I think any Vulcan would agree. It just makes sense to mirror the energy of your counterparts at a gathering. Even if you don’t understand why they’re doing something, you participating includes you in things. Being passive and externally emotionless sets you apart as “other”. Being vulcans, they would likely desire to know why, and would do their research.
I imagine alien-facing industries would have a whole section of their organization dedicated to studying alien socialization so they can be ready at interspecies functions.
Anything less would be illogical.
Now the real question is whether these vulcans who mix “too heavily” will end up becoming “less Vulcan-y” over time, or if other vulcans would treat them differently by default just because they’re “tainted”. We’ve seen how… Particular… Vulcans can be about the slightest divergence from “standard”.
Behaving emotionless in a universe where 99% of all sapient lifeforms are emotional is illogical when dealing with them. You don’t have to actually feel the emotions, but behaving in a way that puts them at ease makes cooperation much easier.
Going a bit more doylist here, when Vulcans are well written they project their own insecurities on other species and that scares them. They then do all kinds of rationalization to deal with their feelings. In one of the season 4 episodes of Enterprise there’s a small scene that covers this a bit.
That actually is quite logical.
I think any Vulcan would agree. It just makes sense to mirror the energy of your counterparts at a gathering. Even if you don’t understand why they’re doing something, you participating includes you in things. Being passive and externally emotionless sets you apart as “other”. Being vulcans, they would likely desire to know why, and would do their research.
I imagine alien-facing industries would have a whole section of their organization dedicated to studying alien socialization so they can be ready at interspecies functions.
Anything less would be illogical.
Now the real question is whether these vulcans who mix “too heavily” will end up becoming “less Vulcan-y” over time, or if other vulcans would treat them differently by default just because they’re “tainted”. We’ve seen how… Particular… Vulcans can be about the slightest divergence from “standard”.
Yeah, Vulcans are surprisingly bigoted and stiff.
Behaving emotionless in a universe where 99% of all sapient lifeforms are emotional is illogical when dealing with them. You don’t have to actually feel the emotions, but behaving in a way that puts them at ease makes cooperation much easier.
It’s mentioned a few times that Vulcans feel strong emotions but suppress them because they are afraid of losing control.
That’s a good point. However, is it fair of them to then look down on other species that don’t suppress their emotions?
Going a bit more doylist here, when Vulcans are well written they project their own insecurities on other species and that scares them. They then do all kinds of rationalization to deal with their feelings. In one of the season 4 episodes of Enterprise there’s a small scene that covers this a bit.