vulcan

[James Smith]

Why spotlight technician? Vulcans espouse reason over
emotion in all aspects of life, not just science and
technology.  When Spock's father, Sarek, explained how
he came to chose Amanda, Spock's very emotional
Earth-born mother, as his mate, he said "At the time,
it seemed the logical thing to do." (Journey to Babel)




--- Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> Maybe the definition should be expanded slightly to
> "an emotionless intellectual or technician."  But
> that's OED's problem.
>
>   And don't you love the way this "literary scholar"
> avoids "value-laden" language like "deployment,"
> "hacks," "without taste, ideas or talent of their
> own," "privileged," and, of course, "vulcans."
>
>   More typical than not in my experience.  But I
> digress.
>
>   JL
>
> Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: vulcan
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 5:02 PM -0800 12/15/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >"An emotionless intellectual." Not in OED.
> Presumably a zillion Googlits.
> >
> > 2007 Wikipedia Discussion
> >[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sentimentality]:
> I write as a
> >literary scholar: This seems to be a very
> value-laden deployment of
> >the word "sentiment"....This definition was
> obsolete fifty years
> >ago. Western fiction has always been primarily
> affective and about
> >exploration of emotions, and the notion that it
> hasn't was limited
> >to a few New Critical hacks with lots of influence
> but without
> >taste, ideas or talent of their own. To the chagrin
> of these
> >privileged vulcans, emotion/sentiment are actuallys
> [sic] ways of
> >knowing, usually more constant an [sic] reliable
> than linear reason.
> >
> > A Waki "way of knowing"?
> >
> > JL
> >
> I would think that it's often not so much
> 'intellectual' but rather
> something like 'hyperlogical' and/or 'data-driven',
> since one of Mr.
> Spock's most salient and persistent traits (other
> than being
> pro-"logic" and anti-emotion) was coming up with all
> those precisely
> (not to say absurdly) expressed odds and
> percentages. He wasn't
> really particularly intellectual as I recall.
>
> LH
>
>
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James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
South SLC, UT                  |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
                               |or slowly and cautiously.


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