I was as disapointed as yourself with this movie.

However I felt I had to step in when you mentioned the Force. In the expand universe of Star Wars (ie the books) your question is addressed 'by the jedi'.

I thought you might like to know that through the acts of the new Generation of Jedi, it is discovered that the force has no 'dark and 'light' sides. It is instead mearly a tool that people use for good and evil. Amplifying their emotions and not creating them.

I thought is was a good philisophical move for the authors of the Star Wars universe. It made the whole thing more real in my opinion.

Just thought i would tell you.

And yes the movie was poor.

Posted by: Adam on April 24, 2005 04:47 AM

The idea of the Force having both "light" and "dark" sides is in itself, fallacious, as you said. The Force is obviously representative of the god of pantheism. An impersonal force that somehow binds everything and everyone together, humans, animals, plants, rocks, everything. But at the same time its also representative of another Eastern religious tradition, the idea of Dualism. Dualism is, "the name . . . used to denote the religious or theological system which would explain the universe as the outcome of two eternally opposed and coexisting principles, conceived as good and evil, light and darkness, or some other form of conflicting powers". However, this only further illustrates the various problems inherent in Eastern philosophy, and provides more evidence for the superiourity of Western thought and philosophy. Once again, the Eastern philosophers of antiquity seemed to have avoided the problem of perception, namely that if good and evil are two opposite yet equally powerful or "valid" powers, then there is no way to disinguish one as superior to the other. "Good" and "Evil" lose all meaning, and serve only as descriptions for two equally valid life choices. What does it matter if I choose to be good or evil, when both and good and evil are philosophically the same? Its sort of like choosing a favorite color. If I choose blue or red as my color of choice it doesn't really matter. One is not somehow superior than the other, even if most people like red and I like blue. Under a dualistic system of thought, I could choose to murder your grandmother, and yes, you and society might decide to take retribution for that act, but you would have no solid moral ground for doing so, because an act of pure evil, such as murder, is morally no different than an act of pure good, such as sacrifice. In fact, under Dualistic thought, any act of retribution against an act of evil would be, perhaps, immoral, equalivalent to oppression based on any other difference of physical or spiritual character. The good man punishing the evil man for being evil would be equivalent to the white man punishing the black man for being black, or the skinny man punishing the fat man for being overweight.

Of course, all of the above also doesn't factor in the ability of one to define good and evil without some firm "moral yard stick" with which to measure. A Judeo-Christian/Western philosophy allows that measuring stick precisly because "Good" is superior to "Evil". God is defined as intrisicly good. His nature is pure goodness, and we come to our conclusions about evil by measuring actions, literally, agaisnt "What Would God Do?", or "What Would God Think?". Evil, in Judeo-Christian tradition, is purely and simply anything that is "anti-God". Satan is evil, not because he has always existed as evil, but because he was once good, aka "God-like" and then rebeled against "good" itself, namely, God.

This all comes down, I think, to what I consider the perfect illustration of the fallacy of Eastern philosophy. Somewhere I remember reading an account of a certain theologian who happened to be in a classroom where the proffessor was discussing Eastern philosophy and how it was superior to Western philosophy. It boiled down to this: Eastern philosophy is based off of the idea of both/and, both black and white, both good and evil, one is no better than the other; while Western philosophy is based off of the idea of either/or, either good or evil, either black or white, one is superior to, or more important than, the other. The proffessors mistake, and the mistake that has to be made by all proponents of the superiority of Eastern philosophy, is that to propose one is better than the other is actually USING Western philosophy to prove your point. In other words, you are using the either/or statement to prove the superiority of the both/and statement. Its very similar to a relativist stating that there are no absolutes, which is itself an absolute. After pointing this out the proffessor, the man relating the story gave him this illustration, and I'm paraphrasing here, "When crossing the street, its either me or the bus, its not both of us."

Posted by: NotTroy on June 8, 2005 03:55 PM