Lit Socrates in Star Wars: Vergere in the NJO and philosophy

What if the bioweapon exclusively killed Yuuzhan Vong?

 

Irrelevant.

 

Vergere goes one further. She destroys the weapon so that no one can use it. Now, what has separated her from you, morally, in both disagreeing with the idea of using the weapon?

 

But you said victims on both sides. This would immediately cease victims on the New Republic side.

 

So?

This is of course a purely hypothetical question, as in reality the instincts are often stronger than moral deliberation. I don't know how I would react in reality, but my moral choice is not to use it.

In this scenario, nothing? The outcome remains the same. I am not saying I find every action of her repulsive.

 

It's late, good night.

 

But you are saying you find her general moral philosophy, as you conceive it, to be wrong and you've both made the same gardener's choice. You decided, for whatever reason and by whatever system, that these lives are worth protecting from this weapon. The system you use, the belief that drives you to the decision? It hasn't made any difference.

So, the real question I'm getting at is...if you disagree with the moral grounding upon which her decision was made...and if your system is as radically impartial as her's is partial....why have you both chosen the same thing? The only answer I can think of is that you both hold life in equal value.

 

Even if it was not her intention, jacen decided, especially when he found out about Allana, that the galaxy was a dangerous place, and he needed to make it safe for her... at all costs.

 

I guess it could be seen as gardening but I still don't make a distinction of bad weeds and flowers. That school of thought can lead one to do what JediMatteus just mentioned.

I don't brainwash and torture. One identical decision doesn't make us the same.

 

First of all, the "wave in the ocean" approach has a physical correspondance in energy and therefore matter not being lost. More directly, dead matter can give nutrients to new things growing. And intellectually, we all communicate with each other, forming a larger culture in which we are an individual wave.

In regard to the Force, the Sith philosophy is the wave trying to keep its form forever, and to form the world around it to its needs - seeing itself detached from the ocean, seeing nature as something that needs to be wrestled down and made obedient. Jedi philosophy is about serving the flow of the ocean, removing obstacles for a river, helping all waves to move in peace and not be thrown into turmoil. The Sith put a ship motor into a pond to execute their power over nature; the Jedi remove the ship motor (possibly with a proton torpedo) so that all waves can flow peacefully again.

The scenario of Star Wars is a scenario of super heroes with great power and, yes, Spider-Man, great responsibility. What needs to be taken into account is that some waves are more powerful and have more ways of interacting with the world; which doesn't mean that they aren't waves, or part of the same ecosystem, or garden. While the gardener might seem like a despot over the garden, he's just as much a part of it as all flowers and weeds. If the garden destroys itself, the gardener is destroyed along with it. Does he want to build the garden that ensures that life goes on, one that fulfills only his direct needs (only the flowers I like; only one food item that will give me a monopoly; I'll hack all the trees to sell the wood), or one that strangles itself because the gardener doesn't care?


And most importantly, if one is a gardener, some are flowers, and some are weeds, but we all are one - then we all are gardeners, we all are flowers, and to some degree, we all are weeds. Jacen isn't the only one who's responsible for making the world a better place. But in the context of this story, he'll have a shot at removing the thorn that turns the Yuuzhan Vong into a destructive beast.

Illustrated by Coruscant having been overgrown by plant life, and the Solo appartment filled with cobwebs. Good catch!

 

Wasn't there really a Code Red bioweapon being produced? Vergere talked to Luke about it somewhere, and they both were against it. That bioweapon later was mentioned in Legacy-War by Darth Maladi who had found the formula and revised it to kill everyone who was not Sith.

 

Didn't say that you were the same. But you did reach the same decision, which helps to prove a point of mine. You questioned if she valued life. She does, and apparently to the same degree you do. Just not, perhaps, for the same reasons.

I may or may not have been operating under what I felt was a safe assumption that Pevra has not read Destiny's Way.

 

A problem with Alpha Red is Tahiri Veila. She is half-human, half-Vong. If she got infected she could contaminate other humans and species in the galaxy. Disaster waiting to happen.

 

The problem with disease as a weapon of war (diseases mutate), is brought up as early as Planet of Twilight- with Leia despairing at the stupidity of the people willing to use the Death Seed plague.

 

Indeed. She has enough regard for life that she wouldn't wantonly commit genocide.

 

I don't understand. Why don't put her in quarantine?

I mean I would still oppose Alpha red but not because of Tahiri.

 

Tahiri might not be the only being native to the galaxy who's been modified though.

What happened to her indicates that the Vong have modified a person at least once- leaving room for there being other vectors from Vong to the rest of the galaxy.

 

I opposed it because of Tahiri at first since she is one of my favorite characters. What makes you think that they'll remember her before its too late to save her? Or any other Vong-Spawn or any of the slaves that have the the Seed coral (or whatever it is) in them and that spreads the disease to the species of the galaxy? I know genocide is wrong but that method has too many problems and they didn't even think of that in Destiny's Way.

 

Regardless, the point was made. Vegere clearly cares about life. The obsession on the gardening metaphor begins to weaken because we start to see it as less of a strict moral framework and more as an extended examination on how we all make choices. On how each choice we make necessarily has a judgement attached to it. Even with something like Pevra's apparently cold, disinterested logic, we assign value and worth to the people affected by our decisions.

 

Well, no, she is not Hitler or Stalin. But she puts not much value on life regardless.

 

And here I'd deluded myself into thinking that a discussion could still be had with you.

 

What? I was wondering what you tried to prove in your last few post anyhow as I already stated before I don't think of her as a psychopath. Obviously there are some steps between genocidal mass murderer and person I would not find repulsive.

 

I answered your empty rhetorical. I said that Vergere has a large value for life. You asked "Has she?", bringing up the notion of torture, etc, etc. And we've showed she does. In fact, we've demonstrated that she seems to value life no more or less than you do. Backtracking and saying "Well, obviously she's not Stalin" is silly.

You keep shifting around. At first, she's clearly a proponent of social darwinism even though you don't understand social darwinism. Next, she's self appointed judge, jury, and executioner even though she's not making any different type of decision than any other Jedi does or even you make. After that, she's a strict values moralist who clashes with your utilitarian methods even though utilitarianism is not the same as moral pragmatism and despite the fact that we're able to demonstrate that she a) makes a radically strong utilitarian motivated decision and b) it is the same one you'd make.

What have we been proving? Partially that Vergere's morals are not too far removed from your own and are, thus, no more dangerous than what you believe but we're also demonstrating a point: Vergere becomes anything you need her to be in this discussion and sometimes these things do not connect in strong ways. You're approaching her in a manner that borders on dishonesty and you're not really using her words or actions to demonstrate your thoughts. For contrast, HWK-290 uses quotes quite well. I used a hypothetical to show how well Vergere's values overlap with your own. Yet, I'm not seeing the same intellectual honesty being returned.

You need to outright codify, at this point, what you think Vergere believes. State it. What does she condone? Why do you think she does so? What does this make her? How does this affect Jacen? A deeper bit of delving and I think you could contribute something amazingly strong to the discussion but, largely, we seem to be stuck on the garden metaphor. You say it's about making yourself judge, jury, and executioner but didn't you do that when answering my hypothetical? You were the judge by hearing the scenario, you were the jury by assessing the information in order to make your decision, and you became executioner when deciding whether or not to take life.

Yet you build up a wall of separation between yourself and Vergere. You make a gardener's choice and you all but outright say that your choice has more intrinsic value because...?

 

It's not a large value for me when she is willing to sacrifice intelligent lives for that force vision of hers.

What you have only proved to me is that she wouldn't commit genocide. That's all. It is silly to claim this would somehow mean she values life as much as I do and infact, I take serious issue with that claim. It is insulting.

Way to misconstruct everything I say.

What about her decision to relay the falcons position to Tsavong Lah? Or what about the decision to go on and on about the twin sacrifice thing in SBS? Do you think all of that is inconsequential? Is the only important decision she makes about Alpha Red? You go on and on about that but conveniently seem to ignore everything else she's done.

And apparently you are only happy when you would win. When I would openly admit that "No, I was wrong, Vergere is okay, I judged her too harshly." Because you like the character and obviously you can't deal with the fact that I really dislike, even despise her.

Besides, I have never called her a "strict values moralist". That were your words, not mine.

And I also don't remember Zayne Carrick sacrificing lives for some dream he had. Therefore, your claim that she acts the same way as any Jedi is utter nonsense. Infact, in the KotoR comics, those who did kill because of a vision, were antagonists.

It's not my fault you seem to think that one action is enough to define an entire character! It is definitely not an assumption I share. I've already made clear I think one similar decision doesn't make us equals, yet you apparently ignored it. But I am apparently the dishonest here.

This after setting up your all too obvious honey trap with the Alpha Red, an obvious attempt to somehow undermine my argument and force me into a confession. But you have made a logical error.

What I think she thinks? I think she thinks of herself as some guru who knows far better than the Jedi order or really anyone else what is good for the galaxy or not. She apparently also believes that might makes right, as she tells Jacen he is a gardener and therefore has an exalted position above the other slaves. She believes that lectures can only be learned through pain, probably a coping mechanism for all the pain she has been through. Victims often search for a "reason" why they were made victims. She believes that anyone is responsible for his own faith. She believes in using lies and deceptions (something I don't take issue with, btw.). I also think that in many ways she is a broken and tragic figure.

How does it affect Jacen? Well, psychologically he had two choices. Either be broken and destroyed or lose your identity and be born anew with a new and fresh personality. What happened in Traitor was that he was born again with a new personality after a severe identity crisis. But was that a permanent development? I am not so sure. In such a case I would think he would require intensive therapy as there would likely be conflicts of the old and the new personalities of his.

Judges pass judgement. They tell the culprit that he is responsible for this and that crime and therefore has to face this and that. Judgements are usually not only based on conventional calculus, addition and detraction. They are based on the law.

I can't make a gardeners choice when I don't see myself as a gardener in the first place. More like a cog in the machine, easily replaced with another cog. And what does "gardeners choice" even mean? I don't believe choosing to kill someone is always comparable to gardening. That's again your assumption, not mine.

 

A "gardener's choice" is like when one decides they must remove a single infected flower from a flower bed in order to save the other flowers.

You know, like you said you would, earlier?