ATTN: COUNCIL; Updated Doctrine Proposal

“A Jedi tolerates what is not Jedi, and only pass judgment against that which inflicts harm upon another being.”

Eating inflicts harm on other beings. Are Jedi to pass judgment on eaters? What about those who vote for the wrong political party or candidate? You know, the one thats ruining (thus harming) the whole country? Shouldnt Jedi pass judgment on them?

OB1Shinobi wrote: “A Jedi tolerates what is not Jedi, and only pass judgment against that which inflicts harm upon another being.”

Eating inflicts harm on other beings. Are Jedi to pass judgment on eaters? What about those who vote for the wrong political party or candidate? You know, the one thats ruining (thus harming) the whole country? Shouldnt Jedi pass judgment on them?

No.

lol- maybe we should put “real” back into that line.

Eating animals in and of itself isn’t harm- it’s an engagement in the natural food chain. At some point, you reach unreasonable judgements of each other- food (a necessity for survival) shouldn’t be on the table.

A good conversation to be had, though, is whether or not a Jedi should strive to eat as ethically as they are financially capable.

In terms of political ideology- there is a lot of moving parts there. When you have a corrupt government, it’s hard to judge anyone’s decisions of who should and shouldn’t be in elected leadership positions. I personally refuse to judge anyone by their basic political affiliation. I’ll judge them on the merit of their personality and actions, as those speak more clearly of their intentions than a vote or general support of a candidate. But that’s me, and I place a high emphasis on personal responsibility over Durkheim’s “Collective Conscious”.

This thread, and the post which started it, comes from a place of (perfectly valid and reasonable) opinion. The post above is a great example - your opinion is eating animals "isn't harm". For many others, it is, and they choose not to do it, thus Vegetarianism and Veganism exist.

As you know well Alethea, Jediism is a broad church indeed, taking in any number of perspectives. There are many alternative, er, outlets, which take a greater or lesser influence from the EU materials referred to in this part of the doctrine. Some discard them entirely (my personal practice does, too).

The problem I perceive in instituting doctrinal change is, the doctrine as it stands is what brought this specific community of Jedi to this place in particular. Changing it because of an opinion you happen to have will have the consequence of alienating those of differing opinion and should at least require broad consensus this is "a good thing", something this thread seems to demonstrate is not the case. So the question for me is: is it worth alienating an unspecified number of people who are invested in this community as it is, to appease an unspecified number of people whom:
a) are already here and doing just fine despite this issue in particular,
b) have plenty of choice to go find/start something more aligned with their personal preferences elsewhere,
c) maybe haven't found this place yet, and are thus not invested in it already

For you, it is broken and thus needs fixing. But I don't perceive that as the prevailing attitude? I don't see a ton of chat about this in other threads or hear of significant work to check people actually want this prior to coming forward with a proposal? Of all the problems this place has, which people do talk about... why is this the one to merit change?

Anyone notice that participation (and incidentally opposition) really only seemed to ramp up once this began to look as though it was actually going somewhere?

You know, just sayin'... where were y'all a month ago when this input might have been more relevant??

Just because it's not something said publicly, doesn't mean that over the last decade it hasn't been expressed several times over that there are issues.

I could easily argue that the doctrine itself hasn't actually been useful at all- based on the fact that it is rarely cited. It's just a background piece. In which case, one might even argue that the doctrine should be scrapped entirely and we move forward without one.

But that would ignore the efforts of people before us that tried to make the doctrine worthwhile for the population. It would also ignore that the document itself helps bring validity to anyone that takes on the mantle of "Jedi". Stripping it away entirely would also prevent us from ever getting recognized in the UK as a Religious Charity too. So there's a lot of reasons to retain a doctrine.

I get it, change is hard. But through change we grow. Look around you, ToTJO has had a number of problems in the past few years with retention. Clearly, there are a number of things we are doing wrong, and it's time for change.

I know for a fact that there were members who left simply because they didn't have support from council members to redo the training here at ToTJO. They would start with a project, and were left to use their own initiative. Do you know what some of them felt the reason for that was? I do, I talked with a few- They felt like the knights and masters had already gotten what they came for: Rank. Though, I disagree with that assessment myself, I recognize how the atmosphere created that kind of feeling.

Moving forward is the only way we reclaim this place. And it starts with establishing who we are. The current doctrine doesn't actually reflect who we are. It doesn't even reflect who we want to be. So let's fix that. Let's move forward, not backward, and not standing still.

I'm not certain changing the wording in the doctrine is what will fix much so much as changing how we treat the idea of the doctrine in the first place.

The reason I say this is because we all know we're not going to get a contradiction-free wording - it might even be concerning if we did. On top of that, using the doctrine as a christian uses bible verses has always been one of many other sources of ongoing conflict between people in many social situations, essentially bringing out the very thing we already have here - people leaving. No matter how relevant one thinks they can make the doctrine, I don't believe that conflict will go away unless we re-examine how we look at the doctrine in general before we even think about touching it. It's the mindset one has about the purpose and nature of it that manifests what we do with the words in it once we do read it.

Does that make sense?

Your right , an update won’t fix people problems... I don’t think it ever has. Change come from inside - sometimes influenced but most of the time from the individual- not the words on a screen or on the page.
This place is built on self reflective and self paced ideas- any drama we find here can easily be found to the root of the problem... I know any problem I had here was totally a me thing... kinna like the Force - with or without me - it’s still gunna be there.

I may or may not be out of line, I've been with the community for awhile, but have only recently been really diving into everything and don't have much of a rank here. But I feel like I need to chime in.

There's a lot of talk about - should we, shouldn't we? I know when I came to this community years ago, everything was exciting and there seemed to be a lot of really interesting conversations, thought provoking, challenging. I really enjoyed it.

I've come back, and though I want to continue my journey, I've been finding a lot of... political sounding debate (political in this organization sense, not politics of a country), and some voices who seem to be purposefully attempting to start fights as opposed to creating a thought provoking atmosphere that is moving towards helping people gain new insights. I've also found a lot of discontent with the current state of affairs. What this all tells me is that something is broken, and change needs to happen.

Is the problem the docrtine? Maybe, maybe not. We can obviously debate if the doctrine is the problem, but I think there can be some recognition that there is a problem, somewhere.

What I know is that sometimes, by creating external change, we challenge ourselves to create internal change. When you have an alcoholic, you don't say to them, "Hey, we want you to stop drinking. If you think about it, you'll know it's best for you" and expect them to suddenly change their habits. No, what you usually do is change their environment, whether it's preventing them access to alcohol at home, or going to the full extent of putting them into rehab. By changing the external, we give them the opportunity to change internally.

I say this all to make the point that, perhaps the doctrine is not the problem, but perhaps by updating it, we can better come to realize what the challenges actually are, as a community we can come together and move towards the change that I hear so many people crying out for. Instead of stagnation, perhaps we as a community should attempt to make a change, and perhaps this won't be perfect, but instead of just throwing out the possibility, why don't we make a real effort on this?

The other thing is, sometimes starting fresh allows new insights that weren't there previously. Perhaps starting fresh here will allow everyone here to usher in a new era of insights and movements toward being a "Jedi". I think that this discussion has brought some extremely insightful conversations to learn from and I've been thouroughly enjoying seeing people bring up new ideas and counter concepts and coming together to create something, even if we know there will likely be imperfections on the path.

Seems almost nobody follows the one we have now, so...

I think most people believe they themselves follow it while people around them think that they don't, due to differences in belief in how to treat it. Then we get comments like the one above, and people replying over feeling offended somehow.

Is what I'm getting at becoming any more evident at this point?

Let's talk about how an update can help move things forward.

The Jedi Compass. The document was a piece done in 2013. FA took that document and turned it into a 7 Course program that my students (although a very small number) are having A LOT of fun exploring. The document was also used to prop up the book (also called the Jedi Compass), and on Facebook I've watched a couple of study-groups form around it and show some real growth. Previously, most of them just relied solely on the Jedi Path book and the Jedi Code you can find laying around the community in various places. Jedi Federation, who use to just ask questions about people's lives to determine who would and wouldn't become a Jedi, has recently begun using the Jedi Compass to focus their board questions in order to help determine if someone truly understands the Jedi Path.

At the time this document surfaced, there was a lot of inner-order conflict. Believe it or not, the Jedi Compass helped reduce some of that conflict- because it demonstrated that there IS a baseline for what all of the different Jedi Orders at the time believed.

You say "I don't think", but what I'm hearing is: "I don't want change." I have yet to hear a single argument from anyone that wants to maintain a two document system that could really support a two document system.

But just in case you want to say the same about what I've said- then I'll provide you with a couple of articles that support my "Two Documents is too much, let's choose one and stick with it"

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/conquering-cyber-overload/201102/flooding-your-brain-s-engine-how-you-can-have-too-much-good

https://slate.com/technology/2013/06/how-people-read-online-why-you-wont-finish-this-article.html

^ And yes, I read through all of these two articles (you'll get it if you read the second one ). The current two document model has too much overlap and makes it a lot easier to just not read through thoroughly. One document will reduce this problem.

Now, I've given it some considerable thought, and I have to admit that if the previous mass edit was done based on the idea of simplifying and not actually looking at the principles behind each line, I'd prefer to wait on a serious take of how to edit with those concepts in mind.

I can defend the lines in the proposed "Principles of Jediism" (again not married to the name if someone has a better name!). Can you all do the same courtesy and cite the lines in each document to illustrate how either the two document system, the 21 Maxims or the 16 Teachings are the best system to go with? Because truly, if there is going to be a real defense of the current incarnation of the doctrine, or even one of the documents that are present to win out, it should be on their foundation alone- not upon the idea of "but this is tradition".

My point here is that there's no need to change anything that can't demonstrably be proven broken.

My point here is that there's no need to change anything that can't demonstrably be proven broken.

As there is (as far as I know) no set standard for Jediism, it's also pretty hard to prove it works....

I can defend the lines in the proposed "Principles of Jediism" (again not married to the name if someone has a better name!). Can you all do the same courtesy and cite the lines in each document to illustrate how either the two document system, the 21 Maxims or the 16 Teachings are the best system to go with? Because truly, if there is going to be a real defense of the current incarnation of the doctrine, or even one of the documents that are present to win out, it should be on their foundation alone- not upon the idea of "but this is tradition".

The idea of canning "two documents" in favour of a "single document" I believe is sound (I have a bit of another thought on that, but unless someone else brings it up first, I see no reason to go down that path)

I'm really on board for a nice straight forward plan-on-a-page sort of thing that encompasses what Jediism is, and is enough to start playing the game (like those "reference" cards you often get in board games - not the full rules, but enough to get you started and keep you going.

This still doesn't address what the basic principles should be, but apparently we want baby steps.

Fun fact with these things is that sometimes less is more - ie less people is better. If you (or a small team) comes up with a 99% solution, the rest will probably go along with it if it passes some basic robustness tests - if you come up with half a plan, you'll spend the next forever arguing over the second half.

@Steamboat The fact that so few hold loyalty to it (even as just reference material), IMO, is evidence it’s broken.

@James I hope you’re still considering pulling out a pot of tea ^^

I've worked 40 of the last 48 hours.

I think I put the kettle on half a dozen times, but honestly, I can barely form a sentence, much less remember if I put the kettle on, or approach distilling the key defining characteristics of the Jedi path....

It occurs to me that I don't think I've ever read the Jedi Compass. Is it available in hardcopy somehow?

The book is available on Amazon.

The document itself can be accessed here: https://www.forceacademy.us/library/index.php?title=The_Jedi_Compass-_By_the_Jedi_Community (I’m still on the look out for people that are willing to translate the document into other languages if anyone knows anybody ^^)

Alethea Thompson wrote: You say "I don't think", but what I'm hearing is: "I don't want change."

Hi Alethea.

I want to make something clear here but I really don't want you to feel offended or attacked because I know you're heading this, and it really is a good pursuit, so please hear me out. If what you got out of my words was merely that I (or we if that's what you see) simply don't want change, then, on my end, it doesn't sound like you've been paying much attention here.

Change is important and necessary, and the doctrine can use an update - are we clear on that? But I don't see merely as much importance on... how many documents it needs to be or not be, than on getting a better grip on the most effective and genuine way to even consider the doctrine before even writing one / reading one. Because as long as we are intending to look at the doctrine as, and use it as a slab of commandments to direct people to who we think just need to "Jedi up", any work put into it will be in vain. And I think that includes doing the same thing to one's self with it too. I don't see nit picking over the details of wording is going to change that fact either.

What I'm suggesting is that we not cancel the train altogether, but rather to back it up, and discuss what it is we're doing with it in the first place. There is obviously a reason that the current doctrine is treated the way it is, but I'm not convinced it has to do with what is written in it (or how many pages it is) as much as it is about people's mindset (what people expect to get from it out the gate, and then intend to use it for). This is why you haven't seen me partaking in the project's composition itself. It's not that I don't believe in it - in fact, it's that I care more about it than you likely realize. The foundation is extremely important to any house built. But the way we talk about doctrines around here is showing me that we still have a great deal of the foundation to work on for this.

What I'm saying is that, not only do we need change, but most importantly, we need it done right. Not right now.

Proteus, I've not addressed you up to this point.

From my perspective, you haven't really sided with either side of the "should we or shouldn't we" discussion. You're still weighing the options and your verbiage reflects that.

For those that have come out with verbiage which polarizes as certain way- my goal is to get them to provide a real debate so that everyone on the floor can get a good idea of what the pros and cons are. I'm dismissive of weak stances that are easily written off as "I don't want change" because that's going to get us no where. And let's be honest, the "but this doctrine got us to where we are" is "I don't want change", It's amongst the weakest of defenses- and we can do better.

On the contrary, I'm one of the people who have been in official discussion about the doctrine needing updating. My verbiage is giving a suggestion on how we need to make sure we get the foundation right when we do.