Lit Stepping Into A Larger World: A Metaphysical and Philosophical Discussion of the Force

Or unless, as most religious and moral ideals would hold, mankind improves. That's where a considered definition of freedom comes in: a number of religious philosophers would say we are enslaved by our lower impulses, and should seek to free ourselves through righteousness.

And once more, you're more or less agreeing. You're right, the dark side is the result of sentience/sapience. This is not what we used to be told.

The dark and light sides of the Force are based in morality. If morality is meaningless and mankind is destined to falling short of its ideals - which it very well might be - then this sort of discussion is useless. But then, discussion of the dark and light side needn't actually occur.

 

Do you mean before or after the Dark Empire Sourcebook?

So what? Life as we know it can never improve to the point where there is no dark side.

 

Before and during. Obviously, after things changed. Dawud was just saying that GL's discussion of RotS more or less confirms Luke's view of the Force.

Besides taking that out of context, you're once more missing the point.

 

No, I'm disproving this:

There is no "unless". Aside from the undue emphasis on humans here, life can improve all it wants. Sentience always involves darkness.

The same idea was in the Dark Empire Sourcebook, so it's not some new direction Lucas is taking with the Force.

 

Which idea? That sentients will never improve?

 

The idea was that the dark side follows from sentience.

 

I can't comment because I don't have the sourcebook, but Dawud's comments on it on the last page contradict that, so maybe the appropriate sections should be quoted.

 

It follows from what we were told in the OT anyway, so it should be no surprise that the sourcebook took that approach in 1993.

 

The OT doesn't say much on the origins and nature of the dark side besides that it's bad, and as has been mentioned earlier in this thread - I really wish I had more reference books on me right now - GL used to subscribe to an explanation that feel somewhere between yin and yang and the Manichean worldview that Dawud spelled out.

But anyway, regardless of whether mankind really can redeem itself, the fact is that this is not a thread on the discussion of morality, but rather a thread devoted to the discussion of the nature of the Force, which exists within a piece of fantasy fiction with a very clear moral standpoint and whose main characters are people who serve this moral standpoint. Whether you think the aims of religion and morality, the ideals to which they strive, are bogus is irrelevant.

 

And he still subscribes to it, because these things can be seen as consistent with his supposedly altered view. But, you said it: "The OT doesn't say much". Not exactly what I would call evidence of a contradictory position.

You don't say.

Who keeps bringing "religious and moral ideals" into the discussion? Me?

 

How so?

No, the evidence comes almost entirely from George Lucas' mouth.

This is a discussion of the nature of the Force. In order to understand the Force, it is useful to bring in real world religious ideas. Whether or not you think those ideas are bogus - as your clamoring that evil is inevitable with intelligence and that mankind will never find grace - is not useful to the discussion, because the discussion is about how these ideas factor into Star Wars - a fiction in which good will always triumph and where the Force can be brought into balance and where the good guys prize justice and peace and seek to improve the human condition - and not about their validity in real life.

That is to say if a nihilist were to join this discussion and start discussing his nihilsit viewpoints, it'd be useless to the discussion because Star Wars - with its prophecies, destinies, Chosen Ones and its Will of the Force - is not nihilistic.

 

It seems to be trying to reconcile both Eastern and Western views...the dark side is death and entropy, which are equal forces to life and order - which works for a Manichean view - except that only life and order get a say in destiny...

...and that doesn't make sense.

 

On this issue I'm seeing relative consistency. I doubt the 70's view was purely Manichean in the first place. The saga has a lot of influences, and it would seem untenable to assert too strongly that it mirrors every detail of a particular religion or philosophy. DarthBoba's earlier post shows how the cancer analogy works with balance. Also, relatively recent contributors to the EU have discussed the connection with Taoism.

SW may be a fictional universe, but it's not an entirely magical one. Gravity works as we would expect it to, for example. Similarly, my opinion is that sentient corruption/evil is as impossible to completely stamp out ( without annihilating all life ) in the GFFA as it would be in the real world. There is "grace" and then there is "beyond the capacity for evil", the latter of which I don't think is achievable by mortals. In the same way, "balancing the Force" does not mean "eliminating the dark side".

I find it notable that the DSS never claims that they are "equal".

 

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No. In fact, George Lucas described it as Yin and Yang, but it was clear from his concept of it that it wasn't, purely, because the dark side was not just literal darkness, but evil.

It doesn't, which is why we're talking about many. The particular issue of the dark side's origin is best discussed in these particular religious terms, though, with its difference and nuances being noted.

With a particular definition of balance that has nothing to do with the way the Force used to be described.

You're right. However, the Force is based in a definite moral system, and the dark side grows in power as human morality falls, and it grows weaker as humanity improves. The point of discussing morality and theory is that, well, most religion and morality are based in the theoretical ideal that humanity can be improved to the point of returning to its former, golden state. Whether this can actually be achieved or not is actually irrelevant to the discussion. Similarly, these religions - and Star Wars - often hold that evil is a human problem and not part of the domain of the divine - something the original yin-yang/manichean view of the Force would not be in line with - and so therefore evil is not a natural part of the Force.

 

Yeah, in this case morality is an important topic to discuss, because it's obvious that as morality... or morale actually in the GFFA declined the dark side grew stronger. This is the thing, you've got the Jedi goals of peace and justice... and as I said it can't be based entirely on societal peace and justice simply because of how easily burnt out the Jedi Order would get(and it has many many long lived members often on the Jedi Council) after not seeing justice or peace becoming manifest in society. There's always a lack of this. At every point in the timeline we've seen justice is lacking... socially. I think justice and peace are metaphysical goals... and, moreover, that the Jedi Code is a statement of what the Jedi hold to be metaphysical truth. The Jedi goal would be to be in accord with the metaphysical truth they believe in. More importantly, their about doing this in the world not just personally... so they want to guide the Republic and the galaxy to being in accord with their metaphysical truth. So it's an unspoken goal of the Jedi Order to rehabilitate sapient beings to their original harmony with the will of the Force.

Now, we can be completely upfront and say that the one thing the Jedi seem to lack is an eschatological model. I mean, they've got a vague statement of post-death but in the EU there's nothing to indicate what the Jedi think is going to happen when/if beings are ever to again be in harmony with the will of the Force. GL kind of implies that after ROTJ this is what happens... balance restored, evil destroyed. That sort of thing. That's GL's vision. So in his Manichean morality tale... the dark side is defeated with the defeat of the Sith. That is something present in the world's religions, one day in a prophesied future a person or persons come along and usher in an age of enlightenment that results in

 

I don't remember if this is accurate or not, sadly I've only heard this. However, I believe that originally, in George Lucas' writings that the Dark Side was originally something that Jedi used as well as the Light Side. However, the Bad Jedi in this version were people who used the Dark Side to the excess of anything else. Which, actually, fully fits with Buddhism and Taoism as well with the idea that one can become dissonant with oneself.

It's interesting to re-read the Dark Side and Light Side writings of the DESB in lieu of this view. Because it manages to reconcile this view. It's rather tragic that this book gives so much information on the Dark And Light Side that isn't repeated in the Jedi vs. Sith Guide to the Force handbook.

I think that the best way to understand this is also be aware of the contradictions inherent in this. The Sith crave domination through the Dark Side but are incapable of actually living in harmony with people. Hence, their devotion to the Dark Side of the Force is something that's actually contradictory. They're servants of Chaos through their desire for absolute Control. Simultaneously, Jedi do not embrace absolute dominion yet create harmonious connections whenever they exist.

I think, in fact, it's interesting to adopt something from Warhammer 40K to think about Star Wars in a somewhat depressive manner. In the future, there is only War. In fact, it might be Star Wars is the exact way. The two forces' sides are in continual eternal conflict with one another.

But...

The Conflict Between Good and Evil is the Driving Force For Everything In the Cosmos.

In effect, the universe fights not to win the Battle Between Good and Evil but to merely FIGHT it because that's how life exists.

 

Yes. Originally, any time you "used" the Force, it was a little bit corrupting.

The "cancer" analogy would seem to work against this, though...the idea would seem to be that, ideally, the Good will always be dominant over the light.

 

FOR this though is that the Force must be brought back into balance.

The problem with the Dark Side in TPM isn't that the Dark Side exists.

It's that it's grown stronger than the Light.

It's grown too much, it's a cancer in a healthy body.

 

But it does not seem that the "natural" state is constant war between Good and Evil. The eschatology of Star Wars seems to posit a transcendant good side.

 

I disagree.

That's why it's Balance to the Force.

The Sith being an abberation does not necessitate that the Dark Side as a whole is something that is not meant to fight against the Sith. It just may be Light has to work harder against the Dark.

Assuming the EU verse and the Lucas verse are accurate here.

 

Why is only the light side allowed to have servants?

 

It might well be that the Sith are simply more inherently destructive than the Jedi are useful in some respects. Of course, the Sith are a bit further afield than Dark Jedi. Cade Skywalker is a Dark Jedi for all intents and purposes. Palpatine, on the other hand, is a being that wants to consume the galaxy in the same way that Nihilus does.

Of course, the Disbalance might also only be DARTH BANE'S Sith order or the Dark Sides immediately preceding Palpatine.

The Sith of the Legacy era might be perfectly in balance with the Force, just on the Dark Side of the equation. In fact, the fact that when Palpatine dies over Endor, the Force is brought into balance and doesn't suddenly verge out of creation when he returns sort of indicates that there's just something about the tail end of Bane's reign that screwed up the galaxy.

 

GL says in ESB the annotated screenplay that Luke has to use the dark side to fight, or at least that was part of the earlier discussion of the training Luke was recieving. At the same time, though, it is saying that the real villian of the story is the dark side of the Force. It's either Manichean or it's not. This isn't yin-yang really, because yin-yang theory doesn't place any sort of moral values upon either yin or yang. Plus, GL never says anything in the screenplays or scripts about Luke having to use the dark side to fight and thus it never ended up in the films anywhere in the saga. I don't believe it's in the ESB novelization or anywhere else. The EU certainly hasn't picked up on that.

Logically, however, the nature of the light side of the Force is harmony and holism and that's kind of what the Force IS. The dark side is not these things. That, however, brings us back around to why the Jedi speak of themselves using and tapping into the Force rather than the "light side of the Force." They take the holistic view of the Force, and the conceptions in the DESB and elsewhere speak of the "light side" as holistic. So even if there's a dark/light dichtomy I posit that it exists only in the aspect of the Force that grants a Jedi his abilities to move objects and what not... which is the Living Force, as GL says in the Making of TPM. Within the context of the Living Force the "light" is in tune with the Force as a whole... meaning, the Unifying Force. The dark side is out of whack with the Force as a whole. Hence why the Jedi only speak of themselves using the Force, while Sith and dark Jedi refer to themselves as using the dark side almost exclusively.

Charles... your suggestion basically makes Kreia right. I don't think it is right though. I think the best thing we've got is Luke's view of the nature of the Force and the dark side in TUF. I'm sticking with it because it works best... otherwise we end up with a pretty pessimi

 

Kreia is a fool because she doesn't value this conflict. Human achievement comes from a mixture of conflicts, tragedies, and internal battles that make us who we are. Individuals like Tarkin and Jabba the Hutt submit to their urges but eliminating all temptation effectively kills us as growing and living beings.

The Dark and the Light Side of the Force battle but this conflict is internalized to us all as well.