PT Yoda: "Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose." (PLEASE SEE WARNING ON PAGE 14)

You misunderstand me. The actions are different, but the responses of the loved ones aren't. Often times, a family won't just stop loving their own. There are exceptions, of course, but in many cases, there are families that still love their members who do things that aren't acceptable. Or even right.

No, there is more than one definition of attachment and usage out there. The clinical psychological version is not the all, end all version.

No, he said train himself to let go of all that he fears to lose. He didn't say to stop caring. Palpatine, on the other hand, would say that.

The Jedi don't say that they cannot have people in their lives, but they must also understand that their duty places them in situations where they cannot have someone in their lives like that. I come back to what happens in AOTC. Anakin has a duty to protect Padme from harm. Yet, he is willing to endanger her by leaving to go rescue his mother. And he does so without consulting Obi-wan, or the Council, as he was told to do by Obi-wan. Anakin jeopardizes everything because he has an attachment to his mother and he cannot dedicate himself to his duty over her. It would have been a real pisser if Jango had followed them to Tatooine and killed Padme, while he was trying to rescue Shmi.

It's more than caution on the Jedi's part.

 

darth-sinister

There is nothing wrong with being trans or gay. It’s perfectly acceptable.

And the clinical psychological definition is the only factual definition, the only one based in reality. This is supposed to be a story designed to appeal to human beings, right? Human beings are supposed to be able to relate to it. That definition is the only one that actually has any relevance to human behavior.

 

Sure, you can partially blame Palpatine for the influence. But we were talking about the Jedi.

Obi-Wan blames himself for what happened, but as we've seen, Anakin's fall had nothing to do with him.

In the same situation, Qui-Gon would give him the same advice as Yoda and Obi-Wan. And since that's not what Anakin wanted to hear, he would still resort to Palpatine.

I saw no "cold and distant" response on Yoda's part. Yoda's response to Anakin was accurate and objective to the question he made (and not in a very kind tone).

Yes. That's what he wanted (watch the movie again, perhaps?). And Qui-Gon warned him:

"Anakin, training to become a Jedi is not an easy challenge. And even if you succeed, it's a hard life."

The same way he chose to remain as he learned those same ramifications.

Anakin is now subject to US legal standards of adulthood and responsibility?

They are responsible for the teachings they provide, not for the decisions and actions of the individual that go against those same teachings.

?!

"Ignores" human nature? On the contrary. It acknowledges it and directly deals with the danger of letting emotions dictate your actions.

Communism is great on paper?

 

And yet, too many loved ones are rejected by their families who are gay and trans, because they stop loving them unconditionally. They cannot accept them no matter what, because of religious beliefs and personal bias. You and I know that there is nothing wrong with being gay and transgender. The whole world does not share our viewpoint.

That's pretty narrow-minded. So, by your assertion, we're not supposed to support Buddhist traditions and beliefs? Because it is not in the real world as you define it. So what about all the Buddhists in the world? Are they supposed to be mocked and ignored because their belief is not the correct one? Only clinical science is?

 

Psychology is hardly a science.

 

The idea that humans are capable of being pure beings who form no attachments and equally love all unconditionally ignores reality and is a pure fantasy.

Theoretically, it is. You get rid of classism, everyone is provided for equally, oppression is gone, etc. The problem is that there’s no way to implement it on a large scale without resorting to totalitarianism and barbarism. Humans are inherently competitive and will always want things, and it also ignores the reality of scarcity.

I’m no fan of the trend of calling anyone to the left of Attila the Hun a communist but this song perfectly describes what communism is supposed to look like in theory:



(I actually had a college roommate who was a diehard communist who frequently used the lyrics of this song to point out what a wonderful utopia it would lead to, and John Lennon himself said that the song was virtually the Communist Manifesto.)

a) And that behavior should not be encouraged.

b) You’re the one who drew an equivalence between being gay and being a murderer. Being gay doesn’t hurt anybody.

I’m an agnostic. I prefer to live my life based on science and on facts rather than superstition and fairy tales (i.e. religion).

By definition, psychology is the science of behavior and mind.

The beautiful thing about science is that it’s falsifiable and not dogmatic, like religion. Previous assumptions can be proven wrong and can be changed. It’s not rigid or set in stone. I’ll take empirically verifiable facts over immutable dogma any day.

 

This is ironic.

A lot of actual scientists regard psychology the same way you regard religion. Psychology does not hold up as a science, it doesn't meet the requirements. It's not like physics or chemistry.

The Jedi, however, are a religion, and they don't use "attachment" the way you do, so you're arguing with nothing and no one. Your entire participation in this thread is one giant straw man argument.

I'm an atheist, you don't need to tell me about the flaws of religion, but I find it amusing that you're seemingly unaware of the flaws of psychology.

And I do like how you Other'd the Jedi (and Buddhists, among several other real life human beings) as inhuman:

Which is typical.

So, you continue to argue with ideas the Jedi don't hold, and you've now declared religion as inhuman, having no appeal to human beings and no relevance to human behavior, based on the pseudo-science known as psychology.

Good job.

 

Human behavior can be observed and recorded. The human brain can be studied. We can make conclusions based on empirical evidence and facts. And if our conclusions are wrong, we can make adjustments to what we thought we knew.

Religion is based on absolutist dogma. Certain things are forbidden “because God says so”. Not based on facts or evidence. Just “because God says so”.

With Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi followed a very strict, rigid, dogmatic one-size-fits-all approach that played an instrumental role in the creation of Darth Vader. When a medicine or a treatment fails somebody here in the real world, you improve the medicine. You improve the treatment. What you’re doing is the same thing a cult does. “The cult is perfect and infallible. It’s your fault if our dogma doesn’t work for you.”

In the end, Anakin is responsible for the choices he made. He chose to murder those children in the Jedi Temple. The Jedi didn’t make him do that. He chose to swear allegiance to Palpatine. Yet the Jedi do bear responsibility for ignoring all the warning signs (Anakin spends two entire movies displaying clear signs of having a serious mental disorder), and just hoping that with enough Jedi dogma, his problems would just magically go away. At the very least, Anakin should’ve gotten some serious psychological counseling (and Padmé Amidala really should’ve urged him to receive counseling after what happened when he returned to Tatooine). The poor judgment shown by these supposedly wise men illustrates that the order was primed for a fall and Palpatine, recognizing this, exploits it.

 

That's what he wanted? In what world does a nine year old heed such a warning? We're talking about a child, not an adult.

This is exactly the problem with the Jedi system of taking young children and training them to be Jedi lightyears away from home. By the time they are old enough to understand the ramifications of their "choice" to follow the Jedi way, it's the only life they know. The Jedi are their family, so any Padawan, that has doubts about the Jedi philosophy, is forced to abandon that family. It's a particulary cruel system, in which children are indoctrinated at a very young age, where they really don't understand the consequences of the choice that was made for them, but are ultimately held solely responsible if that choice has dire consequences.

No, since they usually take children at a very young age, they are responsible for the actions of those children they empower, the same way parents are responsible for the actions of their children until they reach adulthood. In the case they suspect a person is unsuited to handle such power (clouded this boy's future is), and they train them anyway, their responsibility extends much further than that.

 

I find it funny how Yoda is being the bad guy here while all he gave Anakin was a clear cut answer. Did Anakin also mention that he was lying to him or shall we forget that event?

 

So is "Star Wars".

Lucas isn't saying everyone should be. He's saying that humanity is at its best when it is selfless and compassionate. But he's also a realist.

"I would like to see our society mature, and become more rational and more knowledge-based, less emotion-based. I'd like to see education play a larger role in our daily lives, have people come to a larger understanding—a “bigger picture” understanding—of how we fit into the world, and how we fit into the universe. Not necessarily thinking of ourselves, but thinking of others.

Whether we're going to accomplish this, I'm not sure. Obviously, people have a lot of different dreams of where America should be, and where it should fit into things. Obviously, very few of them are compatible, and very few of them are very compatible with the laws of nature. Human nature means battling constantly between being completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature. Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we're not made up of cancer cells.

If you put that notion on a larger scale, you have to understand that it's a very cooperative world, not only with the environment, with but our fellow human beings. If you do not cooperate, if you do not work together to keep the entire organism going, the whole thing dies, and everybody dies with it. That's a law of nature, and it's existed forever. We're one of the very few creatures that has a choice, and can intellectualize the process.

Most organisms either adapt and become part of the system, or get wiped out. The only thing we have to adapt to the system with is our brain. If we don't use it, and we don't adapt fast enough, we won't survive."

--George Lucas, Academy of Achievement Interview, 1999.

What he wrote with "Star Wars" was the idea that a Jedi should be a completely selfless individual, who is dedicated towards the greater good of helping others, over helping themselves. Unconditional love is defined as compassion. We're all capable of feeling compassion, whether we act on it or not. And whether the story lies is that Anakin becomes a selfish individual because Palpatine has twisted and blurred the lines between selfishness and selflessness. But Luke shows him a better way, because he follows the path that his father didn't take. He shows him unconditional love and compassion, by not killing him. Anakin becomes a good parent as a result and saves his son, at the expense of his own life.

It shouldn't, but it does.

Physically, no. Emotionally, the ones who reject the gay and transgender feel as if they are psychologically hurt. As if they were betrayed and are being judged for what they allowed their children to become.

Anyway, my point is that a good parent is one who loves their child, no matter who they are. That's unconditional love. They care for their child's well being over any possible insecurities that they have. Luke loves his father unconditionally, despite the fact that he killed a whole lot of people and betrayed his mother, destroying their family. He loves him despite threatening Leia and cutting off his hand. He loves him more than he hates him. He has forgiven him for his crimes and can still see the good man underneath the suit, the bionics and the scars.

He wanted to be a Jedi, more than anything, per his own words. And he understands that life is hard, because he himself was a slave who had no control over his life and put his own neck at risk with the Podracing. So he understood that it was going to be a hard life being a Jedi and he was capable of adapting, but Palpatine made sure that he would adapt to his way of thinking and not the Jedi way.

They're not forced to abandon the Jedi Order. They can make a choice. Nor does that mean that they become persona non grata. They can visit the Jedi Temple at any time. They just cannot serve as part of the Jedi Order. And if they choose to leave, they can do what they please. Even if it means reestablishing contact with their birth family.

 

Moved to a separate thread: Is the Jedi philosophy a hurdle in relating to the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker?

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...-to-the-tragedy-of-anakin-skywalker.50046404/

 

No, it isn't about Yoda being the bad guy.

To me, it is about.
Did Yoda perhaps phrase his advice badly?
Do the Jedi practice what they preach?

And the overall issue, did the Jedi dogma make Anakin's issues with attachment worse?

To what Yoda said in RotS, he said quite clearly that Anakin should NOT mourn.
People have given examples of other Jedi doing that so there is no ban against mourning for Jedi.

Then either Yoda phrased his advice very poorly or he is a hypocrite and wants Anakin to follow rules that other Jedi, even himself, ignore.

To the main issue, I do think that the Jedi's dogmatic approach to attachment and how to deal with it didn't help Anakin. It made the problem worse.
It is still up to Anakin to make his choice and he is responsible for his actions.
But I don't think the Jedi can wash their hands of any culpability here.

They knew he had an attachment that other would be Jedi don't have and yet nothing suggest that they altered their methods to deal with this. And he was given a very green teacher, not Yoda, who had never trained anyone before.
They saw the warning signs and seemed to ignore them.

In closing, do the Jedi ever question their rules, discuss them and maybe alter them if they feel they are misguided? Or are they treated as sacrosanct and beyond reproach.
In other words, Dogma.

I mentioned Star Trek's Prime Directive before and that too has sometimes been treated as inviolate in the shows and become Dogma. And to me, that can lead to problems.
The ideas behind it are good as are the Jedi's concerns of letting you become a slave to your emotions.
But the approach should not be viewed as dogma.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

^ In Star Trek: The Next Generation, I think we've seen them defy the Prime Directive on a number of occasions because they felt like to do otherwise would go against what their hearts told them. (I.e., intervene in saving an alien civilization when the Directive specifically tells them to not do that.)

 

Yes most often they do end up violating the Prime Directive because it is the right thing to do. Or because of outside factors.

But when they talk about it, sometimes the arguments used to obey it are dogmatic.
In one TNG episode, where a planet is tearing itself apart and the race that lives on the planet will all die.
Riker argues that maybe there is "Cosmic Plan" and it would be the height of Hubris for them to interfere and these people are perhaps "fated" to die.
Pretty much he invoking "God", which is ironic in Star Trek as they come across fake deities from time to time.

In Voyager, Janeway tells Tom Paris not to warn people about a disaster that will destroy the whole planet. She argues that they don't know what the consequences will be and Tom counters that any consequences would be preferable to total annihilation. But Janeway does not budge and ORDERS him to stay silent.
Again the dogmatic approach, the Prime Directive must be obeyed even when total destruction is certain.

And on Enterprise, the captain and the doctor DOES actual genocide and ensures that a whole species will die out.

As I said, the intentions of the Prime Directive are good but it shouldn't be treated as dogma.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

I am sorry guys, but Anakin is the poster boy for how attachments CAN be unhealthy. The concept may be a little alien to most of us, but the movies make it very easy to understand how attachment CAN be a problem, for some people, in some ways.It's a matter of proportion and perspective.

I hate to be repetitious, but while we may understand Anakin's attachment to his mother, you have to also recognize that Anakin's feelings about her lead him to go on a murderous rampage when she is killed. His attachment to Padme - or rather, his fear of the pain he would feel if he lost her to death - is so great that to try to avoid it, he is willing to murder kids, murder former friends and colleagues, and participate in the overthrow of democracy for billions and billions across an entire galaxy (and eventually be party to the casual murder of billions, through the Death Star). And think about it - he loves his status and power as a Jedi and doesn't want to lose it, so he hides his relationship with Padme, lies and deceives, rather than simply choosing one or the other. Too much attachment does indeed lead to fear, which leads to temptation to do things one normally wouldn't, out of that fear.

And people do lots of bad things, negative things, destructive things, and suffer a lot of anxiety, and stress, over fear of loss. Loss of things, of status, of power, of money, of youth, of many many things. The whole "attachment" thing isn't about trying to lead a joyless, robotic life, cut off from everyone. It's about perspective, balance, of coming to terms with the inevitable (death, for example...yeah, that's pretty inevitable, right?). I don't want to even try to turn this thread into some kind of philosophical treatise - and I am not qualified to do so even if I wanted to - but I have to emphasize that the point is not to become some isolated, joyless automaton. It's about not becoming so resistant to loss, to change, that one suffers unduly as a result.

And a lot of other stuff.

Guess what I am trying to say here is that if you can't understand why UNDUE attachment can indeed be dangerous, you need look no further than Anakin.

 

The operative word is "can", not "will". The Jedi could've addressed the problem by teaching the value of attachments when their kept in proper perspective, but they took the easy and, yes, fearful, way and just said "no attachments". Anakin's problem could've been avoided if Kenobi and Yoda had treated attachments as sources of both great good and great evil, rather than as detriments and weaknesses to be avoided at all costs.

 

Attachment being the shadow of greed is means that the overwhelming majority of sentient beings are greedy. That's a totally disingenuous condition under which to teach a moral lesson.

 

But why put so much emphasis on attachment, when greed, lust for power, and dishonesty are so much more easy to identify with, and ultimately far less ambiguous in terms of the negative connotation? If the purpose of the story is to provide a moral tale to 12 year olds, as Lucas always maintained was his purpose, why build your story on a framework that Buddhist monks spend their entire lifes to comprehend? Why introduce lines like "possession/attachment is forbidden to a Jedi", and not explain in detail what those terms entail, and why these rules exist in the first place? As it is, the films just drop a few terms, and expect the viewer to figure out where Lucas got his inspiration, and how that affects the story.

 

You're assuming that Obi-wan didn't do that. The fact is that an attachment is to a person, or a representation of something. This means that a Jedi is likely to become so attached to a person that they are unable to be objective and rational, both of which Anakin says that he cannot be or do. The attachment is grounded in fear; fear of loss and what that entails. It is the inner anxieties that we all have. Most of the time we're able to process and internalize these feelings and are capable of not being consumed by them. But sometimes, these feelings become too much and can overwhelm people. In Anakin's case, his fear is death and what comes with it. It isn't because he was separated from his mother, but because he has yet to process these feelings and dealt with them. His innate belief is that he has to fix the problem, not moving past the problem. He cannot accept that there are things that he cannot fix. It is the hubris of his own soul. He has developed a sense of self and pride, which overcomes logic and reasoning. And as the Jedi point out, the quick and easy path seems to be more desirable than taking the long and hard path.

No, not everyone. There are people who are capable of not being attached, nor greedy. As I've pointed out time and again, Han Solo becomes a selfless person as time goes on. He is able to let go of his attachment to Leia, but telling her that he will back off so that she can be with Luke. He stops thinking of himself and thinks only of her and her well-being. He still loves her, but he's not going to let jealousy into his heart anymore. He's rejecting that. He's rejecting his greed. His self-interest. Han has shown his willingness to go past his own greed when he turned around to save Luke and again when he volunteers to lead both the Endor Strike team and the operation on Starkiller Base.

As a moral lesson, Lucas shows that we are capable of being one way or another. And as a sentient being, we have a choice as to which way we can go in life. Anakin chose to be a selfish person and let his greed dictate his actions. His son chooses to be a selfless person and is driven by compassion. Read his Academy of Achievement interview quote that I posted, as well as this...

"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.

"What these films deal with is that we all have good and evil inside of us, and that we can choose which way we want the balance to go. Star Wars is made up of many themes, it's not just a single theme. One is our relationship to machines, which is fearful, but also benign, they are an extension of the human, not mean in themselves. The issue of friendship, your obligation to your fellow man, to other people who are around you. That you have control over your destiny, that you HAVE a destiny, that you have many paths to walk down, and you may have a great destiny if you decide not to walk down that path. Your life might be satisfying, if you wake up and listen to your inner feelings and realize what it is you have a particular talent for and what contributions you can make to society."

--George Lucas, Of Myth And Men interview, 1999.

Lucas puts the emphasis on attachment because he is drawing a comparison between Anakin and Luke, who both are tempted by the shadow of greed in regards to the people in their lives. In crafting TESB and the conflict between Luke and Vader, Lucas determined that a fight between them has to be connected to Han and Leia. With Kasdan's help, they were able to put Luke in a situation where he had to choose between his training and his friends, and chooses his friends even though there is a risk in doing so. That he is rushing off based on of fear, fear of losing his friends and wanting to keep them from harm. From there, it became apparent that this would be the in for turning a good man towards evil, but leaving the door open for redemption. It, in turn, called back to the original story of Prince Valorum, who was a Jedi who only becomes a Sith, not because of greed, but because he believed it was the morally right thing to do since the Jedi and the old Empire had failed. So in crafting the backstory of Vader, he needed more than just greed and ambition as he had been working on in the second and third drafts of ANH. He needed Vader to be someone who started out good, but became corrupted by the very things he was battling against. What exactly those battles were, he would develop later. Once ROTJ came around, he was then able to figure out what would spark a reaction out of Luke to almost kill his own father. And again, it was attachment. This time to Leia and having her be the other, which would drive Luke further and further.

Now with the PT, he could put it in words that are more direct. This is what leads to Anakin and Padme's conversation, where Padme says that the life of a Jedi is such that they cannot be with those that they love and he describes it as attachment. That a Jedi cannot be attached to a person, because that will become a distraction and a source for pain and suffering. Lucas, being one who shows more than tells, puts it into perspective when Anakin says that they could be together in secret. With Padme countering that not only would it be living a lie, but that it could destroy them both as they have so much to lose. Then he goes further with Padme falling out of the gunship and Anakin's willingness to jeopardize the mission, because of his attachment to Padme. This in turn leads to his choice to join Palpatine, when he is worried about losing Padme again as he did his mother.

Twelve year olds know what possessions are, as do adults. The desire to hold onto something without a willingness to give it up. To be clingy and needy. These things aren't that alien of a concept and difficult to understand.

 

Having an attachment doesn't make you greedy. That's what I any reasonable person doesn't find alien or difficult to understand.

 

The mere act alone doesn't. But it is what comes with the attachment to a person that does. Anakin becomes attached to Padme because he isn't willing to let her go. He isn't willing to accept that the Force has decreed this is her time to die. It is nature. She will die in childbirth and medical science cannot stop it. And because he cannot accept that she will die no matter what, he becomes greedy in wanting to keep her around. Not for her sake, or the baby's sake, but for his own. That is greed. That is selfish. He is only thinking of himself, not of her and not of the child.

Compare that to Han and you can see a world of difference.

 

So it's not the attachment.

 

Hold it. The Force decreed that should would die in childbirth? Where does the movie say that?

Anakin had a vision of the future. As TESB pointed out, the future is always in motion and difficult to see with absolute clarity. Anakin saw a vision of what could happen and wanted to prevent it. Why is that bad, in and of itself? If he'd, instead, asked for a Jedi healer to assess her condition, would that have been wrong? If he'd encouraged her to take sick leave and go to a hospital, would that have been wrong? The tragedy was that Anakin was told, by people who didn't experience the vision and had no firsthand experience of what was seen, that absolutely nothing could be done. So, feeling discouraged, he was open to be conned by a dishonest man who sold him a bunch of snake oil called Sith power. So, it ended up as a self-fulfilling prophecy because of Anakin's wrong move, and the wrong advice that inspired it.

Don't go laying this on the Force, or saying that his attachment doomed her from the start. His attachment could've easily led him to a way to prevent her death, had he not been poorly advised by others on both sides of the Force fence. Had he prepared for the worst but worked to save her by reasonable means, things would've been very different.

 

Exactly. The Jedi are partly responsible for what happened because of their inability to actually talk to Anakin about the issues in depth and provide a sense of understanding and compassion. "Padme may die, get over it" was what Yoda more or less said. They didn't help with Anakin's mother and they wouldn't help with Padme either.