Synopsis: Captain Kirk returns to a planet he surveyed as a young officer to find that the Klingons have armed one segment of the once peaceful population with firearms.
In “A Private Little War” there are a lot of themes that are touched on. There is the obvious reference from the late 1960s of the superpowers arming the sides in the Vietnam War. But in this post, I would like to write about how the episode contains three different approaches to medicinal methods to combat injuries and three differing approaches to the idea of war itself.
Medically, there is of course Dr. Leonard (Bones) McCoy and his allopathic, science-based methods of treating patients. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Nona, a Kahn-ut-tu woman and her homeopathic ways of curing afflictions with roots and herbs. Captain James T. Kirk even calls the Kahn-ut-tu the local witch people. In between, we have the self-healing Vulcan technique. Once the allopathic methods have gone as far as they can go, the Vulcans will themselves into a meditative coma so that their bodies can concentrate on healing the wound. When it comes to killing there are also three views. There are the views of Tyree, Kirk’s friend from the past. Tyree is a pacifist, at least until his wife Nona is murdered, and refuses to take up arms. There is also the views of both the Klingons and Nona, to take up arms to kill the enemy. Somewhere in the middle is Kirk’s interpretation of what the Federation would want to do – to arm each side equally and let the factions fight it out. Depth and Archetypal Psychology teach us that it is in the middle ground, in medicine, war, and life that soul-making happens.
Original post created 26 February 2021
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