Believe in the Jedi, we must!

Jedi are cool, I think you’ll agree. They’re righteous, they’re deep, and they get to wear robes and wield lightsabers (how much cooler does it get?). They are also systematically wrong. The one question I’d love to ask George Lucas if I ever chance upon him: why are Jedi always wrong? Is it a deliberate part of the script? Qui-Gon Jinn tells a young Obi-Wan to ignore his elusive “bad feeling” and to keep his concentration on here and now, where it belongs (whereas, indeed, something else is happening — and all the subsequent films will deal with what). Qui-Gon then forcasts that “these Federation types are cowards. The negotiations will be short.” The entire episode I is about showing him wrong — and indeed killing him in the process.

Qui-Gon also defies the council, choosing to train Anakin in the face of his colleagues’ misgivings. He believes that Anakin is the “chosen one” who will bring balance to the Force and… we know how that turns out (he does in a way, by destroying the Jedi, and then killing the emperor, an “ultra-solution” à la Watzlawick if ever there was one). Of course, both Obi-Wan’s ghost and Yoda argue that Luke should abandon his friends to complete his training, and thankfully he doesn’t. And so on… Is this a deliberate part of the Lucas’ creative universe or an accident of writing?

And why should it matter?

Lucas has most skillfully described that the fragility of democracies is not external threat, but internal rot. Palpatine cynically stokes the fires of war to frighten the corrupt senate into giving him increasing powers — does that sound familiar? The chancellor creates both the enemy — the separatists — and the army to fight it. In this, George Lucas presciently described what our governments have been doing for years: arming and training the very fighters who later come back and terrorize us with random, savage, senseless violence.

Unjustifiable and lunatic as they are, acts of terror are claimed to be a response to military strikes by democratic governments in what turns out to be very undemocratic foreign policies — no one ever tells us who we’re fighting, why and how targets are picked. And fear, stoked by the absurd racism and general hatred of the Far Right opens the way to more government control. Military rhetoric diverts from the very real intelligence and police screw-ups that surface after each attack. The real questions of how many specific forces and means are made to track criminals as opposed to blanket power to restrict liberties is never asked.

As Lucas’ dialogue says: “the day we stop believing democracy can work is the day we lose it.”

As a result, we feel angry, afraid and powerless. What are we to do? You and I? We’re powerless to prevent another attack or to protect our close ones — the very random nature of these attacks make any personal strategy foolish: how long can you keep cloistered in your home and not lose the very lifestyle that is targeted? We’re powerless to influence governments because these questions are never asked, and those in the know are quick to close ranks — go back to sleep, children, let the grown-ups make the decisions. Greater government control is the one issue on both the Right and the Left will agree. Question this, and face being accused of siding with the enemy, of weakening the resolve at times when we need to be united and strong. Indeed, there is merit in this argument, no matter how crazy, which increased our confusion and furthers our feeling that it is all out of our hands.

What, then, can we possibly do? Without any power to directly influence events?

We can be resilient. We can stay calm. We can choose not to participate to the mass hysteria leading to the darker side of nationalism. As Yoda advises Luke when he asks about how to recognize the Dark Side: “You will know when you are calm, at peace. Passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never attack.” And we can seek to know our Force, whether God, Dharma, or any mystical energy in which we believe in, the expression of our wish to be better — better to ourselves, to the people around us and to what we touch and do.

As a writer, I admire the cleverness of the Jedi. Not only are they often wrong, but their powers are paltry. Compared to any other superhero, what can they do? Jump a bit higher? Influence a bit more? The strongest of them can levitate a lump of rock — big deal. Their ability to use the Force is more an edge than an actual power. Indeed, this is close to what we experience when we find ourselves in the zone of our favorite activity, when the stars align, and the ball sails through the hoop.

This, we can believe in. We can believe that if we keep our cool and think of individuals rather than isms and us-against-them (who us? Who them?). We can maybe not influence, but we can nudge. We can model. We can act. And, as Lucas shows us throughout the saga we are often saved more by chance than by design. Back when the Episode IV came out, the Cold War was as solid a fact as the Berlin wall. Science Fiction writers projected the rivalry between capitalism and socialism into the stars. With flying cars. And yet, no one saw the Internet. No one saw how quickly the Soviet empire would crumble. The world remains unexpected and out of control, and not all surprises are bad. Let’s fight with our luck. Let’s make our luck by not giving in. “To answer power with power, the Jedi way is not,” says Yoda. “In this war, a danger there is, of losing who we are.”

We have to believe in the Jedi. More, we have to believe we can all be Jedi — not soldiers — negotiators, peacekeepers, good at the small stuff, and have the discipline to forsake large-scale foolishness. We need to be better at bringing people together and solving problems. In Episode VI, Luke’s hardest trial is… not to fight. I’m looking forward to Episode VII, like most people of my generation who grew up with Star Wars. And am curious whether the Jedi will continue their tradition of being intellectually wrong — and yet humanly right. Believe in the Jedi, we must.