On Peace

ZealotX wrote: There is often much debate around Martin vs Malcom X and which way was better. In a lot of ways they represented the Jedi and the Sith* (* = SW Sith).

I don't know exactly what, in your view, makes each of them Jedi or Sith, but each moved people, and each refused the status quo. If maintaining the status quo was the cost of peace, then both of them waged war, each in their own way.

Magnus Staar wrote:

ZealotX wrote: There is often much debate around Martin vs Malcom X and which way was better. In a lot of ways they represented the Jedi and the Sith* (* = SW Sith).

I don't know exactly what, in your view, makes each of them Jedi or Sith, but each moved people, and each refused the status quo. If maintaining the status quo was the cost of peace, then both of them waged war, each in their own way.

I didn't think it would be prudent to go into that on this particular thread but I did write about that in a new thread.

You're right. They both waged war in a sense. MLK's power/influence came from the concept of peace and the idea that we wanted to live in harmony as equals. Malcolm was more "by any means necessary" which I think was based on a fear that white society would never truly To get to a peace I think one needs to fight; even if all that means is that you stand up when you're told to sit down. If we're too passive things will never change. The aggressive will just assume that what they're doing is okay. It's like they have to be convinced by your conviction. Peace at the time of the civil rights movement was the status quo, protecting the rich. Often, one side fights, wins, and then wants peace to protect what they've won through war. It would be easier if one peaceful side were going up against another. But the reality is that the side that usually controls things usually got there by force and the pressure to move that obstacle is... well something equal to that force.

I think in some ways the Civil Rights movement was kind of like Luke vs Vader. Luke didn't really win by force. Force respects strength. But if you can get that force to empathize or relate then that becomes a kind of moral victory.

In the case of Malcom X and MLK Jr., it's not a matter of saying person A was Jedi and person B was Sith. They believed different things, and adjusted methodology accordingly.

As for StarWars, the original trilogy does not expand on philosophical differences between Jedi and Sith, but instead paints the whole Jedi vs. Dark Jedi as an issue of "becoming corrupted". The scene in ROTJ when Luke throws down his saber and refuses to kill his father is NOT an assertion of non-violence (I mean, Luke had no problem using violence against the Hutts and Imperial Storm trooopers).

Instead, it was an assertion of free will.

Rather than sacrifice his own will for the sake of getting things done, he abandons his claim to control everything and decides his father is more important. In this way, he asserts free will over the system (the machine that had imprisoned Vader as another cog in the wheel).

This is akin to Neo refusing the return to the source and instead save Trinity in The Matrix Reloaded.