(no subject)
Mar. 23rd, 2008 02:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethYou know, I'm not sure I'll like Doctor Who starting so quick after Torchwood. I don't know. I'm so much into Torchwood at the moment, it feels like I'd have to turn around a bit to pay proper attention to Doctor Who. A bit like when they run double episodes where the mood switches hugely between, like 1-12 to 1-13 where the plot connected but the emotion was totally different. DW is not TW, and different brains read them.
Flip side, I'm not looking forward to no-more-Torchwood-yet months. Those'll be less fun.
Though I'm increasingly wanting to dig in to how season 2 is different from season 1 in ways that make me uncomfortable and missing what I was watching. I don't know. They seem to have forgotten Torchwood are the bad guys without actually making them any better, they just make everyone else worse and try and make out like that makes Torchwood moderate and therefore reasonable.
They're not. They're many kinds of illegal, immoral, threatening, and not in fact on our the people's side. They just think they are. And while the story was them screwing up a lot and nearly dying that fit together better, but lately they've been making them out to be heroes, and... it's like the thing with making Owen all sympathetic, giving him reasons for having been / being such an arse. Does it in fact make any difference whatsoever to the Very Bad Things he has done, things that could get him a prison sentence? No it does not. It just tries to change how we feel about them.
And that's... somewhere between creepy, wrong, and dangerous... with a side order of complicated if redemption is the game. These are very bad things done by very dangerous people... so why do we like them? Are we supposed to start thinking they're good things? Like they're nice people so they've got to be doing good things? Or they're nice people so we forgive the bad things? How about they're people with reasons, like every person ever, and the things are still bad? Does that get lost?
So I start poking the whole thing with tools looking for ideology and what the story is pushing as attractive and what it's suggesting our attitude should be... and it's dodgy.
But at the same time... they're doing bad things. We can see they're bad... right? Is it really trying to sell us on them being good, or just done by interesting complex people?
eh.
... you know, most of the time I think about what they'd look like naked and how you could fit at least 4 of them together. But then I only write down the stuff that's a bit more thinky, and my brain looks much cleaner than it actually is.
Flip side, I'm not looking forward to no-more-Torchwood-yet months. Those'll be less fun.
Though I'm increasingly wanting to dig in to how season 2 is different from season 1 in ways that make me uncomfortable and missing what I was watching. I don't know. They seem to have forgotten Torchwood are the bad guys without actually making them any better, they just make everyone else worse and try and make out like that makes Torchwood moderate and therefore reasonable.
They're not. They're many kinds of illegal, immoral, threatening, and not in fact on our the people's side. They just think they are. And while the story was them screwing up a lot and nearly dying that fit together better, but lately they've been making them out to be heroes, and... it's like the thing with making Owen all sympathetic, giving him reasons for having been / being such an arse. Does it in fact make any difference whatsoever to the Very Bad Things he has done, things that could get him a prison sentence? No it does not. It just tries to change how we feel about them.
And that's... somewhere between creepy, wrong, and dangerous... with a side order of complicated if redemption is the game. These are very bad things done by very dangerous people... so why do we like them? Are we supposed to start thinking they're good things? Like they're nice people so they've got to be doing good things? Or they're nice people so we forgive the bad things? How about they're people with reasons, like every person ever, and the things are still bad? Does that get lost?
So I start poking the whole thing with tools looking for ideology and what the story is pushing as attractive and what it's suggesting our attitude should be... and it's dodgy.
But at the same time... they're doing bad things. We can see they're bad... right? Is it really trying to sell us on them being good, or just done by interesting complex people?
eh.
... you know, most of the time I think about what they'd look like naked and how you could fit at least 4 of them together. But then I only write down the stuff that's a bit more thinky, and my brain looks much cleaner than it actually is.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 03:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 04:09 am (UTC)But that's the entire problem with the Whoverse, not just the Torchwood Institute. The Narrative Policy since at least the 70s has been to deny that aliens exist even when they invade every other Saturday. Everyone does it - The Doctor, UNIT, Sarah-Jane, the Government - no one has the moral authority on this issue because the writer's don't want the common people to be aware of aliens.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 02:13 pm (UTC)as far as we know, the others don't go around erasing people's minds.
sure, they'll be all 'nothing to see here' and talk a load of bollocks, but only Torchwood take chunks out of people to keep the secret.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 07:38 am (UTC)I think grey, and in Jack's case rather thoughtless, verging on too cruel to take in Adrift, but not bad. I would define bad as doing morally dubious things for their own gain. Torchwood are always doing morally dubious things with the express aim of helping other people. So their intentions are honourable even if their methods are questionable. I think the show expects us to understand and value that difference, but also to question those methods and hence to question the methods 'we' (meaning our governments) use in real life. I don't think the show has a clear suggestion about what our attitude should be - and I don't want it to have one. I don't want any TV show to tell me what to think. What I value is that it makes me think but ultimately leaves me to make up my own mind.
If the job of art is to reflect the world but also to show the world what can be possible, then I would rather it was showing me a world where each individual is expected to work out moral rights and wrongs for themselves, not rely on a set of rules provided entirely by other people. I think the show is saying that. For example, every time Jack insists they follow 'procedure' something bad happens or somebody is made unhappy. Even when we can see why the procedure exists (like in the case of Owen being relieved of duty) we still receive the message that following the rules can be hurtful.
What they do need to do soon is come up with a clear explanation of why they are keeping the existence of aliens a secret, because that is the foundation for everything they do, and the show needs to address our increasing questions about what their reasoning is. We may then disagree with the characters' reasoning, but we do need to understand it. Keeping the people of Cardiff in the dark may be justifiable (we don't know so we can't tell), keeping the viewers in the dark is becoming a serious narrative flaw.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 02:22 pm (UTC)so... for you intentions count?
this reminds me of the comment I read that something wasn't rape because the XY didn't think it was.
To my mind, if the XX thinks it was, the XY's opinion (and intentions) don't matter.
Some actions are bad in and of themselves, and intentions are irrelevant. Important when writing the characters - can't turn them into moustache twirlers - but bugger all to do with if they're the bad guys. They do bad things, they're the bad guys.
Torture is bad. Mindwipe is bad. Telling people not to worry about the things that are in fact about to eat them is bad.
So you're right, we need to hear why they're keeping aliens a secret - but I won't ever, ever, ever agree with it. I'll agree Jack-the-time-traveler has a unique set of restrictions, I'll agree avoiding paradox is necessary, but concealing the basic facts of what people will find on their own streets? Never.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 07:11 pm (UTC)Absolutely.
If bad to good is a spectrum then you can have lots of different combinations:
A: people who have good intentions and do good things
B: people who have bad intentions and do good things
C: people who have good intentions and do bad things
D: people who have bad intentions and do bad things
For me, A and C are good people, B and D are bad people. So D and C is the difference between manslaughter and murder - both have a bad outcome (somebody is dead) but I would never consider them in the same way, just as the courts don't.
Of course to count as having 'good intentions' I do expect people to take reasonable care and thought for all possible outcomes. Being negligent of consequences does not count as having good intentions.
But in simplistic terms a person can only control their intentions and own actions, they can't control the outcome, so I most certainly consider intentions as the most important thing in deciding if that person is good or bad.
Torture is bad because it hurts the person being tortured, there is no way to commit torture with good intentions. But what happened to Beth doesn't count as torture because she gave her consent - good intentions all round cancel out the moral bad. Even though the pain is still unpleasant, if Beth has decided she will endure it then that is her decision. But the nineteenth century Torchwood women who tortured Jack were bad because he did not give his consent, so even though they had the good intention of preserving the Empire, that is undermined by their negligence of the consequences to Jack.
Then you get more tricky cases like Tosh. She betrayed official secrets - a bad act - to help her mother - a good intention. But she was also negligent of the consequences - hightech stuff getting into the hands of wrongdoers - so that makes her actions bad in my view. She should have approached the authorities and asked for help in getting her mother back, not stolen the plans. But of course any one person is more than just any individual action, Tosh did deserve punishment for her bad action, but I wouldn't write her off as a bad person for just that one moment of negligence when under extreme stress.
A few weeks ago we were discussing just this on my LJ. I put forward the suggestion then that there should be two levels of rape (http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/119472.html?thread=1587632&style=mine#t1587632), just as there are for homicide. With intent and without intent.
Parsing out people's intentions and motives, and deciding whether those motives are justifiable, is all complex and each step will involve plenty of tricky moral decisions, but I do feel very strongly that we have to do it before we judge them. Anything else strikes me as wrong.
3rd try
Date: 2008-03-23 08:04 pm (UTC)I think I'll just leave it there.
Re: 3rd try
Date: 2008-03-24 07:55 am (UTC)But if you do not wish to discuss this any further then we won't.
Re: 3rd try
Date: 2008-03-24 02:59 pm (UTC)/discuss is best
Re: 3rd try
Date: 2008-03-24 05:02 pm (UTC)Hee - this goes back to what we were saying the other day about apologies. What did we agree? You want apologies and I don't. So I had better apologise to you and you had better say nothing back to me.
Re: 3rd try
Date: 2008-03-25 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 12:21 pm (UTC)This seems fairly clear to me. Information is a form of power, so by restricting the flow of power they keep it so that it is centered in Torchwood's (and, I suppose, UNIT's and some others') hands. Informing the masses would be democratizing the process of alien-protection.
And I don't think Jack believes we are enlightened enough to be able to deal with information.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 02:54 pm (UTC)Probably understandable. Which of us would be comfortable with leaving decisions to, say, Roman society at the time of Christ? The gap in moral understanding and hence willingness to accept the democratic process must be huge.
But Torchwood prior to Jack taking over, UNIT and our own government don't have that excuse.
This is going to be another of our fundamental differences of opinion, isn't it. My immediate response is to wonder why you assume everyone is motivated by a desire for power. I will concede that many people in each organisation would be tempted to keep the knowledge to themselves, for a range of reasons, some of which may include a desire for more power, but the idea that they would abandon all the other social instincts that provide the usual system of checks and balances strikes me as ludicrous. To make sense to me there has to be some underlying logic beyond just 'we wants it'. And I suspect the show doesn't in fact have such an underlying logic, which saddens me because it is a serious flaw and one that is only going to get worse.
I think they have come a long way this season by applying
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 05:13 pm (UTC)Yes, absolutely. Any moral judgement can only be of its time, because the underlying assumptions about what is and is not 'good' or 'bad' changes continuously. That is what makes Jack so interesting as a character - when he says things like and he is reminding us of those differences. It is a brilliant way to illuminate our own standards and make us question them.
I'm not sure what you are saying here.
I was trying to say that even if the outcome happens to be more power, the desire for that power need not have been the motive, so 'they wanted power' isn't a good enough explanation for me as to why Torchwood are keeping the people of Cardiff in the dark, because I think that is just a guess, they could have lots of other motives instead.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 03:17 pm (UTC)I didn't think we disagreed all that much on Torchwood as it existed outside of Jack's influence. But I would definitely ascribe to it the analysis below.
As to UNIT, I really can't say, since I don't know enough old school canon to be able to speak knowledgeably on it. Perhaps the Third Doctor had a role similar to Jack's in deciding from a supposedly more advanced perspective we weren't ready for the knowledge? (Not to mention concerns over maintaining the timeline.)
Also, I'm not sure that UNIT has the sort of "war" mentality that Torchwood has. Outside of Cardiff, there's not the constant influx of alien influence, and so there's not as much need to inform the public. (The responses to large-scale events like "The Christmas Invasion" no doubt are political decisions.) If one isn't arming the human species against the future, but merely investigating isolated phenomena, there isn't as much need to inform the public. (Which isn't a response to the ethical issue at hand, of course.)
My immediate response is to wonder why you assume everyone is motivated by a desire for power.
Hmm. We'd have to come up with a definition of power such that the claim that everyone is motivated by a desire for power isn't tautologous (Nietzschean psychology, if you will), obviously. But I'd argue that even with such a definition, the actions of Torchwood--starting with Victoria's founding in "Tooth and Claw" and the Victorian lesbians in "Fragments" all the way up to Jack and Tosh and Suzie and Owen and Ianto and Gwen--are demonstably, in their clear pattern of offenses, in line with a "we wants it" analysis--at first, strongly associated with the logic of imperialism and then later on mutated under Jack into something else (more of a individualism/capitalism ethos).
Team Torchwood has consistently, especially throughout season 1, shown a pattern of displaying an adoscelent attitude to the world--which I read as being part and parcel of the show's critique of secret extragovernmental organizations.
I think they have come a long way this season by applying rahirah's law (to make characters likeable, have them show compassion for others) but they have probably taken that as far as it will go.
For me, what makes Torchwood so bold and innovating is just how unlikeable the characters can be even as they remain attractive and alluring--in a way, it kind of lays bare the sort of mental gymnastics we go through every day. The difference between you and me is that I respond to most of the episodes the way you did to Adrift.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 05:32 pm (UTC)Yes, that is what I meant by one of our fundamental disagreements. Perhaps one of these days you and I will actually have to define power between us.
We may be working from two different definitions of imperialism as well.
I would be perfectly happy to accept that paternalistic protection and notions of protecting the empire would explain Torchwood keeping aliens secret, and handing out summary justice to them, during the imperial period. However I can see that analysis running into trouble during the 60s - long before Jack was able to impose whatever his own logic is on the institution. After Suez, as the nation adjusted itself to a post-imperial mode of thinking, it is hard to believe that Torchwood would have somehow been immune to the changes in the society around it.
But there is of course a severe shortage of data. My analysis is just guesswork.
For me what makes Torchwood so bold and innovative is the exact opposite - presenting disadvantaged and traditionally marginalised groups in a 'relaxed' fashion, thus allowing the artistic re-imagining of the world into something better. This of course includes the necessity that such people should not be portrayed as morally perfect, since the idea that any disadvantaged person must never be portrayed in negative fashion is itself divisive. All the stuff about critiquing extra-governmental organisations is just a sideshow for me - a nice, fun sideshow that I enjoy getting my analytical teeth into, but not the main point.
The reason Adrift upset me so much is because I was equating with Jonah and it was written so we were supposed to equate with Nikki and Gwen, it was entirely an emotional response based in my own personal history. I freely acknowledge it is not the way I normally approach the show.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 09:05 pm (UTC)But why wouldn't it be? It has no meaningful oversight--as the PM herself isn't even supposed to know it exists--so surely it's not too hard to believe that it would be shielded by social changes, would it? From what we've seen of their recruiting practices, I don't see any reason to believe there would need to be an influx of new ideas to challenge the logic of the old guard--it's not like they file with the British equivalent of an Equal Opportunity Office. And it is certainly sporting an Imperialistic mindset again by the time of the new Who S2 finale.
The reason Adrift upset me so much is because I was equating with Jonah and it was written so we were supposed to equate with Nikki and Gwen, it was entirely an emotional response based in my own personal history. I freely acknowledge it is not the way I normally approach the show.
I'm much more comfortable with the idea of approaching the show from the position of Jonah (or the people whose lives show up on Tosh's hacks of CCTV systems) than Gwen.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 08:00 am (UTC)You are talking as if the social adjustment to a post-colonial world was something imposed from above. On the contrary it happened at every level of society in an entirely organic way. After Suez, people had to accept that Britain was no longer a superpower, and to recreate an identity for ourselves. That happened throughout the sixties and seventies and on into the eighties. And all through that period every few years another former colony would achieve independence. It wasn't something you could avoid even by hiding in an underground base in Cardiff.
Bear in mind that precisely the people who had most affection for the empire were those who were most closely involved in running the empire and hence who directly oversaw the process of decolonisation. They adapted their mindsets accordingly. It's common sense - you can't maintain pride in something you are helping dismantle, so you refocus your pride on what you believe about how the dismantling is occurring and why it is being done.
I do sometimes see people (normally foreigners) talk about the post-imperial mindset as if it mainly consisted of resentment. But that is to misunderstand how we reconstructed ourselves. There is no resentment because we interpreted the changes as arising from our own benevolence - we consider ourselves to have been the architects of change so under that scenario we could only be resentful of ourselves, which we obviously won't do. We consider the change as if the former colonies were children who had grown up, and now we, the fond parents, can relinquish responsibility for them and stand back to watch, hopefully with pride, occasionally with dismay.
It's all a noble lie of course, but it worked well and made the process far less traumatic than it might have been.
In purely anecdotal terms, I've lived all my life amongst some of the most conservative people in the country and I've never met anyone who expresses the sort of imperialism you are implying Torchwood somehow maintained. The chances of them being able to find enough recruits with such a mindset strikes me as very unlikely, especially since they mostly recruit young people, and highly intelligent somewhat maverick young people at that. And especially in Cardiff - the Welsh consider themselves one of England's oldest and most harshly treated colonies. There is not much affection for Imperialism to be found in Wales.
I interpreted the rather odd expressions of the head of Torchwood London as an example of the new (and normally very ill informed) pride in our Imperial past which arose in the late eighties and early nineties as one of the legacies of Thatcherism. It was always a rather reactive emotion, mostly confined to a certain type of Tory, and it bears no relationship to the genuine imperial pride of the past. The scene in Canary Warf (also a symbol of Thatcherism) has always struck me as RTD having a poke at Thatcherism in several ways.
I mostly approach it from the position of Ianto and occasionally Jack, because I am a sad cliché of a fangirl shipper.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 03:01 pm (UTC)except then, of course, they're the bad guys, acting in an anti-democratic way
and aparently we're not meant to read it like that any more
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 03:22 pm (UTC). . . Did you expect me to say something different?
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 03:33 pm (UTC)Actually if they're being sneaky they could start with the obvious, with the screwing up a lot, get to the subtle, with the same things working but still being wrong, and then build up to some grand revelation even the characters notice.
... or that could be fanfic.