Spock and McCoy discuss the merits (or not) of tribbles.
In the first post of this new blog, I asked why McCoy accuses Spock of being unfeeling, despite all the evidence that Spock does feel quite a lot — on his own account, and on behalf of others. There are a few contributing factors to McCoy’s attitude.
In the first place, Spock himself emphasizes his logicality over all other virtues. Spock downplays his own compassion by constantly painting himself to others as the Man of Logic. And of course, that’s what he is. McCoy, being a realist, should be able to accept that fact without being annoyed by it. Yet we all know how often Spock annoys him. It seems to me that McCoy feels Spock doesn’t always have to insist on logic stripped bare of any other attributes. Spock doesn’t have to be such a purist about it. McCoy is a man of reason himself, but logic isn’t the sum total of reason; it’s only a part of it. Logic is narrower than reason. Spock narrows himself by championing logic over the broader good of reason. And that clearly annoys McCoy (even if he doesn’t put the matter the way I just have).
In ‘The Galileo Seven’,* Spock makes a point of suggesting that McCoy is giving the group extraneous commentary rather than just the plain facts. But McCoy’s ordinary language and turns of phrase are actually very economical and effective at conveying to human beings ‘the plain facts’. There is more than one way to convey facts, and there’s also a limit to the need for precision. Most people, for instance, don’t need to know that there are 23 Cumulus humilis vapour bodies within so many degrees of the horizon. They just need to know there are clouds. McCoy finds that Spock’s insistence on logic can get in the way of being usefully normal.
It’s also the case that McCoy, as the chief medical officer and man of compassion on the Enterprise, naturally feels that Spock’s vaunting of logic serves to cheapen, or to hold cheap, the value of feeling. And of course, McCoy values greatly his own capacity to be feeling. In a very real way, Spock is always declaring to McCoy and those like him: ‘I’m better than you. What I value most is better than what you value most’. No wonder McCoy is annoyed!
*Season 1, Episode 16. Airdate: January 5, 1967