If the Jedi were supposed to be ......................

*gets into saddle*
howdy.

They were a very structured society; they wanted a uniform approach. It allowed an order of tens of thousands of Jedi to be "run" by a Council of 12.

so, how is that not saying, everyone conform or get out? and how is that allowing for diversity?

I'm not saying their way was the only way. All that I've been saying (over and over) was that as long as it worked for the Jedi and the parents approved - it was their right to do so.

hohum. not in the kids' interest. they are a religious order and they want the least interference with real life they can get. hence they take kids the earliest. they indoctrinate them because force use is not something you can just practise and be good at, it's also something you have to use for the good of society. why?

What did he display in TPM besides quick reflexes and true dumb luck? In ROTS his skills w/ a lightsaber are beyond impressive, his battle skills highly honed (avoiding those missiles was no fluke like the Naboo battle), there's his new found "patience", he can levitate objects, he can Force push, he can move faster than you can almost follow, he can jump meters high. There's also a bunch of stuff in the Clone Wars cartoons if you watched them.

still haven't seen season 2 of CW, to my great displeasure. yes, things have developed, i didn't mean that he just remained a little kid. i was trying to say... he grew up and so did his skills. just a simple advancement which would have happened anyway. methinks.

Restrained? Maybe yes. That's not a tragedy. But cold? On what are you basing that? I don't see Obi as cold (watch him not just w/ Ani but w/ Dex), Yoda seemed pretty sweet w/ those younglings to me, Dooku seemed to actually love and miss Qui.

no, none of it is a tragedy. it's just mismatch. and becomes tragedy.
i see the order as cold. and when they were not cold but got lukewarm, it wasn't directed at anakin.

i guess we'll just never agree. *loses faith* *despairs*

Also, there were different tasks in the Jedi - there were healers, there were librarians, there must have been teachers and "nannies". I assume there were other categories as well; these jobs must have been based on people's personalities.

it seems that way and yet everyone seems to be used as a warrior first.
at any rate the kids are chosen for their midi count, not for personality. they are molded to become jedi, whatever speciality that entails. jedi first, real people second.

I didn't know there was anything in the code about submission but I assume a Jedi shouldn't really submit to anything other than the Will of the Force. There's a major difference between submission and obediance and even just following protocol. Soldiers are expected to follow orders and protocol but they can't afford to be submissive. Anakin simply has to learn that there's a time and place for everything. And as I said - if he wanted to handle this assignment differently - discuss it beforehand or privately. Not in front of a Senator and her top aide.

what's the difference between obedience and submissiveness? maybe we should clear that up first.

The Jedi don't seem to do things halfway - I think when they accept you - you're one of their own. Since we're both assuming, there's not much to go on here.

if that is their attitude they have a funny way of showing it. in rots they don't treat anakin like he belongs. really not.
and they do loads halfway, finding out about a clone army that is supposedly made at their order which they don't know about and using it to an end which they aren't made for. pretty half-arsed to me.

about the tusken slaughter
Why is talking about it not possible?

well, yoda senses something but never addresses it. 'sides: how can you possibly talk about it? i mean, in terms of not being judged? uhm, well, people ran into my saber? you know, they had it coming? sorry, but my understanding of your argument only goes so far. confessing it is admitting to murder and that

 

Because it?s not. It means instilling in everyone respect for their belief system, respect for the ?chain of command?, respect for the Force, respect for their mission. You can be respectful and still disagree. I?ve given you the example of Obi disagreeing w/ the Council. He did it in the right manner and they changed their mind about training Ani. Respect for a system does not require absolute, unquestioned obedience. It means you address problems or concerns in the right manner at the right time.

In your opinion ? not in their parents? opinion.

Because that?s what their society was about. That?s like asking why people in a Church have to sit around and talk about God. I don?t know of any Church in which membership is mandatory but you are required to believe in God (Unitarians aside.) If you don?t ? it really doesn?t make sense for you to be there. If you don?t believe in the mission of the Jedi ? same thing.

No, no way. Look at Luke. He needed some training before he could even properly wield a saber, jump, levitate etc.

Obi was not cold or lukewarm to Ani. I believe he showed him affection in many different ways.

Well, that?s what makes a horse race.

So? Theirs was a warrior culture.

Yep. But many kid?s upbringing is far, far worse. (Even w/ ?well-intentioned parents? ) Like I said ? you don?t like the Jedi way. Fine. But it worked for them and they had a right to be that way. I guess we?ll never agree here either.

I think for me, the difference is respect. You can be fairly assertive and aggressive even (like me) and still obey rules and people you respect. If you?re submissive you obey no matter what, w/ out respect, even w/o understanding. I don?t think any mature Jedi should have or was expected to obey any order or person they didn?t truly respect. Again ? it also means disagreeing, if you have to, at the right time and in the right way. You can't start questioning orders in the middle of a battle for instance - no "soldier" can do that. But later, there's that, "Permission to speak freely?" thing you can do.

There?s a whole lot going on there. They have started to question whether Ani is loyal to the Jedi or to Palps. I guess he answers that. You don?t see that in attitude in AOTC.

 

you know Jedi_Momma i may not agree with all your points but i have to admire your patience for writing a post that long ,where did you learn THAT kind of patience ??.

 

Anakin's problems with thinking he is ready is due to his arrogance. This is expressly demonstrated in AOTC. Obi-wan tells Ankain that he is not as good as Yoda in Lightsaber combat. If he spent more time at it, he'd be better than him. Fast forward to Geonosis and his solo fight against Dooku. Dooku kicked his ass. Why? Because Anakin's arrogance kept him from taking his training as seriously as he should have. So that when it came to crunch time, he fumbled the ball. As a result, Anakin spends the next three years becoming stronger in the Force and a better fighter.

Obi-wan was totally right to not suggest that he take the Trials. Anakin wasn't ready. Obi-wan was more than ready, it was just not the right time to begin. His fight with Maul proved that he was ready. Even when Anakin took his trial on Praestylin, he didn't really pass it with flying colors. On the surface he succeeded in the mission, but underneath he was one step closer to turning.

 

Home=Four kids, two dogs, a cat and a new husband . Work = seven direct reports. Honey, my middle name is patience .

 

It means instilling in everyone respect for their belief system, respect for the ?chain of command?, respect for the Force, respect for their mission. You can be respectful and still disagree.

i guess in this case it depends on your methods of instilling respect and on the why you ask the respect in the first place. if the respect is due to we are older and know everything and therefore we are the authority here so you better obey then it's not based on merit. just instilling fear of disobedience.

i'm not discussing how you live your life here, i have huge problems with indoctrination and the line of thinking that leads an order to start their recruiting so early the members have virtually no way of objecting.
parents do a different thing. i might just have run into a specimen here who isn't like that, maybe. i do see you are a religious person, but i also see that your religious culture is yours, not something you specifically practise for the kids, you practise because it's something you personally identify with (i might be reaching here) just like i identify with rejecting indoctrination (and i practice it as well ) not somehting that was artificially brought into your life to get you away from all the impurity of reality. and the messiness of it.

That?s like asking why people in a Church have to sit around and talk about God. I don?t know of any Church in which membership is mandatory but you are required to believe in God (Unitarians aside.) If you don?t ? it really doesn?t make sense for you to be there. If you don?t believe in the mission of the Jedi ? same thing.

well, you could be a hypocrite, for a start. or heretic. or you could want to find about religion and watch people practise their beliefs... i can think of many reasons why i have been to churches.
my point was that the force in itself doesn't need a temple and worship, it can be used and the morality of it is defined by the people who use it, not by itself. the force is one thing, dark and light are an interpretation of it, the force itself is unaffected by that.
just like i haven't decided if god is man or woman or whether gender applies at all.
the jedi have decided that their way is the only way, just like the sith have done that. that doesn't actually mean this is the only way to be a force user. it's just their definition of force use. the jedi aren't the force, they just use it. doesn't allow for supremacy of interpretation.
just coz you can read doesn't make you all-knowing.

i think i had too much chocolate.

Look at Luke. He needed some training before he could even properly wield a saber, jump, levitate etc.

yes, honing skills and abilites whose foundations had been laid already. i don't mean they didn't advance anakin's, or luke's for that matter, skills. but he was a good pilot beforehand, he got older and more effective. he was skilled and these things would have grown with him anyway. what does he need a lightsabre for on tatooine? it's not *strictly* necessary, that's what i say.

Obi was not cold or lukewarm to Ani. I believe he showed him affection in many different ways.

i think i would like to see that scene that had him hug anakin or just listen to him and patiently answer his questions instead of lecturing and reprimanding him. i would really like to see it.
'sides, it's the old debate of obi-wan being very different from anakin, that's a pretty well-trodden path, but why not? my dad is a lot like that, i know he loves me but he cannot show it very much. and i cannot very much relate to him. he's still my dad but we don't connect on an emotional level. it happens. luckily i have other people i can relate to and who see more of who i am.

Theirs was a warrior culture.

well, you said it was about each being assigned their place and if it's a warrior culture there isn't much space, if, say, you don't want to kill. or if you think pacifism is more in tune with the force. or anything much at all.

this is getting boring. i think

 

a 22 years old guy can never understand the term the way you do of course.

i promise this to be my last off topic post...

 

I never said I agreed with all they said and did - they made a lot of mistakes. My only point has been that their culture/religion, however distateful to others, had a right to exist. (Kind of the way I feel about the opposite political party from mine who I'm sure everyone would mis-identify but shall remain nameless).

I can see now that you cannot agree w/ this as you feel they were so fundamentally bad that they really shouldn't have existed.

To sum up the disconnect: I see them as kind of an ultra-modern day Knights Templar, you see them as the Taliban teaching kids to blow themselves up.

Therefore I think we've reached impasse; I can't even see the bloodstain from that horse anymore. Thanks for all the well thought out replies. See you in another thread.

 

Duggy, you must have hit it pretty close to the mark to get them all riled up like that, huh, kid?

 

It's not instilling fear. Anakin has to be respectful not only to his fellow Jedi and his Master, but to everyone else. Respecting his Master meant that he shouldn't have argued with him about finding the assassin. Not in front of Padme. Regardless of whether or not he was right, he went about it the wrong way. He even knows that he shouldn't have opened his mouth when he said it, but his ego knows no bounds. It's the same way with the Council scene in ROTS. He needed to respect the Council by remaining calm. Being rational. Being civilized. He does none of these things because he's got an ego and is greedy.

It's necessary because with Lightsaber skills, you need to develop the proper muscle memory. That's true in real life. Hayden had to spend eight weeks training to film ROTS and then practice every day, so that he had the muscle memory to carry out those complex fights. In spending a lifetime training, one develops an even greater affinity for their skills. Had Luke worked with his father's Lightsaber much sooner, he would've been capable of fighting Vader without losing control of his emotions. Much less be distracted while fighting him, as seen in TESB.

In the case of the Force, by going in from birth, a Force user understands the Force early on. They grow stronger as they grow older and wiser in the ways of the Force. They're not questioning the Force's abilities, because they know it's there. They believe in it and it's power. Luke had a hard time believing in it, because he spent twenty years without any knowledge of it's existence. So when it came time to lift up the X-Wing, he cannot do it because he does not believe it can be done. His conscious self says it's impossible. But the unconscious mind acts on instinct and says it can be done.

Ben: "And this time, let go of your conscious self and act on instinct."

Luke: "I don't believe it."

Yoda: "That is why you fail."

That is a good reason to train from birth. Luke's good, but he could've even better had he started earlier.

A hug isn't going to help Anakin. It's only going to infuritate him, because it will do nothing to solve his problems. A hug isn't needed. What Anakin needed was to stay the hell away from Padme and forget about her. Obi-wan has always answered his questions patiently. But his patience wears thin when Anakin acts out of turn. When he makes promises that he cannot keep. When he acts all arrogant because of his abilities. And when Obi-wan tries to get Anakin to open up, he switches the subject on Obi-wan. As was the case with Shmi. In the novelization, Anakin isn't sure if it's a vision or not. If it is, is it the past or the future. Obi-wan says that it co

 

ladeda...
complete selflessness is impossible. it means you have no personality.

 

I must ask Sinister and darth_frared , Have you two ever agreed on any point?

 

hehe, i think we usually agree to disagree.

oh, and more on the love issue -i so love this topic!- how come shmi calls them warrior monks. is the SW definition of monk different from ours? do they screw around and don't stay with a person?