In The best of worldson France Culture, our column of the week is dedicated to Doctor Who as a humanist symbol against unbridled technological capitalism.
Doctor Who is a British institution: for 61 years we have followed the adventures of the Doctor, an alien Time Lord who travels through time and space to solve problems that arise in the four corners of the Earth and the universe. I’ve been watching this sci-fi series since I was a teenager and there are a lot of things I like about it… but I have to tell you that one scene in particular stood out to me when I was just a high school student, it’s is the one present in the episode The Ghost of Christmas Past : “ In 900 years of traveling through time and space, I have never met anyone who wasn’t important. »
This is perhaps the strongest lesson of Doctor Who : everyone is important. And it’s much more political than it seems, just like this series.
What is Doctor Who’s political position?
Throughout his travels, the Doctor comes across places and times that need his help. There are often people to save, sometimes with a power relationship in the balance: powerful beings who try to use or abuse other beings. Typically, its main enemies are monsters, such as Daleks or Cybermen, whose goals are often total conquest or assimilation of other species by force.
Even when the stakes are greater than on an individual scale, the Doctor brings the subject back to the invisibles. As in his cult speech about the war: “ When you fire the first shot, even though you feel you are in the right, you have no idea who is going to die. You don’t know which kids are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken! How many broken lives! How much blood will be shed until everyone does what they had to do all along: sit down and talk! »
Many only know the modern version of the series, revived in 2005. But this political approach to Doctor Who it’s nothing new. Look, in 1973, an episode describes a large company run by a faceless machine. This box releases toxic products into nature, which endangers the villagers. The episode pits destructive technological capitalism against people who want to defend the planet… and whom the Doctor comes to the aid of.
“Human life no longer has any value”
So yes, Doctor Who is an anti-capitalist work because this British monument shines with its humanism by giving a face to the anonymous: we exist behind the big machines of progress and technology, and a system must never forget that all lives matter. Moreover, the 12th Doctor himself says it: “The finalization of capitalism (…) a border after which human life no longer has any value. »
For the Doctor, if some are sacrificed in the process, then this system needs treatment. We should keep that in mind.
Listen to Brave New World on France Culture
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