I found this humorous article during my nightly skimming of digg.com.
Ever since I became an anti-state libertarian I’ve sort of despised the Jedi. Not only are they the police force of a Galactic state, but they persecute anyone who uses the force or Jedi weapons without first joining their ranks (not just the Sith, who are rivals for the same power). And it seems as though their primary role is to prevent secession from the Republic.
I guess the Jedi and Sith are both statist really. Do you really think Hollywood would give us a Libertarian option?
The Jedi Council and Sith Lords are both statist. There are a few fringe Jedi like Qui-Gon Jinn and Jolee Bindo that I would consider Libertarian.
While she was, for the great majority of the game, neither Jedi nor Sith, Kreia (of the same series as Jolee Bindo, Knights of the Old Republic) was strangely Objectivist. She believed that aiding others in their struggles should only be done if one wishes to weaken and usurp them by taking on their struggles to increase one’s own strength, and that the best way to truly help a person is to let them fight their own battles.
Also, the Jedi Council cannot be monolithically defined. The Jedi being 25,000 years old, there’s obviously been a lot of ideological variance and restructuring. Even discounting the expanded universe, there’s an undercurrent of Yoda as the most wise and humble member of the Council, being able to take the counsel of less powerful Jedi such as Obi Wan and being able to consider the possibility that his own apprentice has turned to the Dark Side.
The Jedi also seem to be one of the most egalitarian institutions in the Star Wars galaxy. While the Sith doctrines are not explicitlly xenophobic (and there has been the odd alien Sith), both the KOTOR-era Revan/Malak empire and the film-era empire are highly xenophobic and only permit humans to serve in most positions. Whereas even at the highest echelons of the Jedi, you can see a great variety in species.
There’s no getting around the fact that the Jedi are Republic enforcers. The story conveniently leaves out any mention of how they make a living. This makes it easy to portrary them as monk-like. Roddenberry did the same with Star Trek, which he denied the use of money for communist reasons, via replicators and holodecks.
Kreia was awesome.
This I know that the answer to in any kind of practical way. Obviously they were statists, as they worked for the maintenance and defense of the Galactic Republic. But they are largely non-aggressors (notice I say largely), and mostly diplomat/council.
But, what is strikingly clear is the connection between Sith quotes, and Ayn Rand.
Yeah if I have to pick I like the Sith much better.
HAHA I meant to say “this i know not the answer to in any kind of practical way.” Sry for my earlier seeming incomprehendable speech.
Jon, you do know the ultimate goal of the Sith is to subjegate the Galaxy under their rule, right? And then to have the most fit person violently steal that control for them. It is correct that they value a society based on merit, but it matters not to the sith what means were used to accomplish that end. Power is power, and power is good. And if people were meant not to be slaves, they would kill their master… that is the viewpoint of the sith.
Us Jedis would be considered statist. “Centrist” statists, if you will.
Yeah, Jedis are generally Centrists.
A handful of individuals are Libertarian, but most aren’t. Likewise, the Republic is kind of centrist too.
The most libertarian place mentioned in the series, oddly enough, would seem to the Trade Federation and CIS, which is secceding due to high taxes on their trade.
Jon, you do know the ultimate goal of the Sith is to subjegate the Galaxy under their rule, right? And then to have the most fit person violently steal that control for them. It is correct that they value a society based on merit, but it matters not to the sith what means were used to accomplish that end. Power is power, and power is good. And if people were meant not to be slaves, they would kill their master… that is the viewpoint of the sith.
And I still like them better than the dull Jedi.
A bit off topic, but still Star Wars. The Confederacy of Independent Systems at their better moments had some libertarian rhetoric, and they where trying to secede from the Republic. The Trade Federation did start that whole thing in Naboo because of not wanting to pay taxes as well, though I am not sure what they where gaining our of that or what it was supposed to lead to.
I’m no Star Wars expert or anything but…in the story, there is just the force and Jedi and Sith are on two different sides of it. In the prequels, they started trying to add a biological component to the force called “midiclorians” (sp?) but it always sounded like some sort of divine gift to me. The force is God’s energy or whatever and some people are able to tap into it. So it’s not really the Jedi who are statist, it’s the force that guides them to be that way. In the same way, the Sith use the darker side of the force (the demonic side) to become very powerful, but they’re still guided by an unseen hand. In the Star Wars films, there is a tremendous sense of destiny and determinism; Anakin is fated to become dark, Luke is fated to follow the light and kill his father. Whether or not a Jedi might have libertarian leanings seems irrelevant to me, a truly devout Jedi must simply follow the force. If the force says to protect the state, that’s just what the Jedi will do.
I do agree with John though, Sith are way cooler. I mean force lightning and dual lightsabers are awesome.
I guess that’s a good point: if there’s no free will then the idea of the libertarian/authoritarian dichotomy is absurd. But I don’t think that was every really established in the SW Universe; the force sort of led people into a particular destiny but people had the ability to step outside that destiny. Sort of how all but the strictest of predestinarian Christians view the will of God.
Okay, mixing Star Wars lore with theology… this thread is now officially Too Nerdy For Me.
The Public Choice Theory of Star Wars can be found here.
“But I don’t think that was every really established in the SW Universe”
I don’t think it was either, but I always interpreted it that way.
In the original movies, Obi Wan’s self sacrifice/disincorporation and subsequent reappearance as a shade was…very religious-ish to me.
EDIT: As I was working out, I realized that Anakin’s fall from grace is similar to the story of Lucifer.
“The Public Choice Theory of Star Wars can be found here.”
I actually have had a lot of conversations along these lines. Mainly, as I was striving to create a libertarian themed character for a Star Wars rpg. But yeah, i am not sure how anyone could really claim the Jedi are the ‘good’ characters when they are openly duplicitous, and are apologists for the obviously corrupt status quo in the galaxy.
In a certain way, I believe we could see the Jedi doing all they could to defeat the Confederacy and droid armies as a way to hold on to their power. Even if they were betrayed by Palpatine, I would think they Jedi would be afraid of more material progress as it would seem to strongly oppose their semi mystic way of doing things. (I am not really sure how to fit midi-cholreans in or what they ultimatly mean to be honest)
Though, I think a telling line would be from episode IV where the Imperial officer questions Vader and the religion of ‘the Force’. I read that to mean, a great conflict might exist between those positing for more progress through machinery etc. Indeed, we see this prejudice against droids in the cantina and if I remember correctly in some of the expanded universe cloning is banned after the wars.
I don’t think being Sith instantaneously means you are a bad person. Not allowing yourself to be a stoic isn’t a character default. In fact I would consider that part of the corpus that makes you human. Also the Jedi’s are hypocritical in their application of the force. They try to portray themselves as honorable defenders who only use the force for defense and meditation and yet was anyone saying ‘You can’t do that!’ when Master Jin was mind tricking Jar Jar’s king? Or when he was trying to mind trick young Skywalker’s boss? Or use the force to win the chance roll that allowed him to win young Skywalker? Or, and this may seem benign but, use the force to open doors? It makes the force look like a parlor trick. To use it on something so petty as to open a door.
This is a good topic though. I can’t wait till SWTOR! (Star Wars: The Old Republic)