A Lesson Learned
Originally posted by goldvermilion87 at A Lesson Learned
(At least for the moment)
(And from an unusual source)
As I may or may not have mentioned, my single complaint about Star Trek Into Darkness is that Spock and Uhura are still in a romantic relationship. While it was handled better (more in character) than it was in STXI, I still get the heebie-jeebies when Spock and Uhura kiss because . . . ew! just eeeewww! Spock should never kiss anyone. EVER!*
But in STXII the problem with Spock/Uhura became more nuanced and in some ways even more of a true problem (rather than something that I am squeamish about). Spock’s relationship with Kirk is moving very much into line with what it was in TOS, and in my opinion that relationship is such that neither man could responsibly enter into a romantic relationship with a woman.
I wanted to be able to explain what I meant by that.
And there was my problem: I think it’s crazy talk to say that Kirk and Spock were ever in a sexual relationship. (Sorry, 98% of ST fandom!) But at the same time, it’s not the kind of friendship that, for example, Sam and Frodo have.** My most favorite Lewis quotation helps to put the difference into words:
"Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love, but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend. The rest of us know that though we can have erotic love and friendship for the same person yet in some ways nothing is less like a Friendship than a love-affair. Lovers are always talking to one another about their love; Friends hardly ever about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest. Above all, Eros (while it lasts) is necessarily between two only. But two, far from being the necessary number for Friendship, is not even the best."
-C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
There is definitely a degree to which Spock and Kirk’s relationship is face to face rather than side by side.
But I did NOT want to use the phrase “platonic romance”. I see that, and I’m always a bit ?????????? about it. I feel like it falls into the category I have entitled “non-slash slash” and discussed at length a while back.
So this is what I’d done in the past few weeks any time I explained it to someone - I’d say something to the effect that their relationship is sort of romantic sometimes in the sense that Lewis would say it is face to face, but it’s not sexual. Then I’d go into this LONG history of male/female relationships from the time of the creation to today - how God created marriage as the highest human relationship with companionship as the most important end and procreation as a very important but secondary one, how the ancient world perverted marriage to mostly just procreation (Homer’s Odyssey providing at least one very interesting exception to this rule) and replaced the companionship a man and woman should share in marriage with male friendship, how the New Testament writers redefined marriage (in a return to the creation definition), how people’s view of marriage seems not to have changed practically back to the New Testament definition until around the time of Shakespeare, how I totally agree with Mary Wollstonecraft on the subject because that’s basically what she had to say, and finally how Star Trek is one example out of plenty of post-Shakespearean literatures that holds to the pre-Shakespearean view of where one’s highest form of companionship will be found.
Then I was thinking the other day, and realized I’d missed a really really really simple way of expressing this. Instead of rambling interminably about what I think is the history of the romantic relationship to explain the possibility of the historical precedent for a certain kind of more-important-than-romantic-but-not-sexual friendship that I don’t want to use a weird fanfiction category for, I could just remember the precedent that pretty much all my friends know:
I Samuel 2:25-27
How the mighty have fallen
in the midst of the battle!
Jonathan lies slain on your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
very pleasant have you been to me;
your love to me was extraordinary,
surpassing the love of women.
How the mighty have fallen,
and the weapons of war perished!
I can be kind of an idiot sometimes. But next time I am tempted to badly historical-philosophize about interpersonal relationships to explain something, I will try to remember that God has got those down, and it might save someone else the hour of listening to me drone on when I could express it much better just by remembering some of the examples he gave us. (Which is not to say the ramblyness is in and of itself awful - I think that I have benefitted from thinking these things through so much. It’s just that not every one of my friends needs or wants to hear it.)
But then I’ve always taken the longest possible route to every destination. You should have seen my Geometry proofs . . .
Hopefully the lesson will stick a bit longer this time.
And haven’t you guys missed being the unfortunate recipients of my rambly rambles for the past few months? *seraphic smile*
*Yes, yes, he can be forced to by pollen or mind control etc. Shush! But have I mentioned that I really hate “This Side of Paradise”? GROSS!
**Though actually Sam’s conflict in the end is, does he want to remain in a Kirk-and-Spock-like relationship, or does he want to grow up and get married?
(At least for the moment)
(And from an unusual source)
As I may or may not have mentioned, my single complaint about Star Trek Into Darkness is that Spock and Uhura are still in a romantic relationship. While it was handled better (more in character) than it was in STXI, I still get the heebie-jeebies when Spock and Uhura kiss because . . . ew! just eeeewww! Spock should never kiss anyone. EVER!*
But in STXII the problem with Spock/Uhura became more nuanced and in some ways even more of a true problem (rather than something that I am squeamish about). Spock’s relationship with Kirk is moving very much into line with what it was in TOS, and in my opinion that relationship is such that neither man could responsibly enter into a romantic relationship with a woman.
I wanted to be able to explain what I meant by that.
And there was my problem: I think it’s crazy talk to say that Kirk and Spock were ever in a sexual relationship. (Sorry, 98% of ST fandom!) But at the same time, it’s not the kind of friendship that, for example, Sam and Frodo have.** My most favorite Lewis quotation helps to put the difference into words:
"Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love, but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend. The rest of us know that though we can have erotic love and friendship for the same person yet in some ways nothing is less like a Friendship than a love-affair. Lovers are always talking to one another about their love; Friends hardly ever about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest. Above all, Eros (while it lasts) is necessarily between two only. But two, far from being the necessary number for Friendship, is not even the best."
-C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
There is definitely a degree to which Spock and Kirk’s relationship is face to face rather than side by side.
But I did NOT want to use the phrase “platonic romance”. I see that, and I’m always a bit ?????????? about it. I feel like it falls into the category I have entitled “non-slash slash” and discussed at length a while back.
So this is what I’d done in the past few weeks any time I explained it to someone - I’d say something to the effect that their relationship is sort of romantic sometimes in the sense that Lewis would say it is face to face, but it’s not sexual. Then I’d go into this LONG history of male/female relationships from the time of the creation to today - how God created marriage as the highest human relationship with companionship as the most important end and procreation as a very important but secondary one, how the ancient world perverted marriage to mostly just procreation (Homer’s Odyssey providing at least one very interesting exception to this rule) and replaced the companionship a man and woman should share in marriage with male friendship, how the New Testament writers redefined marriage (in a return to the creation definition), how people’s view of marriage seems not to have changed practically back to the New Testament definition until around the time of Shakespeare, how I totally agree with Mary Wollstonecraft on the subject because that’s basically what she had to say, and finally how Star Trek is one example out of plenty of post-Shakespearean literatures that holds to the pre-Shakespearean view of where one’s highest form of companionship will be found.
Then I was thinking the other day, and realized I’d missed a really really really simple way of expressing this. Instead of rambling interminably about what I think is the history of the romantic relationship to explain the possibility of the historical precedent for a certain kind of more-important-than-romantic-but-not-sexual friendship that I don’t want to use a weird fanfiction category for, I could just remember the precedent that pretty much all my friends know:
I Samuel 2:25-27
How the mighty have fallen
in the midst of the battle!
Jonathan lies slain on your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
very pleasant have you been to me;
your love to me was extraordinary,
surpassing the love of women.
How the mighty have fallen,
and the weapons of war perished!
I can be kind of an idiot sometimes. But next time I am tempted to badly historical-philosophize about interpersonal relationships to explain something, I will try to remember that God has got those down, and it might save someone else the hour of listening to me drone on when I could express it much better just by remembering some of the examples he gave us. (Which is not to say the ramblyness is in and of itself awful - I think that I have benefitted from thinking these things through so much. It’s just that not every one of my friends needs or wants to hear it.)
But then I’ve always taken the longest possible route to every destination. You should have seen my Geometry proofs . . .
Hopefully the lesson will stick a bit longer this time.
And haven’t you guys missed being the unfortunate recipients of my rambly rambles for the past few months? *seraphic smile*
*Yes, yes, he can be forced to by pollen or mind control etc. Shush! But have I mentioned that I really hate “This Side of Paradise”? GROSS!
**Though actually Sam’s conflict in the end is, does he want to remain in a Kirk-and-Spock-like relationship, or does he want to grow up and get married?