He played second fiddle to a man who couldn’t
act. Yet he was no slouch as an actor. The parts he played were varied, including
Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof, King Arthur in Camelot, Fagin in Oliver, the King
in the King and I, Paris in Mission Impossible, Goldman in The Man in the Glass
Booth, and the title character in Caligula.
But who am I kidding. Nobody
remembers him playing any of those roles.
Even a Mission Impossible fan like me has long since repressed any
memories of his participation in that show.
Like so many of his fans, I only want to recall him playing a single
role. A role of a lifetime. A role that defined him to the point where
he once wrote a book exclaiming that he was NOT the same person as the
character he played. As one of his
greatest fans, I simply refused to believe him. And ultimately, he came to change his mind.
Leonard Nimoy’s autobiography, I Am Spock, was
published in 1995. I have kept a copy in
my bedroom ever since, not far from a biography about another favorite pop culture
icon, Stanley Kubrick. Both Kubrick and
Nimoy were Jewish. Both were born around
the same time (in the late 20s/early 30s).
Kubrick always fascinated me because his art evoked three parts id and
two parts superego. Nimoy’s Spock, by
contrast, was four parts superego and only one part id. But that element of the id was always there,
lurking under the surface. Without that element, Mr. Spock would never
have been one-tenth as interesting.
I’m not one to make objective pronouncements about
the quality of art. I see it largely if
not primarily as a matter of taste. So I
will make no pretense of objectivity in uttering the following two
proclamations. Mr. Spock was the most
human figure in the original Star Trek.
He was also the most interesting character in the history of television.
My fascination with Spock was precisely because of
how much he had to tell us about being human.
Spock’s was a life of constant struggle.
He was ostracized by his peer group as a child because, unlike them, he
had a human mother. And yet he struggled
to be as rational and stoic as his Vulcan peers. Like anyone who truly struggles to live
virtuously, Spock strove to live up to his potential, and surely would have
recognized his inability to do so.
Nobody is perfect, not even a Vulcan, and Spock was not one to lie to
himself.
Spock’s quest was to rise above his (half) humanity –
to become, in the word of Nietzsche, an ubermensch. Of course, his stated goal was to live as a “Vulcan,”
as if he felt that the residents of that planet were superior to those from
Earth. But I never was convinced that
he really felt that way. After all, he
opted to spend his time with human, all-too-human comrades, like Kirk, McCoy
and the rest of the Enterprise crew. He clearly
derived energy from being around us and was 100% loyal to his human
friends. So why then did this half-breed
identify with his Vulcan side rather than his human side? Because he recognized what anyone with a sane
mind would have to recognize in the 23rd century: that unless we
ground ourselves in logic and reason, we’ll never make it to the 24th
century. Frankly, we have enough data
to reach that kind of conclusion even now, in 2015. Perhaps we’d all benefit from spending a few
years on Vulcan studying mathematics, science, neck pinching, and mind melding.
To those of you who didn’t watch a lot of Star Trek,
you may think that being a Vulcan, for all its social benefits, sounds too
robotic to be worthy of a man with a human mother. But Spock was hardly a mere robot. At times, the writers of Star Trek found
techniques to unleash his inner self – by having him fall under the influence
of a drug, say, or an alien who could control his mind, or by having him go
back in time to an era when Vulcans were savages. And then there were other instances where the
23rd century Spock, without losing autonomy, found a place for
simple pleasures. We have seen him fall
in love (in the episode, This Side of Paradise), enjoy the sexual companionship
of a woman and the taste of cooked animal flesh (All Our Yesterdays), go into
heat like an animal (Amok Time), become enraged almost to the point of homicide
(again, This Side of Paradise), laugh and cry (Plato’s Stepchildren), play
beautiful music (Charlie X, Requiem for Methuselah), and deceive people
(countless episodes). Spock never gave
up his humanity. He simply built that
humanity on a foundation of logic. Does
that sound so crazy to you?
Spock was a poignant character. In the
old Star Trek series, he never got the glory of being a successful ship’s
captain. To paraphrase one character, he
was always by Captain Kirk’s side, “as if you’ve always been there and always
will.” The one time he was able to lead
a shuttlecraft expedition was a disaster – he almost lost his life and that of
his crew. Looking back at his brief, spore-induced love
affair with a character played by Jill Ireland, Spock said “For the first time
in my life, I was happy.” He wasn’t
exaggerating. Spock never allowed
himself truly to let go – there was always that superego, tugging at him,
reminding him that the human male, unrestrained, is a dangerous animal. Spock didn’t want to endanger anyone
else. He always wanted to be of
assistance. He was, in his own way, a
secular saint.
And that’s what made Spock such a role model. You didn’t have to be a half-breed to relate
to him. All you had to be is someone who
is flawed, conflicted, and interested in helping out nonetheless. Oh yeah, you also had to believe in the voice
of reason.
To be sure, Spock could be over-the-top in the
extent to which he denied his human side.
But I never believed those denials; I just took them to be silly
attempts at caricaturing a great character.
The real Spock – the one that the show evoked when it wasn’t engaging in
caricature – would never have denied his humanity. That would be “illogical.” It wouldn’t even pass muster with the Oracle
at Delphi, let alone with the Vulcan Science Academy. That academy wouldn’t be worthy of its name
if it forced Spock to blot out his appreciation for his mother, a (human) teacher
named Amanda. Denying our greatest
benefactors is not logical. It’s not
even decent.
Well, if Spock can’t engage in that sort of denial,
I won’t either. Leonard Nimoy was a
great benefactor of mine. He gave me and
so many of friends the character of Spock.
He imparted Spock’s subtle humanity, his even more subtle Judaism, and his
not-so-subtle intensity, intelligence, wisdom, dignity, and humility. But above all else, he imparted Spock’s
compassion. Somehow, Spock was able to convey that trait
without coming across as sentimental. He
didn’t have an ounce of phoniness. And I’m
convinced that came from the cerebral qualities and emotional sensitivities of
the actor who portrayed him.
In middle school, I attended three Star Trek
conventions. But I never met Nimoy. For some reason, I never felt compelled to
thank the actor for all the inspiration that his character gave me. Perhaps
that was my mistake. But somehow, I suspect
that Nimoy ultimately realized how many young people like me were moved by his
character and by the humanism of the show in which he starred. He came to understand that the character
that he gave us, the role of a lifetime, was truly eternal.
Nimoy immortalized the line “Live long and prosper.” He did both.
And now he has left us, his fans, with the job of doing the same. Thanks to Leonard Nimoy, neither of those
tasks seems nearly as daunting.
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