Doctor Who and Philosophy

by Courtland Lewis

  For example, you’re planning to attend some special social event—a New Year’s Eve party, a Mardi Gras Ball, a prom—you get all dressed up in your gown or tux, accoutrements all in place. What’s your question to your significant other (party, ball), or your parents and siblings (prom) when you emerge from your dressing room? It’s: “How do I look?” But, why would you ask this question? You know you look good, but that’s just not enough. You want recognition from others—you want them to confirm that you look great. In Hegel’s terms, you had certainty of self when you emerged from your dressing room (you know you look good), now have truth of certainty of self because others acknowledge you as gorgeous. You’ve seen yourself “mirrored” in their eyes.114 This is an oversimplified version of the process of recognition, but it’s something to which we all can relate.

  The Master, like us, craves recognition from others. He needs to be acknowledged as “the Master,” in the eyes of his subjects. But to be a ‘master’, one needs a slave to acknowledge a master as master. Hegel, in his famous section of the Phenomenology of Spirit, “Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage,” commonly referred to as “the Master-Slave Dialectic” by philosophers, details the struggle for recognition between two self-consciousnesses. In other words, two people who are each aware of him- or herself, each have certainty of self, and come to “blows” when each runs into a consciousness like itself. Since “self-consciousness is Desire,”115 the first thing a single self-consciousness tries to do is to preserve itself against other things—against an “other.”

  Hegel says, “[self-consciousness] preserves itself by separating itself from this its inorganic nature, and by consuming it.”116 Thus, an “other” is merely an object for the self-consciousness’s desire—“one being only recognized, the other only recognizing.”117 In order for a living being to survive, nutrition is necessary; thus, food is an object for the living being which consumes it. We see this exemplified in the Master, newly reconstituted in “The End of Time, Part 1.” He devours food with a voraciousness we find surprising, and perhaps unbefitting of a Time Lord or even a human being. What we find frightening and most disturbing, as does Ginger and his companion, is the skeletal remains of the workers in the sandwich truck. We realize that the Master has devoured them! “Dinner time!” yells the Master and we understand that Ginger and the companion are next. Why we are so disturbed by the thought of the Master consuming whole human beings is our realization that they, like the Master, are self-conscious beings. They deserve to be recognized, and not treated as mere objects—like a sandwich. Yet, the Master only sees them as objects of his desire.

  Seeing other self-consciousness beings as mere objects fails to bring the desired recognition a particular self-consciousness wants. That’s the catch. According to Hegel, the recognition ultimately sought must come from an equal and independent consciousness, not from a “lesser” and dependent consciousness. In other words, genuine recognition can only happen between equals—there must be a mutual recognizing of each other; a kind of mutual respect. For example, take two people in a crowded pub. A man spies an interesting woman. After some moments, the woman realizes that she’s being ogled. She’s the object of his gaze. Similarly, he becomes the object of her gaze. Each now sees the other as an object of desire. If the “process of recognition” stops here, then each is nothing more than a piece of meat for the other (though not in the reconstituted Master’s sense). The term ‘sex object’ is apt here. But no one (well, most people) don’t want to be seen simply as “a piece of meat.” Hegel says:Self-consciousness is, to begin with, simple being-for-self, self equal through the exclusion from itself of everything else. For it, its essence and absolute object is ‘I’; and in this immediacy, or in this [mere] being, of its being-for-self, it is an individual. What is ‘other’ for it is an unessential, negatively characterized object. But the ‘other’ is also a self-consciousness; one individual confronted by another individual. Appearing thus immediately on the scene, they are for one another like ordinary objects, independent shapes, individuals submerged in the being [or immediacy] of Life—... Each is indeed certain of its own self, but not of the other, and therefore its own self-certainty still has no truth.118

  Instead, we want to be recognized as an equal and respected, and not be a mere thing to be used by another. So, if the recognition process continues, the two people will meet, dialogue, and get to know one another; they form a bond as human being to human being, self-consciousness to self-consciousness. According to Hegel:They recognize themselves as mutually recognizing one another.... But according to the Notion of recognition this is possible only when each is for the other what the other is for it, only when each in its own self through its own action, and again through the action of the other, achieves this pure abstraction of being-for-self.119

  The Master, however, seems to look for genuine recognition in all the wrong places. He thinks that by lording over members of other species (such as humans and the Toclafane) he’ll achieve the recognition he desires. But, according to Hegel, this is a myth, since a master needs a slave to be acknowledged as ‘master’ or ‘lord’—it’s inherently an unequal relationship. Ironically, the Master actually has the desired recognition from an equal but he can’t see it. He can’t see it because he’s really an instrument of history; a world-historical individual whose life is to fulfill a destiny, as we’ll see.

  The Struggle unto Death, and Its Irony

  The process of recognition and the attainment of “truth of certainty of self” requires the staking of one’s life, according to Hegel. Recall, self-consciousness is desire. Thus, when two people, each a particular self-consciousness, meet, each seeks to consume the other. They are at first a mere object for the other. There’s risk involved in the sense that one may not “win” the appropriate recognition desired. One could be dismissed as insignificant, unimportant, not a person, and remain a thing for the other. Hegel states:Thus the relation of the two self-conscious individuals is such that they prove themselves and each other through a life-and-death struggle. They must engage in this struggle, for they must raise their certainty of being for themselves to truth, both in the case of the other and in their own case. And it is only through staking one’s life that freedom is won.120

  Consider a boxing match. Each contender wants to win the match and gain recognition as “the Champ” from the opponent as well as the fans. They’re “objects” for each other to be “boxed” until the match ends or one can’t continue the match. Thus, each contender stakes his own life because one could be seriously injured and possibly killed, and certainly stakes his reputation on the match. Neither wants the recognition of being the ‘loser’, so they battle each other in the ring. The struggle of one contender against the other continues until “time” is called and there’s a ‘winner’. The winner has achieved the recognition of fans, the opponent, the media, and himself as champion—he’s the master, or “lord of the ring.” The loser has demonstrated that he’s an inferior boxer; he’s the slave, or “bondsman of the ring.” Of the outcome of the struggle of the two self-consciousnesses, Hegel says: Since to begin with they are unequal and opposed, and their reflection into a unity has not yet been achieved, they exist as two opposed shapes of consciousness; one is the independent consciousness whose essential nature is to be for itself, the other is the dependent consciousness whose essential nature simply to live or to be for another. The former is lord, the other is bondsman.121

  “This trial by death, however, does away with the truth which was supposed to issue from it, and so, too, with the certainty of self generally,”122 Hegel claims. In other words, the champion was supposed to attain truth of certainty of self. He was supposed to gain the recognition of equals. Yet, who gives the champ his recognition? The opponent, but he was defeated; he’s not an equal. The fans, but they’re not boxers, or if they are, they’re “wanna-be-boxers.” In either case, neither are equals of the champ, he alone
is the champion and can remain so only as long as he remains undefeated in the ring. If he’s defeated, he’s lost his “lord of the ring” status and become the “slave of the ring” and the new champion has become lord.

  The truth that results from the struggle, according to Hegel, is that even though the master or lord thinks he’s an independent consciousness, needing no one because he’s “top of the heap,” he’s really a dependent consciousness. He’s a dependent consciousness because he needs others to retain his status as the champion and recognized as such. Without others, he’s no champion at all. The defeated boxer, on the other hand, realizes that he’s lost a match and returns to training just as he did before. The fans, either elated or disappointed about the outcome of the match, leave the arena without need for the contenders, until the next time. The “lord of the ring” alone is the one left needing the others. How ironic.

  My Name Is ‘the Master’

  Having successfully repaired the Gate, which is a medical device that transmits a template for a medical remedy across an entire planet, that’s in the possession of Joshua Naismith and his daughter, Abigail, “Harold Saxon” is praised for his excellent work. “My name is the Master,” the Master sneers. Despite having been confined to a straight jacket by Naismith’s security guards—Naismith is right to be cautious of the Master—the Master is poised to effect his plan to lord over the human race and Earth. No mere straight jacket, a collar, and a leash can restrict the power of the Master, however. He dramatically breaks free and jumps into the Gate, turning the human race into himself; well, except for Wilfred and Donna—Donna doesn’t change because she’s been the Doctor-Donna and exposed to the Time Vortex; but why not Wilfred? That’s a good question, and one that remains unanswered—I suspect because he’s got to be the one to knock four times to fulfill the prophecy of the Doctor’s “death.” Of course the Doctor doesn’t change, because he’s not human and neither do the Cactuses (‘Cacti’ is racist, after all!) because they’re not human either, and the Master set the template to human.

  “Hopeless was I, destitute and dying! Look at me now!” the Master exclaims to the Doctor and the others present, as each human begins to change into himself. Now that he’s “upgraded” the humans, albeit not in Cyberman fashion, he can control the planet, providing himself with the “proper” recognition that he seeks and deserves; or so he thinks. There’s something paradoxical, however, about being both the Master and the Slave of yourself, or rather yourselves, in this case. One would think that if each new individual Master really was the Master, then they’d all simultaneously have the same thoughts, something more along the lines of Star Trek’s Borg. Instead, the “real” Master governs the other Masters, albeit with no dissent. All the Masters of the world are in Gleichschaltung; the regime is accomplished: the Master race achieved. 123

  The Master as a World-Historical Individual

  The Master has trampled on the values most humans hold sacred: individuality, autonomy, respect. He invaded human’s dreams, disrupting what’s to be a time of rejuvenation; he kills (and sometimes cannibalizes) them; and he’s taken away their individuality and autonomy, and made them himself, without their consent. We don’t like the Master, but he’s a world-historical individual, in Hegel’s sense. He’s driven by passion and self-aggrandizement to accomplish what he thinks are his own goals of mastery and domination, even though they’re part of a larger, more universal, plan. As Hegel puts it:A world-historical individual is not so sober as to adjust his ambition to circumstances; nor is he very considerate. He is devoted, come what may, to one purpose. Therefore such men may treat other great and even sacred interests inconsiderately—a conduct which indeed subjects them to moral reprehension. But so mighty a figure must trample down many an innocent flower, crush to pieces many things in its path.124

  The Master is good at destroying things and people; that’s why he’s the “quintessential villain.”

  He can’t help but be on a “Quest for Mastery”; his passions drive him. Robert Tucker explains that when Hegel uses the term ‘passions’, he “has in mind the range of emotions which center in the will to be great; pride, ambition, the love of fame, the craving for power, the urge to conquer.”125 This, indeed, describes the Master. “Mastery is self-seeking in that it gives the world-historical individual affirmation of his proud self-image.” Recall, however, that the desired recognition must come from an equal; the master-slave relationship is unequal and it’s the master-consciousness that’s held in bondage, dependent on others for their recognition. The Master has the recognition of an equal from the Doctor but he can’t acknowledge it, because he’s entirely too consumed with his own self-aggrandizement. According to Tucker:Hegel clearly conceives the passion for self-aggrandizement as a kind of fanaticism, a condition in which the individual is driven compulsively by forces within over which he has no control and can exercise no constraint. (p. 270)

  In “The End of Time, Part 2” (2010) there’s an emotionally moving scene between the Doctor and the Master after the Master has turned all of the humans into himself. The Doctor is restrained in a chair and the Master is interrogating him regarding the location of the TARDIS.

  DOCTOR: You could be so wonderful. You’re a genius; you’re stone-cold brilliant, you are! I swear, you really are. But you can be so much more. You could be beautiful—a mind like that! We could travel the stars together. It would be my honor. ’Cause you don’t need to own the universe; just see it. Having the privilege to see the whole of time and space, that’s ownership enough.

  MASTER: Would it stop then? The noise in my head?

  DOCTOR: I can help.

  MASTER: Don’t know what I’d be without that noise ...

  DOCTOR: Don’t know what I’d be without you.

  MASTER: (emotionally and tearing up) ... yeah.

  Wilfred then interrupts asking about the noise and we hear the story of the Master’s childhood experience looking into the untempered schism; into the Time Vortex itself.

  In true world-historical individual fashion, the moment of sincerity and mutual recognition between the two Time Lords can’t last long. The Master, compulsively driven by his passions, reflects on the source of the signal, the constant four drum beats in his head; the Doctor offers to find the signal together. The Master then surmises that it’s coming “from so far way ... from the end of time.” In true Master form, he declares that the prophecy shown to the Doctor, that “something’s returning,” is “me!” He then realizes that the noise in his head is now manifested in six billion other heads. If they were all triangulated, they’d find the source of the signal. The Master re-emerges ...

  Along with the passions and drive of the world historical individual comes a price, however. A world-historical individual will pursue the quest for mastery to the injury of his own health, and perhaps even his own life. The drive consumes his whole life; all energy is devoted to accomplishing the goal that must be achieved, “the founding of an empire, the conquest of a foreign nation, or the establishment of a new order of civilization.” Tucker states of the world historical individual’s quest for mastery: “it is self-destructive in that it takes a tragic toll of his life-energies and happiness. He sacrifices to it his health, his calm and enjoyment, and even his life itself” (p. 70).

  The Master is shot by his earth-wife Lucy Saxon in the “Last of the Time Lords.” He refuses to regenerate, despite the pleas from the Doctor to do so. In “The End of Time,” Parts 1 and 2, we see the life-energy of the reconstituted Master being used up; his appearance altering into skeletal form then back to his Time Lord form. “The Gate wasn’t enough,” the Doctor says, to heal the Master’s body. “This body was born from death. All it can do is die,” says the Master, but even still he strives to conquer.

  The Master: The Slave of the Time-Lord Cunning of Reason

  Hegel portrays world-historical individuals as the means by which history, or World Spirit, must unfold. The great, strong individuals o
f history who have made significant contributions, such as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Gandhi, Queen Victoria, Wagner, Julius Caesar, or Napoleon, whether we judge their contributions to be positive or negative, they are, according to Hegel, the tools of the Cunning of Reason. As individuals they have passion out of which they act, but their passion is in service of history’s progress. According to Hegel:The particular has its own role to play in world history; it is finite and must, as such, perish. It is the particular that exhausts itself in the struggle, and part of which is destroyed.... It is not the general idea that involves itself in opposition and combat exposes itself to danger; it remains in the background, untouched and uninjured. This may be called the cunning of Reason—that it sets the passions to work for itself, while that through which it develops itself pays the penalty and suffers the loss. (Reason in History, pp. 43-44)

  The Master is the tool by which the Time Lords make their return and the attempt to restore Gallifrey. He’s their pawn.

  We learn from the Master the origin of the noise in his head—the constant four drum beats—in a story that he tells Wilfred in “The End of Time, Part 2” just after the emotional dialogue between the Doctor and the Master, where each recognized the other as equal, even if only for a short time. The Master tells us that, as a child of eight, he was taken for initiation. Such initiations require the young Time Lords to stare into the untempered schism, a gap in reality that allows one to see into the Time Vortex itself, as we’re informed by the Doctor. And, the Doctor says, “It hurts.” the Master’s initiation was done at night—a scary thing even for a young Time Lord. “I heard it calling to me—the drums. The never-ending drums,” says the Master.