Doctor Who and Philosophy

Hey Court! Love what you’ve done with the website–looking really good.

I’m tempted to say race and gender don’t play much into identity. If you could remove my mind from my current body and place it in a black woman, I like to think I’d essentially still be Matt. No reason to think I’d automatically become someone else.

But to the extent our identity is shaped by the way we’re treated, I think Matt the black woman would slowly become a different person than I would if I remained a white man. Fairly or not, different people would expect different things from Matt the black woman than they would from Matt the white man, which would eventually alter who Matt is.

What do I have in mind? For one, there are loads of white male philosophers, but very few black female philosophers. So without being spiteful, I think I can say Matt the black woman would have an easier time getting academic attention, an academic job, tenure, published, etc. Since I like to define myself by reference to the things I do well (rather than the things I suck at), I think Matt the black woman would think of herself more fundamentally as a philosopher. That’s of course part of my identity right now. It’s my profession–and a profession I love, one I would do for free, and one I in fact do for free, for personal enjoyment, and for satisfaction all the time. And even though I do plan on being an academically successful philosopher, I think it’s realistic to think that these exact same talents and this exact same ambition would get me further, were I an African American female.

I certainly don’t mean to undercut the credibility or authority of the black female philosophers out there! Not at all–MANY of them are surely better philosophers than I. But I think even they could admit the truth of what I’m saying, which was the first example that came to mind–how race and gender does indeed have some bearing on identity.

How to tie that back to the Doctor? That’s your job, oh wise and merciful Who Master!

I can’t say a lot for the earlier years because I only got into the show since its reboot. I’ve seen only a few of the episodes with the earlier Doctors but will watch more as more DVDs come available.

I think it’d be interesting to see the Doctor as a woman. I think we’re far past that old chestnut where a doctor discovers a boy and his father have been in an accident and looks at the operating table in dismay and cries, “I can’t operate on this child. He’s my son!” It’s not outlandish to think of women in positions of authority anymore. Maybe she’d have to work a little differently when dealing with men in the past, though, but she’d still be as clever as all get out. She’d think of a way that wouldn’t require taking all her kit off…

The Doctor has evolved (devolved?) over the years from a paternal grandfatherly teacher/mentor into a teen heartthrob. I think I read somewhere that the show started out with something of an educational premise, which maybe prompted the choice of Hartnell as the first televised Doctor. He looked learned and wise, someone aged and dignified that anyone would respect and turn to for advice. Can the same be said for #11?

I’d wonder what that has to say about our culture’s evolving trust issues with our elders and perceived leaders and our culture in general. Do we still listen to our elders, or have we reached a point where we assume there’s nothing left for them to teach us? Or is it just that we would rather look at a young and pretty face, no matter how vapid and dumb?

Is it just easier for the audience to relate to younger stars? Our societies are constantly bombarded by the beliefs that we need to stay young, look young, dress young, act young, etc, I suppose it’s inevitable that the Doctor would have to reflect that. He’s a cultural icon, after all. Also, I suppose it’s less creepy to have a Doctor who looks to be nearly the same age as his companions, even if his actual age isn’t. Isn’t that part of the reason younger men started getting cast as the Doctor in the first place?

My favourite of the new episodes, by far, is “Midnight” from season 4. When I got the DVD, I must have watched it four or five times in a row, every time more dazzled by it. Obviously the easiest thing for all of them to do would have been to find something to tie that Skye woman up with, stuff a complimentary slipper in her mouth, and cover her head with a coat. Then they could have sat for an hour in relative peace waiting for rescue. But, that’s hardly a show anyone would have watched, right?

I think what I liked best about that one was how everyone was portrayed, and how the Doctor made an effort to befriend all of them, only to face betrayal from each of them in turn.

He’s all alone with these people. Donna isn’t there to assure and reassure these increasingly frightened folks that he’s safe and trustworthy. The Doctor’s doing a crap job of generating trust by himself; he’s alienating them with his weirdness and unapologetic admissions of cleverness and unabashed curiosity for the mysterious entity that is living through Skye. They resent him and start to fear him. And when he loses the capacity to speak for himself — has he ever been that helpless before, at the mercy of a mob driven to drastic measures by something they can’t understand?

I wonder, however, if people would be so willing to trust a non-Caucasian Doctor. Imagine the Doctor being a black woman in the 1840s in the deep-south. How effective would she be in getting people to help out?

Given what the Doctor knows of history (which must be nearly everything) I figure s/he would figure out a way. If Caucasians wouldn’t help, s/he’d enlist the aid of slaves instead. Or the Doctor would find a few sympathetic people willing to throw convention to the wind and assist. I’d like to think of him/her having an influence on the merits of the underground railroad. He has a way of making people and aliens do what’s ultimately right without a great show of force. Respect is earned through deeds more than looks, isn’t it?

So, the Doctor is an alien, but he is a good looking, Sauvé, British-esque alien. Now, imagine the Doctor is an ugly, scary, frightening alien.

In whose eyes? Keep in mind that attractiveness is largely a product of one’s culture and environment. I’m sure the aliens on Rexicoricovalapatorius think they’re very good looking, as would anyone from Clom. Human beings might disagree, but think of how freakishly hairless we’d look to a Yeti. Hardly beautiful, yeah? It’s all relative.

replace the otherness that is part of him being a different race or gender, with the otherness of being an out-of-this-world alien. I have to say I would probably treat him very different. And as a result, he might be less-willing to help humans, or the universe out.

I don’t think he’d be any less willing to help humans on Earth if he looked like a Racnoss or something. But he’d be very aware of their reactions to him and would have to factor in their xenophobia and figure out how to work around it in order to save their lives. And the humans involved would be better for it, having learned a valuable lesson about not judging someone by their looks, no matter how ghastly and alarming.

There seem to be many worlds where alien species co-exist with humans without malice. Inter-species marriages don’t seem to be out of place. There doesn’t seem to be a lot in the way of poor treatment based on one’s looks or home planet (aside from Clom). Most of the aliens the Doctor finds himself against are those intent on takeovers and violence and death and it doesn’t matter what they look like.

It doesn’t seem like the Doctor lets looks get in the way very often. He uses his own looks to trick others sometimes, acting in a way that will disarm or put them off guard. He’s well aware of the habit and danger of snap judgments and uses those false assumptions against them. He doesn’t appear to dislike any species solely because of the colour of their skin either. He just judges by what they do. And he only judges the ones who are in the wrong, as well. He doesn’t condemn an entire species, unless they prove to be worth condemning — and he’s shown that there can be leeway and mercy even then.

Maybe he chooses to be human looking because he likes visiting Earth circa 20th century and Earth at this point in its history doesn’t have bizarre looking aliens wandering around like it’s every day happenstance, unlike a lot of other planets he’s visited over his 900+ years.

If the Doctor is making a conscious choice to appear human, I really think it’s because although he’s most certainly seen human beings at their very worst and most despicable, he’s also seen us at our best and most admirable. He knows what we can be, what we will become, and wants to see us get there.

I’d like to see us get there, too.

Thanks for the engagement, Jeloroc. I suppose I did imply that a black female philosopher would have an easier time landing a tenure track faculty position than a white male with similar credentials, charisma and drive. For reasons below, I stand by that. I didn’t, however, intend to lead you to infer that Blacks don’t aspire to intellectual professions. Anecdotal evidence (Bill Cosby rants and personal testimony from African American students) suggests that African American culture on whole doesn’t prioritize academic success as highly as White or Asian American culture. I’m sure there are easily googleable sociological studies that confirm or deny that.

All I had in mind was the fact that black women are very much underrepresented in academia, that their perspective is valuable, and that since building inroads for up and comers could correct that inadequacy, many existing faculty, deans, and editors are eager to help make it happen, and would justifiably take that into account when making hiring and publishing decisions.

The current dearth of black female philosophers is no doubt in large part due to past racism and sexism–I took that as obvious. Insofar as I should have made my thought process more explicit, perhaps my comments were indeed superficial. Sorry for the confusion!