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One thing people often seem to forget is that fiction isn’t just an escape, it’s a lesson. Or rather, it is several lessons. These lessons contradict each-other but all of them are ones that people learn without ever realizing they’ve learnt something. While people are aware that media exposure has an effect on the public, they often focus on news media and other nonfiction. While that’s all well and good, and indeed very important, what fiction is teaching to people is just as important. In fact, it’s probably more important, given that people are generally more likely to watch a movie than the news. From stories we build the framework for our political and nonpolitical beliefs, our values and morals (Gottschall 2012). Because of this, the power fiction has cannot be ignored or understated. As Gottschall says, “[w]e live in Neverland [tell and consume stories] because we can’t not live in Neverland. Neverland is our nature. We are the storytelling animal.” (2012: 177)
However, looking at every story to have ever existed is simply impossible for a single person to do. So, we will focus on a single franchise that nearly everyone is familiar with, and that inherently contains and sparks several various political, philosophical, historical, and sociological debates. The franchise that best fits these parameters is that of Star Wars. As a franchise that has become so entangled in popular culture, there are several facets of Star Wars that could be discussed, however, in this paper we will be focusing on the sociological dangers and failings of the Jedi Order and their Code.
Throughout the Star Wars films, there are many references to the Jedi Code, but never in terms of the content of the Code. The Jedi Code is defined in the negative, by what it doesn’t allow, such as romantic relationships and marriage (Attack of the Clones). However, the full text of the Jedi Code does exist, and is as follows: “There is no emotion, there is peace. / There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. / There is no passion, there is serenity. / There is no chaos, there is harmony. / There is no death, there is the Force.” (Golden 2015: 224) To start, each and every single line contains a falsehood. We have emotions. There are things we don’t know. We feel passion. Sometimes things are out of control. People die. From the simplicity of this poem of a code and its blatant misunderstanding of reality, we can conclude that the way the Jedi use the Code is largely up to interpretation. Over the course of this course (and the previous semester’s Contemporary Social Theory) it has become very obvious that the Jedi have never looked at a Sociology textbook or theory ever in their collective lives,else the way that their Code would be interpreted would be very different. Indeed, the Jedi have many Sociological Failings.
Contract Theory, Durkheim, and the Jedi Order
If the Jedi have ever looked at anything remotely resembling a sociological theory, it must have been a contract theory. Contact theorists, such as Hobbes, see the world in a simplistic manner that is not unlike the views the Jedi hold. Durkheim describes these contract theories: “[s]ocial ends are not simply the convergence of individual ends; they are, rather, contrary to them.” (ed. Giddens 1972: 99) He further explains that contract theories embody, in essence, “a break in continuity between the individual and society.” (Durkheim ed. Giddens 1972: 99) However, society is not contrary to what people desire, but the culmination of what all people in the same vicinity desire (Durkheim ed. Giddens 1972: 99-101). The idea that society is a blockage to what individuals want is outdated at best and an outright falsehood at worst, but that seems to be what the Jedi believe. The fact is, it is with these theories that the Jedi Code and the interpretation of it shown in the movies most closely agrees, with the Order demanding that its members give up personal desires to a degree that is unhealthy at best (Attack of the Clones) but more nearly equivalent to mental self-harm (Revenge of the Sith). They deny any meaningful connection between the individual and the society.
Durkheim’s main point is that contract theory is outdated and unrealistic. This is something that is recognized by Michael Follert in his article “Contractual thought and Durkheim’s theory of the social: A reappraisal”. This article details Durkheim’s thoughts on contract theories in a way that is evidently somewhat new (2020). Follert’s article discusses how society is something that Durkheim feels is natural while Hobbes feels society is artificial (2020: 173). As stated earlier, the way the Jedi view the world is much closer to the ideas of Hobbes than those of Durkheim, but Durkheim’s views are far closer to reality. This creates a divide between the Jedi and their fictional reality, where the Jedi are so detached from the public they are supposedly protecting that said public thinks of them largely as soleless baby snatchers. The Jedi are portrayed as the protagonists, and as such it goes without saying that the uncritical audience member will take their perspective as something to learn from. And their perspective is wrong, promoting a version of a person so repressed that cracks begin to form in a person’s very soul.
A Collection of Small Durkheimian Insights
At the very end of Giddens’s introduction to the Durkheim reader, I made a note that was somewhat passive-aggressive on the nature of orthodox interpretations of well, anything. Giddens is critiquing “orthodox” readings of Durkheim, and it feels like he’s having to justify why he is doing what he’s doing, a little bit like I feel I have to justify every time I want to take something fictional very seriously (Giddens 1972: 48). However, the note was likely made because my spiderweb-brain drew the connection between damaging “orthodox” readings of Durkheim and damaging “orthodox” interpretations of the Jedi Code. The damage caused by the way the majority of the Jedi interpret the Code can most easily be seen in the difference between the eager to help and kind hearted Anakin audiences meet in The Phantom Menace and the clearly damaged and disrespected Anakin featured in Attack of the Clones.
Durkheim makes the claim that “history never repeats itself”, which is interesting for a number of reasons (ed. Giddens 1972: 62). Firstly, it is the exact opposite of the adage that is commonly heard, that “history repeats itself”. Secondly, even student historians find that claim blatantly false. Thirdly, it is interesting to think about this claim in the context of the way that media reflects reality and history. While the original trilogy of Star Wars is painted in swaths of the Vietnam Conflict, World War Two, and the American Revolution (the Empire wear Nazi pants and speak in english accents; the Death Star is an obvious standin for the atomic bomb) (A New Hope), the Prequel Trilogy, which more prominently features the Jedi, is a blend of the American Civil War with then-contemporary and still very relevant American Politics (Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008, Revenge of the Sith). Nute Gunray is fairly clearly supposed to be a stand-in for the real-world political figure Newt Gingrich, from his political priorities down to his name (The Phantom Menace). It is unclear exactly how much of the initial cool reaction to these films was due to the politics in them being too similar to what was on the News Channels. Regardless, even if history does not precisely repeat itself exactly, there are many lessons to be learned from it regardless. And if in this telling, the role of Stonewall Jackson is played by an alien cyborg, well, you’ll probably have more people paying attention than in their history classes (Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008).
Despite his claim about the nature of history, Durkheim states that “what is even more dangerous is the undue importance which we are thus prone to attribute to the aspirations of the present moment, when we do not submit them to control.” (ed. Giddens 1972: 80). This is somewhat ironic given that he believes that history is never the same as it was before, but nonetheless true. Additionally, it is something that runs exactly counter to the way the Jedi operate, as they often tell each other to be more mindful of the present (The Phantom Menace) and to disregard dream-visions of the future despite this being an established ability in their galaxy (Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith). Jedi, it seems, aren’t good historians either.
Durkheim describes Sociology as comparative where history is narrative (ed. Giddens 1972: 78-79). While Durkheim is referring specifically to history when making this claim, as previously stated, fiction and reality are mirrors of each-other, and therefore this can also be applied to fiction the same way it is applied to history. This is especially true because stories are also narratives. Sociology is the bigger picture, what steps forth. History and fiction? These are the things that sociology makes sense of.
Even without the major historical ties of Star Wars, there is still so much that stories teach us. Durkheim says on relationships: “[e]ven if [my obligations] conform to my own sentiments and I feel their reality subjectively, this reality is still objective, for I did not create them, I merely received them through my education.” (ed. Giddens 1972: 63-64) This is an interesting word choice on the part of Giddens as the translator, as when many think of “education”, they think of formal schooling institutions. And while that isn’t wrong, that also isn’t all of it. Education is, in this context, all socialization that children undergo when young, including the stories they are told. In this sense, we now see again the importance of stories, and why they cannot be neglected from serious analysis.
The Jedi, with their simple little poem of a Code, have tried to make morality simple. This, too, runs counter to the writings of Durkheim, who says the exact opposite, that morality cannot be so simplified (ed. Giddens 1972: 90). Durkheim discusses that morality is different in times of peace rather than times of war, as he talks about what constitutes a crime (ed. Giddens 1972: 96). In this way, there is some connection between Durkheim and the Jedi, for as the Clone Wars march on, they compromise their stringent morals more and more, and not in a healthy way (Golden 2015, Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008).
One of the many pillars of morality that the Jedi are so fond of promoting is that of self-discipline. When Durkheim looks at the concept of self-discipline, however, he comes to the following conclusion: “asceticism is not good in and of itself” (ed. Giddens 1972: 112). Oh, dear. Someone had better tell the Jedi. That is, it seems, their whole shtick. Indeed, they even wear robes and clothes similar to those worn by the poor who live on worlds in the outer rim such as Tatooine (The Phantom Menace, A New Hope) rather than the practical clothes worn by Han Solo and the other “spacers” (a term for smugglers and more legitimate pilots who spend more time in space than on the surface of a planet) (A New Hope) or the elaborate finery worn by the wealthier individuals who live closer to the Core on worlds like Naboo or Alderaan (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith). He further goes on to talk about how rates of suicide are higher “the more [man] is detached from any collectivity” (Durkheim ed. Giddens 1972: 113). And indeed, the Jedi are detached from any sense of a collective. They do not even interact with each-other deeply, leading to teachers who don’t even attempt to save their students when the building collapses (Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008: S2EP5-7). The citizenry they are supposed to be protecting fear them (Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008). They fear confiding in each other as they believe any too-strong display of emotion will be a black mark in their record (Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith). Is it any wonder then, that the two Jedi most well known, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, end up self-destructing in the end (Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope)?
In a later excerpt in which Durkheim is discussing works of ethical theory by other authors, two paragraphs can be summed up into these very important points: doing nothing is still a choice and therefore not a neutral act, and emotions are an important part of our sense of morality (ed. Giddens 1972: 117). However, the Jedi do nothing unless asked by the Senate (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008), and actively ask their members to suppress their emotions in order to be more “objective” (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008). In terms of the theories of Durkheim, the Jedi seem to think that morality works the exact opposite of the way that it actually does.
Durkheim says that “we shall feel it our duty to combat moral ideas that we know to be out of date” (ed. Giddens 1972: 122), and that is, in truth, what I am doing here today. The morals of the Jedi Order might be fictional, but people believe in the Jedi, fiction or not, and the morals they espouse are wildly outdated. Therefore we must stand up and fight back, no matter what, and show the world that these morals are not current! They are not healthy! We must fight! We cannot allow these outdated morals to be paraded about like paragons by stories like Star Wars!
Durkheim is a very interesting and understandable author, and over the course of looking through the reader of his writings, there were just so many places where I was reminded of the Jedi. This section is dedicated to just a few of these places, detailing a selection of the thoughts that flickered through my head.
Weber, The Protestant Ethic, and the Jedi Order
Weber’s Protestant Ethic is an exploration of Capitalism and the religious ideals that supported it, but for this essay it is prudent to focus on those religious ideals and how Weber lays them out. Weber says, “[o]n superficial analysis, and on the basis of certain current impressions, one might be tempted to express the difference by saying that the greater other-worldliness of Catholicism, the ascetic character of its highest ideals, must have brought up its adherents to a greater indifference toward the good things of this world.” (1904-1905: 50) However, when it comes to the Jedi Order, that superficial analysis of ascetics in Catholicism suddenly begins to ring very true. Or, perhaps not “indifference”, more like those things are actively forbidden. Within the halls of the Jedi Temple, there is little to be found but large, empty rooms and halls, grown people, children, and a library with an arrogant librarian (Attack of the Clones).
With that “superficial analysis” suddenly becoming very true, it should therefore be no surprise that the Jedi base their beliefs on another thing that Weber credits the Catholics for: the idea that “materialism results from the secularization of all ideals” (1904-19o5: 50). Of course, as we have already discussed, the Jedi, like the Catholics, view this as a bad thing. Weber then goes on to discuss how this “superficial analysis” - what we might call a “stereotype” - does not truly apply to all Catholics, but with the Jedi this stereotype does seem accurate, at least without diving deeper into the source material. While that would be both interesting and ideal, and would almost certainly provide evidence both for and against the currently proposed stereotype of the Jedi, most people have only seen the movies, and even if they have consumed more Star Wars media, this paper has neither the time nor space to go into that at this time.
To make a long point very short, the Jedi seem similar to negative stereotypes of Catholics, especially in the way that Weber highlights them.
Marx on the Jedi Question
While a good chunk of Marx’s “On the Jewish Question” is seeped in the political context of the time it was written, there are a fair few lines and concepts that stand out as far less specific, and many of those lines and concepts seemed to also resonate with the concept of the Jedi Order. These concepts include ideas like the types of emancipation and the relationship between religion and the state.
“All emancipation is restoration of the human world and the relationships of men themselves” (Marx ed. Simon 1994: 20). But what emancipation is happening in a galaxy far far away? Absolutely no emancipation, that’s what’s happening. When Anakin is freed from actual literal slavery (The Phantom Menace), he is taken away from his mother. During the Clone Wars, both sides use a slave army to fight the war (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Revenge of the Sith). Aside from those very literal interpretations of emancipation, everything and everyone is extremely repressed. The Jedi aren’t emancipated, they aren’t free to express themselves (Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Revenge of the Sith). The people of the Galaxy aren’t emancipated, their lives are constantly under threat, to the point that many don’t see the difference between the different governments that set up over the course of the Saga (The Mandalorian). The Jedi might think themselves free, and even freers of the people, but neither of those are true. Now hang on to that thought of Jedi thinking themselves free, because we’re going to get back to that in a minute.
The relationship between the state and religion in a galaxy far far away is practically inverted from the way that the state and religion usually mingle in real life. While in real life, religion often informs the government, helping to guide the laws passed by the state, in Star Wars it’s the opposite. The religious order, the Jedi, are commanded by the Senate of the Galactic Republic, leaving the Jedi themselves with little to no agency in who or where they are helping, and in some cases how (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008, Revenge of the Sith). While the Jedi often claim political neutrality (The Phantom Menace), the fact is that they are far from neutral, taking up the roles of generals during the Clone Wars, fighting for the Republic (Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008, Revenge of the Sith).
A Moment of Interdisciplinary Madness
This final section is brought to you by book recommendations from my parent and the sheer number of books that live in our house. To finish things off, let’s look at the issue of attachment.
As previously stated, the Jedi, though their code, forbid all forms of what they term as “attachment”. This is most well-discussed in Attack of the Clones, when Anakin talks to Padmé about the Jedi’s stance on love and relationships, and comes down to the idea that no Jedi is supposed to have relationships any deeper than friendly acquaintances. For the most part, this is what we see play out - there are even Masters who consider their Padawans dead without even looking for them (Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2008: S2EP5-7).
Of course, this repression is not exactly natural. This is something that runs completely counter to Attachment Theory, or the idea that children need secure attachments to at least one parent to grow up happy and healthy (Karen 1994: 87-102). This is especially relevant when considering the normal recruiting age for the Jedi Order. At the age of nine, Anakin Skywalker was initially considered too old (The Phantom Menace). So the normal recruiting age of Jedi is early enough that they do not remember their birth families. Aside from the disturbing, cultish aspect of that, this is something that has been determined and proven to be bad for people (Gerhardt 2004). Furthermore, it has been proven to be a causal factor in some of the issues that we see Anakin struggling with in Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), and Revenge of the Sith (Karen 1994: 220-247, Gerhardt 2004: 87-192).
Conclusion
This paper could easily be fifteen times longer and forty times deeper, but for now this seems like a good place to start. It is quite likely that, given enough time, effort, space, and money to access various works, each paragraph of this paper could be a paper in its own right.
The Jedi are a deeply flawed fictitious organization portrayed as the protagonists. This means that their flaws need to be exposed and explored as best as possible, lest someone decide that the Jedi’s way of thinking is something to be emulated, as people are wont to do with the protagonists of any story. These religious parallels, these failures of emancipation, these failures of personhood: these are the failings of the Jedi. These are why the Jedi must be critiqued and judged. We must stand for morality and for the education of the populace by doing this. We are sociologists: Durkheim says sociology is comparative, and so compare we shall.
But for now, it is enough to say that almost the entire plot of Star Wars could have been avoided if the Jedi were a group of emotionally healthy and stable individuals who understood sociology and didn’t only recruit toddlers like some kind of government sponsored cult.
Works Cited
Follert, Michael. 2020. “Contractual thought and Durkheim’s theory of the social: reappraisal.” Journal of Classical Sociology 20(3) 167–190.
Gerhardt, Sue. 2004. Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain. New York, New York: Routledge.
Giddens, Anthony (Editor). 1972. Emile Durkheim: Selected Writings. New York, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Golden, Christie. 2015. Dark Disciple. New York, New York: Del Rey.
Gottschall, Jonathan. 2012. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. New York, New York: First Mariner Books.
Karen, Robert. 1994. Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love. Oxford University Press.
Simon, Lawrence H. (Editor). 1994. Karl Marx: Selected Writings. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company.
Star Wars: Episode Four: A New Hope
Star Wars: Episode One: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars: Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith
Star Wars: Episode Two: Attack of the Clones
Star Wars: The Clone Wars. 2008-2020.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian
Weber, Max. 1904-1905(original publication),1930 (translation), 2020. The Protestant Ethic. E-Book: Pantianos Classics.