 'at home with both blacks and whites, someone whose mixed racial background has forced him to become a cultural translator.' In this sense Obama even surpasses Spock, whose struggle to reconcile his half-human, half-Vulcan genes is a continual source of inner conflict. In one episode, the entire Enterprise crew (except for Kirk) is infected by alien spores that turn them into doe-eyed flower children. The 'cure' is anger -- thus Kirk is forced to provoke his first officer to rage. He succeeds, spectacularly, by insulting Spock’s racial pedigree: 'All right, you mutinous half-breed! You’re an overgrown jackrabbit! An elf, with a hyperactive thyroid! A simpering, devil-eared freak whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia!'I think that the world of Star Trek offers people of all political stripes something that validates or reinforces their beliefs -- certainly it shows the necessity of being prepared to use force, as well as the limits of force -- but this piece strikes me as a kind of confused hero worship. Wouldn't President Obama simply use the Vulcan mind-meld to "suggest" or convince Chrysler senior secured creditors to take his deal, or likewise solve the erupting conflict in Pakistan, or use his tricorder to find bin Laden? Furthermore, we know that the First Lady and President Obama did not have an arranged marriage dating back to their childhood.
"Confronted with a similar insult, Barack Obama would probably just laugh. 'The Vulcan side of Obama, the core of his character, hasn't changed [since the election],' Jenkins believes. 'He's tough, he’s cool and he’s rational.' His appeal stems from the self-aware integration of all aspects of his personality: black and white, wonk and poet, athlete and aesthete.
"Like Spock, part of what makes Obama so appealing is the fact that although he’s an outsider -- 'proudly alien,' as Leonard Nimoy once put it -- he uses that distance to cultivate a sense of perspective."
I am not sure at this point who will live long and who will prosper, but I give a Vulcan greeting to all TigerHawk readers.
CWCID: Hot Air headlines
12 Comments:
By 
Noocyte, at
Thu May 07, 01:41:00 PM:
Ah, the blindness whcih such hero-worship can induce (and no second eyelid to protect a mind so afflicted).
Vulcans in general (and Spock in particular) are anything but self-aware. Indeed, their whole philosophy is based on sequestering emotion behind an impenetrable inner compartment. While useful in many instances, such deliberate blindness can have devastating disadvantages (like a ship-load of Vulcans simply being unable encompass the fate which befell them at the pseudopods of a certain space-faring amoeba, or several occasions on which Spock had the conn without Kirk's intuition and will or McCoy's empathy to buttress his logic).
Similarly, Obama's blinkered allegiance to the ideological premises of his Liberal world-view act to prevent him from perceiving the stunningly obvious (such as the inherently different 'rationality' which animates the actions of our chief geopolitical foes, or the perilous folly of trying to massively deficit-spend our way out of a recession, to name two of many).
Spock was an increasingly interesting character and effective leader to precisely the degree to which he was able to transcend the limitations of his Vulcan half and think/feel in ways which would have made him flunk the Kolinahr most spectacularly.
The trouble with Obama is the apparent lack of whatever might serve as the analogue of a human half.
By 
, at
Thu May 07, 01:50:00 PM:
Huh. I always thought it was the "Comm", not the "Conn". Comm, as in Command.
By Christopher Chambers, at
Thu May 07, 02:35:00 PM:
Yet reading some of the comments on this blog--and who's highlighted as hero/patriot/scribe/public intellectual--easy to pick out the Klingons, Romulans...and one pseudo-Borg (that mean old man in the iconic wheelchair, sitting next George Bush on 1/20/09).
The mind meld would be interesting (and likely dangerous in less obvious ways) to have in politics. Even better--as TigerHawk himself observed eons ago, as we gathered in the TV room of TI after dinner to watch Star Trek (the E. Plebnista/We the People episode), "Spock would be great to have at a toga party." (Spock was looking at a comely "Yang" girl; when McCoy asked what he was up to, Spock replied, "I am planting a suggestion, Doctor.")
By , at
Thu May 07, 02:39:00 PM:
"Confronted with a similar insult, Barack Obama would probably just laugh."
Greenwald should put this to a test. I would expect a different result.
By Andrew X, at
Thu May 07, 04:43:00 PM:
Orrin Judd over at the very good BrothersJudd blog, nails it.
A writer at Slate, parllelling Salon, writes: "In fact, can't you picture our president—levelheaded, biracial, implacably smart--on the bridge in a blue shirt and pointy ears?"
To which OJ replies -
"Yes, as a useful subordinate to the passionate, idealistic, maverick commander."
To which I would add "just happens to know the difference between and friend and an enemy, and is fully ready to kick the latter's ass when necessary.
By Christopher Chambers, at
Thu May 07, 05:28:00 PM:
Jeez you wingnuts are never off-rant, are you? I'm just waiting for TH to verify the Spock/mind meld and toga party quote. Or was that Tony, or Glenn Rhinehart...or "Pink and Smooth" who said it.
By Escort81, at
Thu May 07, 05:55:00 PM:
Well, Christopher, if only you had been across the street at the Cheese, you and TH could have used charm and good looks and not needed the suggestive powers of a Vulcan mind-meld. Or huge quantities of beer, for that matter (grain punch -- kool aide plus grain alcohol purchased across the bridge in PA plus a clean large trash can plus dry ice -- is so much classier, don't you think?). It's a wonder anybody graduated.
That's a funny story, thanks.
By samsyu, at
Thu May 07, 09:29:00 PM:
Your writing to a simple but quality, I am interested in reading it. I try to visit you more often. Thank you my friend.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Thu May 07, 10:28:00 PM:
This comment has been removed by the author.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Thu May 07, 10:33:00 PM:
Memo to young executives:
You can learn much of what you need to know about managing the ethnically and culturally diverse staff of a global business "enterprise" by watching Jean-Luc Picard.
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By joated, at
Fri May 08, 09:28:00 AM:
Vulcan mind meld? No, he is definitely using the powers of the Jedi, however. Just witness the way the press corps reacts after every feeble pronouncement from the Won. He's certainly controlling their thoughts and getting them to write whatever he wishes.
(I didn't say he was using his Jedi powers for good. The man has gone to the Dark Side.)
By JPMcT, at
Sat May 09, 12:19:00 PM:
"Confronted with a similar insult, Barack Obama would probably just laugh"
Sure...maniacally...just like Auric Goldfinger did when he said "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die"
How can anybody take Salon posts seriously? That entry makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.
