Irandrura posted:Arawn_Fenn posted:We're not talking about "the dark side that is in you". Vergere's so-called "point" that evil requires internal darkness -- really, you think? -- is not an interesting or revolutionary one. Of course it's not. I argued that quite strongly.
Arawn_Fenn posted:We're not talking about "the dark side that is in you". Vergere's so-called "point" that evil requires internal darkness -- really, you think? -- is not an interesting or revolutionary one.
Irandrura posted:MedStar: Jedi Healer posted:Barriss frowned. "Jedi refer to the 'light side' and the 'dark side,' but really, these are only words, and the Force is beyond words. It is not evil, just as it isn't good-it simply is what it is. Power alone doesn't corrupt-but it can feed corruption that already exists. A Jedi must constantly choose one path or the other. Note that according to Barriss, who has never been portrayed as a radical or anything other than an exemplary Jedi, neither the light side or the dark side exist in the Force. More relevantly here, she says that power (so for our discussion, the Force unleashed) doesn't corrupt, but only feeds what corruption is already in the individual.
MedStar: Jedi Healer posted:Barriss frowned. "Jedi refer to the 'light side' and the 'dark side,' but really, these are only words, and the Force is beyond words. It is not evil, just as it isn't good-it simply is what it is. Power alone doesn't corrupt-but it can feed corruption that already exists. A Jedi must constantly choose one path or the other.
Irandrura posted:Barriss is self-aware enough to know that she isn't wise or strong-willed enough to resist that, and so, once she has achieved this revelation, she has nothing to fear from the dark side.
Irandrura posted:I would say, the reason for Jacen's fall to the dark side is that, after his moment of enlightenment in The Unifying Force, he came to assume that he was sufficiently pure to wield such total power
Irandrura posted:It's what I said above; where Barriss, through self-knowledge, was aware of her limitations and thus avoided the dark side, Jacen lost that self-knowledge and fell to the dark side.
Irandrura posted:Notice how she practices self-awareness here, and how her conclusion reinforces the basic message of her earlier statement and Vergere's teachings: power is not inherently corruptive.
Barriss posted:But to wield that kind of power, no matter how noble the intent, would almost certainly lead to ruination-if not today, then tomorrow, or the day after. Each time, the temptation to use it would become more compelling, the reasons for doing so more justifiable. She could feel the truth of that to her core. That kind of power could not help but be addicting. It would consume anyone who was less than absolutely pure, less than all-wise, less than wholly selfless. Barriss was by no means a bad person, she knew that. But she was not perfect, and such contact with the Force on a regular basis needed perfection to survive uncorrupted.
Irandrura posted:All they can do is, as I said, 'amplify what's already present in you'.
Arawn_Fenn posted:And Barriss did not say that neither the light side or the dark side exist in the Force. The issue is with the alignment connotations of the words "dark" and "light". Luke's analysis of the dark side in TUF shows that it exists in the Force. That's why it's called the dark side of the Force. Shadow Hunter, written by one of the MedStar authors, describes the dark side as being in the Force.
Arawn_Fenn posted:Once she realizes she isn't wise or strong-willed enough to resist the dark side, she has nothing to fear from the dark side... because she won't be using it. Vergere was saying that there was nothing to fear from using the dark side.
Irandrura posted:Vergere maintains that touching the dark side is unacceptable while simultaneously maintaining that the Force unleashed is nothing to fear.
Arawn_Fenn posted:Thus he did, after all, have a reason to fear the dark side, didn't he?
Arawn_Fenn posted:Since no one is perfect, the passage implies exactly the opposite:
Arawn_Fenn posted:And there it is yet again: that point which you agreed was not interesting.
Irandrura posted:'Everything is one' is a meaningful statement. The very fact that we're debating its meaning would seem to demonstrate that it has meaning.
Irandrura posted:Vergere's teaching is that, because of that origin, the dark side of the Force contains nothing that wasn't already present in the dark side of the self.
Irandrura posted:You are consistently and repeatedly confusing the dark side with the full, unleashed power of the Force.
Vergere posted:What you call the dark side is the raw, unrestrained Force itself
