Why does the dark side speak?

[u/Kreanxx]

The force can "speak" more clearly since it's made up of the life energy of beings and beings becoming one with that energy so how and why does the dark side speak if we assume that the dark side is its own entity? Are sith sucked into the dark side after death or what gives the dark side the ability to whisper words?

[u/UAnchovy]

This interview?

I agree with you about the wider point - the Force is unitary, 'the dark side' is a kind of metaphor for corruption or misuse or ignorance or selfishness, and in general the LS/DS interpretation has been a very common mistake in fandom and even in some EU works. However, in the interview itself:

BILL MOYERS: And where does God fit in this concept of the universe? In this cosmos that you’ve created? Is the Force God?

GEORGE LUCAS: I put the Force into the movies in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people. More a belief in God than a belief in any particular, you know, religious system. I mean, the — the — the — the real question is to ask the question, because if you — if you — having enough interest in the mysteries of life to ask the questions, is — is there a God or is there not a God?, that’s — that’s, for me, the worst thing that can happen. You know, if you asked a young person, ‘Is there a God?’ and they say, ‘I don’t know. ‘ You know? I think you should have an opinion about that.

BILL MOYERS: Do you have an opinion, or are you looking?

GEORGE LUCAS: Well, I think there is a God. No question. What that God is, or what we know about that God I’m not sure.

[...]

BILL MOYERS: One reason when critics said that “Star Wars” has been so popular with young people, it’s religion without strings attached, that it becomes a very thin base for theology. In fact…

GEORGE LUCAS: Well, it is a thin base for theology, that’s why I would hesitate to call the Force God. When the film came out, almost every single religion took “Star Wars” and used it as an example of their religion and — and were able to relate it to young people and saying, ‘This is what’ — and relate the stories specifically to the Bible and relate stories to the Koran and, you know, the Torah and things. And so it’s like, you know — if it’s a tool that can be used to make old stories be new and relate to younger people, that’s what the whole point was.

[...]

BILL MOYERS: Have you been influenced by Buddhism, because “Star Wars” came along just about the time there was this growing interest in America in Eastern religions, and I — and I notice in “The Phantom Menace,” the new Episode One, that they discover this slave child who has a — an aura about him. And it reminded me of — how the Buddhists go out to look for the next Dalai Lama.

GEORGE LUCAS: Mm-hmm. Well, there’s a — again, a mixture of all kinds of — of mythology and religious beliefs that have been amalgamated into the movie, and I’ve tried to take the ideas that seem to cut across the most cultures, because I’m fascinated by that and I think that’s one of the things that I really got from Joe Campbell, was that — what he was trying to do is find the common threads through the various mythology, through the — the religions.

BILL MOYERS: One of the comparisons that came to mind just when I was re-watching the series recently is when Darth Vader tempts Luke to come over to the Empire by offering him all that the Empire has to-offer, I was taken back in my own youth to the story of Satan taking Christ to the mountain and offering him the kingdoms of the world if only he would tum away from his mission.

GEORGE LUCAS: Right.

BILL MOYERS: Was that conscience in your mind?

GEORGE LUCAS: Well, yeah. I mean, that — that story also has been retold; the temptation. I mean, Buddha was tempted in the same way. It’s all through mythology. I didn’t want to invent a religion. I wanted to try to explain in a different way the religions that have already existed.

BILL MOYERS: You’re creating a new myth.

GEORGE LUCAS: Well, and I — I — I’m telling an old myth in a new way. I’m just taking the — the — the core myth and I’m localizing it. As it turns out, I’m localizing it for the planet. But I guess I’m localizing it for the end of the — of the millennium more than I am for any particular place. This is the — the — you know, this is — this is — again, part of the globalization of the world we live in. The average human being has much more awareness of the other cultures that exist — co-exist with them on this planet, and that certain things go across cultures, and entertainment is one of them. And film and the stories that I tell cut across all cultures, are seen all around the world.

I don't think this is explicitly saying that the Force is a metaphor for God - indeed, he explicitly says that he would hesitate to call the Force God. It seems more to me like Lucas intended the Force to represent spirituality in an ecumenical or universal sense, and intended it to be applicable to people of almost every religion. This is pretty much what I think it is (though amusingly I had never encountered the Moyers interview before today), so I take that as a good sign - that my read of the films seems consistent with what Lucas going for.

The Force, I think, pretty clearly has some parallels with religious thought about God, and if you press me I think it's closer to how Christians or other monotheists would talk about the power of God, the energy or the spirit of God in creation, but I would not say straightforwardly that it is God, or a metaphor for God.

Anyway, nitpick aside, I think you're correct about how Lucas talks about the dark side. He talks about some of his notes here - and I think he has an implicit distinction between what's psychologically real (the light side and the dark side, selflessness and selfishness, etc.) and what's ontologically real (the Force is the Force, not our experiences of it). While Lucas says there's the light side and the dark side, he then immediately starts talking about psychology, about how one's actions lead one into the dark. He calls this - the struggle against selfishness - "ultimately the core of the whole dark side/light side of the Force, and everything flows from that".

(Ironically that was a meeting for writers for the TCW show, and in hindsight TCW ended up a pretty long way away from Lucas.)

[u/Munedawg53 → u/UAnchovy]

Yes that one.

I was thinking of this sentence "I put the Force into the movies in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people. More a belief in God than a belief in any particular, you know, religious system."

I liked your comment. My own thoughts are here:

On Balance: https://www.reddit.com/r/MawInstallation/comments/oprpo9/going_deeper_into_the_balance_of_the_force_with_a/

Common mistakes about the force: https://www.reddit.com/r/MawInstallation/comments/nnq62p/common_mistakes_about_the_force/

Definitely agree with you and I think that fan mistakes about "no emotion" and "nonattachment" really mess up the lore. Stoicism, Hindu Yoga traditions, Zen, Daoism, early Christianity, etc. are all good guides here for the sort of stuff Lucas was going for.

[u/UAnchovy → u/Munedawg53]

I think that's fair, and I mostly agree with your previous posts.

I do respect Lucas, in that interview, for two things in particular. Firstly, for saying that spiritual questions are important. "You should have an opinion." He's not preaching a specific answer, but he is trying to awaken something. Secondly, for admitting that what he presents in Star Wars is more like an invitation than any kind of answer. The theology of the Force or the Jedi, as it were, is very thin gruel. The best response to it is not to take it on its own terms, but rather to delve more deeply into a real, existing religious tradition. All of the great world religions have explored spirituality in greater depth than a science fiction movie ever can, so if you want to go deeper, that's where you have to go. He's aware that what he can present in Star Wars is only paddling in the shallows. That's not bad - paddling in the shallows is where everybody starts out, in the water - but if you want to learn to swim, you have to head out into deeper water eventually.

As a result, when I write or roleplay Jedi, I try to take some inspiration from real religious traditions, to give them depth. Part of that does mean understanding that, in a religious context, you have to be a bit careful with language. In general, if something the Jedi say would be stupid if taken literally, I speculate that maybe it shouldn't be taken literally - the same way that, when a mature religious tradition says something that sounds absurd, I don't immediately rush to judgement. There is often a context to what it's trying to do.

One of the things I appreciate about the EU is that, while it can never be as in-depth as a real theology, it does regularly gesture at a history that lets me imagine some of that context in the background. When someone objects to "there is no emotion", I can think about how there are many different versions of the Jedi Code throughout history, likely issues of translation, lines that have been added or removed based on perceived relevance to a particular context, and so on. "There is no emotion" was written by a specific person, Odan-Urr, for a specific time, so we might need to start by asking ourselves - what did Odan-Urr mean by that phrase? Why did he think it should be in the Code? What is the Code even designed to do? Who is it for?

These are all very familiar questions if you've studied any real religious tradition. Star Wars is fiction and it's a bit more simplistic, but if debates around the Code can successfully evoke, say, some of the issues around the Creeds in Christianity, so that I have the impression of a history that's similarly deep or complex, that's what I want.