8 hours ago, Nivrap said:

Just because taking Force-sensitive children is the law doesn't mean it's right. But considering how deeply intertwined the Jedi are with the Senate, the majority of the Republic's citizens are probably thrilled to have their children grow up to become Jedi. And when the only other alternative is being placed on a government watch-list, what other option is there?

I think that was a big part of the old order's problems. When you're awesome kensai telepathic prescient zen monks of pure badass in a monastery on a hill somewhere, that's kinda cool.

But the 'monastery on a hill' was on coruscant, a stone's throw from the capital of a (moderately corrupt) galactic polity that used them as essentially secret service agents on a regular basis, so that's not what you're dealing with. It's an organisation that - however pure its theoretical motives - is mired in politics. Add together proximity to power, an easy 'outsiders' view of corruption (which obviously can't affect them ), and the fact that it's hard for an institution not to develop a superior attitude when your members are provably superior at everything they do to most people they encounter to the point that the 'will of the living galatic life-force' has chosen to provide you with super-powers and plot armour, and you end up with the Jedi.

Not the bad guys. But not as much the good guys as they would probably like to believe.

On ‎10‎/‎1‎/‎2017 at 10:25 AM, Vondy said:

We are far too tolerant of shallow, addle-minded, immoral nonsense.

I do not love the diatribes of brilliant morons.

Having endured them, you can never-ever get the time back.

All you are left with is fouled tripe and idiotic ranting.

The Jedi make some deeply flawed moral decisions, but the Sith are definitively evil .

I can only respond to this by saying that I love Vondy.

On 10/5/2017 at 0:38 PM, Archlyte said:

I can only respond to this by saying that I love Vondy.

I woulf say the Sith are selfish. Thos can result in evil and often does. But it is not guaranteed to be evil.

"Good. Evil. I'm the one with the gun." (Ash)

Really shows how subjective terms such as 'good' and 'evil' are. And no matter how much anyone tried to debate this from their own point of view, George Lucas' vision included the Sith (through Maul, Tyranus, Sidious and Vader) and the Empire (through TIEs, Star Destroyers and Death Stars) as evil institutions. Good guys don't blow up planets (even partially) with lots of innocents on them (Alderaan, Jeddah) or their own troops (Scariff), and good guys as we know them also don't generally kill younglings at their own (former) temples of learning and tradition. Though a bit of selfishness doesn't have to lead to evil deeds all the time, Star Wars morality makes it clear there is little doubt about Sith or the Empire even if the Jedi are not the 'knights in white armour' some would like them to be.

5 hours ago, Daeglan said:

I woulf say the Sith are selfish. Thos can result in evil and often does. But it is not guaranteed to be evil.

What does this mean exactly? Can you elaborate please?

I always wondered what if Kotor's family lines of Jedi functioning like a noble court with the Senate as advisors rather than the Jedi Council they showed us?

So Yoda & co are part of various Monastic Orders established throughout known space with evidence of exploration of the Outer Rim and the Unknown Regions in an attempt to prevent the tragedy of the Sith being repeated.

Sadly they didn't learn from their mistakes showing why the so-called Jedi spread out rather than centred in a location miring themselves with the politics of the Republic that ultimately why they fell.

The "Sith" are actually a subterfuge using legends of a long extinct species reinforce the power of the Republic and most specifically the Jedi Families of whom Palpatine is a member.

The TPM was established to help support the Republic's eventual war with the Monastic Orders, the Jedi Knights of this era are called Republic Knights of whom Obi-Wan is one having been turned down for training he joined the military to serve the people.

The Clones are created to provide the Republic a military that's loyal to just the Republic the Separatist movement was originally a red herring similar to TFU in that it becomes a real threat to the Republic that ultimately Palpatine used to usurp power, eliminate the remaining Jedi Nobles but ironically it plays a part in helping establishing the Rebel Alliance!

Sorry probably just as jarring as are With Good and Jedi Evil but I think this can be established that neither side are either purely good nor evil ultimately they all tell it's whether the survivors learned from their mistake this time round!

3 hours ago, Archlyte said:

What does this mean exactly? Can you elaborate please?

A selfish person does not have to be evil or do evil. But being selfish tends to not prevent one from doing evil acts.

Ie Anakin was being selfish in his desire to keep Padme alive. He was willing to do anything to do it.

I got this far into the article: In the interest of convenience, "the Sith are the good guys and the Jedi are the bad guys" argument will henceforth be referred to as the "Star Wars Re-evaluation Theory", or SWRT for short.

...and thought 'You are a PRAT!' and promptly closed the web page. I am not wasting my time reading crap like that

Much like with real-life politics, implying that one side is "better" or "not evil" is foolish. As a centrist, I take the position that both sides are too extreme and therefore equally awful, making me the true intellectual of this debate. Everyone who has convictions or who thinks X is different than Y is a short-sighted fool.

42 minutes ago, Degenerate Mind said:

Much like with real-life politics, implying that one side is "better" or "not evil" is foolish. As a centrist, I take the position that both sides are too extreme and therefore equally awful, making me the true intellectual of this debate. Everyone who has convictions or who thinks X is different than Y is a short-sighted fool.

lol

What a profound misreading of the text.

Also note that the prequels showed the Jedi Order as it was dying . We have a span of roughly thirteen years from TPM to ROTS (why does everyone hate the prequels?) and at that time the Jedi were desperately trying to fight back against encroaching corruption. Imagine how good they must have been at their pinnacle.

If anyone has played kotor 2, Atton initially favoured the sith for their transparency and was disgusted at the Jedi for all their secrecy. This does not make either of them morally correct, however they each have their own flaws.

2 hours ago, Siuolis said:

If anyone has played kotor 2, Atton initially favoured the sith for their transparency and was disgusted at the Jedi for all their secrecy. This does not make either of them morally correct, however they each have their own flaws.

That's like saying both the Nazis and the White Rose each have their own flaws. While true, it's also completely misleading.

11 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

That's like saying both the Nazis and the White Rose each have their own flaws. While true, it's also completely misleading.

I never said one was more morally correct than the other. Both of them can have their downfall, in the case of the sith they will bring destruction quickly, while the Jedi over time will lead them selves into instability.

32 minutes ago, Siuolis said:

the Jedi over time will lead them selves into instability.

They existed for thousands of years. That doesn't seem very unstable.

7 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

They existed for thousands of years. That doesn't seem very unstable.

And they didn't lead themselves into instability, a Sith lord in hiding manipulated the entire galactic society into a civil war to destabilize the ENTIRE galaxy, so that he could sew discontent and discord, allowing for his eventual rise to power. That's hardly all on the Jedi. I mean yeah, you could say they were kind of stupid, though I chalk most of that up to George's inability to write dialogue that you know...actual human beings say when it comes to politics and intrigue.

But blaming the Jedi for their downfall is like blaming a guy who suddenly finds himself in charge of keeping a hundred spinning plates on their poles, without any real preparation, because someone else put them in motion, and then blaming him for not noticing the guy that snuck up behind him and stabbed him in the back while he was distracted.

In no way except to themselves can the sith be considered anything but evil. Yet no order that employs a slave army can be thought of as good, IMO, which allows us to see Anakin Darth Vader as a hero from a certain point of view. I love these kinds of dicussions about a franchise most viewers wee as escapist eye candy

2 minutes ago, Orjo Creld said:

In no way except to themselves can the sith be considered anything but evil. Yet no order that employs a slave army can be thought of as good, IMO

Well, yeah. The Jedi Order was compromised by putting it into a situation where it had to use the clone army (at the behest of the Senate), or see the Republic overrun by droids. Those were the only two possible outcomes at that point in time.

4 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Well, yeah. The Jedi Order was compromised by putting it into a situation where it had to use the clone army (at the behest of the Senate), or see the Republic overrun by droids. Those were the only two possible outcomes at that point in time.

So the choice is to grow soldiers in vats or succumb to the tyranny of a droid army. Meanwhile the fan boys hate Jar Jar Binks

7 minutes ago, Orjo Creld said:

So the choice is to grow soldiers in vats or succumb to the tyranny of a droid army.

When the droid army is RIGHT THERE - yeah, it pretty much is.

7 minutes ago, Orjo Creld said:

Meanwhile the fan boys hate Jar Jar Binks

okay?

On 10/2/2017 at 3:57 PM, HappyDaze said:

So taking infants away from their parents and as the grow older giving them no choice but to be subject to the will of the Jedi is pretty objectively an evil act.

This is no different than a monastic tradition. Are monks evil? The Jedi don’t kidnap children they have the consent of their families.

Also consider a force sensitive child left to their own childish devices could fall to the dark side easily and become a danger to their community.

4 hours ago, Orjo Creld said:

So the choice is to grow soldiers in vats or succumb to the tyranny of a droid army. Meanwhile the fan boys hate Jar Jar Binks

They didn't grow the soldiers. That's actually a significant plot point, they were in fact, totally surprised to learn that this army had been in production for over 10 years. It's actually a pretty huge plot hole I think, how none of them bothered to actually investigate the Jedi Master who supposedly commissioned the clone army. I know when I first saw Attack of the Clones, I thought we were going to get some intrigue/espionage plot, where they dig into this Master...what was his name? Cyphodias or something? And that we would learn it was actually Palpatine behind it all, or that the Master was another, previous servant of his, like Dooku is now. But no....absolutely nothing happens with that plot...at all.

The Republic Senate voted and approved the use of the army, and approved the Jedi being in charge. It's hardly an ideal scenario for them, but when the alternative is "everyone in this Republic is killed and subjugated to a hostile, outside force" your options are limited.

2 hours ago, Eoen said:

This is no different than a monastic tradition. Are monks evil? The Jedi don’t kidnap children they have the consent of their families.

Also consider a force sensitive child left to their own childish devices could fall to the dark side easily and become a danger to their community.

Not to mention that using EU/Legacy material to try and state the Jedi are evil, then requires to consider the EU/Legacy material that shows the Sith doing things like enslaving entire planets/species to their empire. Casually murdering people for personal gain and for the lulz of it. Wholesale slaughter and destruction of billions, if not trillions of beings in their frequent clashes with the galaxy. And countless other atrocities that I'm sure someone more versed in the EU can cite.

Which still means they are worse than the Jedi, by orders of magnitude. Sure, the Jedi might not have been a pristine, squeaky clean, without flaw organization (not a surprise when you have countless authors putting their own spin on the material, that can contradict previous representations), but they at lest TRIED to be a beneficial organization in their society. Maybe they didn't succeed 100% of the time, but if you had to pick to live under a Sith ruler, or a Jedi, can someone honestly say that they are equally bad choices?

Because I just can't see that, at all, considering the material being cited to condemn the Jedi.

I'll call the article an interesting read, but a flawed one for several reasons. That being said, I do believe that it is typically rather pointless to argue about who or what constitutes "good" and "evil". From my perspective the answer has a tendency to be heavily influenced by the perspective of the one doing the analysis, and by the motivation behind the act being considdered. However, I will not dispute that most societies tend to gravitate towards some common ideas about what kind of behavious is viewed as positive, and what is typically viewed as negative, based on which you can argue that some acts should universally be considdered bad or evil.

From my personal perspective, the Jedi are not "objectively" good, and the Sith are not necessarily "evil". But "objectively" speaking, most of us would probably prefer to associate with a Jedi, rather than a Sith.

I'd say that the Jedi are not "shinning knights", as they will use the Force to manipulate people and events to bring about their preferred outcome. Also, regardless of whether the Jedi "abducts" young children or take them for training with their parrents conscent, then it probably isn't "healthy" for the child, if seen in a real world perspective.

The reason I won't say that all Sith are necessarily "evil", is that I don't see anything in the Sith Code, that makes in mandatory to commit acts of evil or atrocity. Though I will say that the Code doesn't discourage it. For the record, no. I can't point to a "good" Sith, but the Star Wars universe is a fictive setting with billions of creatures and a many thousand year old history. So while there probably isn't any available evidence of a "good" Sith, that isn't the same as saying that it isn't possible to persue the Sith Code without committing acts of evil, nor that no such Sith has has existed within the universe (even if no such individual has as yet been discribed).

Finally, let's bear in mind two things in mind. 1) Depending on which part of the Star Wars Lore we elect to include in the debate, we'll be able to find more or less (conflicting) evidence towards one conclusion or another. 2) If we look at George Lucas' view on the matter, the Jedi and the Force is good, and the Sith are evil and using a corrupted, unbalanced version of the Force. That view works well for stories build on the formula that the original Star Wars movies all follow, but objective good and evil makes for boring debates about whether something or someone is good or evil, because the outcome of the debate is set from the beginning. So in terms of getting an interesting debate, it must be assumed that morality is not objective, but rather seen in shades of grey, much as in reality.

3 hours ago, Count Cenex de Solaan said:

I'll call the article an interesting read, but a flawed one for several reasons. That being said, I do believe that it is typically rather pointless to argue about who or what constitutes "good" and "evil". From my perspective the answer has a tendency to be heavily influenced by the perspective of the one doing the analysis, and by the motivation behind the act being considdered. However, I will not dispute that most societies tend to gravitate towards some common ideas about what kind of behavious is viewed as positive, and what is typically viewed as negative, based on which you can argue that some acts should universally be considdered bad or evil.

Except there is objective studies that have shown that certain forms of behavior ARE, objectively better on the societal level, than others. Sure, some people can say that "owning people as property isn't bad, because we treat them well." But when people actually look at the factors for societal health, and compare societies that have different methods of operation, there are some very clear indicators. It's not just a case of "we think this way of behaving is better" in many cases it actually IS better.

3 hours ago, Count Cenex de Solaan said:

From my personal perspective, the Jedi are not "objectively" good, and the Sith are not necessarily "evil". But "objectively" speaking, most of us would probably prefer to associate with a Jedi, rather than a Sith.

Is your personal perspective actually taking into consideration the actions of the Sith? I mean, if you are just implying that you don't like the terms "good and evil" at all, ok fine, that's just a preference of terminology. But I mean, it's pretty clear that the imagery used for the Sith and the Empire, and basically all of the badguys in the OT, were heavily influenced by Nazi imagery. And the acts of the Sith, in the material published, are hard to say they were good actions, in any sense. Enslaving entire planets, and sometimes entire species to their will through trickery and martial force. Conducting medical experiments on unwilling subjects to make disposable foot soldiers in their Imperial Army. Casually killing people for personal gain, or just out of petty emotions, or just for the lulz of it. Killing billions in their multiple wars of conquest in a galactic society. There isn't really a lot of "certain point of view" justification that makes these actions, when they were pretty much all unprovoked, even remotely "not evil."

3 hours ago, Count Cenex de Solaan said:

I'd say that the Jedi are not "shinning knights", as they will use the Force to manipulate people and events to bring about their preferred outcome. Also, regardless of whether the Jedi "abducts" young children or take them for training with their parrents conscent, then it probably isn't "healthy" for the child, if seen in a real world perspective.

Yeah, the "they take children against their will" thing is relatively new information to me, and I think it might just be one author's take on how the Jedi behave, and is probably not something that is actually supported by the majority of authors of the EU, and probably not by Lucas either. I suspect he never even read the material, that has now become the lynchpin in the debate about why the Jedi are "bad".

As to the point of "taking kids, even willing, and putting them into a society that teaches them to deny their emotions is absolutely not a good way to raise healthy, mentally stable children" Yes, that is correct. NOW, in 2017, after decades of social studies into human development, and in particular children development, we've learned that isolating children from a nurturing upbringing, has a high tendency to cause emotional and mental issues later in life. Back in the 70's and early 80's (and 90's), when the bulk of all this EU material was being churned out by anyone with a typewriter, we didn't know that as clearly. So I find it a bit unfair to blame the fictional society for the way it was presented, based on the real world time period in which it was birthed. By that logic, everything from previous eras of humanity have to be considered bad, because at that time they condoned some other form of negative social behavior. Retconning all of human entertainment into the "bad" category, by virtue of being written in a less-enlightened time. Irrespective of what the story is trying to convey in and of itself.

3 hours ago, Count Cenex de Solaan said:

The reason I won't say that all Sith are necessarily "evil", is that I don't see anything in the Sith Code, that makes in mandatory to commit acts of evil or atrocity. Though I will say that the Code doesn't discourage it. For the record, no. I can't point to a "good" Sith, but the Star Wars universe is a fictive setting with billions of creatures and a many thousand year old history. So while there probably isn't any available evidence of a "good" Sith, that isn't the same as saying that it isn't possible to persue the Sith Code without committing acts of evil, nor that no such Sith has has existed within the universe (even if no such individual has as yet been discribed).

All we can do, is go by the examples presented in the published material. And so far, every person who has embraced the Sith philosophy, embraces evil acts. And while it might not say "Thou shalt murder your rivals" in their commandments, that was definitely how it was taught. In SWTOR, the upper members of the Sith Empire, frequently tell you to go kill X because he's a problem, and we'd rather he were just removed. You yourself have the option to kill rivals, simply for personal gain and petty rivalry, and these acts are approved and even embraced by the Sith society.

So yeah, in theory there could be someone out there that believes the Sith philosophy, but doesn't do the acts they encourage and condone, but so far, they haven't been presented.

3 hours ago, Count Cenex de Solaan said:

Finally, let's bear in mind two things in mind. 1) Depending on which part of the Star Wars Lore we elect to include in the debate, we'll be able to find more or less (conflicting) evidence towards one conclusion or another. 2) If we look at George Lucas' view on the matter, the Jedi and the Force is good, and the Sith are evil and using a corrupted, unbalanced version of the Force. That view works well for stories build on the formula that the original Star Wars movies all follow, but objective good and evil makes for boring debates about whether something or someone is good or evil, because the outcome of the debate is set from the beginning. So in terms of getting an interesting debate, it must be assumed that morality is not objective, but rather seen in shades of grey, much as in reality.

I bolded that line for emphasis about my response.

Except the outcome is not set from the beginning, even in the original trilogy. It was the entire emotional drive of the Luke/Vader plot arc. This guy, this living embodiment of the Sith ideal, and the Dark Side. The faceless, emotionless, attack dog to the Dark Emperor of the Dark Side, who killed countless people in the name of personal ambition and gain, and embracing his hatred and lashing out at others, was able to turn away from that way of living, and redeem himself . The actions, and the morality weren't grey themselves, the persons rationale and motivations for choosing their path, and deciding if they could even still turn from that path they set long ago, that was the only shade of grey there was.