What Doctor Who Says About Having Principles
The moral case for being willing to die for your principles and whether or not that's a good thing through Doctor Who.
“They can shoot me dead, but the moral high ground is mine.”
It's a rare thing for someone to stand for their principles to the point that they're willing to die for them. Most people are willing to give up their principles for things like short term safety and sometimes long term safety. Although those who give up their principles don't tend to live to see long term safety be a real thing for them. That tends to be due to the fact that those willing to do that don't have a lot of friends and family to help them out when things get bad.
People who are dependable usually have principles and are willing to stick to them are those others want to be around. The quote at the beginning of this is perhaps the extreme version of being able to hold to ideas of what's right and wrong. Dying for a cause requires you to believe in something so much that other people will often admire you for it. However, it's hard to get there.
What's great about The Doctor, the main character of the long running show Doctor Who, is that they've reached that place for themselves. Despite the fact that those aliens and humans they fight back against don't have principles and are willing to do anything to achieve their goals, regardless of whether it's good or not, The Doctor stands strong against them. Because The Doctor cares so much about right and wrong that they're going to stand against what's wrong.
On the surface, it would appear like they're the same side of a coin. Usually because they stand against whoever is trying to stop them. What differentiates the two is how they go about it. While the many aliens The Doctor fights will kill as many people as possible to achieve their goals, The Doctor will do whatever they have to in order to save lives. Even the people who are trying to kill them are worthy of the protection The Doctor provides.
There's something so powerful about being willing to go that far to preserve life. To believe in it so much that even your worst enemies deserve compassion, it's a beautiful thing. It's hard to count the number of times The Doctor has given comfort to those who despise them. There have been so many different iterations of the character over so many years and yet at the core, this fact remains the same. This is what it means to have principles.
Which isn't to say that The Doctor doesn't struggle to maintain those ideals over time. It wouldn't be realistic if it didn't happen some times. Even during the worst war for all of time and space, where so many people died in such brutal, tortuous circumstances, The Doctor maintained the belief in the ideals and principles which they believed in. And that's an amazing thing.
To have a no win scenario in front of you with enemies on all sides, even your own, and to still believe in such fundamental principles, it's hard not to admire such a person.
“You were The Doctor on the day when it wasn't possible to get it right.”
Do yourself a favour and put in the time and effort to really explore The Doctor and their fundamental principles. You'll be glad you did.
Check it out on BBC America where you can, on Crave in Canada, and BBC iPlayer in the UK.
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