Jedism?

[MA-Caver]

Years ago a good friend and I hike to the top of a mountain. We admired the view and we admired the herd of bull elk some miles away. Then instead of taking the path that we hiked up, we chose a different route down. In effect lost the safe way and had to take the dangerous route downward. Turning back to the way we came would've put us half way down the mountain by dark. We hiked up with just the barest of necessities. Thus knowing that if we were caught on the mountain in the dark we would surely lose our way and be at a greater risk throughout the night than if we were to see our path down the dangerous route with the light of day to aid our vision.
When we reached the bottom of the mountain we were about two miles from our camp-site, but were able to reach it now in safety.
We stopped and rested along the edge of a dried river, long since dead from the effects of the dought that Utah suffered for years. We sat in a shady spot along the banks and chatted.
My friend asked me about my spiritual values and understanding of our place in the world. The hike down had apparently awakened in him a deeper understanding of himself that he was not able to comprehend.
I tried to think of a way to illustrate in a manner that perhaps he could understand what had happened, using jedisim philosophy.

We recall that Obi-wan Kenobi explained to Luke about the force: "The force is what gives a jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us and binds the galaxy together." Yoda, went deeper. " Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?
Hm? Mmmm.
Luke shakes his head.
YODA: And well you should not. For my ally in the Force. And a powerful
ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we... (Yoda pinches Luke's shoulder)
... not this crude matter. (a sweeping gesture) You must feel the Force around you. (gesturing) Here, between you... me... the tree... the rock... everywhere! Yes, even between this land and that ship!"
When I first heard this I took it and applied it to it's relationship of my beliefs in the human soul. Just exactly what is the soul? Basically that flow of energy which keeps us alive, guides us and helps us to understand, oru conciousness. Yoda (and Ben) explained that the Force is an energy field. Life creates it, makes it grow. All living things. My understanding of nature and the earth around us is that everything is alive. Grass, trees, water and the earth. The entire planet is one living entiety. Thus though inanimate things live, grow, reproduce and die. All in harmony together though sometimes we humans are just too (spiritually) blind to see it.
I told my friend of another time I was high upon a mountain top. Camping out. Aspen and other trees and a gorgeous flower studded meadow with a small crystal clear lake for the view. During the night with just the (carefully made) campfire as my light and warmth I leaned back against a particularly large oak looking through a break in the branches and leaves and up at the stars above me. I allowed my mind to drift, to go where-ever it may, to feel whatever it was that my heart felt. It was during that long relaxed meditation that I became aware of other life around me. Felt the energy of the tree against my back, the grass that I sat upon and the rock my feet were propped up against. I became aware that everything around me was indeed alive and contained it's own energy.
Past studies in physics and basic atomics I knew that all matter was somehow contained so that it could have form, and shape. That the cells that make up my body and the cells that made up the trees, grass, rocks and earth and everything else was nothing more than a bunch of atoms bound together to give it form. Just what was that "force" that held all these atoms together so that they wouldn't otherwise go flying off in a trillion different directions?
I explained that concept using the jedisim philosophy that our spirits, are what held our bodies together, the "crude matter". A jedi, learning the secrets of harnessing and controlling that energy field around his body would be able to acomplish the feats that Jedi's are renowned for. Telekenisis (Luke calling his lightsaber to his hand in the Wampa cave, and Vader throwing objects at Luke during their duel), telepathy (Yoda seeing what was in Luke's mind as his friends suffered), auto-hypnosis (Ben Kenobi with his "...you don't need to see his identification... these aren't the droids you're looking for, etc.) and extra-sensory perception (Yoda saying: "...difficult to see, always in motion is the future...") and many other examples.
Back on earth (again) we have people capable of bending spoons, reading cards from hundreds of miles away, Hindu fakkirs able to pierce their bodies with foreign objects and remove them without a mark, walking on coals/broken glass/nails without damage to the feet and so forth. IMO these people have mastered some aspects of the "force".
The full philosophy/dogma of the Jedi religion (and remember that even Grand Moff Tarkin referred it to as such :" ... the jedi are extinct, their power gone out of the universe, you my friend, are all that's left of their religion." Vader didn't even take umbrage at the reference, so thus it must be so.

Wonderful fantasy/science-fiction to be sure. But many of the things in Science Fiction has proven themselves to be possible.

It's the concept of nanobytes or symboites or whatever the hell Gui-jonn Ginn called them in the first episode that really got me pissed at Lucas for taking the spiritual element out of the story. Removing the concept that it was more than just a symbionic relationship with trillions of tiny organisms deep in our bodies, living in our cells that create the "Force" .... :angry : oooooh man do I get livid with that bastardized twisting and reconceptionalizing of the "Force". To me Lucas removed the spirituality out of the story. I doubt that I'll ever forgive him for that...among other things.

Anyway that's just my idea of Jedism. :idunno: But that's just me.


:asian:

 

[Corporal Hicks]

But Jedism is (I would like to imagine) the way forward for religion. Cut the gods out of it, and worship ourselves, as we should.

Thats what I like about it, thats way I agree with it to an extent.

www.jedism.org

Regards

 

[Adept]

It's the concept of nanobytes or symboites or whatever the hell Gui-jonn Ginn called them in the first episode that really got me pissed at Lucas for taking the spiritual element out of the story. Removing the concept that it was more than just a symbionic relationship with trillions of tiny organisms deep in our bodies, living in our cells that create the "Force" .... :angry : oooooh man do I get livid with that bastardized twisting and reconceptionalizing of the "Force". To me Lucas removed the spirituality out of the story. I doubt that I'll ever forgive him for that...among other things.

Dammit, I'd spent years in therapy trying to erase all memory of the first two chapters. Now you've gone and undone it all...

 

[rmcrobertson]

1. If you're gonna pick on another writer about capitals, try to punctuate correctly.

2. Since the Self (now we're talking about a single, unique thing, even if it is an illusion or an ideal construct, so proper nouns are capitalized) is, from many viewpoints, either a) a side effect of the operations of the psyche in its interactions with the world, or b) an illusion, or c) a social construct, all the jazz about the Atman or whatever all reducing to the same Thing repeats the same faith in the illusion. Jung was fundamentally an idealist, philosophically speaking: I ain't.

c) So what are we preferring--biological reductionism, or, "spiritual," essentialism? Not much to choose from...

d) In the first "Star Wars," movies, being a Jedi is something you inherit. And what you see on the screen is that only white people inherit it. And the political context of the film says that the good guys believe in hereditary monarchies. And the last scence from the very first movie directly borrows from Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." And white=good, black=bad, and when Vader becomes good he a) turns white, b) drops James Earl Jones' voice. And then there're, later, the quaint Italian junkman and the sinister Jap (and that is precisely how they talk) Trade federation. See where I'm going with this?

 

[Tgace]

Do you ever just have fun, smile or enjoy anything???

 

[RandomPhantom700]

In the first "Star Wars," movies, being a Jedi is something you inherit. And what you see on the screen is that only white people inherit it. And the political context of the film says that the good guys believe in hereditary monarchies. And the last scence from the very first movie directly borrows from Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." And white=good, black=bad, and when Vader becomes good he a) turns white, b) drops James Earl Jones' voice. And then there're, later, the quaint Italian junkman and the sinister Jap (and that is precisely how they talk) Trade federation. See where I'm going with this?

Yeah, and I think that you're reading something in the presentation of Vader that isn't there. I agree with you about the heritibility of being a Jedi implying elitism, but as far as being racist, the reason you only see white Jedis is because the only Jedi's appearing are those within Luke's family. I mean, this was after the Jedi had been wiped out, so there aren't that many in the first place (there was Vader, Luke, Leia (partially), Obi-Wan, and Yoda.) So out of five remaining Jedi (I think, correct me if I'm wrong), three of them are family members. The reason you only see white Jedi in the first movies is because the only ones left, minus Yoda and Obi-Wan, share genetics. Look at the cinematic abomination that was Episode II: when the Jedi were still around as a flourishing group (i.e. hadnt been wiped out yet), there were many who weren't white men.

As for Vader, the black armor and the deep, reverberating (I think that's the word) voice were supposed to show how hollow and mechanistic he'd become. "He's more machine now, then man--twisted and evil," says Obi-Wan.

 

[OUMoose]

d) In the first "Star Wars," movies, being a Jedi is something you inherit. And what you see on the screen is that only white people inherit it.

OK, Time to pick apart your Star Wars quotes. Becoming a Jedi involves training and meditation. Anyone could be "Force-sensitive" however.

And the political context of the film says that the good guys believe in hereditary monarchies.

Actually they believed in the basis of the Republic and a democratic society, which is what the emperor dissolved to form the empire.

And the last scence from the very first movie directly borrows from Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." And white=good, black=bad, and when Vader becomes good he a) turns white, b) drops James Earl Jones' voice.

I believe you're reffering to the last scene in the 3rd (actually 6th) movie "return of the Jedi". It wasn't a racist thing at all, IMO. He saved his son, redeeming himself, but also destroying his life support equipment in the process. By "becoming white", i'm guessing you're talking about the scene at the end where Anakin (played appropriately by Sebastian Shaw) showed up as a blue ghost with Yoda and Obi-wan. Notice he wasn't exactly dressed in KKK garb or anything. He was dressed EXACTLY the same as the other two, which was traditional dress robes for the Jedi.

And then there're, later, the quaint Italian junkman and the sinister Jap (and that is precisely how they talk) Trade federation. See where I'm going with this?

I see exactly where you're going. You're spouting the views of a person who insists on reading into EVERYTHING instead of enjoying a story. EVERYTHING has to be a parable to you it seems.

I believe Sigmund Freud said it best, when discussing dream analysis... "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar..."

 

[heretic888]

Years ago a good friend and I hike to the top of a mountain. We admired the view and we admired the herd of bull elk some miles away. Then instead of taking the path that we hiked up, we chose a different route down. In effect lost the safe way and had to take the dangerous route downward. Turning back to the way we came would've put us half way down the mountain by dark. We hiked up with just the barest of necessities. Thus knowing that if we were caught on the mountain in the dark we would surely lose our way and be at a greater risk throughout the night than if we were to see our path down the dangerous route with the light of day to aid our vision.
When we reached the bottom of the mountain we were about two miles from our camp-site, but were able to reach it now in safety.
We stopped and rested along the edge of a dried river, long since dead from the effects of the dought that Utah suffered for years. We sat in a shady spot along the banks and chatted.
My friend asked me about my spiritual values and understanding of our place in the world. The hike down had apparently awakened in him a deeper understanding of himself that he was not able to comprehend.
I tried to think of a way to illustrate in a manner that perhaps he could understand what had happened, using jedisim philosophy.

We recall that Obi-wan Kenobi explained to Luke about the force: "The force is what gives a jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us and binds the galaxy together." Yoda, went deeper. " Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?
Hm? Mmmm.
Luke shakes his head.
YODA: And well you should not. For my ally in the Force. And a powerful
ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we... (Yoda pinches Luke's shoulder)
... not this crude matter. (a sweeping gesture) You must feel the Force around you. (gesturing) Here, between you... me... the tree... the rock... everywhere! Yes, even between this land and that ship!"
When I first heard this I took it and applied it to it's relationship of my beliefs in the human soul. Just exactly what is the soul? Basically that flow of energy which keeps us alive, guides us and helps us to understand, oru conciousness. Yoda (and Ben) explained that the Force is an energy field. Life creates it, makes it grow. All living things. My understanding of nature and the earth around us is that everything is alive. Grass, trees, water and the earth. The entire planet is one living entiety. Thus though inanimate things live, grow, reproduce and die. All in harmony together though sometimes we humans are just too (spiritually) blind to see it.
I told my friend of another time I was high upon a mountain top. Camping out. Aspen and other trees and a gorgeous flower studded meadow with a small crystal clear lake for the view. During the night with just the (carefully made) campfire as my light and warmth I leaned back against a particularly large oak looking through a break in the branches and leaves and up at the stars above me. I allowed my mind to drift, to go where-ever it may, to feel whatever it was that my heart felt. It was during that long relaxed meditation that I became aware of other life around me. Felt the energy of the tree against my back, the grass that I sat upon and the rock my feet were propped up against. I became aware that everything around me was indeed alive and contained it's own energy.
Past studies in physics and basic atomics I knew that all matter was somehow contained so that it could have form, and shape. That the cells that make up my body and the cells that made up the trees, grass, rocks and earth and everything else was nothing more than a bunch of atoms bound together to give it form. Just what was that "force" that held all these atoms together so that they wouldn't otherwise go flying off in a trillion different directions?
I explained that concept using the jedisim philosophy that our spirits, are what held our bodies together, the "crude matter". A jedi, learning the secrets of harnessing and controlling that energy field around his body would be able to acomplish the feats that Jedi's are renowned for. Telekenisis (Luke calling his lightsaber to his hand in the Wampa cave, and Vader throwing objects at Luke during their duel), telepathy (Yoda seeing what was in Luke's mind as his friends suffered), auto-hypnosis (Ben Kenobi with his "...you don't need to see his identification... these aren't the droids you're looking for, etc.) and extra-sensory perception (Yoda saying: "...difficult to see, always in motion is the future...") and many other examples.
Back on earth (again) we have people capable of bending spoons, reading cards from hundreds of miles away, Hindu fakkirs able to pierce their bodies with foreign objects and remove them without a mark, walking on coals/broken glass/nails without damage to the feet and so forth. IMO these people have mastered some aspects of the "force".
The full philosophy/dogma of the Jedi religion (and remember that even Grand Moff Tarkin referred it to as such :" ... the jedi are extinct, their power gone out of the universe, you my friend, are all that's left of their religion." Vader didn't even take umbrage at the reference, so thus it must be so.

Wonderful fantasy/science-fiction to be sure. But many of the things in Science Fiction has proven themselves to be possible.

It's the concept of nanobytes or symboites or whatever the hell Gui-jonn Ginn called them in the first episode that really got me pissed at Lucas for taking the spiritual element out of the story. Removing the concept that it was more than just a symbionic relationship with trillions of tiny organisms deep in our bodies, living in our cells that create the "Force" .... :angry : oooooh man do I get livid with that bastardized twisting and reconceptionalizing of the "Force". To me Lucas removed the spirituality out of the story. I doubt that I'll ever forgive him for that...among other things.

Anyway that's just my idea of Jedism. :idunno: But that's just me.


:asian:

Okay, there are a few concise points I'd like to make...

1) The description of the Force as an "energy field" is, no matter how you interpret it, a form of biophysical reductionism. I am inclined to agree with Robert on this point. You are, in essence, making some type of materially-reducible phenomena --- in this case energy, waves, quarks, or whatever --- paradigmatic to all existence. In this case, "crude" matter is just replaced with "crude" energy (i.e., waves instead of particles). Big whoop.

2) Your use of physics to "prove" this paradigm, of course, is support that Point 1 is true. This is fundamentally the same logic used in works like Tha Tao of Physics. It was off-base then, and its off-base now.

3) Jedism is a very, very, very dumbed-down interpretation of Mahayana Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta Hinduism. I consider it to be little more than watered-down New Age garbage. If you are interested in the real thing, try reading up on the likes of Nagarjuna, Shankara, Ramanuja, or Sri Ramana Maharishi. If you're more into a Western perspective, there's Plotinus. If you need a Judeo-Christian perspective, there's Dionysius Areopagite, Meister Johannes Eckhart, the Theologica Germanica, Jacob Boehme, Thomas Merton, and Paul Tillich.

4) Extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, and the like are not equivalent to "spirituality". In Hinduism and Buddhism, they make it very clear that such abilities can be side-effects of higher spiritual development, but often serve as barriers and distractions for further growth.

5) Our "souls" are not equivalent to pure Consciousness, Mind, Nous, Pneuma, or what they call the Witness or Seer in Buddhism. The soul is fundamentally no different than body, emotions, or ego in that it is a conditional, relative phenomena that is observed by That which cannot be observed.

6) Something like "the Force" is discussed in Hindu religion. It is prana --- the vital "life force" or "elan vital" within all living creatures. It is hardly "spiritual" in nature, and is situated above matter but below the rational mind in personal development. This would be like equating ch'i and shen as the same thing in Chinese practice, too.

Laterz.

 

[heretic888]

1. If you're gonna pick on another writer about capitals, try to punctuate correctly.

2. Since the Self (now we're talking about a single, unique thing, even if it is an illusion or an ideal construct, so proper nouns are capitalized) is, from many viewpoints, either a) a side effect of the operations of the psyche in its interactions with the world, or b) an illusion, or c) a social construct, all the jazz about the Atman or whatever all reducing to the same Thing repeats the same faith in the illusion. Jung was fundamentally an idealist, philosophically speaking: I ain't.

c) So what are we preferring--biological reductionism, or, "spiritual," essentialism? Not much to choose from...

d) In the first "Star Wars," movies, being a Jedi is something you inherit. And what you see on the screen is that only white people inherit it. And the political context of the film says that the good guys believe in hereditary monarchies. And the last scence from the very first movie directly borrows from Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." And white=good, black=bad, and when Vader becomes good he a) turns white, b) drops James Earl Jones' voice. And then there're, later, the quaint Italian junkman and the sinister Jap (and that is precisely how they talk) Trade federation. See where I'm going with this?

1. It was a pun. Try not to take things too seriously, Robert.

2. No matter what rationalizations, justifications, or projections you would like to give, Robert, if you see some fundamental difference between, say --- Plotinus' Godhead, Dionysius-Areopagite's (and Sufism's) Dazzling Darkness, Valentinus' the Deep (or the Abyss), Jacob Boehme's No-Thing, Johannes Eckhart's the Ground of God and Soul, Paul Tillich's the Ground of All Being, Shankara's Atman-Brahman, Siddartha's Anatta, Nagarjuna's Shunyata, and Zen's Buddha Mind (or True Self or The Face You Had Before You Were Born) --- I'd be interested to hear the particulars.

All of the individuals I cited, without exception, refer to their particular, socially-constructed Reality as being ineffable, wholly transcendent of phenomena, indescribable, "beyond words", unlike any "thing" or "form", wholly beyond rationality and conscious thought, and fundamentally "nondual" (or kenotic, as some Christians called it). A lot of cross-cultural universalism for a 'social construction', neh?

Oh, and by the way, the concept of a "No Self" is as equally as much an illusion as a concept of a "Self". It is the nature of dualism. Unless, of course, you are trying to make words paradigmatic here --- in which case, you really haven't even begun to understand the basics of Buddhism.

c) You'd have to define what you mean by "essentialism" for clarification. Technically speaking, most forms of Buddhism would classify as "essentialist", as would all other religions. Talk about privileged position.

d) Hrmm.... I'm gonna have to agree with the others here, Robert. I think you just go out of your way to look for things that really aren't there. Or, rather, if they are there you seem to have a tendency to blow them out of proportion. Lighten up, dude.

Laterz.

 

[Cryozombie]

Damn that white Jedi, Samuel Jackson. Damn him for being not only white but the LEADER of the whole damn Jedi order.

I think you need to rewatch those films.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Damn those damn critics! They keep seeing what's actually there!!

I was referring to the fascist "awards ceremony," at the end of the very first "Star Wars."

You are explicitly told, from the first to the last of these movies, that the ability to sense and to use the Force is inherited. It's biological, and no amount of training will teach what isn't there in the blood. Luke has it, because of his dad; Leia has it, because she's his sister. Furthermore, this inheritance is fundamentally a part of the central character's biographies again and again and again--for example, we are explicitly shown that Luke and Leia descend from royalty.

"Princess Leia," guys. Hello-o. She inherited her position; she's a Senator or whatever as part of that inheritance.

One awaits the dismissive explanations of a) the Japanese Trade Delegation; b) the Italian flying junkman; c) that annoying pseudo-Rastaman character; why d) Samuel L. Jackson's character is more than a token, a, "but I'm not racist!"

As for the lists of religious and pseudo-religious figures, sorry, not impressed. I certainly don't claim to be a religious scholar--what I DO claim is to have read enough Jung, Campbell, Neumann, etc., to legitimately reject Jungian doctrine.

And oh, just incidentall--might not be a good idea to wax too Jungian in an argument about racism. What with Jung's service to Hitler and all.

Could be worse. I was listening to a biography of the architect Philip Johnson yesterday--he died--and apparently he was not only an avid fascist, he actually went into Poland with the German armies in 1939. Riding in a Rolls. That probably explains far too much about his buildings.

 

[Tgace]

Possibly due to the whole Knights, Princesses, Evil Warlords, Symbolism (black is the "evil" color in many cultures) and hero themes the story is based on more than some type of contrived "wrong" buried in the story??

Thats a far more nice and friendly conversation to have though.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Or, maybe this movie, like a lot of science fiction, has a deep-seated feudal streak in it--one thinks of Poul Anderson, Jerry Pournelle, David Weber, and many others--and it turns out to be very difficult to express the inherent royalist and "racist," (in the sense that they ground privilege upon fantasies about blood, inheritance and God's Will) in ways that are also democratic and egalitarian?

See Philip K. Dick, "The Man In the High Castle;" Norman Spinrad, "The Iron Dream."

 

[FearlessFreep]

Rob, have you seen the movies?

You are explicitly told, from the first to the last of these movies, that the ability to sense and to use the Force is inherited. It's biological, and no amount of training will teach what isn't there in the blood

Biological, yes, inherited, no

Luke has it, because of his dad

That is the only familial connection in the force mentioned at it is never accredited to inheritance.

Leia has it, because she's his sister

Leia is never really credited with having any Force abilities, you can sorta infer it from Yodas comments about 'there is another' but Kenobi would not have said "He's our last hope" if he was counting on inheritance, because he already knew about Leia

And we saw how powerful Anakin's mother was in the Force

for example, we are explicitly shown that Luke and Leia descend from royalty.

Luke and Leia are the children of Anakin who grew up as a slave. Not sure how Leia got into "Princess" but it sure as heck wasn't from inheritance (Note: In some of the backstory behind eps I and II it's mentioned that on Naboo that royalty is elected, which is why/how Amadala went from Queen to Senator)

"Princess Leia," guys. Hello-o. She inherited her position

From Darth Vader?

why d) Samuel L. Jackson's character is more than a token, a, "but I'm not racist!"

Given who was on the council, I thought he was the token human. After all, the dude in charge was 2 feet tall, 700 years old, and green

when Vader becomes good he a) turns white, b) drops James Earl Jones' voice.

Note that a) Luke was white so it would sorta follow that Vader would be as well. b) Vader was played in the suit by white English actor David Prowse but Lucas switched to a different actor because he wanted someone else. If he just wanted a 'black->white' switch, he could've stuck with Prowse, since Prowse was the white guy in the suit.

 

[heretic888]

I'm really not that big enough of a Star Wars fan to care about the racist accusations, but...

As for the lists of religious and pseudo-religious figures, sorry, not impressed.

Not surprising, really.

It may behoove you to actually learn a thing or two about the religious doctrines you claim to sometimes support, as well as to learn a thing or two about the religious doctrines you claim to reject and criticize. Even a simple one, say, the purported differences between the Buddhist shunyata and the Hindu nirguna brahman would be interesting --- or, the Buddhist dharmakaya and the Hindu causal body, if that is more accessible.

Again, the notion that there is a substantive difference between a big "Self" and a "No Self" is more an illusory product of believing one's rational thought system somehow tacks down Buddhist philosophy as a whole. A more cogently Buddhist response would be something like that:

"Self is an illusion, no-self is an illusion. Self is reality, no-self is reality. These statements both conflict and accord with one another. At the same time, these statements neither conflict nor accord with one another.

This is Buddha Nature."

Or, perhaps:

"You think too much, pinhead. Shut up, stop thinking, and meditate."

I certainly don't claim to be a religious scholar--what I DO claim is to have read enough Jung, Campbell, Neumann, etc., to legitimately reject Jungian doctrine.

What is all this about Carl Jung?? What does any of this have to do with Carl Jung?? I certainly don't align myself with the Jungian school, or even with tangential neo-Jungians like Neumann.

Truth be told, Jungian theories are rife with about as much error, misinterpretation, and lack of empirical corroboration as Freudian theories. And, like Freud, really only Jung's basic ideas have received much support from the psychological community (most of the specifics have been rejected).

If you plan on tacking any psychoanalyst/neo-Freudian on my belief system, you'd have better luck with Erik Erikson. At least he had a cogent theory of development (vague notions about mythical archetypes, quasi-Hinduism, and quadra-personality types don't cut it).

That being said, I have to say one of the most useful (and interesting) aspects of Jungian thought I have found are his discussions of Shadow.

And oh, just incidentall--might not be a good idea to wax too Jungian in an argument about racism. What with Jung's service to Hitler and all.

I don't suppose you have any citations for this claim?? :idunno:

Laterz.

 

[heretic888]

Or, maybe this movie, like a lot of science fiction, has a deep-seated feudal streak in it--one thinks of Poul Anderson, Jerry Pournelle, David Weber, and many others--and it turns out to be very difficult to express the inherent royalist and "racist," (in the sense that they ground privilege upon fantasies about blood, inheritance and God's Will) in ways that are also democratic and egalitarian?

Well, I can personally find sympathy with the notion that much of science-fiction (and the related genre of fantasy) is steeped in feudalistic mythology and romanticism. That much is rather self-evident.

Perhaps it would have been wiser to word it in this fashion from the onset?? Y'know, less of "Star and Wars is racist" and more "Star Wars is based on feudal mythologies which have racist and xenophobic undertones"??

O'course, I'm sure hardcore Star Wars fans will deny even this, but you get the point.

 

[rmcrobertson]

First off, sheesh. Things haven't "behooved," anybody since Huntz Hall tired to impress the Dead End Kids; I'm not impressed with a buncha names; I'm not impressed with the elementary comment that it is neither the One nor the Other--especially when such a claim of deconstructing both self and its supposed antithesis collapses, at the end, into a resurrection of the Other as the Jungian "shadow." I'm also not impressed by dogmatic assertions from somebody who claims to Have Figured All This Psyche Stuff Out--or maybe I'm just jealous.

It's pretty easy to find out about Jung's career. He was a fathead in many ways--not least of which were his assertions about the racial characters of archetypes, and his profound sexism. But then, I'd though you were the boyo who was trying to chide me for not look up enough about the atman or whatever? That said, I don't know what the hell I was thinking bringing him up either. Perhaps if you'll stop flinging names at random and trying to be patronizing--note; I'm much, much better at both--the conversation'll go better.

As for the claim that the plot, characters, story details, set design, backstories, ways of speaking, etc., don't matter to "Star Wars," well, what can I say? But riddle me this: if it doesn't matter, why is it there? Why the Flying Italian Junk Seller and Crook? Why the Japanese-accented sneaky trade delegation? Why's Jar-Jar Binks obviously smoking the ganja? Why the explicit royalist themes, the explicit "breeding tells," message?

Sure, no women manifest the Force. That's perfectly consistent with two anti-democratic ideas: patriarchy, in which women contain what men exhibit; monarchism, in which women function as biological conservators of heroic traits, but exhibit them themselves primarily in girlish ways. There can be exceptions (Queen Elizabeth I; Joan of Arc)--but such exceptions always prove the rule, or are otherwise somehow domesticated (for example, Leia is more-than-counterbalanced by Luke's auntie). And note that when push comes to shove, throughout "Star Wars," in all its episodes, women acting heroically will always be kept far in the background. In the universe, there are no Ripleys; there are no Buffys or Sarah Connors.

There's no reason not to enjoy this stuff--and there's also no reason to pretend it doesn't mean what it means. Or to ask the question again: if it don't matter, why's it so very explicitly there?

 

[heretic888]

I'm not impressed with a buncha names

Perhaps if you'd actually read some of them??

Or, at the very least, familiarize yourself with the general ideas of their respective philosophies and thought systems...

I'm not impressed with the elementary comment that it is neither the One nor the Other--especially when such a claim of deconstructing both self and its supposed antithesis collapses, at the end, into a resurrection of the Other as the Jungian "shadow."

Oy vey.

Dude, what I'm blabbing about is really very, very, very, basic and very, very, very common Buddhism. And Vedanta Hinduism, for that matter. Neoplatonism, too. Contemplative Christianity and Sufist Islam, also.

The whole point is that using dualistic "logic" and "reason" to try and pin this stuff down is a waste of time. It won't work. No amount of linguistic deconstructing is going to change this: reason can't explain that which transcends reason.

"Fetishizing" (to use your wording) a logically-constucted, dualistic "No Self" in lieu of a logically-constructed, dualistic "Big Self" misses the point. The point is they're both wrong -- and they're both right. The point is using dualism to explain the Nondual is, well, kinda tough.

Furthermore, the point is that a qualitative difference between shunyata and nirguna brahman (or between formless godhead) is more a convenience of one's own logical ego trying to make its worldview King of the Hill.

I'm still waiting to hear on the subtantial differences between all these religious concepts, by the way. Or, how a formless, ineffable, indescribable, prior-to-but-not-other-than-the-universe "No Self" is different from a formless, ineffable, indescribable, prior-to-but-not-other-than-the-universe "Divine Self" (or "Godhead" or "Ground of Being").

One would think an English professor wouldn't get so caught up on simple words, and realize them for what they are.

I'm also not impressed by dogmatic assertions from somebody who claims to Have Figured All This Psyche Stuff Out--or maybe I'm just jealous.

Mmmm.... I love the smell of ad hominems in the evening.

It's pretty easy to find out about Jung's career. He was a fathead in many ways--not least of which were his assertions about the racial characters of archetypes, and his profound sexism.

Last time I checked, "pretty easy to find" is not a valid citation.

But then, I'd though you were the boyo who was trying to chide me for not look up enough about the atman or whatever?

Oh, a second salvo of ad hominems?? I musta been a good boy this winter...

Ta ta.

 

[Tgace]

Methinks that sometimes the professorial approach of "challenging belief structures" can become so ingrained that thats the only approach available, even when the opponent knows what hes talking about. You all obviously know more (academically at least) on these subjects than I...And thats not meant as a snipe. I frequently find that the most embarrassing mistakes I have made have been when I was shown to be wrong after believing I "knew for a fact" that I was right. I can accept that much of the "opinion" posted here (mine absolutely included) may be factually wrong. Problem with politics and political opinion (and things not recorded or scientifically verifiable) is thats seldom easy to prove.

 

[heretic888]

Methinks that sometimes the professorial approach of "challenging belief structures" can become so ingrained that thats the only approach available, even when the opponent knows what hes talking about. You all obviously know more (academically at least) on these subjects than I...And thats not meant as a snipe. I frequently find that the most embarrassing mistakes I have made have been when I was shown to be wrong after believing I "knew for a fact" that I was right. I can accept that much of the "opinion" posted here (mine absolutely included) may be factually wrong. Problem with politics and political opinion (and things not recorded or scientifically verifiable) is thats seldom easy to prove.

*shrugs* Now, don't get me wrong...

I admit that it is feasibly possible that the formless, ineffable, indescribable, omnipresent, transcendent Void or Buddha Mind posited by the various schools of Buddhism could be real --- and the formless, ineffable, indescribable, omnipresent, transcendent Godhead or Ground posited by the Neoplatonists, Christian mystics, Vedantists, Sufis, and Kabbalists could be an utter fantasy that they collectively dreamt up one day.

But, somehow, I just don't think that scenario is very probable. Furthermore, I think that scenario absolutely reaks of an attempt to make one religion or tradition paradigmatic, exclusive, and "privileged".

I don't buy it. When there's this much cross-cultural smoke, you should probably expect a universalist fire across the way.