I'm watching Star Wars Episode 3, the one where Anakin turns bad and the Sith take over, and I was struck by a scene that hadn't moved me before. Anakin and Palpatine are discussing the Jedi council and governmental politics and Palpatine says to Anakin, "the council has asked you to do something that makes you feel dishonest." This is true, of course, the council has asked Anakin to spy on Palpatine and this doesn't sit well with Anakin.

But it occurred to me as I watched this that awareness and wisdom, qualities the Jedi council uses and pursues often require those who seek them to feel "dishonest." It has been my experience that whenever someone realizes the world isn't the way they imagined it to be, seriously different than they ever dreamed, operating as is wise, before they are mentally prepared to do so, causes them to feel dishonest. The reason for this, I think, is because the world exists in shades of gray, black, and white; because gray is the primary operating color, those in politics and/or warfare like the Jedi, are constantly working to protect the balance, not the current operating government. For Anakin, someone who can only see the obvious and is incapable of recognizing the abstract, the Jedi council's request, a request based on the abstract principles the Jedi live by, strikes him as unfathomable and "dishonest."

The reason this seemed worth mentioning was because as I watched Anakin struggle with his lack of faith in the council, a lack that only matters because he is incapable of reasoning abstractly for himself, I was struck by how many people I have met in my life who are exactly like Anakin Skywalker. For the vast majority, their basic morality/system of ethics aligns with the law and they never have to question themselves or their world. Situations where their belief systems are challenged are minor and quickly past, thereby protecting them from the sort of crisis of belief that Anakin faces.

But how many of us, people who have always assumed they would stand strong in the face of the dark side, are Sith material? How many neglect to question their surroundings and their beliefs because the concrete appears to operate separately from the abstract? I was asked recently why it mattered that I was able to name, use my verbal skills to assign words to my surroundings. It matters for many reasons, but in this particular instance, because by being able to use language to describe my experience (life, the universe, everything) I'm also better able to understand the abstract. Concepts like justice, equality, moral, and immoral, are not connected to a particular legal system or man-made system--I've reasoned through for myself what a concept like "democracy" means and so am able to question someone else's wielding of the world instead of accepting blindly or being unnerved without power to comprehend.

The power of the Sith seems to lie in a person's own inability to think for themself. Along with pride, anger, hatred--all the emotions of the dark side, in the end it is Anakin's own inability to understand himself and abstract concepts that brings him down. He hides behind the "Republic" and its laws because they ground him.

And this movie is going to depress me. Again. Stupid Sith lords.