The Ultimate ‘Ism’: Doctor Who and Ideology
Guest contributor James Blanchard explores some of the ideological elements of Doctor Who.
“Don’t be lasagne,” warns the Twelfth Doctor, when telling Clara to avoid being popped like an over-cooked ready meal. But what if we’re already lasagne? Have we become processed and packaged by the world we live in? Are we just containers of beef, pasta, and cheese, labelled and sold as a commodity? Are we really consumers? Or have we become consumed?
Facetiousness aside (for the moment), Doctor Who is a show brimming with ideology. Ideology can generally be defined as a series of coherent arguments and beliefs, which stems from a personal interpretation of the world around us – the best way to describe it is as a kind of ‘lens’, through which we draw conclusion of what we see; there are facts, which we observe, and then the ‘lens’ of ideology converts it into a belief. So for instance, two people might observe the same example of poverty, but one might believe it the fault of the poor, whilst the other might see it as the fault of the rich.
Ideology can, generally, be split into four rough categories: conservativism, liberalism, socialism, and anarchism. I wouldn’t want to patronise the show, or you, by saying something as asinine as ‘Doctor Who is a socialist show!’ (much as I’d like to), but it does, certainly, have a very particular view on the world we live in, views about human nature, freedom, power and politics, and many other important topics. In fact, Doctor Who could almost be an ideology in itself. So what does it say?
A question we have to ask is ‘what is Doctor Who about?’ This is very complicated, as the show is a sprawling mass of concepts and philosophies that have sprung up over its long history. So, I think it’s best to start on the idea that drives it every week:
Time Travel
Time travel is possible in the world of Doctor Who. This is pretty big in of itself, because it raises a lot of questions: can the show have a canon? Can the experiences of the characters be trusted, given how time fluctuates? One thing the show makes an almost desperate point of is that time travel does not equal pre-destination – for a start that would totally erase the moral heart of the show: in a determined world where free will does not exist, how can evil punished? If we are destined to fall ill, what use is a Doctor?
The nature and laws of time travel in our context is very important. Time is in flux, “anything can happen”, meaning our choices, in many ways, make the future. But it comes with anchors, ‘fixed points’, where the events must stand, lest disaster happens – the Doctor has a choice in Genesis of the Daleks, with very clearly labelled and spelled-out consequences, but a choice all the same; the answer isn’t fixed because of his past experience with the Daleks. That remains personal to him. On the opposite hand, there is The Waters of Mars, where the Doctor, despite having no involvement with the crew of Bowie Base One, must try to maintain the future through inaction.
This at face value feels a little bit odd. There is no apparent rationale behind this – what is this trying to say? What is the point? The answer, I think, lies in the First Law of Time: that no one should be allowed to meet themselves. Of course, the Doctor breaks this (rules are meant to be broken – more on that later) but there is a definite point to it:
1.) Time is not only in flux, it is fluid; it takes the shape of the container it is held in. In our case, the container is our perspective, attitude, and actions that create our personal history, both forward and backwards. The way we act shapes time, and the world around us bends to our whim and imagination. In this sense, Doctor Who is very much a populist show – you, the people, have to power to change the world.
2.) The conflict with pre-destination is resolved through the First Law of Time. Time can be rewritten, “but not once you’ve read it” is warning us about the danger of second-guessing and doubting ourselves. A character meeting themselves, and therefore cementing their future, is a representation of the self-fulfilling prophecy – Doctor Who firmly believes in the idea of ‘thinking makes it so’, so thinking about ones future in negative terms (meeting yourself) means your future will be negative. So we are encouraged think positively, and act positively, with optimism and self-assurance, and that way our lives can be enriching.
This is wonderful to hear, isn’t it? That our lives are in our hands, that all it really takes to be happy is a positive spirit, that we are all special and, ultimately, the pursuit of a better world is worthwhile. But again, there’s a tension that needs resolving, and that is subjectivity. The fluid nature of time tells us that everything is entirely subject to our perception, and yet, the character of the Doctor is incredibly judgemental, to the point of committing genocide. What is morality to Doctor Who, and what does it mean?
Beyond Good and Evil
It wouldn’t be too controversial to say that Doctor Who preaches moral relativism. This is an atheistic universe, there is no God to judge the righteous and the heinous, and the majority of the authority figures who take protagonists to task over their actions are (at least presented as) wrong. To reference another piece of popular sci-fi, “there can be no justice whilst laws are absolute”. Absolute moral good simply doesn’t exist in the world of Doctor Who – even the ‘good man’, the Doctor, the wise and compassionate hero, is very grey in the goodie/baddie department, to point where his ultimate compassionate act – the salvation of his home world – comes at the cost of billions of Dalek lives.
And yet, interestingly, absolute moral evil does seem exist. It’s called the Daleks. The show makes a point of demonstrating how totally irredeemable the Daleks are – the only regret the Doctor harbours is his decision not to destroy them, he holds no shame in slaughtering them by the millions, and Into The Dalek flatly asserts that a ‘good Dalek’ is all but impossible. The fact that the Doctor can’t simply wish the Daleks away, or make them nicer, seems at odds with what I’ve said so far.
The problem is ideology itself. The religious devotion the Daleks have to their racial purity is ideological, in the sense they see all problems in the universe stemming from the fact that everyone isn’t a Dalek. So what Doctor Who is saying is be sceptical of anyone, of anything, that claims to have all, or the ultimate, answer to the world around us. As shown before, it believes that ideas and the way we think have power, but also takes the anarchist view that power can corrupt.
The Daleks are rigid, zealous, hierarchical, and wrong; the Doctor is flexible, rational, an outsider, and right.
I believe the Daleks are the only honest example of absolute moral evil in the Doctor Who universe, though – all the other villains often seem to be victims of circumstance (the Cybermen, for instance, aren’t evil, just somewhat deluded) or at least capable of some good (note Strax, or the Ice Warriors). So morality is a spectrum, which can apparently carry on in both directions forever.
And, in many ways, Doctor Who tells us that some evil is necessary, that there will always be adversity and a utopia, in that sense, is impossible: “pain and loss; they define us as much as happiness or love”. Sarah Jane is saying that trials, be them personal and grand, are important in the creation of that positive spirit that the show says we need, and that some people must be willing to stand up and do a good act. After all, wonderful as they are, there can be no doctors without sick people.
Love
Morality isn’t the only thing that separates the Doctor from his enemies – there is emotion, and, specifically, love – Cybermen remove all emotion, Daleks ‘subtract love [and] add anger’, and other races like the Sontarans simply don’t value it, placing other concepts over it. But the bond of love sits very strongly with the Doctor – the way he collects people to travel with and acts protectively over the child-like earth shows how much he values that special social concept.
But love is much broader and important to Doctor Who beyond the obvious sentiment that hate is bad, and love is the opposite of hate. The Doctor forgives (the Master in Last of the Time Lords and Clara in Dark Water), and shows how he is, mostly, against retribution, commending Adelaide Brooke for not pursuing revenge against the Daleks. He tries his best not to harbour negativity, linking back to the idea of the positive spirit, though he doesn’t always succeed; the Doctor is not totally beyond acts of personal vengeance, such as his treatment of the Silence in Day of the Moon. But these, universally, have negative consequences for him, and the paths of compassion bring better outcomes (see A Town Called Mercy).
The link between love and the positive, populist spirit is shown best, I think, when the Doctor explains to Amy that he travels through space with other people because he can better appreciate the wonder through their reactions. If each person, with power over their own world, is a kind of ideology in themselves, then they are lens to interpret the world around us. Love is not just a bond between people; it is a way of learning, about the world and its inhabitants, and, ultimately, ourselves. Doctor Who emphasises the need to love as something fundamental. It is, in ideological terms, social.
This to me is what the show is about: the pursuit of love, learning and happiness, relationships with important and worthwhile people, and contentedness in oneself, free from oppression and hatred. Doctor Who earnestly believes that the road to the best possible world is through sharing and optimism, love and compassion, and faith in our friends. It’s easy to be cynical, pass the show off as idealistic and childish, and say that the central message is an ultimately impossible one. But in an age where the prevailing ideology of our politics is greed and cynicism, I do find myself asking, is love really such a bad thing to teach to our kids?
Of course, this is merely an opinion, and an honest answer to what the ideology of Doctor Who is will never arrive, because the show has had so many creators over its years with varying beliefs and ideas. The show is organic, it grows and changes with time and people, but one thing I think we can all agree on is that all fans take something unique from the show, and that something is nearly always a positive outlook. So whatever the ideology of Doctor Who is, in the end, it is worth celebrating.
