Don't you think the Jedi's detached philosophy kind of cruel?

okay, I never dared to start a topic for fear of being flamed but this has been bothering me for a while. First off, I have to say that I'm a fan of Anakin Skywalker, cos I find him incredibly human and that for me, makes him far more interesting than other characters in Star Wars. While I don't agree with what he does all the time, I can definitely empathize with him. So, I started thinking about how the Jedi treated him in the PT and I can't help but think that their philosophy is kind of cruel, even though they are on the light side.

For eg, in ep II when Anakin shares his dreams about his mother with Obi-Wan, all he says is "Dreams pass in time". It sounded very cruel, detached and unfeeling. Is it really that bad for this young man to have sincere concern for his own mother??

Another time when it comes up is in ep III, when Anakin talks to Yoda and he says "Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not". IMHO, any normal caring normal blooded person will not be able to swallow such advice. It's very telling that the first person that Anakin seeks for advice is a Jedi (this shows he really wants to do the right thing) and yet they cannot provide him any concrete kind of advice.

Also, I don't see the fact that Jedi can have physical relationships but not attachments as a good thing. I know that attachments leads to having greed to wanted to control stuff and all, but isn't going through like not being attached to anything kind of sad? If anything, you should attach yourself to something in life so that you have something to hold on to, despite it being fleeting.

 

I agree on every point you made. Except the one about Obi-wan sounding cold when he said, "Dreams pass in time." He was trying to reassure Anakin, like he always did. Thats what I think anywayz.

 

Well, it's a good explanation as to why nobody seemed to give a hoot when the Jedi were wiped out. Nobody could empathize with them. They just had nothing in common with anybody who wasn't a Jedi too.

 

As cruel and un-human as that may sound, it IS the jedi way. The reason the jedi are taken and trained from birth is so that they don't become attached to others. The jedi lifestyle is meant to be solitary. Their job is to serve others on a strictly unpersonal level. This is the reason that anakin was so easily pursuaded by the powers of the dark side.
Even though it may seem natural for him to have such strong feelings for his mother, that is what ultimately brought him down. This was why yoda was against having him join the jedi order even though he so clearly was the chosen one that the prophecy had mentioned. He was simply to old and ultimately too human which is a major flaw for a jedi to have.The jedi are supposed to be selfless and unattached. They aren't allowed to form attachments because then that could in some way bias important decisions that need to be made, ie. anakin deliberately disobeying obi-wan by going to tatooine to save his mother which eventually led to the beginning of the end of anakin the jedi.
The reason obi-wan and yoda could not offer him comforting advice is because they have never experienced the feelings that he does on a regular basis.
I guess what i'm trying to get at is the way the jedi treated anakin is in no way cruel. They tell him like it is which is the best thing for him. It's just too bad he could never understand where they were coming from.

 

The ROTS novel shows some insight on this. After Yoda faced off with Palps, he was reflecting on how he didn't allow the Jedi order to evolve on some levels. The Jedi order stayed the same over the last thousand years, while the rest of the universe kept growing and changing. Sometimes destruction is the only way to bring about change, even within the Jedi Order.

I don't really see the Jedi's philosophy as cruel. I just see the Jedi as not really understanding how to deal with Anakin. Anakin is the only Jedi at the time who had experienced a somewhat normal life and knowing love and having developed emotions before beginning his training as a Jedi. By the time Obi and Yoda trained Luke, they had a better understanding on how to train a person who had lived as a normal person, before becoming a Jedi.

 

To "normal" people, it certainly looks unfeeling,but the reason of their perceived detachment is the same as why a doctor cannot treat a family member, or that a cop cannot investigate on the murder of his wife or mother or child or whatever. Because when you are emotionally involved, you cannot work properly! The Jedi are the peacekeepers of a whole galaxy!

The Jedi are a sort of religious order, too. Of course, most nuns or brothers, etc, don't need to cut off from their family, but they probably have to give priority to their religious community.

And, well, they do have a point: when we let our emotions get the better of us, the results aren't always great! Sure, there is love,compassion, etc., but there is also hate, cruelty (the kind that would make a father beat his children) and jealousy. If you suppress and/or control your emotions, you are more open to the world, and are able to help more.

That's definitely what caused Anakin's fall. We could discuss exactly what emotion done him in, and many theories are valid, but they all indicate that he was too "human", not selfless enough.

 

Although I suspect it wasn't Lucas's intent, yes, I found the PT Jedi to be highly unsympathetic. In fact, I consider their influence to be as damaging to Anakin's psyche as Palpatine's (no wonder the loving boy of TPM was drawn to the grandfatherly Supreme Chancellor; Sidious was, after all, a substitute for Shmi and Qui-Gon).

Their mistake was in fancying agape (universal love) and eros (romantic love) to be mutually exclusive. They're not, and I think Yoda and Obi-Wan's exile serves as a kind of twenty-year exercise in self-flagellation for not realizing this. At saga's end, there would spring from the ashes of these dogmatists a vibrant, and more balanced, Jedi Code. All for the better.

 

Contray to the protestations of many bashers, I feel the prequel trilogy would be significantly less interesting without this element of Lucas'. By showing the Jedi Council as staunch dogmatists, Star Wars takes on a much richer hue: the morality is not simply about "good vs evil" but it's now about what constitutes virtuosity and villainy. In the original trilogy, it seemed that Obi Wan and Yoda were already avatars of wisdom and compassion and Luke was playing catch-up, but in the prequel trilogy, it is now clear that no one is perfect and all have "much to learn". Lucas' thematic exploration of a "dark side" within everyone in Attack of the Clones is testament to this. Sadly, most of his detractors overlook or trivialise Lucas' lofty aspirations and achievements. But the prequel trilogy contains a number of artistic triumphs. The depiction of the Jedi can surely be no accident and is chief amongst these triumphs.

 

One of the major flaws that people in general make, and one of my big pet pieves of Star Trek as well is that it is assumed that our morality - aka human morality is the one and only, best morality.

The jedi are the way they are and it has served them well over thousands of years. Then they let someone in who is diametrically different than they are and it leads to the downfall of the order.

Is their way cruel, only from a certain point of view. What is best for one is not always best for others.

There was a comment made in an earlier post about no one really caring that the jedi are wiped out. There really is no on-screen emphasis to this. However, I will state that no one really seems to know or care about the jedi when they are around. It might appear that they are so secretive and mysterious to the general folk that no one reeally knows that much about them even when the order is in full force.

 

I think its cruel to take someone who's already learned attachment to go cold turkey for someone elses benefit [The Jedi's..in a sense.]

But if you were training to become a Jedi,and you were young and hadn't learned attachment yet, then I dont think it would matter.

Anakin had already spent 10 years roughly with his mother, his only real family,and they take him and train him and dont let him see her. Thats cruel.

But I guess I do have to agree with it, because as a Jedi,you have a certain responsibility to do good in the galaxy [No Jedi's aren't perfect,but its their main goal to bring peace,protection and justice to the galaxy.] So they cant have attachment to blind their judgement. Anakin had become blind to good and bad when Padme was threatened,because he loved her and he was attached to her.

''I can't live without her.'' Anakin is dependent on her also, He worries for her and how he'll be affected by it [Not physically.] so he turns to the darkside. If he wasn't attached to her he would be able to destroy Palp and bring balance and she wouldnt be harmed anywaise.

Thats why Yoda said to train himself to let go,It wasn't going to necessarily happen then,but eventually everyone dies,even Anakin. If he was ready to let go of her,and he let go of attachment, then he would never have turned,and Padme would've lived for longer.

 

Yes, it is kind of cruel, but I think that's the point.

 

I think they were unrealistic thinking they could be this way and it not affect them eventually. Eventually with distance comes the inability to feel.

 

YODA: "Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is."

This advice works in theory at best. I didn't see Yoda "rejoicing" for the Jedi that died during the purge. Quite the contrary, it seemed to me he almost suffered a heart attack. If it doesn't work for Yoda himself, after 800 years of training, how was it supposed to work for Anakin?

 

Yeah, Yoda should have been doing the jitterbug all over the place: an orgy of death only means one thing, more souls for the Force. See? Every storm has a rainbow.

Yoda was a hypocrite.

 

I wouldn't say he was a hypocrite. His reaction just shows that certain teachings, like "do not mourn the death" are fine in theory, but they aren't of much help for a person who is in the position of having to deal with the death of people that are close to him.