What's so bad about the dark side anyway?

[Darth Mortis]

Since Nazi has dark overtones I though it was better to go into some detail to explain (or try to) that it meant different things to different people-not every Nazi in Germany would have agreed with everything the Nazi party said or did, most would have been Nazi's only in a very vague way and many were truely horrifyed at what the Nazi's had done in their name. Otherwise it would be easy to mis-read things to mean that you were defending everything they did, or at least not saying that they were really all that bad.

 

Yes, there were evil people in Hitlers Germany who clung onto power by any means nessasary, and it would be hard to argue that those who decided on the deliberate killing of several million people basied purely on religious and race issues was anthing but an evil act. But it would be wrong to say that everyone who was a Nazi, or who was part of that party, was evil because of the actions and decisions of a few. Rommel might well have been a member of the Nazi party, but that didn't mean that he was evil-in fact I don't think anyone has ever called him a Nazi general, but a German general since that appears to be where his loyaties ultimatly lay.

Edited July 24, 2007 by Darth Mortis

[Barzarel]

Barzarel can't you just understand that you CAN NOT USE HISTORY OF ETHICS AND CULTURES OF REAL WORLD AS ARGUMENTS in Star Wars world goddamnitchristsakes!

 

Okay then in the starwars perspective do you think the old republic would been a better place if Windu Mace had killed the Emperor and taken control of the senate in the name of the Jedi order to secure peace, Had Anakin Skywalker not stopped him, i somehow strongly doubt it i think it would been just as bad as the Sith just in another manner, it would been a controlled society and policed one.

 

Before you knew it youd likely have emotional police around making sure we all had sterile emotion clean and white, every organization that pure good or evil are the worst kind ever to exist they the one that create wars and tear societies to pieces breaking people into group deciding who is good and evil who belongs and who dont, best kind of peace if the neutrals where people arent put into flock or pushed to any directions or forced influenced.

 

I know what most would say good never create evil, and yes they do they make things so white that people that were initially grey starts wondering i am not white enough maybe i just dont fit in and eventually grow depressions and all sort of dark things inside till the manage to convince themselves its true.

 

The once that always make trouble and wars are always the extremes of either, because they so busy invading others minds and thinking and judging everyone and boxing people into catagories.

 

While most good or white do have general honest intention its mostly when everyone is somewhat neutral we can all get along and in peace, because we all different and mostly in big ways and you cant just fit people into boxes and not exspect them not to be robots or rebel against it.

 

Imagine the repulbic having only 1 view point then there would been a billion wars if it was jedi or Sith it would been the same hell created.

 

Its people who force people into extreme thinking that create evil if or not its with purpose.

Edited July 24, 2007 by Barzarel

[DeathScepter]

No the lack of individuality and wisdom that causes evil

[DarthBane]

The dark side is much more complex then people think. When people see a sith they say bad guy and when they see a jedi they say good guy. However, anyone who has lived knows the world is not black and white, but grey. Some previous post stated sith are evil bc they torture and destroy planets. My question is who the hell are you to determine what is evil and whats not. Good and evil are subjective, what I may think is wrong another might see as fine. The sith have values of good and evil to. For them it is evil to turn your back on power and evil to show weakness. Although we can agree morality has importance we can agree that one who has no moral bounds has reached the ultimate freedom. Imagine being in a position where you could kill without consequence. Although we dont advocate killing the point is you have the option with no consequence making you truely free. The sith strive for this freedom through the force, and you can derive this from the code its self which states through the force my chains will be broken. Did palpatine not have the ultimate freedom? The universe was at his grasp and anything he felt like doing could be done without fear of retribution from politicians, jedi etc. I suggest the simpletons who say sith=bad jedi=good should read a famous philisophical piece of literature called Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

[Darth Mortis]

Power might give you freedom, in so far that you can do more or less what you want, but (ironically) it also shackles people. From a SW (and some degree a real world prospective) the more power you have the more you become obsessed with having and getting power. This in turn means that you stop being free (in so far as you can decide what actions you do or don't take) and instead become bound into serving your power.

 

Take money in the real world. If you have enough money you have a great deal of freedom and power, but by the same token people who already have shed loads of money are rarely satisfyed with what they have, and are for the most part are obsessed to a greater or lesser degree with holding on to the money they have and making more-this is why there are tax havens scattered around the world and why people go to great lengths to avoid paying taxes.

 

Palpatine in SW is along the same lines-as have been almost all of the Sith Lords seen so far-in that they were always looking for ways to increase their power. Sith, or at least Palpatine, had another limitation in where their power came from. Palpatines power was never totally inherant in the force, it came from politics which in turn came from scareing the living daylights out of people so they would give him the power over them he craved. The problem with this is that in order to maintain that power he had to constantly make sure that there was a threat that he could use to scare people with-setting himself up as the solution. The threats he has, so far, been seen to use seem to have been;

 

Corruption in the senate; Palpatine worked things so that corruption in the senate was seen to be crippling the Republics and he was the solution for this. This was how he got elected as Chancaller.

 

The Clone wars; Giving a very real threat, in the form of an invading army, speaks for itself.

 

The Jedi; painting the Jedi as bad guys that intended to take over the Republic. It is Ironic that this is, in fact, exactly what the Jedi had planned to some degree.

 

Aliens/non-humans/droids; Painted as evil-or at least 'are up to something'. Probably a side effect (a useful one though) from the Clone wars, since the Republic was fighting non-humans and droids.

 

The Rebel Alliance; much the same as the threat from an invading army.

 

In all cases-and even in the EU and with the Death Stars-Palpatines rule and power was basied on fear. Fear of what would happen if he wasn't around, or fear of what he could do if he saw you as a threat. But in order to maintain this power he constantly had to look around and find threats, or make them, which in turn means that to some degree his actions were not 'free' but constrained by what was needed to keep power.

[DarthBane]

I understand what your saying. In essence most sith become a slave to power. However a true sith would control the power and not let the power control them which has happened to most sith. Palpatine is a bad example for me to use bc he was a slave to his own power. To my knowledge there has yet to be a sith whom understands this concept. What I meant to say was the ideal sith would not display these weaknesses. A fun thought to contemplate is if Luke had turned to the dark side would his knowledge and skills go with him making him the sith'ari. "One who has freed themselves from all restrictions has reached perfection, their potential fulfilled. Perfect strength, perfect power, perfect destiny. Imagine it."

[Musopticon?]

Yeah and Yuthura later gave it all up because she finally saw compassion and friendship. Empathy, as it is.

 

 

And as to who the hell I am to call the shots concerning dark side. Well, the simplest answer: a human being, socially versed, decently educated and empathically able. That's all I need to be to tell that Sith are nothing but evil. Hunger for power is not complexity, living for passion may very well award one it incredible inspiration and even love, but it's not like those notions last. You are, afterall, bent on acquiring even more power.

 

And once again, this is Star Wars, a setting that prides itself on being nothing but good and evil, light and darkness, a universe of opposites. Bringing real world's values, thinkers and philosophers to play just doesn't register here. You can throw them around as much as you want, but it won't change the fact that every Sith so far has been a complete bastard. It's the setting, the universe, there's just no place for morally and ethically grey characters.

 

Not to mention, Nietchsze was a product of his time. Post-war ennui, absolutely brooding zeitgeist and living among a people whose identity was built on regret and loss of spirit. It's hard to find other people than nihilists and niche-goths who agree with his deduction of human psyche anymore(though it is influental, just not relevant unless refined and taken further by more recent thinkers), not to mention value those thoughts in actual human encounters. I say you are the simpleton for not seeing the issue as what it is: A person that has forfitted the rules of society may very well be the most free, but he's also an outcast, socially deviant and possibly psychopathic. Humans aren't build for that, we are social and ethical creatures and nihilists tend to either become hermits, grow up or go ape**** over their neighbours or next of kin. Is a human outside of society really a human? More like a beast, I think. You can call is ascendance to

Edited August 2, 2007 by Musopticon?

[Rosbjerg]

Edit: I feel like I'm rewriting the same post a the third time, just that this time it's in "pretentious bibliophile"-mode.

 

I'm sooo in to you!

 

 

But yeah Mus?, problem with discussing morality in a fictional universe is that you tend to draw in the moderen philosophies and theories - I do however think it could be relevant to view the dominant theories of the time GL wrote SW - to get a better understanding of the background of his particular morale/ethical cobnstruct.

 

When did he write it?

[Sturm]

I'm reporting you to the moderator for incoherent posts!

[Musopticon?]

Around the 70's, possibly. Beats me what were the dominant readings into human morality back then(I can do to the research if no one else is arsed enough), but supposedly he based a lot of the ideas on buddhism. Purity of Force, samurai ethics or bushido(which itself is based on buddhism) and harsh ethical code are all from there.

[Tale]

Morality is too abstract for me to contribute to this thread in any serious fashion. Without bringing religion into it, morality is entirely subjective and I'm sure I'd fall under the banner of moral relativist. Or just plain evil.

 

All I'm saying is that if everything else on the planet disappeared except for me, a couple of babies, and a grill, I know what I'd do.

[Darth Mortis]

Starwars was written, and rewritten several times from the early 70's/let 60's onwards. I *think* that the whole lightside of the force, and the Jedi pholosphy was one of the first things that he wrote-a friend of his once advised GL to stop writing the film and just start his own religion basied on the Jedi/force connection.

 

Given the period when Starwars was written (and the over view of all the startwars periods was written at the same time) the main influences on GL would have been the Vietnam war and Watergate. In fact GL has admitted that many of the aspects of 'evil' in starwars-at least in relation to the political side-were based on Watergate and Nixon, something that he pointed out when he was accused of being anti-George Bush/war on terror when Revenge of the Sith came out.

[Musopticon?]

Ok, thanks.

[Rosbjerg]

a friend of his once advised GL to stop writing the film and just start his own religion basied on the Jedi/force connection.

 

Just think how close we were to another Scientology-ish religion right there!

[Sturm]

Worst religion ever.

[Darth Mortis]

It would have been better than most of the stuff knocking around the US West Coast at that time.

[Sturm]

Luckly I dont live there.