#The republic

[reality-detective]

Day 1 - No Time Wasted 🤔

[short-wooloo]

I just cannot understand why people think the Jedi being a part of the Republic and answering to the senate is so bad

"OH no! The space wizards are held accountable by a democratically elected legal authority! How terrible!"

And more importantly, it worked, for 25,000 years it worked

Why does a few decades at the very end mean the whole several thousand year system needs to be written off?

"But the senate was corrupt!"

But the Jedi weren't, they continued to do their job, it's not on them if the senate stopped pulling its weight, not to mention there were still senators who were trying to do their jobs till the very end

Not to mention how the sorry state of the Republic near its end was a product of the sith's efforts to destroy it

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

"This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector." - Plato

[obi-wanswhore3791]

Why is it always on the Jedi to end slavery? Why not the republic?

Everyone always blames the Jedi for slavery still existing but no one talks about how the republic hasn’t done anything.

[darth-memes]

[the-framed-maelstrom]

The prisoners, confined in the shadows of concealment, reflect the condition of humanity dwelling in the forgetfulness of Being. Yet, when one ascends into the clearing of the light, where truth unconceals itself, they encounter the essence of sovereignty—not as domination, but as the call to shepherd others toward unconcealment. Sovereignty here is the responsibility of those attuned to aletheia to guide others, not for their own glory, but as stewards of the clearing, ensuring that Being remains open to those still trapped in concealment. This descent back into the shadows is fraught with resistance, for those in darkness cling to what is familiar, mistaking semblance for essence. Yet, the sovereign act is not to impose truth but to create the conditions where truth may reveal itself, even amid concealment. Sovereignty thus emerges as a relationship with Being, a duty to preserve the openness of the clearing and to share in the labor of unconcealment, even when it demands sacrifice.

Plato: The Republic (Heideggerian Narration)

[the-wandering-wayseeker]

One argument that comes from those in this Fandom who are Jedi critical/anti-Jedi that I will never understand is that those who leave the Jedi Order would do so without resources.

Not only because I have never seen anything that supports the argument, but also because it's completely counter-intuitive to who the Jedi are. They are altruistic. It's a fundamental part of who they are. If we look at the Jedi Order during the High Republic, this is evident before and after the Great Hyperspace Disaster. We don't see it nearly as much in the Clone Wars, granted, but I imagine it's difficult to serve and help people when you have been thrust into the role of a warrior and are constantly being deployed to battlefields. Difficult, but certainly not impossible, as we do still see it.

On top of this, we know Jedi training is not just lightsabers, Jedi philosophies, and Force power practice. They were taught history. They were taught science. They were very likely taught to read and write, and probably had access to further language-based training as well. They were trained in practical skills like engineering and piloting. Even operating under the assumption (because that is what it is) that Jedi who left the Order were not given credits to provide for them for some time, they still had an education - and one that could easily be put to use in the greater Galaxy.

So no, I don't see the argument. It seems to operate on more assumptions than lore-based facts.

[shiversdownyourspleen]

Just thinking about how the clones - a group engineered purely to be a faceless military to die in the name of a Republic whose ideals they would never experience - have infinitely more humanity, personality, and individuality than the stormtroopers that replaced them, a military made of the everyday people

And how of these two, only one of them is truly faceless

The clones fought to find their humanity, the Empire sold theirs

[adragonsfriend]

SW Prequels: 1 Politic Please, for the Naive Child

(A complicating narrative…but probably not for you, reader of this post)

The prequels, according to quotes from GL, have two main goals:

“How did Anakin become Darth Vader?” (How does good person become a bad one)

“How did the Republic turn in to the Empire?” (How does a democracy become a dictatorship)

The first goal, though perhaps not perfectly executed, is largely achieved. We see Anakin go from a child who wants to help others, to an adult willing so sacrifice children for his own selfish desires—and we the viewers understand that (if not always agree which) decisions he and others made caused him to follow that character arc.

What the Prequels do Not do

The second goal falls far short.

The prequels offer some broad factors in the Republic becoming a dictatorship (as well as why the Separatists were no better)—corporations in government, greed of the already wealthy, war, fear-mongering manifesting policy changes, etc—but does not examine them in detail. It doesn’t take particular care with the timing of when the main characters acknowledge Republic’s values as having been lost, or the construction of “democracy” in-universe, or to what degree planets like Alderaan must be stealing from the Mid and Outer Rim, or even how Padmé and Palpatine both being from Naboo potentially alters any political commentary to be about Naboo rather than on the Republic as a whole, and carries around a whole bunch of other careless world-building problems that muddy the waters of plot elements which should be fairytale-clear (look I was gonna link a bunch more individual posts, but I got tired. Go read @saga-ordsmed’s star wars tag—she writes more elegantly, scathingly, and competently about Star Wars’ political & narrative failings then I ever will).

The prequels are a story about Anakin and about values of personal responsibility, and any political commentary suffers for that.

We know that the Senate willingly votes Palpatine into absolute power, but we do not know what alliances led to that vote passing, what Palpatine has been doing inside the Senate rather than outside it (his Sith & separatist activities), what battles and press releases cause the tide of the Senate to turn. We are shown a few bad apples but largely left unsure what turned the whole Senate, other than “time” “decay” and “greed.” These are vague comments on human nature, not on systematic conflicts.

If we saw something like this deleted scene, where Padme gives a speech to the senate, or this deleted scene, where some Senators talk about the Delegation of 2000 confronting Palpatine, I might have a reason to believe Padmé has fresh insight into the current political instability when she says the Republic is crumbling (if we actually got some of the pointed comments from the Delegation of 2000 scene, I would never have been able to make this post). Frankly, all of Padmé’s opinions are already under narrative suspicion because of her choice to help cover up Anakin’s massacre; without taking time to establish her expertise in politics as separate from her decisions about Anakin, her words about the Republic mean little. But these scenes are deleted, and whatever the reason, it causes the prequels to fail at their second goal, even more than they do structurally by not paying it much attention.

The most convincing comments about the political state of the Republic and the Chancellor instead come from members of Jedi Council, who have deliberately held themselves at a remove from the political process—for philosophical and practical reasons—and so lack detailed insight into the Senate’s functioning (why have so many benevolent Senator characters if you’re not going to use them as such? Just put one in the room with the Jedi council for a minute, seriously).

The most interesting scene we get about politics is the scene when Anakin and Padmé chat in the field and Anakin basically says he thinks the right dictatorship would solve the Republic’s problems, and Padmé largely laughs it off. It has the potential to be commenting on how people become radicalized when governments do not serve them, but the scene is so short and Anakin is in such a unique position as a Jedi and someone being personally groomed by the Chancellor, that it falls flat in terms of telling us anything either fresh and interesting about GL’s perspective on radicalisation, or anything applicable to a wider group of people.

Instead, the scene is again almost solely about the characters. It tells us about Anakin, Palpatine’s influence over Anakin, a little about Padmé, and a lot about Anakin and Padmé’s relationship. This would be fine—stories are allowed to use politics merely as a backdrop to character-level conflicts—if the creator didn’t claim to be telling us how a democracy can become a dictatorship.

So the prequels fail as a detailed or even followable portrayal of how a democracy becomes a dictatorship. They set up a few dominoes, but largely do not connect them to one another—for that we must fill in elaborate headcanons, read a million and one comics that probably don’t help the matter, or refuse to pay the question any detailed attention at all.

What the Prequels do Achieve

I recall a day, quite a while ago now, when as a kid—9 or so—I was walking to a friend’s house. It was sunny; the lawns were green and the sky was blue but the pools were bluer. I don’t remember the exact trigger for the thought, but I suspect my eye caught on the American flag hung by someone’s door. Whether it was the first time, or only the most memorable time, I remember realising: There is nothing inherently stopping my country (the US) and the whole world from getting worse again.

Now, there was a lot that was limited and outright wrong about that thought: the idea that the world didn’t currently suck for a lot of people, that it couldn’t start sucking for me, that the safety I experienced wasn’t built on other people not being safe, that the world was necessarily headed in a positive direction at the time, and so on. Many children are obliged to realise those things far earlier, if they ever held such beliefs in the first place.

But it was a step on the ongoing path toward a more complex world view, and a necessary one.

What the Prequels do is to present a situation in which the Evil Overlord takes over not by having a bigger army, or by poisoning the Good King, but by asking for and being granted supreme power by the government which is supposed to be checking his power. It is not detailed, or nuanced, or particularly well orchestrated. The how is barely a concern. The Prequels are highly unlikely to tell an adult anything they do not already know—in fact they are more likely to reinforce overly simplistic, individualistic views of highly systematic, large scale issues.

But the prequels do present a naive child with the possibility that a democracy can willingly become a dictatorship, that a government and a world can become worse.

That is only a step—one everyone must eventually move beyond—but for the naive child, it is a necessary step.

[mudwerks]

(via Best monsoon photos from photographers at The Arizona Republic)

ROB SCHUMACHER/THE REPUBLIC

[short-wooloo]

Another way I realized the opinion that "the Jedi got too involved in Republic politics" is stupid:

How in the fuck are they supposed to be effective at their job of peacekeeper-diplomats if they aren't involved in politics?

You can't eat your cake and have it too! No one listens to people who have no political authority!

Politics involves you, whether or not you're involved in politics!

[sporadicsweetswitch]

My friend is playing KOTOR for the first time and has now come to four conclusions so far...

PARTS HERE [1] [2][3][4][5]

1. Carth and Mission being a dad-daughter duo was a missed oppotunity.

2. Jolee is not very jolly and therefore his name is false advertising 🙄

3. They would like to adopt a Gizka as a playable pet and teach it to fight and eat people.

4. Malak is in no way qualified to run a sith empire. He took the Zapp Brannigan approach and failed upwards to the point of being in charge and having no clue what the eff to do now. He should at LEAST be going through basic training.. because the course "How to run an empire 101" must exist somewhere

[httpschrys]

On The Allegory of the Cave by Plato

interestingliterature.com

[hymneminium]

[...] But the right thing to do is to take up the third dimension right after the second. And this, I suppose, consists of cubes and of whatever shares in depth. You’re right, Socrates, but this subject hasn’t been developed yet. There are two reasons for that: First, because no city values it, this difficult subject is little researched. Second, the researchers need a director, for, without one, they won’t discover anything. To begin with, such a director is hard to find, and, then, even if he could be found, those who currently do research in this field would be too arrogant to follow him. If an entire city helped him to supervise it, however, and took the lead in valuing it, then he would be followed. And, if the subject was consistently and vigorously pursued, it would soon be developed. Even now, when it isn’t valued and is held in contempt by the majority and is pursued by researchers who are unable to give an account of its usefulness, nevertheless, in spite of all these handicaps, the force of its charm has caused it to develop somewhat, so that it wouldn’t be surprising if it were further developed even as things stand. The subject has outstanding charm. [...]

(The Republic, 528b)

This is very cute. Plato is sad that people aren't researching 3D geometry

[bizarrzibub]

What people don't realize about Star Wars is that the Jedi should never, ever have been aligned with the Republic, but they were. The Jedi Order was supposed to be a force of peace in the galaxy. They should have had a temple on Courosant, of course, but for the temple there to become the central authority of all the Jedi in the galaxy was clearly against the spirit, if not the letter, of the Jedi Code. The Jedi were supposed to follow the will of the Force regardless of the will of any person, including other Jedi. They shouldn't have even had a central authority, not even a council.

The moral decline of the Jedi had been taking place already for a long time, but in my eyes, they ceased to truly be Jedi when they aligned themselves with a government and allowed themselves to be appointed as Generals. The Jedi are supposed to understand that killing is sometimes the only way to resolve a conflict, buy only kill when all peaceful solutions have failed.

The Jedi Order fell because they forgot the moral center of their religion and just started acting like cops and soldiers.