Saga Is the light side just as bad for the Force as the dark?

Where? Give the quote, instead of being so vague about it, where the light side is mentioned in TESB. The fact (it is a fact) is that the 'light side' is never mentioned. At no point does anyone ever say 'light side', it is simply referred to as the Force - which implies that the darkside is a perversion of the Force, not an equal contributor with some unmentioned 'light side' of the Force.

But, by all means unveil the quote which brushes this argument aside.

Are you suggesting that I have misrepresented Lucas's quote? Let's revisit what he said.

"I wanted to have this mythological footing because I was basing the films on the idea that the Force has two sides, the good side, the evil side, and they both need to be there. Most religions are built on that, whether it's called yin and yang, God and the devil - everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation."

He seems to be stating that Christianity is based upon that; the tension between good and bad that "both need to be there", not picking out an aspect he thought desirous for his films, but what he is suggesting it is based upon.

But Joseph Campbell has attached Western concepts to the Chinese concept. there is no valuational conception (so the ideas of 'positive/negative' and 'malignant/beneficial' are construts added to the basic concept. To quote the Zhuangzi "Yin in its highest form is freezing while yang in its highest form is boiling. The chilliness comes from heaven while the warmness comes from the earth. The interaction of these two establishes he (harmony), so it gives birth to things. Perhaps this is the law of everything yet there is no form being seen."

It is all to do with elemental conceptions, not valuative. Value is given by individuals and is not an aspect of the true nature of the world.

Also note that the Yin and Yang are not to be abstracted from one another, the yinyang is the whole so - inadvertently, it seems - the films, in their conception of the Force as yinyang and the 'dark side' as a valuative perversion of it, hits the nail on the head.

 

The use of the word "side" pretty much guarantees that there is a light side. Just as a function of language.

 

So where is one's frontside? Or what is the opposite of riverside?

 

Dagobah. It's not some kind of big secret.

No, it's not a 'fact', it's only a falsehood. The light side is mentioned. The theory that the dark side is a "perversion"? Not so much. Fans invented that one. It has nothing to do with Lucas' intent as has been extensively documented.

It seems to me that he's referring mainly to the Force itself when he says that part. As I said, it does not match the presumed endpoint of Christianity. But that should not change the fact that he is claiming it to be true for the Force. I don't know whether his understanding of Christianity is flawed or it's just an imperfect example offered up as a portrayal of external dualistic forces. But the fact remains that he refers to yin and yang as well.

Not as far as I know. I haven't seen his source material, but he does not seem to qualify his exposition that way.

In the context of this discussion the above sentiment does not hold true in any especially meaningful way.

That isn't the conception of the films. The conception of the films is that the dark side is equivalent to yin and the light side is equivalent to yang, with the living Force as the whole ( the Taoist construction even provides for the dichotomy between the living Force and the unifying Force ). They cannot be separated in that anywhere you have the Force they are both at hand. In the films no one uses the term "perversion" to describe the dark side. A side of the Force is not a perversion of it. The urge to eliminate the dark side itself is somewhat conspicuously never even spoken of, for a concept allegedly so near and dear to the characters' hearts. In truth it is only the fans who assume the dark side is something impermanent which can be scrubbed away to leave behind a pure, spotless, one-dimensional Force. Lucas says otherwise, and his characters always fail to espouse the one-sided view.

Now let's revisit your strategy: Christianity is inconsistent with SW in X and is consistent with SW in Y; Taoism is inconsistent with SW in A and consistent with SW in B. So let's assume the Force must be dictated by X and A.

 

frontside is the opposite of backside. And to compare riverside to darkside, that would suggest that the darkside is adjacent to darkness. So, is that what you want to hang your hat on there?

 

All of which makes no sense in terms of the point you were supposedly making.

 

A frontside has an opposite, a backside. Just as lightside and darkside, that goes to my point. That the term darkside as a simple function of language implies that there is another side. A light side, for lack of a better term

Your other word, riverside, has the meaning of being adjacent to. An area next to the river. If you want to apply that to make your point, since this was your example to disprove the statement above, that would mean that the darkside is somehow, adjacent to the dark, which as you say makes no sense. If you want to use that word as an example to disprove my point, you have to link a definition of riverside to the way in which it would apply to darkside. And again, saying that the darkside is adjacent to the dark has no meaning.

So................................................

Who made no sense again?

 

Then, why so coy about it? This vagueness does not help your argument. At all. Unless you can quote this reference then I have no reason to accept your suggestion that it exists. Strange, I would have thought that it being such a powerful and important part of your position might make you willing to let on what it is.

It's a falsehood that the term 'lightside' never appears in TESB, or any Star Wars film? Really? Then why can't you tell us when? As for it being "extensively documented"...well, all I've seen is an un-referenced quote, which seems a little bit...confused.

I don't know what you are trying to say here.

No, he wouldn't qualify his exposition this way. The source material best used would, I would think, be the original thinkers of 'The Way'.

So, in the context of understanding the philosophy of yinyang the philosophy of yinyang is not especially meaningful? An interesting line of thought, but hardly one that shows any sort of cogent reasoning.

Really? Where is that espoused in the films then? (And the Taoist tradition does not contain any such 'living force'/'unifying force' dichotomy - in fact Taoist thinking is ultimately about the lack of dichotomy within what seems like dichotomy - and hence that the yinyang are not to be seen as abstracted from one another)

But what you quoted Lucas as saying is that he conceived of a balance between good and evil, which is nothing to do with yin and yang. And if the darkside is so important then why does Yoda warn Luke against falling to it? And why does Luke's rejection of the darkside end the saga, with the destruction of the darkside users and the return of balance to the Force (as Lucas has made clear)?

No, they use the terms 'imbalance' and 'disturbance' or talk of the darkside clouding the Force.

Apart from Yoda telling Luke to beware the darkside, and Luke rejecting the darkside, and that balance is brought to the Force by the destruction of the darkside users. Nothing there to suggest that the darkside is something to be avoided and expunged, hmmm?

That's not my strategy at all. There are two reasons I can conceive of for this attempt to position my argument as such. One, is that you have trouble with comprehension, the other is that you understand full well what I have said and are trying to pretend that I have positioned myself thusly.

I'll give the benefit of the doubt. You quoted Lucas as saying he conceived of the Force like he (supposedly) did because the religions he gave as examples were based on exactly that concept, and the need for good and evil to both be present. I simply pointed out that in neither case (Christianity or The Way) was that remotely correct.

 

This is just silly. You don't understand the point I was making? Though you brought up the function of language?

Let me be more direct then. The term 'backside' is used to refer to a part of human anatomy. It does not follow that there is an 'opposite' part of the anatomy referred to as a 'frontside'.

Being 'riverside' means that you are close to the river. There is no opposite term that denotes being not riverside. So, that the term darkside exists, referring to a particular concept, it does not, by some notional and simple function of language, follow that there is an equal yet opposite concept referred to as the 'lightside'.

 

Then you are attempting to draw a comparison between the word riverside and darkside, then you must show us how these terms relate. If you want to claim that darkside is a word of similar etymology to the word riverside, the floor is yours. Make your case for it.

And backside is a colloquial term, one that denotes a part of the body typically thought of as in the back. Which is mirrored by the front. A body does in fact have a front and a back. Does it not? Do you deny that body does in fact have a front half?

In fact, the word draws it's meaning from that distinction between the front and the back, a relationship people accept without the need for explanation. Without that relationship, the word would have no meaning

We draw clues about langauage from context.

So again, if you want to describe a relationship between riverside and darkside, the floor is yours. If you can in fact show us any example that works in this context as to why we should take darkside to have anything other than it's most immediate and plausible meaning, by all means the floor is yours

 

Your unfamiliarity with TESB speaks volumes.

Oh, now you're talking about the term "light side"? So this whole song and dance is just an excuse to ignore the content of my earlier post which you quoted? Good plan...

Not accepting that something exists? That's so unlike you!

Because that's the only one that has been spoon-fed to you. Other than that, you apparently haven't concerned yourself with what Lucas has to say on the subject. Meanwhile, there are no perversion quotes, are there?

So he's a fraud? He gives various sources, I just haven't read them. Are they to be dismissed because they don't match up with what some would prefer them to have said? I hear a lot of claims regarding this topic, but for some reason they're never sourced to anything.

Unsourced assertions regarding "the philosophy of yinyang" do not necessarily reflect the actual philosophy of yinyang, the content of the Tao Te Ching or anything Lucas specifically drew from. But that's beside the point. You merely persist in the fallacious implication that there is a problem if the Force does not adhere to the letter of either Christianity or Taoism.

"The 'dark side' as a valuative perversion": where is that espoused in the films?

It contains parallels to both. However, since Campbell is the one who described these parallels, they can apparently be handwaved away by the usual anti-Campbell dodge.

Once again you're using the word abstracted where the text only said separated; beyond simply not providing your own source material, you're attempting to twist what has been provided into a form which suits your purposes. And you seem to be confusing Taoism proper with the "lack of dichotomy" paradigm popular in various traditions. An inability to accept dichotomy is not especially enlightened or meaningful in any context, and it does not apply equally to Eastern traditions in the way it may be imagined to.

Good and evil do have something to do with it. More significantly, Lucas conceived of a balance between the light and dark sides, which sometimes may go by the nomenclature "good side" and "evil side", and he does see it as yin and yang, which is evident from the quote itself and from his inclusion of the yin-yang symbol in the films.

Because these things are not mutually exclusive: there are many things that are part of nature which should provoke warnings. ( Here we run into the underlying problem: a rather twisted and unrealistic worldview, not coincidentally the exact opposite of that typically promoted by Eastern philosophy. )

Dark side users are not the dark side. One is a side of the Force. The other is a group of people. Destroying one does not mean destroying the other.

First, the term "disturbance in the Force" as used in the films, generally speaking, has nothing to do with the dark side. Second, they never use the term "imbalance". They do use the term "balance", meaning the balance between the light and dark sides of the Force. What is missing? The fan revisionism which insists that the dark side itself is an imbalance, and that consequently a Force in balance is all light and no dark ( which, of course, manages to somehow twist the meaning of the word 'balance' into its exact opposite ). The film characters say nothing of the sort; they don't need to. That's what message boards are for: putting words in their mouths.

Avoided and expunged mean two different things. There is indeed nothing in the above which says that the dark side is to be "expunged" or that the Jedi would even believe such a thing to be possible. Again, this supposedly all-important goal is never mentioned even once, not even in the extensive EU. Why not? It's not a massive coincidence. As Lucas' own statements show, he simply does not see the Force that way.

No, I have trouble with revisionism, which usually leads to personal attacks.

Supposedly?

See: the need for yin and yang to both be present; the fact that in Christianity there is "at present" an external evil force, not just an external good God and evil in the hearts of men.

Once again, even if true, this would have been irrelevant to the fact that it is stated to be correct in the case of the Force. Lucas may or may not be confused as to the applicability of certain religions to this concept. It doesn't matter. It just means his examples are flawed in a sense. It doesn't somehow mean that the Force must be rewritten to be "correct" from the POV of either one. Christianity is inconsistent with SW in X and is consistent with SW in Y; Taoism is inconsistent with SW in A and consistent with SW in B. Thus the Force can be said to reflect Y and B.

 

Arawn_Fenn, it's amazing how you are trying to defend your position with a phantom quote that you claim exists but won't mention. It's ridiculous.

 

One's front side is on their front, just as their backside is on their back.

Don't be obtuse.

 

Ooooohhhhhkay...

*backs away slowly, making no sudden moves*

 

Both the "dark side" and the "light side" are two sides of one coin to me. I don't think one can exist very well without the other. And when this happens, disaster usually follows. I've noticed that the Jedi and the Sith's existence without the other never seems to last. Too much of one thing is usually not very good. And sometimes, bad things or evil happens because of a good act. I think it's best to balance both sides, instead of one side existing and not the other.

 

Whenever the Sith exist there's a war. That's disaster. When there's no Sith everything goes fine.

 

That's a fact as seen in RotS. The point is, the Sith exploitation of the dark side creates unbalance (while "exploiting" the light side doesn't have any consequences) and thus the need for the Chosen One to restore the Force's balance.

As for the reference in TESB:

"How am I to know the good side from the bad?"
"You will know, when you are calm. At peace, passive."

 

Yeah man idunno if you were keeping up with the debate but we were asking if the term "light side" is ever mentioned in the saga. And that's not it. Asking the difference between good and bad is completely different and can be applied to any sentient not just Force users. In that scene Luke isn't even referring to the Force I think he's just asking Yoda how will he know if he's doing the right thing. He seems confused if killing Vader is the right thing to do or not.

Thanks for posting that quote though, Arawn_Fenn was claiming that the term "light side" is used and was referring to that quote I beleive, but was refusing to post it out of fear that he was clearly incorrect. At least you had the balls to post it and make your arguement based on your interpretation of it.

 

The term "light side" is never used in the movies. However the term "good side" is in both Empire and Jedi, both times said by Luke Skywalker. If we equate dark with bad, then we can equate light with good. But not everything that is claimed to be good can be equated with the notion of the light side. After all, good is a point of view. The Clone Wars does specifically state that there is a light side though the Mortis Trilogy presents a scenario where too much light, aka too much good, is just as bad as too much dark. Which doesn't seem to make much sense. How can having too much good be wrong?

By killing the Sith, can the Force really be brought back into balance? If there is no evil, then surely the Force is unbalanced towards the light side. The question arises then, how exactly is imbalance created? There are trillions of non-Force using people in the Galaxy who could all become evil one day and start doing evil things. Would that imbalance the Force? And if practitioners of the light can't imbalance the Force, what is it about the Dark Side that does?

The way I look at it, is that what we would call the light side is actually just the Force in its natural state. It is nature. And the Dark Side is unnatural. It's like a corruption or a cancer that is spread by the use of the Dark Arts of the Sith. Powers such as raising the dead, manipulating the Force to create life, using Future Sight to manipulate the future. These things are unnatural and they are things the Jedi don't do. Jedi are passive, They trust in the Force and in the natural order whereas the Sith twist the Force to their own ends. When nature becomes unnatural, that's the imbalance.

Thus it is impossible for what we call the light side to be just as bad for the force as the dark because the light side is simply the Force in balance as nature and uncorrupted. People will disagree and point to various books and other sources and that's fine. This is just my interpretation and is the one that makes the most sense for me.

 

Hmmmm . . . I don't agree. I think a balance between good and evil is natural. In fact, I would go even further and state that all or most elements of nature can have both positive and negative effects on the world.

 

But he's not doing that. he's asking the difference between the good (light) side [of the Force] from the bad (dark side).

Yes, he is. Watch the scene again and pay attention to the dialogue.

 

Then why didn't he say that....

He's asking Yoda whether or not killing Vader is the right thing to do. If he was talking about the dark side (a term which IS used in the saga) he would have said dark side instead of "bad".

 

No, he isn't. He's talking about the Force, watch the movie.

 

So...there can only be balance while there is an element of torture, war, oppression etc. within the galaxy?

 

I just watched it again. He was talking about killing Vader. want me to watch it one more time?