To Bend Or To Be Bent?

I agree that sanctity and attachment often go hand-in-hand but they don't have to and I might go so far as to say 'they shouldn't'. Providing sanctity can be experienced without attachment there is no contradiction of the 4th (of the 16) teachings. Furthermore, I agree that sanctity should not equate to being untouchable. If a philosophy, idea, or thought is sound it should be able to stand-up to scrutiny. If it can't do that - it probably shouldn't be sanctified.

However, there are many here who are experimenting with new ideas and new ways of seeing the world. New to them that is, and like young saplings, these ideas do need some protection before they grow into strong trees. You are not obliged to respect anything, but at the same time, stomping on saplings (I hope you agree) would be, at the very least, unsportsmanlike. I'm not suggesting you do this - merely stating the obvious fact that a lack of respect doesn't have to become active disrespect.

As for your attachments, or lack thereof - if you don't mind my asking - how do you feel about your worldview / philosophy? Would you call it scientific (maybe rational?) materialism? Don't you effectively sanctify that? I say effectively because I suspect sanctification is incompatible with many forms of materialism. Perhaps revere, respect or even subscribe would be better words to use than sanctitfy. In any case you seem quite attached to it. It's not meant to be anything other than a compliment btw- I often find what you write very compelling on such matters, and you represent your point of view very effectively. Apologies if this is too personal - we can continue in PM or elsewhere if that would be better- but I am genuinely interested

Gisteron wrote: Goken, I was specifically referring to faith, honesty, loyalty and integrity as they are described in and by the maxims and to no other sense of those words. My concern in the context of that post is that some of the maxims do contradict each other and my question to tzb was how he is able to reconcile this with being on board with all of them.

Faith: To trust in the ways of the Force.

Although the ways of the Force may seem strange at times, a Jedi always knows their place and their role within it.

Honesty: To avoid lies.

A Jedi is honest with themselves and seeks to always go beyond appearances. There can be no honest self without the knowledge and wisdom to see truth.

Loyalty: To have faith in your Jedi brothers and sisters.

A Jedi remains true to what they have learned and to their own teachings. A Jedi always serves those who wish to learn more of the ways of the Force and in doing so, remain loyal to the way of Jediism and their Order.

Integrity: To be consistent.

A Jedi lives as a Jedi at all times. Hypocrisy is their worst enemy.

I guess I'm still confused about how those are contradictory. The only way that I can see them as being interpreted as contradictory is if you see the maxim on Faith as saying that, since we must know our place in the Force, you don't need to seek the knowledge and wisdom to see truth which are required to be honest to yourself. Personally I find that to be a stretch.

The only way I can see Loyalty as causing a lack of integrity is if you found that your learning taught you not to serve those who wish to learn more and in so doing remain loyal to the Force. If what you learned taught you not to do that then to do so would cause you to be inconsistent.

For me I am a believer in the statement of Objectivism that A is A. In short things have a definition and if you try to change them they cease to be the thing they were and are no long fit or deserving of being called by the original name. A few examples:

A pen is a pen. Its a writing tool that uses ink. If it fails those two items its not a pen.
A christian is someone that accepts Jesus Christ is lord and savior. Fail that and you are not talking about that religon.

Finally a Jedi follows either the original or Skywalker codes. Fail those things and we are not talking about a Jedi. That is what any sect of Jediism is based from. All else is that sects various teachings based on how they see things. But if you take away that root its not Jediism we are talking about any more. If you disagree with it well that just means that the path of the Jedi is not for you. Which is not a bad thing. There are many paths through life each must find their own.

Agreed, I find no implicit contradiction in the values mentioned, as defined in our doctrine.

You asked me about integrity and loyalty, actually I find your suggestion that they are mutually exclusive (very) flawed. A person who is habitually disloyal cannot also be described as having a high measure of integrity; personally, these two notions are more often mutually dependent and support one another.

In more general terms I agree when it comes to edge cases, one might suggest integrity and loyalty might come into conflict. For instance:

Integrity: I should not steal bread
Loyalty: I should not let my kids starve

or

Loyalty: I should support my company
Integrity: I should report my company for poisoning the bread we make

And even there... I'd suggest in the first instance, stealing to feed my starving children demonstrates integrity as a parent, and in the second reporting my company demonstrates loyalty to the human race.

Still, in these situations, a hierarchy absolutely exists, but as you can see from the examples above it is situational, not absolute. Happily, Jedi are sentient and equipped with brains, and can thus judge the hierarchy dependent on the situation. Focus and Wisdom are central elements of the "how" of Jediism, implying we can choose where it is wise to place our focus (in the former cases I could prioritise the first value in each case, and allow many people to die - but I would rather have missed the point of Jediism), rather than just blindly following the information within our doctrine.

The values the doctrine espouses are ideal qualities a Jedi seeks to cultivate, rather than moral absolutes. To be Jedi is (so far) to be human; to be human is to err. It would be daft to suggest every (or even any) Jedi is courageous in every situation, but we might expect every Jedi to be working on it, analysing and learning from the situations where they didn't meet their personal aim. Personally I'd say every Jedi falls short of all of these values, from time to time. No-one pretends otherwise. They are not destinations to be reached - they are stars to navigate by.

That's one reason most of us use the " x yet y" code. There is x. But we aim for y.

when i read the maxims and doctrine i got the impression that they were written in, lets say the early adolescence, of totjo

imo they could be revised, but what a pain in the tail that could become

anyway, my personal view is that the most important thing is to as clearly as possible, articulate the principles which one deems most worthy, and then do ones best to adhere to them

which tzb made a good enough case for above that i dont think i have much to add to it atm

tzb, I did not say that loyalty and integrity are mutually exclusive. I did say that the extent to which one insists on one's integrity, notions of loyalty are ignored. What I mean by that is that while you can be both upstanding and loyal at the same time most of the time, in times when personal relations conflict with core principles - and only in those times - you cannot service both to the fullest extent but must balance one against the other. The extent to which you are willing to poison bread for the sake of your company is the extent to which you are unconcerned with the health of its customers. Conversely, the extent to which you do value the well-being of the customer is the extent to which you are opposed to your company's directives. Likewise, the extent to which you are willing to steal bread for your starving family is the extent to which you are willing to violate the victim's property and conversely, the extent to which you are unwilling to steal the bread is the extent to which you are ready to sacrifice your family's satiation.
So regardless of how easy it is to pick one over the other, it still comes down to a zero-sum game between loyalty and integrity, even if you pick two loyalties that are fundamentally incomparable to weigh them against two integrities that are likewise incomparable, all to make the case that the choice is situational.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: Personally, I reject loyalties altogether. I may face dilemmas in my lifetime as much as everybody else does, but I never need to weigh the choice I think is the right one for everybody against the choice somebody else would rather I made. I would trade a friend's happiness for their well-being any day and not even apologize. One could argue that I am skipping over something important, thinking less about things than I perhaps should be. I do have a justification for why I would do so in this case, but then that's a whole discussion in itself and we are being busy with another one right now.
With all that being said though, I suppose I do think I understand what you are saying, and if I am getting you correctly, you have answered my inquiry then in this way: Essentially you assess every case or at least every case archetype, as it were, individually and prioritize maxims respective to the individual scenario and not generally or absolutely.

Thanks!

The maxims were kinda meant to raise more questions than they answer.

Loyalty was already in there, and i made a point to keep the original words when I rewrote them for continuity and order... I'm not a very loyal person, though I am loyal to my ways. By deciding to keep the original maxims, I was also loyal to my jedi brothers/ancestors. Thus was the new loyalty maxim born.

"The Force as anything other than a vague label that can mean anything and therefore means nothing"

"Jediism is a religion based on the observance of the Force, a ubiquitous and metaphysical power that a Jedi (a follower of Jediism) believes to be the underlying, fundamental nature of the universe."

This is the first sentence of the doctrine. Wouldn't call that a vague label, it clearly says ubiquitous power, and underlying fundamental nature of the universe. Your inability to understand the vastness of the Force or its nature does not in anyway make it a vague label. I doubt any human can. The word "obervance" was carefully chosen as well.
This is a Jediism pre-requisite, maybe you've been hanging out with realists for too long to be able to tell the difference, not to mention totjo doesn't seem to care about knighting non-jediists, but the force isn't some label for us.

This thread is making me think. A lot. Really.

But I was a boy scout, and even consider myself to still be, even though I'm not an active member, because we've learned that "once a boy scout, forever a boy scout". And we have the Scout's Promise, and the 10 Laws, and we are supposed to follow them all. When you promise something, it's to fulfill it.

What got me here was not a Star Wars movie, since I've known about this place for a while, but the fact that the Doctrine is one in which I believe. Like Buddhism and other religions/philosophies, the ones that the "/" is inherent, since there are people who consider them to be a religion, and others who consider them to be philosophy, each one follows the Doctrine in a stricter or more relaxed way, depending on how they see it.

I used to follow Bushido as my life philosophy, but saw in Jediism a modern approach to it, and I intend to follow it as strictly as I can.

You can say I'm "pretending" to do it, or, as someone has already said to me "you will never achieve it".

However, I tend to do what I can to achieve perfection. Even though I know perfection is impossible, I do whatever I can to get as closer to it as I can, and the Doctrine, imo, is something that can help me achieve that.

Seeing some religious leaders and knights saying that I can basically ignore everything that is said here and I will still be a Jedi.

How can that be?

Some of the points raised here are essentially why I don't view any of that as especially important to begin with - beyond points to think about. It was interesting finding answers for myself without trying to totally disregard the potential for learning when I was going through the IP, and in the end it was helpful to have pieces I disagreed with - on the whole anyway.

A lot of that stuff just doesn't matter much to me. I don't agree with the wording in places, and some of the concepts that are presented as 'given' in other places. The reason I'm here, consider myself a Jedi on the Jedi path is because it fits with my personality, interests, and sense of fun. As a philosophical way of life it hardly has any body of its own, drawing instead from a multitude of other sources, but it also holds an innately self-reflexive understanding that it will never be taken too seriously. I like that. If it was taken 100% seriously, 100% of the time, it'd be something I'd be forced to reject.

I think there could probably be updates to many aspects of the Temple, code, tenets, etc. but in the end these things aren't what make Jediism 'Jediism', not to me at any rate. That there are rough and unfinished aspects of the whole annoys me sometimes, but I've decided that in the end I really don't care that much. The path is pretty much entirely whatever I want it to be, and I'm just fine with that - so, for the most part, and at least for the moment, worrying about any of it would be boring and a waste of my time. lol. :laugh:

The use of the word 'believe' in the Doctrinal heading and various parts of the Doctrine might be a bit misleading perhaps, as it does not specify the extent of belief, rather just some belief exists and so might be interpreted as 100% strict belief in literal terms. What other words might be better fitting to those parts; consider, remember, focus etc, they all might be a bit too clumsy but in some instances more practical. It might just be the most practical word to use, so maybe its how its being read which changes across people? When someone reads the word 'believe' they/we each probably associate some level of faith to the concept being supported as belief, and depending on how much it resonates with the reader it might make them feel closer or further from it.

This says to me we can be mindful of how we are reading something as it either relates to our own view, or if we read it to relate to something or someone else. This might link back into group dynamics of social identity theory and trying to determine the parameters of a group's identity. That is normal, but I"m not sure it's particularly relevant to Jediism so much how I see it. For me Jediism seems to, or should, transcend sectarianism. Because people will work through various perspectives to achieve growth in particular areas, and the nature of ones focus in time should probably not define their spirituality or path if we are looking at integrating our experiences into some coherence.

So my thinking would be a path is made of steps, not the other way around, so don't define a path by where you might find yourself at any one point - and the Doctrine serves to provide examples of this as collected by practitioners of it to represent the 'way' of the paths.