kerravonsen | (Reply)

From:

Intriguing page.

One of the questions raised on that page... why does the Doctor consider that the Dalek is better than van Statten?
The Dalek is honest, that is the virtue which is cited.
Wheras van Statten is not honest; he is decieving himself, because he says that he is (a) reaching for the stars and (b) benefiting mankind, when in fact he is doing neither; he is caging the stars in the mud, and he is only benefiting himself.

One could argue that the evil of the Daleks actually is rooted in taking one virtue (love of one's family/race/nation) and elevating it above all others. A Dalek is honest because it sticks to this one virtue without deviation, fanatically.
Wheras the Doctor was showing up van Statten's hypocracy.

But, really, is hypocracy a worse sin than genocide?
Though, I think, in one sense, the Doctor's statement implies that... Daleks are like wild beasts, without concience, with no choice in their actions; they were born to exterminate, that they can't help it, that they aren't capable of making the same kind of moral choices that human beings (such as van Statten) can; in other words, that van Statten is worse than the Dalek because he knows better.