Skallagrim
Well-known member
Except the Jedi never really were fine with it. Ever. The past allowed more exceptions than the Prequels era but even in KotOR era they still frowned on relationships and attachments.
You're a lying liar who lies.Except those are the only two time periods where we actually get to see the established Jedi at any kind of scale.
We have Tales of the Jedi to show us that (pretty shortly!) pre-KotOR, relationships and children were just fine. We have comics from the post-ToR era showing us there were whole Jedi dynasties. So... no. You're deliberately taking the only two periods that actually have this dogmatic approach, and you're pasting that onto the whole galactic history. In complete contradiction with established fact.
You're conflating your fanon with actual canon. Now I know that I mentioned my own subjective interpretation, too. But when I do it, as you can see in my post, I specifically mention it as such. You, on the other hand, want to pretend that your fanon is canon, even when it contradicts canon.
If you want to keep doing that, it's your choice, but then discussion becomes pointless, because you prioritise your own opinions over facts, so no argument -- no matter how well-crafted -- could ever convince you.
That's your reading of how these things work. Now, I'm just a lowly ethics professor, not a psychologist, but from a philosophical perspective, your take here is... well, the kind of ill-considered "gotcha" we see from freshman students. You wouldn't pass my introduction to ethics class if you raised arguments like these.Jedi can have all the sex and children they want. They just can't *care* about them.
What would you do for your children? For people you love? As a Jedi, you must *always* be willing to simply walk out on your family to go solve some problem on the other side of the galaxy and if some terrorist holds your family hostage you must be able to just shrug and get on with your life.
Frankly? Being a Jedi is a betrayal of your family because you will always be prioritizing others over that family.
From a psychological perspective (which, again, is not my actual field), your attitude strikes me as... rather unhealthy.
The fault is with the Order of that time, and the state it is in. Note that once Yoda admits how horribly he failed, he is able to train Luke, who is much older than Anakin was at that point.The Jedi failed when they allowed Obi-Wan to train Anakin in the first place. Anakin never should have been trained by the Jedi Order of that time.
The issue was never Anakin. It was the Order being unable to adequately deal with someone like Anakin, because the Order had already been maimed by centuries of careful Sith manipulation.
Again, you show an extremely unhealthy attitude. You're thinking "military boot camp", which is not the way to create psychologically well-balanced samurai wizards.he should have been handed to a Master who was both able and willing to break him down and rebuild him from the ground up.
If you re-watch RotJ, look at the scene where Anakin is talking to Yoda about the fear of someone dying. Yoda doesn't know it's about Padmé. In the commentary, it's actually brought up that Yoda thinks Anakin is talking about Obi-Wan dying. And since they're in a war, that's not improbable! And Yoda gives him good advice... for that situation.For all that Padme's situation played a role in Anakin's fall, it was his friendship with Palpatine that actually caused him to fall. Padme was a lever to move Anakin but she was far from the only one.
Anakin can't tell Yoda about Padmé. If he could, if marriage had been allowed, Yoda could have helped him out with far better advice. It's the secrecy that dooms Anakin. It's the secrecy that makes Palpatine his only confidant.
That's purely your take on it. I say dogmatism is the flaw, which leads to them being unable to handle attachments healthily.Attachments are the fatal flaw of the Order.
I really feel I've provided the more compelling arguments here.
A Jedi frees the sex slaves, and in the process makes their lives better. Or a Jedi ignores the sex slaves and as a consequence one of those slaves leads a slave revolt that frees a trillion slaves across a thousand worlds and establishes a strong anti-slavery political bloc that lasts for generations.
Tell me, is the Light Side option to free the sex slaves in front of you or to ignore them and as a consequence free trillions over centuries to come?
1. You're begging the question. That's a bit of a no-no in serious debate.To act out of rage, disgust, or even moral belief is to fail as a Jedi. A Jedi is supposed to act as an agent of the Light Side and with the goal of advancing the Republic as it is the most effective means of bringing the greatest amount of good to the greatest number of people over the greatest amount of time.
2. You assume that a crude (in fact, almost farcical) form of consequentialism is the only correct view of ethical questions. That's, uh... a really bad take. You've now slipped from "college freshman" ethics to "high school" level. We could argue about real-world philosophy (my own take is derived from virtue ethics), but here's the bottom line: everything about SW as a fictional universe points towards a very strong deontological view of ethics. The Force itself, with its Light and Dark aspects, is an expression of that. To argue consequentialism in Star Wars is to completely miss some of the basic assumptions the setting rests upon.
3. You then devolve into utilitarianism (or as we call it: the sad little boy's version of consequentialism) in the second quote. You seem to have mistaken the Jedi for Vulcans. (A mistake that might also explain your interpretation of the merits of denying attachments.)
4. You play a very false game by setting your assumptions as hard facts in the scenario you invented, leading to a hobson's choice that only exists because you rigged it. "If the Jedi does nothing, that leads to a much better life for all!" -- Oh? Do you know that? Based on what evidence? There is a moral imperative to do what is right (you can go from Socrates to Kant on that one, you'll find it broadly supported). If we consider various consequences, we can weigh them by various metrics, naturally. But if we don't know the consequences, then my advice -- as, if I do say so myself, an expert on the subject of ethics -- is to do the best you can. If the consequences are unclear, then work with the facts you have, and do the right thing based on what you know. Nobody knows the future, nobody knows whether it'll work out for sure-- but you'll have acted honestly, and that's the basis of ἀρετή.
No. You confuse "your own standard" for "any standard you care to use". Perhaps because you only care to use your own standard.Luke is a horrible Jedi whether you go by canon (Disney or otherwise) or Legends. He's a powerful Force user and an at least decently good person, but by any standard you care to use he fails as a Jedi.
But I don't care for your standard at all, because it's pretty childish and poorly considered, which is revealed upon even cursory examination.
This is a long diatribe that consists entirely of your own opinions and fanon. To which you are entitled, but which you should not conflate with canonical facts.You are basically doing exactly what I am taking issue with. You conflate the Light Side with the Jedi and "good" with both as well.
All Jedi utilize the Light Side of the Force.
Using the Light Side of the Force doesn't make you a Jedi.
Good and evil are inherently subjective terms and have no direct bearing on either the Force or the Jedi.
The Dark Side is all about individual desires, individual goals, and individual advancement. Personal advantage at the expense of the community. It's neither good nor evil in and of itself. What it is, is spectacularly selfish.
The Light Side is all about the advancement of the community. Communal advancement at the expense of the individual. Again neither good nor evil, just spectacularly uncaring about the individual.
From a societal perspective, the Light Side will of course be seen as Good. Following the Light Sides tenets results in a more stable, prosperous, society and as a consequence results in a generally better life for most people.
Trying to build a society around the Dark Side can never work in the long term. It inherently becomes a society devoted to serving the will of whomever is at its top.
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A Light Sider with attachments is perfectly acceptable. You can marry, raise children, and generally just live a good life while also being an active user of the Light Side.
What makes that situation acceptable is that the Light Sider probably won't face any situations that seriously threaten their fall.
Take Anakin, he could have spent his life on Naboo living with Padme, working on starship design/repair, with his mother living down the street, and raising a couple of kids. He would have been perfectly content, very unlikely to fall, and probably a stabilizing and strengthening presence in his community.
Even if some random pirates decided to attack his family and he used the Force to flay them alive, well he would still probably be just fine and isn't at any great risk of falling to the Dark Side.
But as a Jedi? That's an impossibility.
Every moment he is with Padme and the kids is a moment where he is choosing not to intervene in any of the thousands of situations that could benefit from a Jedi.
Being a Jedi comes with the power, totally ignoring the Force, of life and death on a galactic scale. You are trusted to decide issues of literally cosmic importance.
A Jedi with attachments is a Jedi who can't be trusted to act impartially and so weaken the community as a whole. It is inherently antithetical to the Light Side.
If Anakin insisted on being with Padme, he should have left the Order. But he decided that he wanted the power that came from being a Jedi and wanted Padme; to the detriment of both.
Unfortunately, that is precisely what you do.
Now, I'm perfectly willing to have a debate on:
1. Which fanon we think is the coolest or most sensible or would improve the setting, all in the full understanding that we're purely sharing opinions, and not canonical facts.
2. What's canonically supported, in which case we're going to leave out fanon takes entirely, and assertions will (unfortunately) have to be sourced.
3. What we actually think about "Jedi" as a concept versus "Light-sider", since I do believe that the Jedi only represent one particular tradition, and other approaches obviously exists outside it. (And in the old EU, we see some of them, and we can look at the differences.) I think you and I view this matter differently, but we do agree that "Jedi" is only a specific group within the broader frame of "people on the side of the Light", so we have a starting point for analysis there.
Whichever we might talk about, though, I think it's only reasonably possible to discuss one at a time, instead of wildly jumbling them together.
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