Reddit mentions of The Making of Romantic Love: Longing and Sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, 900-1200 CE (Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning)

>Vulcans were under great duress when they chose the course their society is currently on but in doing so they completely discard vital elements of sentient life that nature has written into their being.

"Nature" doesn't exist in any meaningful way, on Vulcan or elsewhere. If you draw a distinction between what is "natural" and what is "artificial," and place the "natural" in a position of primacy, then you have to decide what is "natural" and what is not. That decision is arbitrary, and is itself an entirely artificial construction. Are the tools used by apes "natural?" The languages of cetaceans? The music of birds? The structures built by insects? Is romantic love "natural," considering it was invented a thousand years after the steam engine?

If there was ever such a thing as a Vulcan "state of nature," before the current era, the move away from nature to the current state is not necessarily good or bad. Emotions are not in themselves virtuous. Civilizations move neither toward a more perfect realization of their potential nor toward inevitable and total collapse. They simply change to reflect forces that act upon them, as all things do. Vulcan civilization changed in response to unrest in a way that provided stability at the expense of experience. If Vulcan public schools teach a kind of emotional control that stifles their experience of life, the Vulcan people are aware and choose to continue. The Vulcans are no different from humans in this respect.

Human civilization has, over the centuries, chosen to encourage thoughtful behavior over reactionary behavior. At one point there were no laws, and someone came to power and made his will the law. Over time, this was undone and more just laws were put in place. This move is born not from fear of tyranny, but from sympathy - sympathy for those who are harmed when people act without considering the consequences on the lives of others. Thoughtfulness protects the freedom of those who are weaker, which protects everyone's freedom.

To understand why Vulcans think before they act, and even think before they feel, look at the results: Vulcans who are within their health and their sanity commit no crimes; they abandon no poor or weak; they do not abuse each other, or neglect each other, or condescend. When we see Vulcans do wrong, they are far from Vulcan, or they are unwell, or they are children. What we see as "Vulcan stoicism" is a complicated and ancient social contract that reaches into every aspect of life. Vulcans understand that they have a responsibility to reach out to every other life they encounter, and know that the comprehension of the experience of the other is only possible through the intellect. Emotional response is inherently selfish and destructive, while also being beautiful and creative. As we see on a number of occasions, Vulcans do have emotions - what makes them unique is that in every moment of their lives, they attempt to behave mindfully, purposefully and with specific intent to fulfill their obligations to the other lives in the universe. The Vulcan civilization is the only one in the galaxy that has a successful, operational model for preserving the benefits of civilization without succumbing to the pitfalls of governance. The Vulcan virtue of IDIC, or infinite diversity in infinite combinations, is at the heart of that success. Emotions are subjective (only personal, and not diverse in this sense) and finite (in that they are only ever your own). By harnessing them, Vulcans overcome the limitations of identity and create what is possibly a paradise.

>"Nature" doesn't exist in any meaningful way, on Vulcan or elsewhere. If you draw a distinction between what is "natural" and what is "artificial," and place the "natural" in a position of primacy, then you have to decide what is "natural" and what is not. That decision is arbitrary, and is itself an entirely artificial construction. Are the tools used by apes "natural?" The languages of cetaceans? The music of birds? The structures built by insects? Is romantic love "natural," considering it was invented a thousand years after the steam engine?

The idea of what is or is not natural does exist. A stone sharpened and used by a primate is not equivalent to the feeling of sadness or happiness. If you were born with a leg, had it amputated and replaced with an artificial leg that artificial leg will usually be considered less desirable than the leg you were born with. If the urge to create a highly specific structure is part of what an insect is born with then it's natural. Birds are inclined by nature to sing and Vulcans are inclined by nature to feel.

>If there was ever such a thing as a Vulcan "state of nature," before the current era, the move away from nature to the current state is not necessarily good or bad. Emotions are not in themselves virtuous. Civilizations move neither toward a more perfect realization of their potential nor toward inevitable and total collapse. They simply change to reflect forces that act upon them, as all things do. Vulcan civilization changed in response to unrest in a way that provided stability at the expense of experience. If Vulcan public schools teach a kind of emotional control that stifles their experience of life, the Vulcan people are aware and choose to continue. The Vulcans are no different from humans in this respect.

Vulcans are presented with choice, but that choice resembles extortion. "Choose this path or be cast away from your family, banished, and stripped of a productive future even though you haven't harmed anyone" is hardly a rational choice to present to a child.

>Human civilization has, over the centuries, chosen to encourage thoughtful behavior over reactionary behavior. At one point there were no laws, and someone came to power and made his will the law. Over time, this was undone and more just laws were put in place. This move is born not from fear of tyranny, but from sympathy - sympathy for those who are harmed when people act without considering the consequences on the lives of others. Thoughtfulness protects the freedom of those who are weaker, which protects everyone's freedom.

The issue isn't whether Vulcans are sympathetic or not. They claim to suppress all emotion instead of understanding and dealing with it. In humans, this kind if behavior often results in mental problems and Vulcans are so compatible with and similar to humans that they produce neurologically viable offspring with each other. Why can Vulcans not simply stop claiming to have no emotions and still behave ethically?

>To understand why Vulcans think before they act, and even think before they feel, look at the results: Vulcans who are within their health and their sanity commit no crimes; they abandon no poor or weak; they do not abuse each other, or neglect each other, or condescend. When we see Vulcans do wrong, they are far from Vulcan, or they are unwell, or they are children.

Not true. "Healthy" Vulcans participate in and support a society that tells children that exercising free will while harming no other person will get them cast away, banished, looked down upon. Healthy Vulcans should be doing all sorts of different things because they're sentient individuals and not cardboard cutouts from an assembly line.

>What we see as "Vulcan stoicism" is a complicated and ancient social contract that reaches into every aspect of life. Vulcans understand that they have a responsibility to reach out to every other life they encounter, and know that the comprehension of the experience of the other is only possible through the intellect. Emotional response is inherently selfish and destructive

Except that an emotional response is not inherently destructive and selfish. If a person comforts another person this can be without selfishness and is not destructive.

>while also being beautiful and creative. As we see on a number of occasions, Vulcans do have emotions - what makes them unique is that in every moment of their lives, they attempt to behave mindfully, purposefully and with specific intent to fulfill their obligations to the other lives in the universe. The Vulcan civilization is the only one in the galaxy that has a successful, operational model for preserving the benefits of civilization without succumbing to the pitfalls of governance.

That's purest speculation. The pitfalls of governance can be just as great when the people running it avoid empathy and can take destructive actions based on faulty logic.

>The Vulcan virtue of IDIC, or infinite diversity in infinite combinations, is at the heart of that success. Emotions are subjective (only personal, and not diverse in this sense) and finite (in that they are only ever your own).

In the Trek universe your emotions can very well be the emotions of others. Also, empathy and the understanding that people experience similar types of emotions provides enrichment and inspiration. It's subjective but it still is.

>By harnessing them, Vulcans overcome the limitations of identity and create what is possibly a paradise.

Trek claims that Vulcans do not harness emotions. It claims that they suppress them and pretend that they're not there.

Sorry if this is messy. This can be terribly trying on such a small screen.