I see what you’re saying Pike, but we have no way of knowing if the inhibitor is part of the original design or if it was added at some point, though I personally am inclined to think that it was added. If we consider the idea (rejected by many) that the Centurions made the humanoids, one would have a difficult time considering that if their higher functions were always already inhibited (or, prohibited?).
Assuming that it was the new Centurions that were the progenitors of the skinjobs. My gut tells me they came later.
The transition from the “Larrys” to the skinjobs is probably the biggest question we’ll never know the answer to.
Well, I’m glad you’re back, even if just for eleven weeks. I like these kinds of discussions. (I wish I were still in school and could take a class in this!)
It seems to me, based on what we saw of the original centurions in Razor, that indeed, the centurions always had the capacity for self-awareness (also, in season 3, Athena explains to Adama that in order to avoid a rebellion like that faced originally by the humans the cylons keep the centurions’ capacity for self-awareness in check). Whether they were happier in their ignorance or not I cannot answer. It reminds me of something Nietszche wrote (though I forget the name of the book) where he argued that cows (his example, though I suppose it could be any “lower” animal) were the happiest creatures on the planet because they were not aware of themselves and, especially, their mortality. I suppose a centurion is the same way. Whether bringing them out of this state is a disservice or not I cannot say. My own experience as a human being leads me to think that it would be a disservice to keep them subservient and unaware, but this is due more to my own self-awareness and relative freedom as a 21st century middle-class human (I might feel different were I a 13th century serf, but then I wouldn’t know what BSG was, so we wouldn’t be having this conversation, I suppose). I’ll have to ponder this…
Or at least with his arms. 
I appreciate the sentiment! Don’t worry, though, there’s still ‘The Plan’ and ‘Caprica’ to keep us coming back to these discussions – and maybe even another book!
I actually teach a class w/ one of the chapter authors from my book, George Dunn, using pop culture to teach philosophy. We did two nights on BSG last summer, but we’ll be heavily Star Trek focused this summer since my book on Star Trek and philosophy just came out this year:
What are the limits, if any, of forgiveness?
In “The Ties that Bind,” Cally obviously is suffering from depression, drug-induced paranoia, and fatigue. But, putting these factors aside, Tigh is still concerned what Tyrol’s “Cylon-hating wife” will do if she finds out he’s a Cylon.
Would it ever have been possible for Cally to forgive Tyrol for being a Cylon? Of course, his being is Cylon is not anything he’s responsible for, but I’m sure Cally would not have seen it that way. So the issue of forgiveness is relevant here.
This question also pertains to Roslin’s attitude toward Lee, after his treatment of her on the witness stand an Baltar’s trial, as well as Roslin’s blanket pardon – pragmatic as it was – of any collaborators from New Caprica
Deleted – I accidentally posted the question twice.
Deleted – I’m having major issues tonight!
I don’t think Cally was a forgiver. She still hated Boomer to pieces even after she shot her and married Boomer’s boyfriend and had his baby. Cally had strong biases. The labour union thing is another illustration of this.
Roslin’s attitude towards Lee has always struck me as odd. Shouldn’t she have been a little more angry with him for betraying her trust at the trial. He did promise not to reveal her cancer at one point, and then broke his word at the trial. She isn’t all forgiving goodness and light. She is calculating and shrewd. Unless the cancer and the Elosha hallucinations have changed her completely, but i doubt that. And I can’t see her wanting to play ‘Happy Families’ with Adama so much that she would brush over Lee’s faults and mistakes.
Two funny things about this question: another pop culture blog I read (but, sadly, no longer comment in), in talking about the state of TV in 2008, commented on BSG. One of the reviewers lamented the unmined possibilities in Cally’s storyline in season 4, and he has a point: here’s a woman who hates cylons pretty obsessively who suddenly finds out that the man she is hopelessly devoted to is a cylon himself. How cool would it have been to go on a ride for a few episodes and see where her character takes her?
The other funny thing regards the question of forgiveness. Last night I finished Wally Lamb’s wonderfully beautiful second novel, I Know This Much is True, which concerns itself in no small part with the question of forgiveness.
My answer to your question is much the same as what I take Lamb’s answer is: there is no limit to forgiveness (or, at least, the limit is set pretty high). It can take a long time to reach a place where one can forgive, but forgiveness, and, therefore, redemption, are not limited to circumstance or character.
I don’t think Cally was a forgiver.
Agreed. I, for one, would count this as a character flaw.
(I know I haven’t so much answered the question as provided something like a blanket statement of moral absolutism. I apologize for that. I’ll come back and refine this answer soon.)
Personally, I would like to think that the limit of forgiveness doesn’t exist, but I’m pretty sure that limit comes up when forgiveness crashes with a sense of justice. As an example, in Argentina there was a mass pardon of those who perpetrated (well, the leaders) the human rights abuses of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship (forgiveness) that was later reversed in a quest for justice (and some might say, retribution). The opposite dynamic seems to work across the mountains in Chile, where all the rhetoric is about forgiveness and very little is done concretely to “bring to justice” those who killed, tortured, maimed, and terrorized.
I think Cassiopia is right in that Cally doesn’t forgive. She is more interested in justice, be it from a personal standpoint or a societal one. Which makes her interest in Chief interesting, because in some ways it is predicated on forgiveness - forgiveness of his relationship with Boom, forgiveness of his violence towards her. However, she never had the chance to “forgive” his cylonicity, as Armando noted.
Yet Roslin forgave Papa Adama’s coup against her… but you bring up an interesting point, up to what moment (or under what circumstances) is Roslin prepared to forgive, negotiate, compromise… hmmm…
That would be ideal - but I see very few examples (at least at a macro level) that prove the point, which is part of what makes me an idealist, I suppose.
Really intriguing question. The best that I can come up with is that forgiveness itself is nearly limitless, but whether or not forgiveness ever actually occurs depends on pragmatic realities. I don’t think Cally would have forgiven Tyrol because she wouldn’t have stuck around long enough to have her perceptions and prejudices challenged, nor would she have any reason to forgive him or even given him a chance that was more compelling than her personal rationales not to do so.
This is where Roslin and Lee’s relationship differs. Perhaps if Lee had stayed in the military, Roslin could have held on to her anger indefinitely, but having him in the Quorum threw both of them into a position where they at least had to face each other, even if it was on adversarial terms. Because they butted heads long enough, Roslin and Lee both had a chance to deepen their understanding of why the other acted the way he or she did to the point where they could at least respect each others’ motives and perspectives, even when they didn’t agree with each others’ courses of action. So, by the time Lee becomes president, the journey they had been forced to take by circumstance plus the urgency of the Cylon threat provided good enough reason for these two stubborn but intelligent people to see that forgiveness worked so much better than holding a grudge.
I think the blanket pardon is a good example of where official forgiveness rings hollow because there was no process like that described above. Roslin’s blanket pardon was the government refusing to press charges, but the events on Galactica in “Torn” and the LSD-type torture of Baltar in “Taking a Break…” show that not all is forgiven and forgotten. Actually, that lack of forgiveness for New Caprica really runs all the way to Lee’s speech in the Baltar trial. The process took a long time because by piling all the guilt on Baltar, the Colonials avoided the nasty truth that they somehow needed to find a way to forgive themselves for how low they had sunk on New Caprica, for each person to face him or herself.
Can the humans ever forgive the Cylons for the Twelve Colonies? D’Anna doesn’t think so, but “Revelations” suggests that there may not be many other viable choices. In a way, that’s the one decision the whole series has been leading up to. Maybe the two groups can go their separate ways for awhile, but that’s merely delaying the inevitable final choice between forgiveness and annihilation. The series has been the process, with the Cylons and humans having to face each other and start down the long road of trying to understand why the other is the way it is. The observation changes the observer as well as the observer’s perspective, bringing both sides to the point where they can decide, one, whether changes in the other have eliminated or altered the original reasons for hatred, and two, whether those elements that are still the same are understandable enough from this new perspective that forgiveness is warranted.
Forgiveness, essentially, is a very slippery concept that really varies in it’s real meaning from person to person. We American’s get forgiveness mixed in our heads with forgetting what happened. It’s hard for us to comprehend having one without having the other. Also as casilda is saying, where does justice come into play? How do you tell the difference between a hunger for justice & a thirst for revenge? In many ways one is easily mistaken for the other. Did Cally want justice? I think she felt she did, as an outsider, I’d say she was more interested in revenge & pretending it was justice. I don’t know that any of them can truly seek justice without going for the revenge factor.
Ultimately I think the better question is, can genocide be forgiven? I don’t know that there is really a good answer for that one.
Excellent point. I wonder if there’s a fundamental difference between macro and interpersonal forgiveness. It’s very hard to “face” or “humanize” a crowd, versus an individual person, where quite a bit of work has to go into dehumanizing him or her. (Can you even say that pro-Human Cylons have “humanized” the humans? Should there be a broader, non-human-centric word for this concept?) Or maybe there’s a more cynical answer: forgiveness is always possible, given the right motivation, and the right motivation is usually something worse or uglier happening to both of the parties at odds with each other that binds them together.
That’s a big problem for a society down to less than 40,000 people. In a lot of situations, there isn’t going to be any such thing as an impartial, disinterested party who can even make a decent stab at trying to carry out justice without tainting it with revenge.
I think Cassiopia is right in that Cally doesn’t forgive. She is more interested in justice, be it from a personal standpoint or a societal one. Which makes her interest in Chief interesting, because in some ways it is predicated on forgiveness - forgiveness of his relationship with Boom, forgiveness of his violence towards her. However, she never had the chance to “forgive” his cylonicity, as Armando noted.
That would be ideal - but I see very few examples (at least at a macro level) that prove the point, which is part of what makes me an idealist, I suppose.
I think that too many people equate justice with retribution. You can have forgiveness while justice is still served. Pope John Paul II, for instance, famously forgave his would-be assasin. He did not, however, seek that Italian authorities pardon him. The man still served his jail sentence until his release just a few years ago (he was, apparently, rehabilitiated and released on good behavior, I think). Justice with forgiveness!
Excellent point and example, Armando!
Forgiveness, in my view, concerns one’s relationship to the person who perpetrated a wrongdoing.
Justice, on the other hand, concerns redressing the wrongful act itself.
Sort of a “hate the sin, love the sinner” distinction.
BTW, Mehmet Ali Agca was released from prison in Italy for his assassination attempt on the Pope, but was then jailed in Turkey for previous murders he had committed there and had been found guilty of ‘in absentia.’
It seems to me that, if the series is to have a satisfying resolution, there has to be an answer to this question. It’s as critical as the origins of the FF. And how the OGG and GGG hybrids know as much as they do (and their origins).
You know the show has drifted a long way from the “there are 12 models because there are 12 basic human personality types” (although I guess I should go back and make certain that the # was 12 and not 7) and how the S7/FF tie in to the Lords of Kobol issues.
I completely aggree with you on that one.
Personally, I think the whole issue with humans and cylons is that they have to forgive each other. Its a very real issue in today’s world, especially in countries where you have two different opposing religions or ideals. Youg et the whole, “you start it” then the hwole “no you started it,” to bring back a scene from Babylon 5, they just keep on killing one another until it doesn’t matter who is right, because everybody is dead, and anybody left doesn’t even remember what the frak they were fighting over.
And so, we face the issues of where Cavil, Cally, and so many others went wrong.is that they can’t live together. Sooner or later, anything both sides did in the past wont’ matter–they’ll be too dead too care anymore.
To quote Jack from Lost "If we cant’ live together, we’re going to die alone’
And this won’t end well for anybody who doesn’t accept that.
Where I guess I find that the hate the sin love the sinner distinction breaks down would be precisely in a case like what we see in BSG, that is, when it’s not just a question of individuals forgiving other individuals, but a case of a class of individuals (humans) forgiving another class of individuals (cylon) - in that sense, can forgiveness be a collective experience? If it can’t, at least not in that understanding, than what hope might we be able to have for reconciliation (that is, if reconciliation necessarily exists with a degree of forgiveness, etc)?