What Makes Us Human?
This two-episode story continued to
fulfill my desire for thoughtful stories without silly aliens. And
here's my thought for the day: the popularity of Doctor Who seems
to undermine any stereotypes of our times as ironic, skeptical, or
nihilistic. These are classic tales of good triumphing over bad. They
are simple stories of right and wrong. They do have some added
complications—in these episodes, the Doctor had to decide whether
killing millions of innocent people in an agonizing death by
emotional torture was justified, to prevent them from killing all the
rest of the innocent people in the universe. And he decided he had to
do it. This came right after Mickey stopped somebody from murdering a
guard, saying that if they did, they would be as bad as their
enemies.
So I
am not saying these stories are without moral complexity. I'm merely
observing that they argue against an age of irony, cynicism, and
meaninglessness by placing their characters firmly in a traditional
ethical realm. Good and bad are usually pretty clear, or only as
difficult as choosing a lesser evil over a greater one. It is always
good to choose good and to be good; there is no anti-moral message
about destruction being inevitable and therefore the best path to
choose or anything like that.
And
other traditional values are espoused, too: family, loyalty, love.
There
are some common, timeless questions, too, about what makes us human.
Do our emotions set us apart from animals or from machines? Or is it
our imagination that makes us unique? Or our creativity? Or our
ability to suffer? When do we become too dependent on our own
technologies, or when do we become interimplicated in their own
designs?
So,
there are some thoughts for today. Now further up and further in!
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