How Everyone Misunderstands The Force in Star Wars

friends romans countrymen lend me your ears my name is american ben and i come to bury your notions of the force not to praise them not really here's the deal with today's video i've had this script lying around for a while i think i wrote it about a year ago in a bit of a spontaneous fuhrer amidst my daily ponderings i somehow got to thinking about the nature of the force in star wars and so i hastily wrote my thoughts down before i could be slipped of them however about three quarters of the way through putting my thoughts to word document the script in progress began to feel a little bit long and unwieldy its focus wasn't narrow enough and much of its exposition needed refining which was rather hard to attempt after my passion for the subject matter had petered out yeah my mind is a hell of an add tinged thrill ride thus i abandoned my plans for this video but the other day i had a sudden urge to revisit the unfinished script and when i did i determined that while yeah a lot of the thinking it contains is raw and perhaps not reflective of my current views it also does possess some ideas worth sharing and exploring and so i spent a little while touching it up and said hey let's just put it out there i don't feel like writing a whole new script today anyway aka the real reason an unwanted script sometimes ends up making it into production at this point in my life i really don't like to put thoughts out there which i haven't carefully considered i'd rather just say nothing but alas i'm gonna do so this one time what i ask of you is that if possible don't just sit there with your eyes glued to the screen for the course of the video i'd prefer this one to be digested while comfortable sit back turn off the lights or close your eyes and try to listen closely because we're gonna touch on many broad and complicated ideas which i'm not sure i've taken the requisite time to hash out as clearly as possible i will try to speak in a well-paced and pleasing manner though you should already be thankful i'm hiding my hideous visage from you without further ado let's begin today's video light dark good old georgie boy couldn't really have made it any easier for us could he organic life sundered by the call of opposing moral ethics turn to the light and embrace humanity goodness reason turn to the dark and entreat power evil emotion be thy captor with every choice the inhabitants of the universe move in one direction or another on a spectrum composed of the living force on one end the dark side on the other the light and the living force that essence of life together with the whole of the universe amalgamates into the cosmic force that which connects everything the light the dark the in between i'm not entirely sure that when george lucas first of his name father of the green one doomsday prophesizer devised the story of the galaxy that he intended the idea of the force to be interpreted with more than a passing thought let alone a thorough examination that said the world he built allows for us to perform a rather deep exegesis one that extrapolates the philosophy beyond perhaps what lucas intended to be gleaned from his work for the thoughts that humans share contain within them meanings beyond their original purpose observations or assumptions about reality are endemic to almost every idea and the force is no different and so today i seek to explain the force from my perspective what does it mean to be of the light side or the dark i'd propose somewhat broadly that this spectrum of energy and the distribution of justice on it is more complicated than is oft suggested that said i want to make it very clear that this video is going to feature a somewhat reductive argument you may be inclined to call it an extensive analysis but the truth is that every question i raise in this video allows for a further line of questioning that could continue for hour upon hour and furthermore this very video is acutely flawed because i'm performing its narrative alone sans disputation and so i ask that at the end of the video while grappling with the concepts i present here in that you ask the most challenging questions possible so that a purer version of knowledge may emerge beyond the scope of my exposition now we must begin this conversation by talking about emotion i think we like to assume that the dark side is defined by what we typically call negative emotions and that the light side is defined by what we would then label positive emotions the dark is consumed with hate and anger and the light filled with love and compassion and it doesn't help that canonical evidence has advanced this idea to some degree search your feelings father you can't do this i feel the conflict within you let go of your hate but despite there being proof that emotions are divided between light and dark in the tangible way i just suggested i assert this evidence to be contradictory to the larger truth which is that the dark side has monopoly over emotion whether positive or negative love and hate are both elements of the dark side as we know the dark side encourages its adherents to embrace their anger release your anger only your hatred can destroy me the most obvious emotional manipulation the dark side engages in revolves around anger fear and hate but the dark side also uses love as a tool and one may say even joy we tend to think of emotions as distinct because we assign individual feelings different words but the truth is that they are all related chemically speaking and all can be destructive and constructive in a similar way anakin loved his mother so very much his love led to fear fear of the pain that would come where his mother hurt and fear thus led to anger at the sight of his dying mother who had been tortured by the tuscan raiders anger then led to hate and hate led to a thirst for vengeance which led to violence as anakin slew the raiders it's much more appropriate to say that the dark side encourages an embrace of all emotion and that dark side urges exist within us all we are all vulnerable to giving into our emotions and to acting without restraint because of any given emotion now why does the dark side embrace emotion well my first impulse is to say that they want people to overcome reason and thus act irrationally however after a bit of thought i'm not so sure we can say that both followers of the light and dark don't exercise reason at times or perhaps even at all times i think the safest play i can make in this regard is to say that the dark side embraces emotion because it is a tool that can spur someone to passion and to act on such passion in the case of the sith their aim would be to advance a stranglehold over the denizens of the galaxy by encouraging their followers to conquer all the worlds across it something that'd be awfully hard to do with a bunch of emotionless dispassionate leaders of course encouraging indulgence and emotion only makes an adherence emotions more intense as one allows for their emotions to control them they become more attached to the things from which they derive specific emotions anakin loved padme he feared her pretended death as he embraced love so too did his love grow thus his fear grew and so too did his desperation to save her grow and the result is that he was more willing to open his heart to the ways of the dark side this initiated a cycle whereby he became even more beholden to his emotions and to extreme action in order to quell his intensity emotions he could actually save people from death the dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural we can see this dynamic play out in our world as well it's not hard to think of examples of people going to extremes for love a person will often become attached to someone else through the cultivation of love for that person this cultivation leads to greater attachment which leads to greater anger and pain due to the inevitable suffering the loved person faces in life if anakin had not given in to love he might have remained strong with the light side of the force at the expense of padme after all he almost did this during the clone wars he left her behind for the sake of the larger mission it's the dark side that says no no you can save the people you love if you give in to us give yourself to the dark side it is the only way you can save your friends this is a manipulation of emotion and attachment the vanguards of the light on the other hand do not say embrace love the jedi code is most typically recorded as follows there is no emotion there is peace there is no ignorance there is knowledge there is no passion there is serenity there is no chaos there is harmony there is no death there is the force the crux of the lightside's credo is to reject emotional attachment especially to the material world that one might avoid rash action even if rash action mind you would be reasonable the light side wants that one will not seek power or vengeance or any end that is proposed by one's council of emotions actually one reading of their code implies that it kind of just advocates for inaction and restraint though i have to be careful here because defining inaction is difficult i'm perhaps just better off saying that the jedi code promotes the avoidance of rash action or aggressive action rather than inaction the jedi those who we perhaps could call the vanguards of the light ideally do not get angry about suffering and injustice they do not seek vengeance simply because of a wrong done to a loved one there is no such claim on the side of the light that an adherent will not experience pain or loss or inequity a jedi must divorce himself from his passion i think that this is where many would say okay but a jedi must also choose his actions according to what is best for all and that there is a distinctly utilitarian ethic to the jedi but what's to say that there's no utilitarian agenda to the empire there may not be given the lust for power displayed by its heads of state but one could make an argument that the galaxy is better organized under the empire and thus despite all of its tyranny ultimately everyone ends up better off than they would have been under the republic and that this end is the aim of dark side leaders if the difference between dark side rule and light side rule is the difference between existence versus extinction then really any rule or policy that advances the former can be justified so the jedi may tell you that they choose their actions based on principles which will supposedly lead to the best outcomes for the most people but everyone would probably claim this to me the more tried and tested statement is to simply say that the jedi and by extension the light side at least in theory are more about just letting things be the jedi accept that life is filled with all sorts of experiences both pleasurable and not in ancient times there existed in the galaxy a group known as the anchorite sect the anchorites were affiliated with the jedi order and they believed that suffering was the basis of life and in a way embraced pain a revered anchorite leader named kolob actually operated an orphanage on jakku and treated the orphans there harshly in order to convey this message to them that the essence of life is suffering now i don't pretend that the anchor rights are representative of the views of the majority of the jedi but this historical note does demonstrate the idea that there is a certain promotion of self-sacrifice and persistence through pain inherent to the lightside mentality meanwhile the dark side says no never suffer do anything you have to to avoid pain think of how this informs the behaviors of either side the light almost seems to operate with the mentality that the rewards for suffering come some time after mortal life thus restrain yourself be stoic in the face of adversity for there is much to gain beyond this world 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 on the other hand the dark side says no no life itself must be good thus you must fix things now so that physical life is enjoyable there is a deeper thought here too the jedi are acutely aware of the impermanence of life and because of this impermanence everything that takes place within life is thus rather trivial and the implications of any certain action including wrongdoings are much less significant this is really why yoda says thing fear is the path to the dark side fear leads to anger anger leads to hate hate leads to suffering the end result of attachment is suffering enlightenment about the smallness of material life is a release from suffering because all of the experiences that cause pain become unimportant given such a philosophy one that includes a belief in the afterlife it's hard to watch padme crumble under anakin's turn to madness here was this caring decent person who watched powerlessly as the man she loved slipped away into the darkness yes anakin embraced the dark side but in a way so too did padme as she let her emotions take control of her now i don't belittle her struggle at all actually on the contrary i acknowledge how tragic it was an innocent soul betrothed to pain by a universe indifferent to her suffering and oh how she suffered until her untimely death which came to pass without her loved one by her side the experience of helplessly watching a loved one's mind deteriorate is a peerless agony that so many have lived through and yet the light side of the force advises that had padme not been so subject to her emotion namely fear and love she would not have suffered so train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose with no attachment the universe has no course by which it may deliver upon a being within it the common pangs of life another way in which we can think about the light side versus dark side dynamic is by suggesting that the light side is not compatible with survival rather it's compatible with salvation no longer certain that one ever does win a war i am for in fighting the battles the bloodshed already lost we have the jedi appeal to the idea that there is a higher call for those of their order that restraint is a philosophy transcendent of one's animalistic tendencies bearing the brutality of the world without responding with brutality is virtuous obi-wan died rather willingly for the sake of the republic the light side does not enhance one's safety or provide that its adherence should prosper rather in promoting the rejection of attachment and thus embracing stoicism in the face of transgressions against one's own person the follower of the light actually endangers himself kylo ren died not long after his shift to the light side where had he continued to embrace his anger he might have been all the more powerful and well protected to answer power with power the jedi way this is not in this war a danger there is of losing who we are the jedi are willing to pay the price for not giving themselves to the power of the dark side and thus we must again ask is there philosophy one that is compatible with survival on the other hand the dark side very much believes in crushing one's enemies can it be done he will join us or die master it's interesting that in star wars we almost always see dark side leaders opt for authoritarian rule and draconian policies when they come to power i mean being that the dark side is the purveyor of all emotions love hate and so on one would think that at times they would produce an overly benevolent society rather than a tyrannical one the implication here based on star wars history is that somehow emotion of any sort always tends towards authoritarian rule but why well here's a way to explain this dynamic since those adhering to the dark side believe in the importance of material life and have many attachments therein a thought process which again necessitates action they must destroy those who threaten them in order to best guarantee their survival and what is the best way to crush one's enemies and secure one's subsistence well sith leaders would probably say it's to dominate the masses of course an attachment to the material necessarily requires that one should seek authoritarian rule in order to most efficiently exercise power according to one's own personal interests that no person may enact a law that would go against one's interests in the material world or have the means by which to attack and kill such a person an emphasis on some sort of higher plane of existence allows lightside users to risk their survival at times not act and put their destiny in the hands of others thus the republic now of course in reality there are very real advantages to republic and numerous pitfalls to authoritarian rule namely a lack of criticism without which unchecked ruling bodies could fall to error however darkseid leaders such as palpatine have staggering self-confidence in their ability to wield power competently an arrogance born out of necessity for as i just described they also can't afford to endow anyone else with much in the way of equal authority since dark side adherents are so committed to their material attachments and by way of their material attachments to their material self-interest as opposed to eternal self-interest allah heavenly salvation the dark side is thus attuned to the power of emotion which grows within all people as a result of attachment and thus darkseid followers become suspicious of people because they know what emotion is capable of making them do thus one must use whatever institutions laws and violence necessary to quell the threat that the individual presents the time has come execute order 66. i want you to eliminate the idea of evil and good for a second dark side thought leads its followers to see despotic rule as a practical form of government to them violence is a tool that must be used to achieve survival and maintain power lest other angry envious people behold into emotion should attempt to usurp the throne or galactic life on the other hand those on the light side are much more optimistic about people we must keep our faith in the republic the day we stop believing democracy can work is the day we lose it but why well it's hard to make generalizations about all people on the light side that kind of encompasses a large group but at least when it comes to the jedi i don't think that they trust people due directly to some bylaw in their code i think their code simply leaves them neutral in respect to their philosophy about people for instance to me the reason the jedi opt for republican government is because they can afford to give people a stake in ruling bodies being that the jedi are theoretically undesirous of power or even complete security they don't seek to rid existence of all threats that come their way because they have no attachments to physical life now i want to talk about power versus restraint some more the question between the light and dark is fundamentally a question about how to wield power dark side followers seek ultimate power [Music] those of the dark side pursue the utmost potential of power as a means to fulfill their unlimited emotions an embrace of anger and hate naturally leads to an embrace of power as a weapon against those who cause such emotions when beholden to emotion power is simply too tempting to reject because the intensity of steady motions makes one insecure and therefore fearful vengeful and paranoid to the point of madness a madness which can only be assuaged through the accumulation of more and more control over one's surroundings aka power the jedi do the harder thing they restrain themselves from using power in certain ways they avoid the trappings of security dilemmas by simply unilaterally rejecting the pursuit of unlimited power in doing so they put themselves at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the dark side whose adherents are willing to use power however they must to achieve their goals your female skills are no match for the power of a dark side [Music] the light side's detachment from the material world allows them once again to sacrifice worldly leverage for the sake of higher power so a rather difficult question now arises in the mind of the astute thinker if lightside adherents are taught to be restrained and not concern themselves with the trying affairs of life then why do they ever fight why fight the dark side why not just let oneself become enslaved after all a jedi must attach himself from the importance of material life well to me the answer is this yeah that's a good point however the jedi and practice don't only engage in the light they do engage in the dark they do experience attachment to their fleshly abodes you were my brother anakin i loved you they are subject to love and all emotion they don't reach their ideal state of being because it's a bit extreme and runs counter to human impulse more specifically their code is a bit nonsensical if you recall one line from it reads there is no emotion there is peace and another reads there is no chaos there is harmony but what happens when there isn't peace or harmony well then they have to attempt to restore what's missing and how do they restore it well through action even violent action if necessary which of course makes them break from their commitment to restraint to not answer power with power and to train themselves to let go of everything they fear to lose the desire for peace should be one of those things they're willing to let go of even if the code contains a deeper meaning than what i'm inferring and doesn't intend to suggest that there isn't literally no chaos or emotion in reality all it takes is one adherence misinterpretation of this confusing mantra for things to go awry thus in part because of the trouble with the wording of their code the jedi end up doing things like assigning anakin the task of spying on chancellor palpatine something that anakin felt went against the jedi code indeed i'm not sure a strict reading of the code allows for such a mission to be carried out however the jedi ordered it to be fulfilled anyway because there's a practicality to them and it's the jedi themselves who at times bolster the forces of dark by betraying their code the jedi made anakin less inclined to buy into the code's legitimacy to believe in it and it thus became easier for him to shift to the dark side having lost his faith in the sincerity of the lightside gospel i have to admit my trust in them has been shaken why they asked you to do something that made you feel dishonest didn't i or what about when luke tried to kill ben solo he would probably claim that ben was a bad apple but did his very actions here not provide the means for darkseid advocates to pull ben towards their ways furthermore was luke on the light side of the dark side when he did this was he acting according to the dark by giving into his fear or in line with the light by very reasonably believing that removing a potential danger from the galaxy would benefit the life within it i suppose the affiliation of some actions are unclear this is the true balance in the force the force is spectral and everyone has a mix of light and dark within if you're not with me then you're my enemy only a sith deals in absolutes this is one of the most revelatory quotes in star wars why well of course because the idea contained within the line is an absolute clearly the jedi also deal in absolutes everyone does at times but the important point here is that perhaps the jedi aren't as dedicated to the ways of the light as they think they are moreover the battle between light and dark doesn't only take place between one person or party and another it takes place within every individual unto eternity society yes the republic too is awash in both dark and light forces and the balance between the two prevents a complete embrace of either side and the extreme outcomes that would result given an absolute victory for light or dark it's easy to imagine a world overrun by dark side thinking but what about one ruled over by absolutist light side forces adventure excitement hey jedi craves not these things there'd be no ambition no selfishness no ego no emotion no desires and none of the progress invention and enjoyment that comes with such things we'd all just be sitting in the grass and meditating and hey maybe that's desirable considering what you believe to be the overarching purpose for life but if part of that purpose is technological achievement interstellar travel and overcoming the inevitability of death and well i can't advise you to support an absolutely light side world so then american ben are you saying that there are no heroes or villains in the galaxy that there is no right and wrong well no though i'm not making any assured conclusions in that regard because i'd prefer to save that conversation for another video that said my first instinct would be to say that yes luke and the jedi are the good guys in star wars fine however this is not because the dark side philosophy has no merit it's more so because the struggle between the light side and dark is a reflection of an ever-changing dynamic the jedi are good in star wars because in the time it story takes place the power balance favors the dark side whose forces wield incredible power if that power balance were to shift too far to the light though surely the adherence of the dark side could become the forces of good it'd be rather nonsensical for someone to declare themselves of one static political philosophy no matter the time place or circumstance one's politics should ideally shift in relation to one's surroundings if the government is too big and powerful then one should perhaps support divesting its power back to the people and cutting down the bureaucracy if the government is too small and weak then perhaps one should support bulking it up in order to maintain the fabric of the kingdom of course projecting how events will unfold and power will shift moving forward also should factor into one's leanings now this may be a pretty simplistic summation of how to form a political philosophy but i think it does enough to highlight how both dark and light could be just causes in different settings [Music] i'll never turn to the dark side you failed your highness i am a jedi so was luke thus unwise here to avere that he'd never turn to the dark no matter what well no because i think what he actually meant to say is i'll never embrace the dark side in the extreme way that you and other sith lords do palpatine clearly there were times when luke 2 struggled with anger rage and other dark side sentiments and those of you who know star wars lore may of course also be aware that there is a historical basis for the claims i'm making about the force specifically in regards to both sides being necessary to cultivate the precursor to the jedi order an ancient organization known as the jedi order native to the planet tython located in the galaxy's deep core espoused a much more balanced philosophy of the force its members literally practiced both sides of it the jedi viewed the force as three aspects of a whole the ashla aka the light the bogon aka the dark and the bendu aka balance this philosophy was derived somewhat naturally from observing two moons which orbited tithe on one the eponymous ashla which was covered in light and the other the eponymous bogan which was blanketed in darkness the jedi believed that members of their order who veered too far towards either the light or dark had gone astray and thus exiled such adherence to the moon opposite of their leaning to meditate until they returned to balance i really appreciate this aspect of star wars lore i am very intrigued by the idea that the philosophy of the jedi we've come to know and love was a distortion of the original tenets of the jedi order whose code was much different than the jedi's quote there is no ignorance there is knowledge there is no fear there is power i am the heart of the force i am the revealing fire of light i am the mystery of darkness in balance with chaos and harmony immortal in the force end quote this is a much more balanced and thoughtful philosophy than is preached by yoda's jedi whose code is merely a corruption of the jedi's teachings as beings of all disciplines corrupt things over time now this is not to say that yoda was ignorant unwise or unaware of his own shortcomings rather he simply wasn't an omniscient being he was no god he was a flawed creature and though he might have intended that only good things should come to pass they didn't partly because of his and other jedi's mistakes obi-wan kenobi was also a flawed creature of course luke you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view perhaps yoda nobi one's most important quality was that they were insightful they knew they didn't know everything and that at times good intentions can lead to bad outcomes because living beings are incapable of immaculate foresight or rather absolutely good outcomes are possibly impossible i think yoda and obi-wan knew what i've basically been saying in this video that the forces of light served a simple purpose to balance those of the dark but were the galaxy overrun in lightness the result wouldn't necessarily be conducive to bliss or to producing the outcomes that beings desire in fact it's at such a point that a push towards the dark may be necessary yoda and obi-wan fought not to win but to balance the force anyway that's the video i hope you enjoyed it please give it a big thumbs up if you did now being that star wars isn't my forte in the comments section of this video i'd really appreciate it if y'all would offer up some historical context to either refute my points or support them and i look forward to what you have to say down there anyway do subscribe to this channel if you haven't already and hit that notification bell so you don't miss a damn thing for now my name is american ben i'll catch you next time generation films peace

Channel: Generation Films

Views: 63,028

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Id: JM_iUAu3rJM

Length: 31min 23sec (1883 seconds)

Published: Tue May 11 2021