“In 900 years of time and space, I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.” An iconic sentence of the 11th Doctor, which falls in an equally great episode (Feast of Love – S05E14) and in my eyes forms a core sentence of the Doctor’s philosophy. For this reason, I would like to take a closer look at it on this Quote Wednesday.
The Doctor does not give an account of his travels here. He does not want to inform that he has never met anyone who was unimportant and that he would be glad to finally make up for it now. The statement has general qualities: There is nobody in the universe who is not important. This is, especially for the regeneration of the 11th Doctor, an important leitmotif.
There follows, in a short insertion, a brief argument for why the sentence wants to make a general statement:
(1) If there are only a small number of individuals who are not important, they become important by forming this particular quantity.
(2) No one can be both not important and important.
(3) There can either be many non-important individuals or none at all.
(4) If the Doctor's travels are more or less subject to chance, the Doctor has met a representative set of individuals in 900 years of time and space.
(5) If there are many non-important individuals, the Doctor has met at least one of them.
(6) The Doctor has not yet met an individual that is not important.
It follows: There is no individual that is not important.
Now what does it mean that there is no one in space and time who is not important. First of all, the formulation is striking: “who wasn’t important”. It does not say “who was unimportant.” This emphasizes the valuation once again. It is not a matter of gradation. Everyone is important because no one is not. If it said unimportant, it would not automatically mean that everyone is equally important. It is true that nobody would be unimportant, but nothing would be said about the importance.
From this aspect the interpretation of the quote can be derived: Everyone in the universe is important, no one is not. Each living being, each individual in the infinite widths of space and time is important. Each one deserves help, each one deserves respect, each one deserves a chance, and each one does so to the same degree, because all individuals are important in the same way. No decision can be made on the basis that some individuals are more important than others or that many individuals are more important than one. The importance of each individual is absolute. It cannot be increased and it cannot be added up. These high ethical principles can be found in many episodes in the Doctor’s actions. They are the standard by which his actions are guided, even if it cannot always be achieved.