Attachment vs marriage

This thread is not about discussing anakin?s particular problems with attachment (although in the long run it might be) it?s about a response which I get a lot:
Marriage leads to attachment. Which I don?t think is true.
Now apparently attachment is tied to a Buddhist idea of letting go 8detachment, i guess) and I?m not terribly well-versed in Buddhism so I?d appreciate your input.

The jedi do not allow attachment. Period. They fear the possessiveness of it will lead to the dark side. My belief is that the jedi have unlearnt to explore the dark side and therefore fear to have relationships at all, or they have labelled particular relationships such as marriage as leading to the dark side.

So, is facing the dark side, facing the possible loss of a loved one part of the stuff that the jedi need to go through in order to balance the force again?

Is that part of the stuff that Anakin cannot face properly because they don?t allow it from the get-go?

so, what do you think?

 

nice to see you made it happen

Marriage leads to attachment. Which I don?t think is true.
why wouldn't a practice which basically says "you belong to me, and i belong to you",
not result in attachment in many cases?

Now apparently attachment is tied to a Buddhist idea of letting go 8detachment, i guess) and I?m not terribly well-versed in Buddhism so I?d appreciate your input.
as i see it, from the little i've read of tibetan buddhism, one needs to understand that nothing is constant. it has a lot to do with change, which lucas makes a central theme out of.
if you resist change and pretend that things can be constant you start to develop attachments.

The jedi do not allow attachment. Period. They fear the possessiveness of it will lead to the dark side.
i don't think it's just about the dark side.
it's also about the purity of their philosophy and their cause.
imo it's possible to have attachments and still be a good jedi.
but as long as you have them, you'll never reach enlightenment or be truely wise.
you need to understand why you are doing things in order to gain wisdom.
having attachments will distract you from that goal.

My belief is that the jedi have unlearnt to explore the dark side and therefore fear to have relationships at all, or they have labelled particular relationships such as marriage as leading to the dark side.
here's my opinion on this.
i think marriage is forbidden mainly to protect emotionally immature jedi in training.
older and wiser jedi could probably marry without much risk at falling prey to the dark side.

but in order to not seem like a bunch of hypocrites, they denied marriage to themselves as well.

So, is facing the dark side, facing the possible loss of a loved one part of the stuff that the jedi need to go through in order to balance the force again?
not sure i understand the question...

Is that part of the stuff that Anakin cannot face properly because they don?t allow it from the get-go?
would allowing anakin to marry change anything?
perhaps he would develop a higher love eventually and be able to let go.

what seems clear to me though, is that anakin wasn't mature enough to marry anyone at that point in time.
that's the whole issue imo. the jedi forbid marriage because emotionally "immature" jedi have enough temptations and problems as it is.
there should be only one focus.
throwing in a wife and a family will seriously complicate an already difficult situation.

 

Hey darth-frared, good on you for decamping from the other thread and making this marriage/attachment topic its own separate thread.

This thread is not about discussing anakin?s particular problems with attachment (although in the long run it might be) it?s about a response which I get a lot:
Marriage leads to attachment. Which I don?t think is true.

By its very nature marriage is the most conducive type of relationship for attachment to occur, imo, but that?s not to say that it always occurs. If attachment does occur, however, the real question becomes, does this lead to something destructive, or does it somehow lead to something good? In the case of ROTS, we have been shown but one test case: Anakin and Padme, and that didn?t go down too well. Anakin does not handle this attachment well, he allows it to consume him, but is that because it?s to do with him (his set of circumstances) or that it can and will happen to anyone and everyone. We never get to see a possibility where attachment by marriage can work. It would not serve the story too well if we did. On with some of your points darth_frared? *Deep breadth*

The jedi do not allow attachment. Period. They fear the possessiveness of it will lead to the dark side. My belief is that the jedi have unlearnt to explore the dark side and therefore fear to have relationships at all, or they have labelled particular relationships such as marriage as leading to the dark side.

The Jedi have become so afraid of the possibility of the darkside taking control, that they have lost touch with it in their efforts to not be exposed to it. Somewhere down the line, sure, they would have read the legends and myths associated with the Sith and how they embraced the darkside, and no doubt, attachment reared its ugly head for a few of them, and so, the Jedi pounced on this and said, ?no more attachments-period?. I can see that. Some societies, in order to prevent an evil, go overboard in dealing with that threat to the detriment of the people within that society. I personally think the Jedi lost a lot when they forbade attachments altogether. They should have been taught control, personal responsibility, civic virtue, taught perspective on all such matters, private and public, and how you can keep your attachments in proportion to all these things. To me, the overiding thing is to be taught to maintain a sense of proportion.

But back to the marriage thing, specifically, the idea of possession. When I think of possession within a marriage, I think of it from a mere mortal perspective (not royalty or incredibly wealthy family needing to keep its assets). The possession doesn?t mean you own the partner, but you should expect that they will only sleep with you and no one else, for instance, that you share common goals, that you have some shared insights into each other?s souls. That when you start your day in the morning and you know you have someone like this to share it with you, it makes you happy, makes life a little easier to deal with. From something so simple, dark stuff should not necessarily come. For Anakin, the marriage was to be kept secret. That constant keeping of tabs to make sure all your bases are covered, that no one is suspecting anything, that he wasn?t projecting anything out into the force for perhaps some other Jedi to pick up on (they?re all searching their feelings all the time after all), that would have been stressful, and it would have made him insular and isolated. This is where it kind of goes wrong for him. Perhaps if this was out in the open, there would not have been that sense of urgency about everything. It would have contributed to Anakin feeling that only he could do what he had to do, and that the Jedi were probably against him as he felt towards the end they were, since he could not go to them about this as it was forbidden.

I wonder perhaps if the problem is marrying outside your own social/status group that doesn?t work, well not in the SW universe at any rate. I don?t think two Jedi get

 

Being married, I will state in my place that marriage does not lead to attachment. Attachment leads to marriage. Marriage is the ultimate 'sanctified' form of attachment and devotion. It is a legally and socially recognized relationship.

attachment

n 1: a feeling of affection for a person or an institution [syn: fond regard]

devotion

n 1. Ardent, often selfless affection and dedication, as to a person or principle. See Synonyms at love.
2. Religious ardor or zeal; piety.
3.
1. An act of religious observance or prayer, especially when private. Often used in the plural.
2. devotions Prayers or religious texts: a book of devotions.
4. The act of devoting or the state of being devoted.


relationship

n 1. The condition or fact of being related; connection or association.
2. Connection by blood or marriage; kinship.
3. A particular type of connection existing between people related to or having dealings with each other: has a close relationship with his siblings.
4. A romantic or sexual involvement.

 

A lot of these discussions on attachment on the ROTS board are so difficult because people talk about spiritual disciplines and concepts borrowed from them, like the infamous ?attachment?, yet they have very little knowledge of these disciplines even in theory and, as a rule, none at all in practice.

Buddhism teaches detachment not because it leads ?to the dark side? ? there is no such thing as a ?dark side? in Buddhism, and with respect to Star Wars, it would be very helpful in all kinds of discussion if someone of the Lucas team would clarify what this nebulous concept of ?the dark side? exactly means. Buddhism teaches detachment because attachments prevent people from achieving Satori and becoming one with the Nirvana.

This is from a Tibetian Buddhist website on attachment /http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/attachment.html ); there are a lot of reflections on marriage and love on that side, too. If you read that, you?ll get a pretty good idea of the Buddhist viewpoint of attachment.

ATTACHMENT
Definition: Exaggerated not wanting to be separated from someone or something. (Exact opposite of Aversion) Because the label of "pleasant" is very relative and based upon limited information, Attachment includes an aspect of exaggeration or "projection".
[?]
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH ATTACHMENT?

Although attachment may at first appear to be much less destructive than anger and hatred, in terms of being caught up in the uncontrolled process of rebirth, it is actually the bigger evil. Attachment to pleasure and ultimately to life itself as our inborn survival instinct, is the main type of misunderstanding that holds us prisoner in samsara.
An example to illustrate attachment that I love:
In the South of India, people used to catch monkeys in a very special way. Actually they let monkeys catch themselves. What they did is cutting a small hole in a coconut, just large enough for a monkey to put its hand in. Next, you fix the coconut to a tree, and fill it with a sweet. The monkey smells the sweet, squeezes its hand into the coconut, grabs the sweet and .... finds that the fist does not fit through the hole. Now the trick is, that the last thing the monkey will think of is to let go of the sweet; and it holds itself prisoner. Nothing could be easier for a human being who comes and catches it.
The Buddha compared desires to being in debt. If you owe money to the bank for your house, every month you have to pay. In the end, you will own the house. With sensual desires however, you cannot pay off the debt; they arise again and again. Hunger, thirst, lust for sex, warmth, coolness, they all come back again and again. Trying to fulfil our desires is like carrying water to the sea; a never ending task and ultimately completely useless.?

Now, what people don?t seem to understand is that the Buddhist way of letting go of attachments by meditating is a life long process that almost no-one ever manages to complete. The only ones who achieve detachment it are Bodhisattvas, the enlightened ones. And those people manage to achieve it because they live in monasteries. The idea that you can achieve detachment in the Buddhist sense while living in a real society as the Jedi do, and to expect a 20 year old to have accomplished this, well, it just shows that there?s a severe lack of understanding and experience concerning what ?letting go of attachments? in a Buddhist sense means and requires. It is a goal you can work towards achieving it, and in most cases it is a life-long process and it most certainly isn?t accomplished by just having a teacher tell you ?let go of attachments?.

I don?t think marriage per se must lead to attachment, at least not if it isn?t understood in a strictly Christian sense. I think being married or having a close relationship to a partner does make it a lot more difficult to let go of attachments. Strictly speaking, having sexual relationships while learning to let go of attachments is a contradiction in terms. It won?t work unless you?ve already managed to let go. This is all the mo

 

i knew i would open a can of worms with this one.

why wouldn't a practice which basically says "you belong to me, and i belong to you", not result in attachment in many cases?
right, i guess that depends on the nature of your marriage. i'll say it again: marriage could result in it, it need not, though. what bothers me is that everyone just takes the certificate and says, ah, this is what leads to greed.
granted, for the movie there had to be some visual confirmation that they were going to be together. i wonder, if it could somehow be conveyed that their bond is there without marriage would people still insist it's marriage.
know what i mean?

i'm not married so i cannot speak for myself, but i don't think it revolves around *belonging* to each other. i think that is very up to the individual person. i'm more inclined to this: you should expect that they will only sleep with you and no one else, for instance, that you share common goals, that you have some shared insights into each other?s souls... sort of having a connection based on mutual respect and love.

i think marriage is forbidden mainly to protect emotionally immature jedi in training.
well, yes, you mentioned the analogy of leaving your keys in the car... and my question to you is: how do you become emotionally mature if you don't form relationships and learn *through* them, rather than avoid them altogether.
i know there is this friendship thing... and i'm trying to get my head around how to classify this. friendship can be a very intimate thing for a start.

and if you're having to protect people from relationships your philosophy can't be very ... um, rooted in the world around you. because we do it all the time. we bond, we love, we split up, we are being jealous. it's just part of who we are.

i can sort of see the letting go as a long-term achievement, like buddhahood would have you be able to free yourself. the path is in the working on it, less in the achieving it - for me.

So, is facing the dark side, facing the possible loss of a loved one part of the stuff that the jedi need to go through in order to balance the force again?
not sure i understand the question...

this one is a bit involved. i mean to say that the jedi philosophy is all wisdom and very little knowledge, they have lost touch with what it is like to be human, they have lost touch with the real world. i don't mean to say that their philosophy is *wrong*, just that it hasn't been put to a test in a long time. anakin is that test and they fail.
they assume that the dark side is external (the sith); instead it develops inside of them.
so, by facing your inner darkness (your feelings of hatred, greed, fear, jealousy, the whole bunch) you will achieve a balance. i don't mean to say you *use* those feelings. i mean to say you should be made aware of them, so you can work through them.

i employ the term dark side in a wide sense. i?m not sure what it is either. it seems like it's part of us and something we need to overcome.

would allowing anakin to marry change anything?

dark disciple answers this nicely: That constant keeping of tabs to make sure all your bases are covered, that no one is suspecting anything, that he wasn?t projecting anything out into the force for perhaps some other Jedi to pick up on (they?re all searching their feelings all the time after all), that would have been stressful, and it would have made him insular and isolated.

for me, it has a lot to do with being open about stuff. it's before he marries her, too. remember he thinks about her every day. i don't think that went well with being detached at all.

what seems clear to me though, is that anakin wasn't mature enough to marry anyone at that point in time.
well, it seems he *needed* a relationship more than anything. i don't doubt he loved her, i think he needed someone in his life. the jedi order just doesn't provide that, otherwise he wouldn't crave it.

i'm not sure i got this right,

 

Great posts in this thread.

To add my two cents:

I don't believe marriage is an attachment. Let's use Anakin as the prime example here. He cares about Padmé no matter what. Marriage won't change that, he already loves her. Say he has the same dream in RotS and he wasn't married to Padmé, I bet you that because of his love for her he would still perform the same actions. Marriage doesn't form greed, love does. Anakin Skywalker failed that right at the ending of TPM.

 

One question that bothers me about all the attachment Vs marriage thing is why did Anakin and Padme get married in the first place? I am supposing it was to show that they were committed to each other but since we don't exactly know what the man was mumbling over them at the end of AOTC we cannot be for certain what the actual terms of their marriage was. It might have just been a blessing over their union rather than an actual statement of belonging... until I understand why they had to get married I am still confused as to the exact difference it would have regarding attachments.

Marriage doesn't form greed, love does

Marriage perhaps changes love though... perhaps it makes it more of a commitment? A rival commitment to the Jedi? Um just throwing ideas out here probably no help

 

ceridwen1977 posted on 9/29/05 11:15am

---

One question that bothers me about all the attachment Vs marriage thing is why did Anakin and Padme get married in the first place? I am supposing it was to show that they were committed to each other but since we don't exactly know what the man was mumbling over them at the end of AOTC we cannot be for certain what the actual terms of their marriage was.[hr][/blockquote]

Star Wars sticks to the tradition that if you love someone you marry them. Plus, they probably wanted to keep it politically correct, so they had Anakin and Padmé married before having a child.

 

i think the issue is not what the guy mumbles at the end of AOTC. the issue is what the commitment means to the people involved.

as i said, i don't think the ceremony as such changes anakin's love and the possessiveness of it. it confirms it for the viewer.

anyway, i didn't mean to iscuss anakin's marriage in particular, i'm more after desire and attachment. because i still don't quite get if we are all attached, as the buddhist concept would suggest and if that's necessarily a bad thing.

 

Happy to see this here, frared!!

I am married and I have to say that it, for me, no more of an attachment than it was without the piece of paper, really. The love was there with or without that. I think that some people do have marriages that are based like an attachment, but then I think that attachments come from all sorts of relationships, not just marriage.

In my eyes, that kind of relationship where you just can not live without that other person is bad, and yes, some marriages are like that. I think that sort of relationship is bad for both parties. You need to be your own person first. You can not be the other half of a relationship without first having identified who you are as an individual. I think that this is where people get attached...they look to that other person as the one that makes them whole, and like I said before I don't think that is fair for either party.

Look at Anakin and Padme, for instance. He needed her to feel like his life was of any importance at all. He says it plain as day to Palpatine. "Just help me save Padme's life. I can't live without her." (If tht is quoted wrong, then by all means, correct me.)
He always needed approval to make him feel right and to make him feel whole, I would guess. He needed it from both her and Obi...and even Palpatine.

I think that it would be quite the enormous amount of pressure on Padme,or anyone for that matter, to be the sole responsibility for his well being and his happiness.

No, I do not think that marriage has to be an attachment,no more so than any other sort of relationship.

Here is the thing, off subject a bit, that bothers me. There was an attachment issue with Obi and Anakin, was there not? I mean, on both sides there was attachment. How come that was ok? Is it only the piece of paper that says you are married that is the problem? I have had strong relationships with my friends. I would say that I love them, even...did the Jedi not ahve any friends that they loved? Friendchip is ok...and does all love lead to attachment in their eyes? In my eyes, Obi clearly loved Anakin....and vice-versa, but that was ok? And sex is ok? Two people can hace sex and all, but hey, no attachment. So what, one night stands are the thing?

Ok, sorry off topic a bit there. But it is related anyway...in a way.

Great topic, btw!!

 

Star Wars sticks to the tradition that if you love someone you marry them. Plus, they probably wanted to keep it politically correct, so they had Anakin and Padmé married before having a child.

I was confused about the social implications of Padme's pregnancy because it seams that people knew she was pregnant, they just didn't know that Anakin was the father. After all, she was made to look pregnant in her casket. Was it more acceptible for her to be unmarried and pregnant? Anakin and Padme felt that they would have political ruin if their marriage was discovered.

When was her pregnancy public knowledge? Was she going to leave the Senate and protect Anakin's position with the Jedi by keeping the marriage secret to everyone? I wonder what her plan was if things had not happened the way they did?

 

AnakinGirl wrote:
Here is the thing, off subject a bit, that bothers me. There was an attachment issue with Obi and Anakin, was there not? I mean, on both sides there was attachment. How come that was ok? Is it only the piece of paper that says you are married that is the problem? I have had strong relationships with my friends. I would say that I love them, even...did the Jedi not ahve any friends that they loved? Friendchip is ok...and does all love lead to attachment in their eyes? In my eyes, Obi clearly loved Anakin....and vice-versa, but that was ok? And sex is ok? Two people can hace sex and all, but hey, no attachment. So what, one night stands are the thing?

I think the above is on topic because with Padme you have marriage and atttachment and with Obi-wan we get friendship and attachment. darth-frared posits marriage vs attachment and I think we are all leaning towards marriage not being the relationship that's exclusive in leading to attachment, that other types of relationships can still lead to attachments too. I personally still think that GL didn't think through the whole issue of attachment and sex without love etc, when he put down his manifesto for the Jedi order, but if he actually means for us to see the Jedi in this way, well that's pretty radical for a mainstream american director I must say. But back to Obi-Wan and Anakin's relationship, you could argue that Obi-Wan also let his attachment blind him to what was happening to Anakin. He must surely know about Pads and Anakin's relationship, and also some of Anakin's ill feelings toward the Jedi ways themselves, but he lets things slide because he has this sense of loyalty to his friend. And in the beginning of ROTS, you have Obi-Wan telling Anakin to go on and go get the chancellor and not worry about helping him, and Anakin refuses because "I'm not leaving without you master", the personal overides the bigger picture, and with Anakin it's always about the immediate person before the cause.

I think the Jedi, at least some of them, had friends that they loved, and I don't believe the no attachment issue was so strictly adhered to by all of them, but we never see anyone get called on it either except Anakin (and Obi-Wan). For the most part, it doesn't seem so dangerous, and for the Jedi in the temple cloistered away, it wouldn't have come up as being a way to the darkside or getting in the way of one's duty at all. Anakin was at the centre of the saga, the one on whom all depended and that is where the attachments didn't work out so well and helped in his downfall. Does this make the Jedi right in holding to their attachments are bad creed? I'm not convinced, they were just bad in this one case, the case of Anakin as the chosen one.

 

When was her pregnancy public knowledge? Was she going to leave the Senate and protect Anakin's position with the Jedi by keeping the marriage secret to everyone?

It wasn't public knowledge until she was dead.

In the balcony scene, Padmé talks about having the baby in the Lake Country "where no one will ever know." I think she planned to step down from the Senate and go back to Naboo, raising the baby there in secret. She was still determined to keep things under wraps for Anakin's sake as long as possible.

--MissPadme

 

I think the Jedi, at least some of them, had friends that they loved, and I don't believe the no attachment issue was so strictly adhered to by all of them, but we never see anyone get called on it either except Anakin (and Obi-Wan).

Even Yoda appeared to have an attachment to the Wookiees. He seems genuinely heartbroken when he says goodbye to them, his voice cracking when he says ?miss you I will.? Okay, that is way off topic but I do agree that the attachments which result from love of another can be there whether as a result of friendship or marriage. Marriage is such a cultural thing and often such as in the case of arranged marriages, is not even related to attachment/love although it could be argued that this attachment could develop over time.

The idea which was raised above that Buddhists take years of meditation to divest themselves of attachments, that it is not something that happens just by saying that it is not allowed as the Jedi apparently do, is telling. The Jedi have this as an ideal but do not have the means to show Anakin how to let go. Embracing the feelings he has, or going to the dark side to explore those feelings if you will, rather than just denying them as he was encouraged to do seems to be a better solution for one such as Anakin.

 

Great posts!

It would seem, at least to me, that Marriage has nothing to do with Attachment. All Jedi have "attachments", but are able to let go when they need to. Anakin's attachments are dangerous to him only because Anakin's greed is too high, he can't let go of them.

 

I think the issue is one about attachments outside the Jedi Order. Okay so an attachment between Anakin and Obi-wan did maybe blind one to the faults of the other... and I think Anakin is so harsh on Obi-wan at times because he loves him as a father but Obi-wan's love is different to the other types of love he experiences so that is why he reacts against it. For example Padme loves him unconditionally and can even live with his slaughter of the Tuskens, his mother the same. But with Obi-wan he is also critical, telling him what to do and I like to think this is his way of showing that he cares (okay its not very helpful but I have some relatives the same so maybe this will colour my judgement). But to all intents and purposes having an attachment inside the Jedi Order is probably not seen as bad because they are working towards the same creed.

And I imagining that when one becomes a Jedi you have to pledge your life to them and maybe (like marriage) forsake all others... I know Obi-wan says something like "you have made a commitment to the Jedi order one not easily broken" so that suggests to me there is some kind of oath taken.

Let me play devil's advocate here. Seeing it from the Jedi pov desire for something outside the Jedi Order is wrong because it distracts the Jedi from his task and also goes towards breaking that commitment / oath. It is a competing allegience in a way and I guess marriage makes that an even bigger deal because you are pledging yourself to someone else above all things, and perhaps above the Jedi. So to me it does make a big difference about how Anakin was married to Padme... because if it was a blessing then I can see how that would not conflict with his Jedi commitment IN ANAKIN's MIND... but if he did make that outside commitment then I can see from the Jedi's POV that it would be dangerous.

My own opinion is different but haven't completely worked that one out yet

 

yeah, i think so, too!

i think obi/ani is very much on topic! thank you for throwing that in!
when i devised the title i just wanted something that said relationship, i didn't mean to discriminate against obi/ani.

I think we are all leaning towards marriage not being the relationship that's exclusive in leading to attachment, that other types of relationships can still lead to attachments too.
yes!
i'm just not sure how much i can rationalize the web of human relations and categorize them.

so, if, according to that web site, attachment is Exaggerated not wanting to be separated from someone or something, it will still apply to other relationships.
i still think it's something that a person projects into the relationship.

so, it is said that obi-wan was attached to anakin, and vice versa, while someone like mace windu was attached to an entity like the republic. or yoda might have been to the wookiees.
with anakin we have an example of it taking over, when everyone else seems to be able to not have it get the best of them.

my problem may be with terminology, i'm not sure.
i take that anakin's relationship with his mom was an attachment, which he becomes aware of when he is taken away from her. is it the abrupt termination of it that leads to his attachment or was it there all along?

i'm really just an amateur with these things. i think there is a lot of projection happening with anakin and i'm not sure there was any need for that to happen prior to his involvement with the jedi order.

I personally still think that GL didn't think through the whole issue of attachment and sex without love etc, when he put down his manifesto for the Jedi order, but if he actually means for us to see the Jedi in this way, well that's pretty radical for a mainstream american director I must say.

well, to me it seems like the order made a petty rule (no marriage) to avoid having to deal with the consequences. when people defend the rule they usually get entangled in the pettiness of it, that's my impression. they say, for a jedi marriage is dangerous -and while i would like to keep away from the huge variety of possible relationships, i still think the relationship is solely about the people in it, not about the outward definition we give it- marriage exclusively.

which leads me to the whole duty argument, which gets pulled out. and that in turn reminds me of the whole should priests marry debate. it's weird. christianity split in two over this issue (among others, admittedly) and i haven't seen a protestant priest who wouldn't serve his church because he had a family. how do relatinships interfere with duty?

i guess it has to do with the maturity you bring into a relationship, with how much you rely on it...

and so, how's it with luke? was he attached to anakin? was he attached to his sister? what's the deal there?

 

Maybe the idea is that each person can only have one allegience and that allegience must be all consuming. So if a Jedi is going to have an attachment it should be attachment to the Jedi Order.

This is suggested to me because they take potential Jedi when they are very young. This means they grow up in an atmosphere of Jedi wisdom in isolation from the outside world (I assume) so that there are no competing allegiences to the Jedi's affections. It also means that they do not question the Jedi Order because by the time they are old enough they are so imbued with it they cannot see or think of any other point of view (ah this is Palp's argument). This may be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon your POV. To me it is teensy bit like brainwashing... even monks and nuns can become one at any age (although of course this was different in the old days when the youngest in families were often made to go into the church) but its not like they have to be a 5 year old child who cannot complain or make a reasonable decision about their future .

Of course there are some which slip through the net which may destroy my point. These are Qui-Gon, Dooku and Anakin in the PT. I think Anakin is a different and extreme case but there are similarities between them, all three are to some extent at odds with the Jedi teaching although Anakin is the most vocal and we don't really get to find out much about Dooku from his own POV. It is interesting how with each of these three the disillusionment with the Jedi gets worse but Palpatine was involved with the last two so maybe that's why. Yet when it comes to understanding why these three might be at odds with the Order instead of seeking to understand (until all their numbers are wiped out that is) the Jedi disappear into their dogma and blame it on the individual.

But the Jedi are supposed to be a collective... which to me suggests there should be some kind of collective responsibility ... BUT whenever something goes wrong with the Jedi training they blame the individual. So I see this conflict between indiviual agency and collective responsibility is like the conflict between doing things for the greater good or doing things for an indiviual (like falling in love or getting married). There are conflicting messages going on.

Because why is an attachment to the order / a collective of people different to personal attachment? If Attachment to anything might lead to possessiveness and greed and the inability to cope with change... then being attached to the Jedi could be a potentially "bad thing". As it would prevent them from wanting to change it... which gets back to the argument that the Jedi could not change to deal with Anakin and so "precipitated" their own doom.

 

This taking of the potential Jedi when they are very young is much along the lines of how the next Dali Lama is selected. Of course that is just one sect of Buddhism and I'm not certain if all branches take or accept monks and priests at such an early age. But I can see where GL got the concept, that along with the non-attachment.

 

Nice to see we can all have this conversation without all the anger like some of the other threads....

I have to say that I think the attachment that Anakin had to his mother was different, of course. That sort of attachment is on a whole different level, the one between a mother and her child. And that may explain Anakin's problems with attachments. He was taken from his mother, this woman that he loves and that loves him back unconditionally, and that is key here, unconditional love. No ten year old child is ready to have that sort of security taken away from him, and I really don't think that the Jedi, or even Padme, could have given that to him.

Oh, and good point about Yoda, yes even he has attachments, the wise old Master Yoda....

And I am fascinated by all this talk of Buddhism. I only know through what I have read of the Dalai Lama and all.

Oh, and you know that I simply could not leave out the Obi/ani relationship...I am glad that you think it belongs here, as their attachment issue seems to be just as bad, if not worst at times, than he and Padme's. The sad thing there is that Obi doesn't even realize he has this issue, at least Anakin admits that he can not live without Padme, not that it makes it right or anything.

 

Maybe the idea is that each person can only have one allegience and that allegience must be all consuming. So if a Jedi is going to have an attachment it should be attachment to the Jedi Order.

I think you are absolutly right. All attachments are commitments to others than the Jedi Order. If there are no other attachments, then there is nothing to hinder a Jedi from doing everything for the Jedi Order. They won't be pulled in other directions the way Anakin was when he left Naboo to save Shmi.

Because why is an attachment to the order / a collective of people different to personal attachment? If Attachment to anything might lead to possessiveness and greed and the inability to cope with change... then being attached to the Jedi could be a potentially "bad thing". As it would prevent them from wanting to change it... which gets back to the argument that the Jedi could not change to deal with Anakin and so "precipitated" their own doom.

However, the Jedi coudn't see this. For one thing, they thought the Jedi Order was perfect, so being attached to it wouldn't be bad. Anything that it would demand would be right. Also, they didn't think of commitment to the order as an attachment, as it wasn't personal to begin with.

If a person (or alien) is put in a situation where an attachment can form, unless they have been completly detatched, will generally form either an aversion to the other person ar an attachment. The Jedi Order solves this by making it so that the Jedi can't form attachments. When they work with others, it's different every time and they don't have any other human contact. It's human nature. A Jedi has supposedly been trained enough that when s/he is able to let go of their attachments fairly quickly. The problem is that the Jedi need to be trained. While doing so, attachments would form between Master and Padawan. During the training, the friendship isn't usually tested enough to tepmt either of the Jedi to the Dark Side. I don't think it was considered "ok," but it was overlooked because it wouldn't matter that much in the long run. After a Padawan becomes a Jedi Kinght, they won't see that much of their former Master because they will probobly be stationed at different places, so that attachment is terminated.

Obi-Wan and Anakin's friendship was tested, but I don't think it got in the way. Even if there hadn't been as much attachment, Obi-Wan wouldn't have told about Anakin's reletionship with padme because he didn't know haw important it would be. As for calling Anakin on his feelings of the Jedi Order, Qui-Gon was like that, so Obi-Wan probobly didn't see that as much of a problem, either.

 

Jedi_872 wrote:
However, the Jedi coudn't see this. For one thing, they thought the Jedi Order was perfect, so being attached to it wouldn't be bad. Anything that it would demand would be right. Also, they didn't think of commitment to the order as an attachment, as it wasn't personal to begin with.

If a person (or alien) is put in a situation where an attachment can form, unless they have been completly detatched, will generally form either an aversion to the other person ar an attachment. The Jedi Order solves this by making it so that the Jedi can't form attachments. When they work with others, it's different every time and they don't have any other human contact. It's human nature. A Jedi has supposedly been trained enough that when s/he is able to let go of their attachments fairly quickly.

The first paragraph dealing with a Jedi's attachment to the Jedi order as an entity, got me thinking about the roman soldiers and the modern soldiers we have today. This attachment to an order, is similar to a modern day soldier's attachment to his regiment/troop/division. It's incorporated into the training, so that the soldier can be of maximum service. Now your second paragraph deals with the soldier or Jedi, if you will, not having personal attachments to be effective, because the theory according to the SW universe that GL has created, is that this is a distraction and focus is lost on the bigger picture, the Jedi's duty to the order, and subsequently duty to the republic. If you take the analogy though of the soldiers through history and those of today, a lot of them were/are family men and women, with spouses and kids and friends back home. Does this negate from their ability to perform their duties? In my opinion, No, they still fullfil their duty. So why is this attachment such a problem for GL and for the Jedi, unless the Jedi really think of themselves as monk-like, and the Force and the ability to use it is to be seen as a religious or supernatural calling. In this way, since not everyone can be a Jedi, a set of exclusive rules were devised that included being denied the possibility to lead a normal life, following the social conventions, such as marriage or any kind of relationship attachment, to be as serious and focussed as possible, and not dilute the mind with plebiean notions of domesticity and the pursuit of personal pleasure.

 

Throughout history religious groups have always set themselves apart in this way so I think you are absolutely right. I'm thinking now about how these rules might have developed and it's interesting to me that Jedi like Qui-Gon and Dooku and even the Sith are simialr to the heretical groups that sprung off from Christianity in the middle ages and even today we have about 50 different versions of the essentially same basic religion. So the Jedi Order we see in the PT may simply an interpretation of a basic "religion" with all the associated traditions that have built up over a long time, just like happened to Christianity and other religions, they go through processes of growth and change. And with the emphasis on denial of attachments and feelings it might have been in response to something *bad* that happened during the development of the Jedi. I'm thinking it was maybe the emergence of the Sith and their devotion to the indiviual and *baser* feelings such as anger etc that convinced the jedi of the need to become completely the opposite as in their experience these only led to the dark side of the force. I think something pretty bad must have happened to the Jedi in order to make them so persistent in their suppression of "natural" characteristics. When groups etc feel under threat they tend to become more conservative and reactionary and fear difference.

It is interesting as well that when Medieval Kings wanted to bring down great religious houses to steal their land they would use the "pursuit of personal pleasure" excuse against them, for example blame them for all sorts of *heinous* crimes that would revolve around the abuse of their station. So there is established in popular thought that anyone with such powers as the Jedi should leave sober, neutral lives as they are not like *ordinary* people... to set themselves up as special they have to behave in a completely different manner or I suppose *ordinary* people would not look up to them. They would think "oh they're the same as us, what makes them special?" In the UK I think this has happened to the Royal Family, they have lost their aura of mystique and people wonder why they should be treated better than us. So in order for the Jedi to exist I think they had to create this aura and mystique based on criteria that to us (and to Anakin) seems either ludicrous or magical depending on your POV. At the most cynical you can see it as a means of survival - a way of protecting themselves from criticism, too much interference from *ordinary* people and retaining their special status

 

Interesting point about medieval kings...in the Lard Biscuit's excellent essays about AOTC, he theorizes there must have been some sort of deal or compromise between the Jedi and the Republic, the regular folks at large. These supermen with odd powers and abilities are able to use those powers without fear of persecution, but they will control themselves so that the people will trust them.

In any case, the Jedi are about complete dedication to the service of others. Perhaps another reason why they forbid attachment is so that the Jedi always puts others first without having to worry about his own family or loved ones, which can affect your decisions and biases. Just a thought.

--MissPadme