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Are the Rebellion, NR, GFFA, GA to strive to be "utopian"?

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Jedimarine, Sep 5, 2007.

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  1. Jedimarine

    Jedimarine Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 13, 2001
    Just trying to gauge the feelings of people in here...is the rebel cause and the governance that grew from it champions of utopian values? I hear the word "hypocrite" being thrown around rather substantially concerning them, and I just wonder if we are to look at these bodies as unswerving zealots to politicians manifestos.

    Is Mon Mothma's rhetoric the single standard by which all behavior is to be judged?

    Are the good guys the "perfect" good guys...or are they good in relativity.

    thoughts?
     
  2. Charlemagne19

    Charlemagne19 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2000
    Utopian? No.

    I do think that the Rebel Alliance was composed of individuals who were overly idealistic however. If there's one place the Expanded Universe has been brutally realistic, it's that ideals have no place in politics.

    I think it reflects the adult fans of Star Wars reflecting back on the world described in the movies and the mostly adult audience of literature fans (plus our changing perception of our government) that Post-Watergate America isn't only a place you can't have faith in your government but it was a place you never should have had faith in.

    [I doubt the rest of the world is much better]

    The Prequels show George Lucas, himself, is not immune to this. The Jedi get pretty much knocked around on their ears by Nostalgia with the Ivory Tower (LITERALLY) living monks being a far cry from Obi Wan Kenobi's rustic wilderness wisom. The Republic is even worse.

    While the Empire is meant to be, I think, a lot WORSE than the average EU fan is willing to believe (the television series, I imagine, will show us a nasty Empire rather than a morally ambigious one).....it'll be hard pressed to show us how the Republic was that much of an improvement.
     
  3. Rouge77

    Rouge77 Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    May 11, 2005
    I do not think they are striving towards Utopia. Instead I rather see them as very conservative movements, Rebel Alliance was basically a counter-revolutionary movement. Instead of trying to achieve Utopia, they are trying re-create a lost era - which of course probably has some Utopian qualities to them, as many Utopias look back to some imaginary "golden age" in the past - and so return to what they see as the normal state of things. The Old Republic existed to keep up the status quo. It was a state where there was little progress to be seen over long spans of time, and certainly progress in any area of the society did not seem to have played any role whatsoever in the plans of the government for a very long time.

    The Old Republic had become stagnated. The Rebel Alliance, NR and GA are trying to bring back this era of stagnation and relative galactic peace. There seem to be no Utopian, or even moderately progressive, goals for these movements to move beyond what the Old Republic was. So, I see them as conservative movements. They do not look to the future with wonder, they look back in the past with admiration and instead of wanting to create something new, something that has never been done, in the future, they want the future to resemble the past. They do not seem to be able to think about the possibility that they might in the future to be able to exceed the achievements of the past.

    In the same way the New Galactic Empire looks back to the Palpatine Empire - with few alterations - and all the Sith Empires that have existed look back towards the old Sith Empire. The galaxy seems to be full of very conservative ideologies, whose supportes are competing against each others for a chance to make the current time and future to the image of their own conservative vision of the best government that has existed in the past. No one seems to have the courage to create something totally new.
     
  4. Charlemagne19

    Charlemagne19 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2000
    That would be the case, Rogue77, if I felt that it reflected the ideals of Mon Mothma or Princess Leia. Pretty much everyone on the New Republic Council followed the ideals of these two women with Leia Organa being essentially the mouthpiece for her departed father's concepts of government.

    The status quo of the Old Republic was a state of utter corruption and bureaucratic ineffeciency. The Rebel Alliance operated underneath a beneficient dictatorship under Mon Mothma while the parties that corrupted the Republic were largely wiped clean during the Clone Wars (or were co-opted by the Empire).

    Indeed, Mon Mothma and Princess Leia seemed to have rose-colored glasses but they were striving towards an egalitarian society that they seemed to have believed the Old Republic represented. A place of equality between the sexes and species that respected self-rule.

    The "Stagnation" of the Old Republic is a bit of a loaded term, since frankly the alternative seems to be the Empire. I'll take an eternal Republic, thank you.

    Well, Palpatine's Empire was something new. At least, in the context of being a Revolutionary movement. I always find it amusing in my Star Wars RPG games to depict Compnor as similiar to the Chinese Communist party and being very interested in large scale "Social Reform." It makes such an interesting commentary that the Rebel Alliance is actually the conservatives while the Palpatinists are a bunch of people interested in changing the galaxy forever.

    Of course, Star Wars is a fairy tale. Fairy tales are idealizations of Mythology and Past Glories. Glorifying a bright new future would go directly against the entire theme of the Saga which is about discovering Lost Wisdom from a Golden Era of the Past.

    The only one who creates something new is Luke Skywalker. For me, the GFFA is a poor man's imitation of the New Republic and I look forward to when it's gone for the New New Republic.
     
  5. Jmacq1

    Jmacq1 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 20, 2005
    I think even in their stated goal of being the "Alliance to Restore the Republic" the goal was never to restore exactly what existed prior to the Empire. The leaders of the Alliance were those Senators that dreamed of the "ideal" Republic that presumably existed (or at least was closer to existing) sometime in its' distant past, before the corruption and politicking sullied it.

    But of course, as they've found out, there's just no way to avoid the politicking. Unless somehow every race in the Galaxy could give up its' own self-interest in favor of the greater whole, and they could somehow keep the corrupt and selfish from gaining positions of power (impossible without resorting to methods that make them just as bad as the Empire), there's no way to maintain an "ideal" Republic.

    But from the point of view of the Alliance, the heroes, and the creator of the story, even a flawed Republic is a better alternative than a tyrannical Empire.
     
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