Speaking of the problematic Jedi code, somebody noted after our viewing that Jedis who spend all their time talking about good and evil and so on shouldn't spout off a line like "Only Sith speak in absolutes."
According to extratextual sources, MW lingered dangerously close to the dark side, which is why he was able to put the hurt on General Grievous where other Jedi could not (in the recent cartoons series—which explains why, in turn, General Grievous is wheezing at the beginning of the film). It seems to me that Jedis are licensed to incapacitate Sith, lethally if necessary. Dooku was effectively neutralized when Anakin humbled him. MW could have simply said that Sidious could not effectively be contained.
Nevertheless! Jedis do eat; Luke doesn't like what Yoda gives him on Dagobah.
Actually, Kriston, there's a textual source for that! I related elsewhere that I recently had the opportunity to read three or four pages of a dreadful novelization of the movie (really dreadful), in which we learn that the fighting style in which Windu is expert, and which he invented, and which has a ridiculous name (not as ridiculous as its inventor's, though), works by having the fighter, like, get in touch with his darrrrk side and use the negative energies or some such, and this is dangerous because it makes you come right up to the brink, and when you come up to the brink, does not the brink also come up to you? Feeds on your anger, or some such.
You see, lingering close to the dark side was MW's very strength, even as it was his most dangerous weakness.
2: You know, that sounds exactly like what one of my students was saying about Kant and self-defense--you're allowed to hinder someone to keep them from hindering you, which may mean killing in self-defense if necessary, but you can't do anything more than necessary.
I thought Luke wasn't actually a full-fledged Jedi? That's what Tyler Cowen seems to say.
Please, please, please don't let it be that Mace Windu has a particularly close relationship with the dark side. Smoove B, we grant you the rank of Jedi Master.
Kriston,
MW could have simply said that Sidious could not effectively be contained.
Yeah, that's just what Sideous said to Skywalker about Dooku. Relativist! Postmodernist!
At a minimum, you'd think that there would have been more signals/recognition that killing a helpless Dooku was the original sin that led to the killing of the innocents, etc. But no real time was spent setting the moment up as such. Horrible.
I keep reading the "MW"s in this thread as "Matt Weiner" rather than "Mace Windu." It's quite confusing.
The crew is in for a surprise at tonight's get-together....
SCMT: Wouldn't that original sin have been killing all the Tusken Raiders (even the women and children)?
"Mace, your light-saber skillz are kinda rusty, but you sure seem to have learned a lot about opaque contexts!"
That movie never happened, Kriston.
I think Windu was supposed to be acting wrongly in that scene. I took that to be the point. Part of the influence of the Dark Side over the whole situation, like the failure of Yoda's powers of prognostication (discussed at length in Episodes I and II) and Qui-Gon's hubris in insisting that Anakin be trained. Keep in mind that Windu is not only prepared to summarily execute Palpatine, but is in the midst of ranting about how all Palpatine controls the Senate and the judiciary, so the Jedi have no choice but to take the law into their own hands.
And consider how Windu got into the room in the first place -- he claims to be acting in the name of the Senate, but he has no such authorization and, as we see at the crucial moment, no longer believes he should submit to the Senate's authority at all. In an earlier discussion Windu is advocating that the Council take over the Senate and supplant its authority, at which point Yoda cautions him to stop talking.
The general idea, I think, is to try and present Anakin with a plausible dilemma at the key moment of his transition toward evil.
I'm with Yglesias on this one. Windu's actions weren't consistent with his moral system but seem likely to be approved of after the fact by the other Jedi masters. Anakin's objection to Windu killing Palpatine was in line with superficial Jedi principles but not genuinely motivated by them. At that moment everyone in the room but Palpatine was a hypocrite.
I was pretty impressed by this part of the movie -- I was expecting Anakin's turn to be a shallow (albeit aggravated) power grab, but the movie actually went to the trouble of setting up a believable moral vaccum.
A larger question: are there any meaningful parables that don't involve dismemberment?
Matt:
Fine. But then, shouldn't there be something that indicates that Anikin's conflicted, and not merely constipated? There was a flatness to the movie that made it deeply uninteresting.
There are two Matts in this thread, so it's not clear which one you're responding to. And given that this thread is full of philosophy types, what's this stuff about "flatness" and "interesting"? Let's get down to abstractions, baby.
deeply uninteresting.
I sense pose over substance.
But Windu's actions are all right by the moral system's lights if you buy into the whole package-- the dark side, the sith lords, the whole deal. We in the audience, who know all this stuff about the future, are on Windu's side. But in a pluralistic society, we need process, people. Public reason rulz!
Another reason to get rid of the Senate...
We in the audience, who know all this stuff about the future, are on Windu's side.
Well, the past. Or future-past.
Well, the past. Or future-past.
Yeah. Watching these movies was such an exercise in selectively forgetting important facts that I was bothered by Windu taking matters into his own hands. Bring Palpatine before the Senate, I say. If the galactic heartland decides they want to give Sithism another shot, so be it. We'll just have to suck it up and console ourselves with a lot of loose talk about emigrating to the parallel dimension analogue of Canada.
Philosophers scare me. But is it possible to analyze a psuedo-Zen philosophy about its internal consistency from outside the philosophy? Isn't this a little bit like correcting Arabic grammar when all you speak is English?
Is it not rather the case, Tim, that that is the only way to analyze a psuedo-Zen philosophy?
Dunno, w-lfs-n. That's why I'm asking the philo-types. My question is really, "Is it possible to judge the internal consistence of a psuedo-Zen philosopy from outside of that tradition?"
Ah, and my response is, is it not the case that it is only possible to do so from outside the tradition?
You just let me know when you attain enlightenment, buddy.
(An aside to everyone but SCMT: is this guy the slowest novice yet, or what?)
Wouldn't it be easier to just say, "Snatch the pebble from my hand," sensei?
Fucker. I look 30 seconds stupider than I am because of my enormously fat typing fingers.
And the sensei is the master, not the novice.
So much for my comment on "Pleathero-Zen" philosophy.
As you can see from the clever use of quotation marks, ogged, SCMT was addressing me as "sensei", and in the context of this little dialogue, I was the master and he the novice. So, like, what's yer damage? I mean, gah.
You just can't get a good novitiate these days, not even for ready money.
Mistakes like those are precisely why you should not be led by your hate, young Jedi.
Anakin! Don't forget the quotation maaaaaarrrrkkkssss!!!
And thus he was turned from the Mention side of the Force.
35 - what about cucumbers, ben?
If only Lucas had Wilde, or even any decent playwright, to do the script, we wouldn't be analyzing inconsistencies & baffled by lack of character development.
Aspyre,
There are no cucumbers to be had, either, not even for ready money.
*gobbles up last cucumber sandwich*
"And does being a Jedi mean never having to eat or urinate, ever?"
Since we've seen Yoda eating in The Empire Strikes Back, Anakin and Padme having at least two meals in Phantom Menace, as well as Qui-gonn....
I'm also fairly sure I've never seen James Bond urinate, or, for that matter, the overwhelming majority of characters in films and tv shows.
On other fronts, Grievous wasn't a Sith -- "there can only be two" -- of course. He's not "Lord Grevious."
"In an earlier discussion Windu is advocating that the Council take over the Senate and supplant its authority, at which point Yoda cautions him to stop talking."
No, Matt, that's not at all what he said, or meant. He said they'd have to "take control" to supervise the transition; there was no intent whatever to do more than that, and given the situation, it's not particularly questionable; what else were they supposed to do?
Of course, trying to draw political lessons for our world, which doesn't happen to have midichlorians, the Force, Jedi, or Sith, in it, among other crucial elements, is utterly idiotic. Which makes it unsuprising so many are doing it.
Which is why I have no patience for these sorts of discussions.
I have a couple of posts up on the movie, though.
"The general idea, I think, is to try and present Anakin with a plausible dilemma at the key moment of his transition toward evil."
That, however, staying internal to the film, is correct. Anakin then gives in to his impulse, cuts off Mace's hand, cries "what have I done?," and has taken a step he cannot draw back from. ("Oops, sorry I'm responsible for Mace being killed; my bad" probably wouldn't have helped much to get him back in with Yoda and friends.)
There are two Matts in this thread
OK, this is beginning to piss me off. Never mind that I'm the regular here--why do people keep using "Matt" to refer to people who sign their name Matthew? Look, muthafuckas, you wanna be called "Matt," you oughta represent. Until then it's "Matthew" or "Yglesias" (or "McIrvin") for you.
I have spoken, and will be ignored.
I call Matt Yglesias "Matt," because he's been called that for years and never objected.
Here's the relevant lines I was referring to, by the way, not that anyone will care, other than to make fun of silly names (gosh, how original):
Kl-ADI-MUNDI: If he does not give up his emergency powers after the destruction of Grievous, then he should be removed from
office.
MACE WiNDU: That could be a dangerous move ... the Jedi Council would have to take control of the Senate in order to secure a peaceful transition . . .
Kl-ADI-MUNDI: . . . and replace the Congress with Senators who are not filled with greed and corruption.
YODA: To a dark place this line of thought will carry us. Hmmmmm. . . . great care we must take.
That was actually addressed at SCMT (and w-lfs-n), who are fellow-regulars. I know Y. goes by Matt, but I do feel as though I should have prior claim on the name at the Mineshaft.
Weiner:
You cannot have a last name like yours, which might reasonably be expected to be pronounced either of two different ways, both apposite for ribbing, and expect to be thought of as "Matt." Even if I have ever addressed you as "Matt," I meant "Weiner." You are simply wrong here. I don't, however, know why I used "Matt" instead of "Yglesias"; I assume it is because last names for non-regular commenters seem formal for a particularly informal blog site.
Also, please refer to me as "Big Daddy Long Kane" from now on.
Is this some reference to what the kids are listening to these days?
If at first you don't succeed...
w-lfs-n, you fucker, I still don't get that joke. Why is attribution of something from Shaw to Russell funny? Explain please.
Well, there were two possibilities:
1. I could have tricked Tripp, and that would have been funny, especially if he objected and I persisted.
2. This is what I should have done: pretended to be genuinely in a state of misapprehension regarding Whitehead, Russell, Shaw and the Fabian Society, and argued with you and Austro. That, too, would have been funny, at least to me (and perhaps others in the peanut gallery).
You fucker.
In the real world, I do normally go by "Matt."
So, like, we're not your friends? You don't introduce yourselves to us by your nickname? Represent!
In the real world, I spend too much time hanging out with people named Matt, and they're the only ones who can call me by my first name, since anyone else doing so is liable to get two people answering.
I've had three different roommates who've shared my first name, and in high school was in a class with five other girls with the same first name. (One of whom had a last name that was close enough to mine that I was repeatedly purged from the school's records as a typographical error.)
So I feel your pain.
This is what I should have done: pretended to be genuinely in a state of misapprehension regarding Whitehead, Russell, Shaw and the Fabian Society, and argued with you and Austro.
mmhhmm. And of course, given your level of erudition etc. We would have fallen for this?
Nice try though. Almost seems a shame to have sabotaged it.
"... I was repeatedly purged from the school's records as a typographical error."
Possibly better than being purged as a counter-revolutionary. Though perhaps not at that school. Would being purged as a kulak have worked for you?
"... I was repeatedly purged from the school's records as a typographical error."
You are Lieutenant Kizhe and I claim my ten roubles.