Saga Why is the light side bad? (Balance in the Force)

No, it's not.

Moral relativism says there's no such thing as good and evil, it only depends on points of view. One of the most despicable philosophies there is.

Which is the opposite of what I said.

 

I would imagine he would have been unaware of Yoda and Obiwans' survival but, knowing they hadn't been confirmed dead, believed it was at least possible/probable that they were still out there, and from his point of view, maybe he DID believe that he brought balance by evening the numbers. Of course this narrative wouldn't exist in the saga until after EP3 was filmed but after the soft-retcons, it fits in nicely. He actually brought balance by turning good/dying (depending on your POV) and killing the emperor. Luke was a balanced Jedi- he could tightrope-walk into the edge of the darkside without falling, but was still intune with the light side rather than the dark, as far as I gather from his force chokes and rage in ROTJ.

 

This is why I was reluctant to even discuss it as a concept. People feel they need to denounce it as a philosophy as if even contemplating its relevance means that you are prepared to legitimise/excuse/trivialise or tacitly endorse whatever iniquities one is inclined to justify.

It seems impossible to have a reasonable, dispassionate conversation which explores the implications and applications of the concept.

 

No, balance is not about the numbers of Jedi and Sith and the characters don't believe in that either. And Anakin didn't know how many Jedi survived.

 

I'm not sure what you mean. Of course some people think it's true, so it's relevant for those people. The implications and applications of the concept are quite self-evident to anyone who puts a little thought into it. What more do you think needs to be discussed?

Because it denies the existence of good and evil. It denies objective morality. In application, it's often nihilistic, or it has the potential to justify just about anything.

There's a difference between cultural relativism and moral relativism. Yes, different cultures are different, have different values, etc. But if some culture is about to perform the human sacrifice of children to appease the voices of the gods in the priest's head... yes, it might be acceptable for their culture... but it is still morally wrong and should absolutely be stopped.

Some people could start saying "oh, but the serial killer doesn't believe he's doing anything wrong, and morality is relative anyways, so let's repeal the laws against murder." Most of us accept objective morality at some level, it's why we find that example ridiculous.

Moral relativity is just nihilism, and the path to either lawlessness or might makes right or tyranny of the majority.

 

Ghost I don't wish to discuss it, per se. I think it's a valid concept to be factored into appreciating the motives of characters who's actions we might or should reasonably abhor. Particularly when defining the enduring credibility or relevance of a story.

Regrettably, it's often misused and abused by either side of an argument.

At the end of the day it's merely a way of acknowledging the truth that choices are made, in part, on the basis of desires, including the desire to observe normally accepted objective moral standards. Invoking it does not necessarily mean adopting it as a position.

 

I don't think so. I'd say Javier represents unforgiving tyrannical law that is unquestioning of the law and doesn't factor in morality, while ValJean represents Christian ideals of objective morality such as the values of redemption and forgiveness. There's nothing morally relativistic about ValJean. And being a Christian myself, yes, I strongly believe in objective morality. Of course the world isn't black and white, hardly anything is, but that doesn't mean there isn't objective morality.

 

Yes. That's almost exactly what I said.

...no... on multiple levels...

If in great pain, and no hope for a cure, and the person chooses it, then yes. I know others might have a different opinion. That's not moral relativism. That's disagreement on the objective morality.

 

Warning: Massive Sith apologist incoming.

If you were going to make an argument for the light side being bad, I guess you could argue that those who represented it in the prequel era and before (the Jedi) promoted an ideology and way of life that was constricting of human (sentient) nature and of free thought. The Jedi were so dogmatic and fearful of emotion that they lost something that was vital to the living force. Now, the Sith on the other hand promoted an ideology of freedom and passion. Their fault was that they believed only themselves to be worthy of this path.

In the old EU, Luke's Jedi order was much less constricting. It allowed more freedom of expression, the display of compassion and was a far less dogmatic order. I believe this was the true balance of the Force. I hope to see it integrated into new canon.

 

Can you give some examples?

Can you give some examples?

 

Sure. Before I do though, do you only want examples relevant to new canon or is stuff from the old EU ok as well?

 

Thanks, I think relevant to new canon is best.

 

Ok, well in the prequels, The Jedi are displayed as monks who attempt to be in a completely stoic state, other than having a general compassion for other living beings. They believed that emotions generally always clouded judgement and that certain thoughts could betray them. It is perhaps this constrictive way of thinking that lead the Jedi to their fall, and actually their vehement belief in the own ideals that lead to the dark side being clouded from their vision.

Now the Sith are harder to go into much detail on, because there hasn't been as much Sith lore explored in the new canon. But in the old EU, passion was a HUGE part of Sith philosophy. They also believed in using their own individual strengths to maximize their potential. Their weakness was in the selfishness, but perhaps the part of the dark side which allows for a less constraining outlook on human emotion is necessary for the balance of the force.

 

No, emotions do cloud judgment and acting on emotions leads to reckless actions and grave consequences. The movies show this multiple times. The Jedi are not wrong for being stoic and compassionate nor does that lead to their downfall. What did were the Sith, not themselves or their ways.

 

Ultimately, RotJ showed us that emotions -- compassion and love -- put an end to cruelty and greed. There needs to be a balance between being ruled by emotions vs being inspired to right actions by positive emotions. IMO, the PT Jedi erred too far on the side of coldly suppressing emotion. Luke got it right.

 

Everyone has emotions. Acting on emotion, or impetuously, leads to recklessness. That's what happened to Luke when he rushed to save his friends on Bespin. The Jedi do feel compassion and love. It's what drives their way. But they aren't reckless. They don't let emotions control their actions. The control their emotions and act rationally and wisely.

 

If properly controlled , emotions can inform judgement. ACTING on pure emotion is bad, yes. But in the end it is an emotional connection between Luke and Anakin that saves Vader from his fall and the Galaxy from darkness. The Jedi didn't fall due to their compassion, no. But part of the reason they fell was their dogmatic creed. It blinded them.

 

But it's controlling one's emotions that is required to follow the Jedi way.

It's compassion that makes Luke try to save Vader, not an uncontrolled emotional reaction.

How? Which dogmatic creed?

 

Time once again for a lesson on emotions and the Force. This isn't a matter of dogma.


"The film is ultimately about the dark side and the light side, and those sides are designed around compassion and greed. The issue of greed, of getting things and owning things and having things and not being able to let go of things, is the opposite of compassion—of not thinking of yourself all the time. These are the two sides—the good force and the bad force. They're the simplest parts of a complex cosmic construction."

--George Lucas, Time Magazine article, 1999.

"If good and evil are mixed things become blurred - there is nothing between good and evil, everything is gray. In each of us we to have balance these emotions, and in the Star Wars saga the most important point is balance, balance between everything. It is dangerous to lose this."

--George Lucas, Cut Magazine Interview, 1999.

"It will be about how young Anakin Skywalker became evil and then was redeemed by his son. But it's also about the transformation of how his son came to find the call and then ultimately realize what it was. Because Luke works intuitively through most of the original trilogy until he gets to the very end. And it’s only in the last act—when he throws his sword down and says, “I’m not going to fight this”—that he makes a more conscious, rational decision. And he does it at the risk of his life because the Emperor is going to kill him. It’s only that way that he is able to redeem his father. It’s not as apparent in the earlier movies, but when you see the next trilogy, then you see the issue is, How do we get Darth Vader back? How do we get him back to that little boy that he was in the first movie, that good person who loved and was generous and kind? Who had a good heart."

--George Lucas, Star Wars Trilogy VHS Boxset 2000.

"You learn that Darth Vader isn’t this monster. He’s a pathetic individual who made a pact with the Devil and lost. And he’s trapped. He’s a sad, pathetic character, not a big evil monster. I mean, he’s a monster in that he’s turned to the dark side and he’s serving a bad master and he’s into power and he’s lost a lot of his humanity. In that way, he’s a monster, but beneath that, as Luke says in Return of the Jedi, early on, “I know there’s still good in you, I can sense it.” Only through the love of his children and the compassion of his children, who believe in him, even though he’s a monster, does he redeem himself."

--George Lucas, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005.

"The key issue in these movies is for a Jedi not to use anger when he’s fighting. So the final confrontation here is primarily about trying to make Luke become angry, so that when he fights his father he’s fighting in anger, therefore begins to use the dark side of the Force, and therefore sort of succumbs to the dark side of the Force. In The Empire Strikes Back we had them confront each other and fight together. But in this film Luke has become more mature so that now he knows he shouldn’t be fighting him—that is the path to the dark side. So it’s basically a confrontation between two people and one of them doesn’t want to fight, and the other one keeps trying to push him into it. And then in the end when he gives up and they really do fight, what’s happening there is that ultimately Luke is turning to the dark side, and all is going to be lost."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary, 2004.

"Luke is therefore urging Stoic wisdom upon Vader when he tells him to let go of his hate. Unfortunately, hatred has had such a vice like hold on Vader for so long that he tells Luke: "It is too late for me son. The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force. He is your master now." For servants of the dark side, the true nature of the Force is servitude to evil, enslavement to hate. Like virtues, vices tend to control one's behavior. Vader has used fear and hatred to achieve his ends for so long that now the superior hatred and aggression of the Emperor use him. That is how Vader's mastery of the dark side is at the same time servitude to it."

--Star Wars and Philosophy, page 27.

"Part of the going into the tree is learning about the Force. Learning about the fact that the Force is within you, and at the same time, you create your own bad vibes. So, if you think badly about things or you act badly, or you bring fear into a situation, you're going to have to defend yourself or you're going to have to suffer the consequences for that. In this particular case, he takes his sword in with him which means he's going to have combat. If he didn't, he wouldn't. He's creating this situation in his mind because, on a larger level, what caused Darth Vader to become Darth Vader is the same thing that makes Luke bring that sword in with him. And so, just as later on we find out Darth Vader is actually his father - so he is part of himself - but he has the capacity to become Darth Vader simply by using hate and fear and using weapons as oppose to using compassion and caring and kindness. But that's the big danger of the series, is that he will become Darth Vader."

--George Lucas, TESB DVD Commentary.

"It really has to do with learning," Lucas says, "Children teach you compassion. They teach you to love unconditionally. Anakin can't be redeemed for all the pain and suffering he's caused. He doesn't right the wrongs, but he stops the horror. The end of the Saga is simply Anakin saying, I care about this person, regardless of what it means to me. I will throw away everything that I have, everything that I've grown to love- primarily the Emperor- and throw away my life, to save this person. And I'm doing it because he has faith in me; he loves me despite all the horrible things I've done. I broke his mother's heart, but he still cares about me, and I can't let that die. Anakin is very different in the end. The thing of it is: The prophecy was right. Anakin was the chosen one, and he does bring balance to the Force. He takes the one ounce of good still left in him and destroys the Emperor out of compassion for his son."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 221.

"The Jedi are trained to let go. They're trained from birth," he continues, "They're not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can't form attachments. So what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 213

"It's about a good boy who was loving and had exceptional powers, but how that eventually corrupted him and how he confused possessive love with compassionate love. That happens in Episode II: Regardless of how his mother died, Jedis are not supposed to take vengeance. And that's why they say he was too old to be a Jedi, because he made his emotional connections. His undoing is that he loveth too much."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stone Magazine Interview; June 2005.

"Showing how much Anakin and Padme care for each other is one of my weak points. Expressing that is hard to do. It's really hard in the end to express the idea, I'm so in love with you that I would do anything to save you; I'd give up everything -friends, my whole life- for you, and make that real-make that stick-and say it in two minutes. When I created it I knew I wanted two hard right turns-it's designed to be that way-and I knew I was taking a real chance that it wasn't going to work. But you have to see if you can make it work. If it doesn't work, well then I'm going to get skewered for it. But if I can make it work, it'll be neat. It'll be good."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith.

"This is obviously a very pivotal scene for Anakin because this is reuniting with his mother and his youth and at the same time dealing with his inability to let go of his emotions and allow himself to accept the inevitable. The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can't hold onto things which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn't willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he'd have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn't have this particular connection as strong as it is and he'd have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them. But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the Dark Side. I mean he's been prepping for this, but that's the one where he's sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"The scene in the garage here, we begin to see that what he's really upset about is the fact that he's not powerful enough. That if he had more power, he could've kept his mother. He could've saved her and she could've been in his life. That relationship could've stayed there if he'd have been just powerful enough. He's greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he's greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There's a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the dark side. And it also shows his jealousy and anger at Obi-Wan and blaming everyone else for his inability to be as powerful as he wants to be, which he hears that he will be, so here he sort of lays out his ambition and you'll see later on his ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku's. He says "I will become more powerful than every Jedi." And you'll hear later on Dooku will say "I have become more powerful than any Jedi." So you're going start to see everybody saying the same thing. And Dooku is kind of the fallen Jedi who was converted to the dark side because the other Sith Lord didn't have time to start from scratch, and so we can see that that's where this is going to lead which is that it is possible for a Jedi to be converted. It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful, and control things. Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"The key part of this scene ultimately is Anakin saying "I'm not going to let this happen again." We're cementing his determination to become the most powerful Jedi. The only way you can really do that is to go to the dark side because the dark side is more powerful. If you want the ultimate power you really have to go to the stronger side which is the dark side, but ultimately it would be your undoing. But it's that need for power and the need for power in order to satisfy your greed to keep things and to not let go of things and to allow the natural course of life to go on, which is that things come and go, and to be able to accept the changes that happen around you and not want to keep moments forever frozen in time."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"It's easier to succumb to evil than it is to be a hero and try to work things through on the good side. Evil is inherently more powerful—it doesn't have the burden of worrying about other people. What Luke sees in Darth Vader at the end of ROTJ is something that I thought was worth understanding: the idea that Darth actually was a very good person. Except he's slightly more powerful than other people and when you get into that situation, your ability to do evil is much easier to come by."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"When you get down to where we are right now in the story, you basically get somebody who’s going to make a pact with the Devil, and it’s going to be a pact with the Devil that says, 'I want the power to save somebody from death. I want to be able to stop them from going to the river Styx, and I need to go to a god for that, but the gods won’t do it, so I’m going to go down to Hades and get the Dark Lord to allow me to have this power that will allow me to save the very person I want to hang on to.' You know, it’s Faust. So Anakin wants that power, and that is basically a bad thing. If you’re going to sell your soul to save somebody you love, that’s not a good thing. That’s as we say in the film, unnatural. You have to accept that natural course of life. Of all things. Death is obviously the biggest of them all. Not only death for yourself but death for the things you care about."

--George Lucas, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005.

 

Often, the Jedi teach suppression of emotions rather than control over them.

Never said anything about an uncontrolled emotional reaction prompting Luke to try to save his father. Straw man...

Dogmatic creeds regarding connections to other people. Had the Jedi been allowed to form bonds and have compassionate relationships with individual people, Anakin's relationship with Padme would not have been so fatal to the order. And lets also not pretend the Jedi always acted rationally and wisely. They fought the Sith's war for them. Fell right into Palpatine's lap.

darth-sinister Please explain the point you are attempting to make.

 

The point is that Lucas explains what is and what isn't acceptable about emotions and Jedi. The Jedi teach compassion and selflessness to their members. They do not discourage friendships, nor do they discourage them from even engaging in sexual intercourse. What they discourage is attachment. The emotional states that come with it is fear, anger, hate, jealousy, obsessiveness, possessiveness and greed. These things hurt Jedi more than it helps them. Luke is wise to help Han, because it is not at the expense of others. But Anakin is wrong to trade all of the Jedi's lives for Padme's, because he's afraid to be alone.

 

Friendship is an attachment so that's a contradiction in philosophy right there.