You’re right about folks following their impulses and then finding excuses for them (“Don’t confuse me with the facts. My mind is made up.”), but I guess I don’t understand your distinction between “repress” and “suppress.” I’ve understood “suppress” to mean “to deny [feelings],” and repress to mean “not to allow [something to have power over you].” I’m not omniscient. I can be wrong; but that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
As I understand it, in Freudian terms, repress means “to sublimate” (and reconstruct and therefore pretend to redefine one’s feelings), while supress means “not allowing the feeling(s) to control oneself.”
Let me put it another way: if you deny your feelings, your feelings have complete control over you. If you acknowledge and embrace your feelings, YOU have control over THEM. I posit that Spock and other Vulcans did the latter. It’s only logical.
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Otter (24464)
4 years ago
The thing is, I'm not so sure that Vulcans either supress or repress their feelings. They *have* feelings, they can feel love and passion and by irritated by Dr. McCoy and so on, but they don't express their feelings as openly as we do, and they really do their best not to let feelings drive their decision-making process we do. Part of that is probably purely cultural, there are Earth human societies where it's just not done to be open about one's feelings, but beyond that I don't think we can do much more than speculate.
We really don't know much about Vulcan psychology or what kind of mental conditioning they use, we just know that the people who try to feel nothing at all are not the norm. And that all of McCoy's assumptions about Vulcan lack of feelings are probably dead wrong.
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Keelai (32605)
4 years ago
Spock is half human so his emotions are stronger than other Vulcans. He is suppressing them and most of the time he's successful. There are a few episodes which show him trying to control them. Kirk said Vulcans don't process emotions the same way humans do so what may have started as cultural could've become biological over time through natural selection.
The OPs comment made me laugh because Spock does act like a jerk when he takes command.
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Otter (24464)
4 years ago
It's true, Spock's human genetics probably make it more difficult for him to process his emotions the way full Vulcans do, we are VERY emotional beings and IMHO feelings drive more of our decisions than we like to admit. So yes, it's entirely possible he doesn't have the same kind of psychological makeup as the average Vulcan and has struggled with his feelings and has some ineffective coping mechanisms, such as joining that no-emotions-at-all cult.
But he turned out okay in the end, he's a super cool guy overall.
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R_Kane (15828)
4 years ago
And, as you said, he IS better than everyone else—like Brienne.
“The ship. . . out of danger?” Probably the most poignant line in all of Trek lore.
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