Synopsis: The Enterprise is tasked with bringing ambassadors from many planets to a peace conference on Babel.
This is the episode, written by D. C. Fontana, in which we meet Mr. Spock’s parents: the Vulcan, Ambassador Sarek, and the Earth woman, Amanda Grayson.
This episode and the first episode of this season, “Amok Time” are where we get much of the background information on how Spock became who he is. “Amok Time” was more cultural information, whereas “Journey to Babel” gives us much more insight into Spock’s personal history – including who his parents are. His father, Sarek, here represents Logos, the logical side of our psyche, whereas Spock’s mother, Amanda, symbolizes the Eros, the feeling side of our psyche. Spock is a product of these two opposites joining together.
Spock, like many of us, in order to survive in the culture chose to put our Logos, rational side on display to the outside world. While on Vulcan, when all emotions are suppressed in favor of logic, this might seem an extreme situation, this actually is what happens every day here on Earth as well. We are just so encased in our ego personas that sometimes we don’t realize it. However, unlike the character of Spock, we do tend to acknowledge that we do need to let our emotions out once in a while, otherwise they become pent up and dangerous. Or at least are the cause of Freudian Slips.
In “Journey to Babel” Amanda tells her son that human is not a dirty word, “You’re human too. Let that part of you come through,” she says when she begs her son to save his father. She here embodies Eros, the feeling side, that knows that only through love can Logos, the rational, be saved. Amanda seems to have both remained true to her emotions and to have accepted her role as “the one who is my wife” to Sarek. The episode does not speak much to what her life on Vulcan is like, and although Sarek does not acknowledge it, I would hazard a guess that having her around to challenge his reliance on logic makes him a better ambassador. Unruffled when asked why they got married in the first place, Sarek merely says: “it seemed like the logical thing to do at the time.” Whether or not it is logical is debatable, but theirs obviously has been a fortuitous union for all involved.
Original post created 16 February 2021
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