Star Wars and Philosophy

by Kevin S. Decker

  16

  “A Certain Point of View”: Lying Jedi, Honest Sith, and the Viewers Who Love Them

  SHANTI FADER

  Not long after our second (or was it third?) viewing of Attack of the Clones, my boyfriend and I became involved in one of our not-uncommon debates about Lucas’s galaxy in general and the Jedi in particular. As we argued the finer points of Jedi philosophy and mindset, he commented, “Isn’t it interesting how the Jedi lie so much more than the Sith, and yet they’re supposed to be the good guys?”

  Jedi enthusiast that I am, I automatically leaped to their defense—only to be stopped by the realization that he was right. The Jedi do an awful lot of lying and shading of the truth for a religious order that’s supposed to be on the side of virtue. Obi-Wan Kenobi lies to Luke about his father; Yoda misleads Luke when he arrives on Dagobah; and Mace Windu covers up the fact that the Jedi are losing their powers. By contrast, the Sith do a surprising amount of truth-telling for villains. Count Dooku tells a captive Obi-Wan flat-out that the Senate has been infiltrated by a Sith. Senator Palpatine, aka the Sith Master Darth Sidious, worms his way into power without speaking a single literal untruth.151 And, of course, in one of the most famous moments in Lucas’s entire epic, Darth Vader tells Luke the devastating truth that Obi-Wan had withheld.

  The more I thought about it, the more it baffled me. Honesty is generally seen as a virtue (except when someone asks you “Does this make me look fat?”), and lying as a terrible, hurtful vice. Why, then, would Lucas have his Jedi lie and his Sith tell the truth? As far back as Plato and Socrates (fifth and fourth centuries B.C.), philosophers have been wrestling with the puzzle of truth and falsehood, in the process coming up with a varied and fascinating array of ideas. I certainly don’t pretend to have the answer to what truth really is, but in this chapter I’ll explore several possibilities raised by philosophers and reflected in Lucas’s intriguing paradox.

  Just the Facts

  The search for truth is as old as the first human being who wondered about the meaning of existence, and as modern as the movies playing in today’s multiplex. One of the primary purposes of mythology and religion is to seek the truth about our purpose in this life. “What is truth?” Pontius Pilate famously asked Jesus—and philosophy itself might be seen as an endless search for an answer to that question.

  But what, exactly, is truth? On the simplest and most literal level, truth is what corresponds to the facts—to be true, a statement has to correctly represent the way things really are. I can say, “The ticket line for The Phantom Menace stretched all the way around the block.” This statement is true if the ticket line did stretch all the way around the block, and false if I’m exaggerating due to my sore feet. George Lucas envisioned the Star Wars movies, Carrie Fisher played Princess Leia, and John Williams wrote the score: these are all facts and therefore when I make these statements, what I say is true.

  But is truth really this simple? I believe there’s far more to it. Factual truth is certainly necessary for a society to function. Merchants and craftspeople need to represent their products accurately if they want to keep their customers. No legal system can function without factual honesty—witnesses in court swear to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” and are punished if caught in a lie. On a more personal level, trust is one of the most important ingredients of relationships.

  But telling the truth isn’t as easy as simply reporting facts, as anyone who’s had to deal with an opinionated boss, an insecure friend, or nosy in-laws can confirm. People lie for many reasons: to make themselves look better, avoid blame for something they’ve done, protect a loved one who’s fallen afoul of the law, or gain something they can’t (or won’t try to) get through honest means, among others. This is particularly true when a society’s leaders fail their people or commit a wrongful act. Those holding power are usually unwilling to relinquish it, and seldom hesitate to cover up their error. This drama manifests in Star Wars as the decline and fall of the Old Republic-era Jedi Order.

  In Attack of the Clones, the Jedi have found themselves in a terribly awkward position: they’re losing their connection to the Force. The Jedi are peacekeepers, an order of religious knights not unlike the Templars of European history or the Round Table of Arthurian legend, and if it became known that their powers were fading, they would also lose the awe and respect previously accorded them. (That the Jedi are indeed viewed this way is established by the Trade Federation officials’ reaction to Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace.) In order to carry out their duties as the “guardians of peace and justice,” they feel they’re forced (no pun intended) to break their own moral code. How long the Jedi would’ve been able to maintain this pretence is uncertain; the illusion of power seldom lasts very long with nothing to back it up. Later, we’ll examine whether or not this deception is justified; but it’s unquestionably a lie in the simplest and most straightforward sense.

  Then there are the Sith. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), who was very interested in both truth and power, and enjoyed questioning traditional morality, could easily have had Palpatine in mind when he wrote:The intellect . . . unfolds its chief powers in simulation; for this is the means by which the weaker, less robust individuals preserve themselves . . . In man this art of simulation reaches its peak: here deception, flattery, lying and cheating, talking behind the back, posing, living in borrowed splendor, being masked, the disguise of convention, acting a role before others and before oneself—in short, the constant fluttering around the single flame of vanity is so much the role and the law that almost nothing is more incomprehensible than how an honest and pure urge for truth could make its appearance among men.152

  Here we begin to see that truth is not so simple. While Palpatine for the most part doesn’t tell direct falsehoods, his words are always layered with hidden meanings, most of them for the benefit of the audience members who know exactly what he’s really after. (So much of what Palpatine says in Episodes I and II seems directed at the audience, rather than his fellow characters, that I’m tempted to suspect that his Sith powers include the knowledge that he’s fictional and the ability to read ahead in the script!) The best example of this, interestingly, is his acceptance speech upon being granted “emergency powers” by the Senate in Attack of the Clones—the very speech that appears to be his most blatant lie.

  “I love democracy,” Palpatine proclaims. Of course he loves it! Democracy is the tool that granted him a smooth and bloodless rise to absolute power. Just because he discards the tool when it’s no longer necessary doesn’t mean it didn’t please him while he was using it. As for his pledge to lay his power down once the crisis was resolved, clearly Palpatine wasn’t thinking of the same crisis as the rest of the Senate. As late as Return of the Jedi, Palpatine (now the Emperor) still sees threats to his power and to the Empire he rules. If he doesn’t consider his “crisis” resolved, he’s being true to the letter of his speech; and if the Senate heard something other than what Palpatine secretly believed, we in the audience know better. Like Obi-Wan, Palpatine lied only “from a certain point of view.”

  “Judge Me by My Size, Do You?”

  One of the pleasures I took from my first viewing of The Phantom Menace was hearing scattered horrified gasps from the audience when Queen Amidala first addresses that helpful, grayhaired man as “Palpatine.” The kindly Senator is a façade designed to deflect suspicion away from himself while he maneuvers everyone around him (including the Jedi, who really should’ve known better) into liking him, trusting him, and giving him exactly what he wants. Palpatine takes control of the Senate without personally spilling a single drop of blood because he conceals the fact that he’s really a ruthless, power-hungry, and vengeance-seeking Sith Master. The few times we see him as Darth Sidious, his face is hidden beneath a heavy hood.

  Then there’s Yoda. When we first meet him neither Luke nor the audience has any idea that this comical, wizened litt
le chatterbox could be the great Jedi Master whom Luke was sent to find. Yoda doesn’t reveal his identity, but keeps up the game until Luke figures it out on his own. How is this any different from Palpatine’s actions?

  The difference can be found not in what the two characters are doing but in why—in the intention behind their actions (and of course, their ultimate consequences). The reasons behind a person’s actions can be every bit as important as the actions themselves. And while many philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), would say that lying is never defensible, others, including utilitarians, believe that there are times when lies are harmless or even beneficial, that is, when they would produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Nietzsche goes even further, dismissing conventional morality altogether and declaring that truth is nothing but the specific set of lies accepted by a particular society.153

  Turning briefly away from Palpatine and Yoda, we can now look at the Jedi Council’s decision to conceal the waning of their powers and ask: what was their intention? They may have honestly thought their lie served the greater good, letting them continue to act as peacekeepers and negotiators. Certainly the galaxy becomes a harsher place once the Jedi are eradicated or forced into hiding. In the end, though, however altruistic their intentions might have been, the Jedi certainly appeared to be lying to hold onto power.

  Palpatine’s intentions have no such shades of grey about them. He wants to take over the Senate, overthrow the Jedi, and make himself the single, supreme ruler of the entire galaxy; he wants power for its own sake and uses deception to gain it. Yoda, on the other hand, doesn’t deceive Luke for power or personal gain (with the possible exception of Luke’s flashlight, with which he stubbornly refuses to part). His motives are similar to those of the Tibetan Lama Marpa the Translator, who misled and toyed with his would-be student Milarepa for years—demanding near-impossible physical labor and repeatedly refusing to give him instruction or initiations—before finally relenting and taking on the incredibly patient youth.154 A more modern example would be the old karate master Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid, who commands his baffled student Daniel-san to perform endless chores before revealing that they were actually cleverly disguised lessons (with the side benefit of giving Mr. Miyagi a clean house and shiny cars). To understand Yoda, we need to realize that he, like Marpa and Mr. Miyagi, is playing the Trickster.

  Tricksters are found in myth and story throughout the world. They’re usually wise and powerful beneath a playful or even foolish exterior. Tricksters disguise themselves and play pranks in order to test people, disrupt their preconceptions, or jolt them into a new way of thinking. Yoda’s behavior tested Luke, exposing the young man’s faults—his impatience, impulsiveness, and incomplete understanding of the Force—faults which Luke would’ve tried to hide, consciously or not, if he’d known he was facing a Jedi Master.

  Yoda’s primary lesson is that in order to use the Force, one must look beyond appearances. Palpatine embodies the negative side of this lesson, with his kindly face and hidden lust for power. Yoda, powerful and enlightened beyond what his wizened exterior would suggest, embodies the positive.155

  Truth and the Marketplace

  Truth, then, is less obvious than it initially seems. People aren’t always what they appear, and words that sound honest can be colored by hidden meanings. But this hardly explains or solves the paradox of the lying Jedi and honest Sith, particularly not in the case of Obi-Wan Kenobi, whom we first meet as a wise desert hermit and mentor figure. Why would such a person lie to Luke? From one perspective, this is a terrible act—a betrayal of young Luke’s trust, a way to manipulate him into joining the battle on the Jedi’s team. When Obi-Wan’s lie is exposed, Luke is shattered to the point of very nearly choosing death. But from another perspective, Obi-Wan wasn’t trying to manipulate Luke, but to protect him.

  “You can’t handle the truth!” Jack Nicholson shouts at the climax of A Few Good Men. Not all truths are pretty or easy to face. And just as some forms of entertainment are too intense for young children, some truths are simply too much to handle for people at an early stage in their emotional and intellectual development. The Greek philosopher Socrates (470-399 B.C.) compares the seeking of truth to shopping in a marketplace: an inexperienced shopper, who can’t tell good merchandise from bad, may find herself swindled into buying food that’s spoiled, unwholesome, or even poisoned—or, like Luke’s Uncle Owen, buying a droid with a bad motivator.156 Nietzsche makes the uncomfortable point that we only actually want truths that are pleasant or that help us, and we’re quite tolerant of lies that do us no harm.157

  The Luke that Obi-Wan meets on Tatooine is young and sheltered. He knows nothing more complex than his aunt and uncle’s farm, and sees the Jedi as perfect, shining heroes out of legend, not real people with frailties and human weakness. Obi-Wan feels that this Luke isn’t ready for the ugly truth about his father. As Socrates would put it, he doesn’t yet have the wisdom to keep that knowledge from poisoning him. Most likely, if Luke hadn’t rushed off to face Vader half-trained, he would’ve eventually learned the complete story in a gentler way. But for the time being, Obi-Wan offers the young Jedi a version of the truth that he could handle.

  “Unexpected This Is, and Unfortunate”

  If Obi-Wan uses a lie to protect, the Sith use truth as a weapon. Vader tells Luke the truth about his parentage at the worst possible time, and in a way that inflicts as much pain as humanly possible: truth without compassion is brutality. In Attack of the Clones, Yoda’s renegade apprentice Count Dooku picks a similarly bad situation in which to tell young Obi-Wan that a Sith has infiltrated the Senate. Dooku even echoes Vader’s dialogue as he invites the Jedi to join him, knowing that he’ll either be believed and gain an ally, or disbelieved, in which case telling the truth actually covers it up.158

  Neither Vader nor Dooku is telling the truth because he wants to increase anyone’s knowledge or understanding, or lead them toward a more authentic life. Instead, they both use truth in an attempt to break a Jedi’s faith in something they know and trust—in Obi-Wan’s case, the Senate, and in Luke’s case, Obi-Wan himself—and in doing so to make them question their loyalty. This, of course, works better in the case of the vulnerable, half-trained Luke. Despite his initial words of disbelief, Obi-Wan passes Dooku’s information on to the Jedi Council (where it’s largely dismissed). But even Luke doesn’t give in entirely. Though shattered in body and spirit, he lets himself drop into the abyss below Cloud City rather than join Vader.

  Later, Luke returns to Dagobah, where Vader’s story is reluctantly confirmed first by a dying Yoda, then by the spirit of Obi-Wan in a dialogue that raises the question: was Obi-Wan’s lie really a lie at all? In a strictly literal sense it is—Darth Vader can’t have killed Luke’s father if he is Luke’s father. But as we’ve seen in this chapter, truth is seldom as simple as the literal facts make it seem.

  Obi-Wan says, “Luke, you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” This isn’t necessarily the evasive self-justification it appears to be. It could certainly be argued, as Obi-Wan does, that the good man and Jedi who was Anakin Skywalker was destroyed when he chose the path of the Sith and became Darth Vader. Vader says as much when Luke calls him Anakin: “That name no longer has any meaning for me.” To which Luke responds, “It is the name of your true self. You’ve only forgotten.” Changing one’s name is a near-universal way to signal a new identity, dying in a metaphorical sense to one’s old self and being reborn. There’s no denying, however, that Obi-Wan didn’t originally intend Luke to understand his words in this metaphysical sense—any more than Palpatine expected the Senate to see through the layers of meaning in his acceptance speech. That intention makes it a deception even if truth was buried in his words. It also brings the virtuous Jedi Knight uncomfortably close to the wicked Sith Master, one of the shadings into grey of previously one-sided characters that helps make the Star Wars film
s so interesting.

  The question of whether or not Obi-Wan really lied is less important than why he said what he said—his intentions. A parallel can be found in the Parable of the House on Fire, which the Buddha tells to his disciple Shariputra. A wealthy man’s house catches on fire. His children are oblivious to the fire and the danger it poses. They ignore their father’s warnings and continue to play with their toys as the house burns around them. The father finally tells his children he’s got wonderful carts outside for them, carts driven by each of their favorite animals. Delighted, the children run outside. The promised carts are not there, but in their place are carriages that carry them safely away from the fire. Buddha then asks his disciple whether or not the father in the parable is guilty of falsehood. Shariputra says no:The elder is not guilty of falsehood, for he has only enabled his children to avoid the calamity of fire, and has thereby saved their lives . . . If that elder had not given them even so much as a single small cart, he still would not have been speaking falsely. Why? Because the elder previously had this thought, “I shall use expedients to lead my children out.”159

  So when deception is used to attain noble ends, to assist someone whose awareness and understanding are incomplete, it isn’t really deception. This is surprising, coming as it does from the Buddhist tradition in which one of the basic tenets is “right speech,” which includes honesty. Perhaps Shariputra overstates his case and the elder has indeed told a falsehood, but nevertheless is not “guilty” as no one would argue that lying to save an oblivious child from death is wrong.