It's Only A Paper Rose

Last night, Brian and I watched what's turned out to be one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: Voyager: "Living Witness".

It starts out with a "What's Wrong With This Picture?" portrayal of the Voyager crew. The actors and costumes are the same, but lots of details are wrong: everyone wears black gloves, Chakotay's tattoo takes up half his face, Janeway and Tuvok flirt with each other, the Doctor is a sociopathic android, and the crew members constantly belittle and insult each other. Most shockingly, Janeway and the crew commit outright genocide in a battle between two races on a nearby planet.

Rather than a mirror-universe story, the opening act turns out to be a recreation in a museum by an alien civilization, 700 years in the future, telling the history of their conflict with their co-species. Needless to say, a patron who's a member of that species isn't particularly fond of the portrayal, and challenges the curator as to the authenticity of his data. The curator smugly informs him that they've just discovered a data storage unit at an excavation that they hopes to recover more data from to fine-tune their story; when the patron asks him what will happen if the data contradicts their expectations, the curator assures him they will reexamine their assumptions.

After some work, the curator finally activates the data device, only to find that it's a backup copy of the holographic doctor, who reacts with understandable shock and horror to this portrayal of his friends. Initially excited, the curator grows increasingly agitated as the Doctor argues for the character of the Voyager crew, insisting that they weren't the aggressors at all and that the crew were inadvertently caught in the conflict as they attempted to negotiate a trade agreement. Angry at having his worldview challenged, the curator refuses to listen and shuts off the Doctor's program mid-sentence. (This being Star Trek, though, that's not the end of the story.)

It's probably not surprising that I loved this story; I've written before about the trickiness of history, and how easy it is to cast people and events in an entirely different light, depending on what you include or leave out, or even such subtleties as the descriptors you use. But I think what I loved about it even more was the journey the curator takes throughout the story.

I've been spending a lot of time lately ruminating on the paradox of intelligence and self-awareness, and how the two don't always coincide where you would expect. One of the classic examples is with situations precisely like the curator's: you would think that intelligent and scientifically-minded people, who are aware of confirmation bias and how it works, would be more open than the average person to changing their assumptions. And yet, in practice, it turns out the reverse is true; intelligent and scientifically-minded people are some of the most prone to confirmation bias, because they're particularly good at marshaling arguments to support their assumptions, as well as finding reasons to dismiss evidence counter to their views. That's not to say they can't reexamine their beliefs, but it's sometimes harder for them.

So it really struck me when the curator re-activated the Doctor's program a day or two later, even (with prompting) apologizing for cutting him off mid-sentence, and asked him to continue his recounting of events. The Doctor, still miffed, asks why he'd want to listen to the words of a genocidal maniac like him - what changed his mind? And the curator replies, with refreshing honesty: "Time to think."

I wonder if, here in this age of social media arguments and instant messaging, that's what's missing from our discussions. Not just the lack of investment in the other person's humanity - so easy when you're shielded by two screens - but also that willingness to step back and absorb, or even more, let the other person step back and absorb. Instead we batter them with all the reasons why we're right, sometimes with the aid of other people, having convinced ourselves that we just need to win, we don't need to worry about the state of the other person involved or what they think of us. Even though we know this tactic doesn't work - the evidence is right in front of our faces.