Has the Clone Wars ruined Obi Wans credibilty?

Well said, Val.

For me, the whole trust the Force yet think elements make sense and aren't hard to reconcile at all. It's about being able to discern which needs to be applied to any given situation. It's about knowing, accepting, and maintaining balance. One can be a being of faith yet still understand how the physical world works.

 

Qui-Gon: "Feel, don't think. Use your instincts [...] May the Force be with you."

Obi-Wan: "Patience. Use the Force. Think."

Ben Kenobi: "This time, let go your conscious self and act on instinct."

To me, this just sounds like Obi-Wan's view (on this particular matter) evolving to be more like Qui-Gon's, or that Lucas was not cognizant of the fact that Obi-Wan is pretty much telling Anakin to do the exact opposite of Qui-Gon.

Ben Kenobi: "You must do what you feel is right, of course."

Palpatine: Good, Anakin, good. I knew you could do it. Kill him. Kill him now!
Anakin: I shouldn't . . .
Palpatine: You did well, Anakin. He was too dangerous to be kept alive.
Anakin: Yes, but he was an unarmed prisoner. I shouldn't have done that, Chancellor. It's not the Jedi way.
Palpatine: It is only natural. He cut off your arm, and you wanted revenge. It wasn't the first time, Anakin. Remember what you told me about your mother and the Sand People. Now, we must leave before more security droids arrive.

It just seems as though had Anakin done what he felt was right and trusted his instincts, he would not have killed Dooku. It's because he is thinking and rationalizing things that he allows himself to be convinced to execute Dooku, when he should have trusted his gut feeling that this is wrong.

Lucas echoes similar sentiments when discussing Anakin and his role with Hayden. In one of the documentaries, he explains that during the end of ROTS, as he attacks the Temple and attacks the Separatists, that Anakin is constantly asking himself "what am I doing?!" but then keeps rationalizing that he's doing it for Padme, but still has that nagging voice in his head, asking "what am I doing?!"

Which I figure is the conflict that Luke and Padme were mindful enough to sense in Vader.

To quote Alan Grant:

"Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best intentions."

Palpatine could play people and make them think that what he was doing was good and beneficial. But on an instinctual level, a level that Vader buried because he couldn't "quiet his mind," Anakin felt it was wrong.

 

Way back when ANH came out - Michael Moorcock very fiercely criticised its "Trust your feelings" message:

http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/moorcock.html

An anarchist is not a wild child, but a mature, realistic adult imposing laws upon the self and modifying them according to an experience of life, an interpretation of the world. A 'rebel', certainly, he or she does not assume 'rebellious charm' in order to placate authority (which is what the rebel heroes of all these genre stories do). There always comes the depressing point where Robin Hood doffs a respectful cap to King Richard, having clobbered the rival king. This sort of implicit paternalism is seen in high relief in the currently popular Star Wars series which also presents a somewhat disturbing anti-rationalism in its quasi-religious 'Force' which unites the Jedi Knights (are we back to Wellsian 'samurai' again?) and upon whose power they can draw, like some holy brotherhood, some band of Knights Templar. Star Wars is a pure example of the genre (in that it is a compendium of other people's ideas) in its implicit structure -- quasi-children, fighting for a paternalistic authority, win through in the end and stand bashfully before the princess while medals are placed around their necks.
Star Wars carries the paternalistic messages of almost all generic adventure fiction (may the Force never arrive on your doorstep at three o'clock in the morning) and has all the right characters. it raises 'instinct' above reason (a fundamental to Nazi doctrine) and promotes a kind of sentimental romanticism attractive to the young and idealistic while protective of existing institutions. It is the essence of a genre that it continues to promote certain implicit ideas even if the author is unconscious of them. In this case the audience also seems frequently unconscious of them.

 

I remember this being brought up in another thread, and as I said then, I really don’t think you can use those examples to point out a difference in teaching-methods:

First of all Qui-Gon and Ben are teaching an untrained person how to connect to the Force and how to use it, while Obi-Wan is dealing with a Padawan who has received many years of training.

Secondly, little Anakin and Luke are in situations that require quick reflexes (aka Jedi reflexes) and relying almost completely on the Force to guide their movements, while older Anakin is trying to find a shape-shifting assassin hiding in a crowd

The three situations require different solutions:
1) Luke has to rely entirely on to Force to guide him
2) Little Anakin also relies entirely on to Force to pilot the pod racer but he also needs to think to solve the mechanical problems that arises during the race
3) Obi-Wan rationalises that the best way to catch the assassin is not to barge in there mindlessly, but to use himself as bait and wait for her to expose herself

Also keep in mind that Yoda teach the younglings in AotC to “not think but feel” when they go through the same exercise as Luke, and Obi-Wan was almost certainly taught the very same thing as a child, so find it highly unlikely if Obi-Wan did not teach Anakin to “feel and use his instincts” when he went through the exercise for the first time.

 

Thanks a lot for posting this article!! Michael Moorcock is probably my favorite author (my favorite books are definitely the Swords trilogy), this was really interesting. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he attacks practically every legendary science-fiction author and I think a lot of his attacks include great over-simplifications, but I have to admit to being a little surprised. Then again, I can see how being the best at something would make you much more aware of all the flaws of other people trying to do the same thing. Also as a political liberal it's great to find out he was this forcefully anti-conservative.