Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Nathan Osborne, Blog Post 1 of 3, Section 12, Group 3

Many are familiar with the hit original movie trilogy Star Wars, which came about in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, by George Lucas. Star Wars was an American Epic space opera which focused on the story of Luke Skywalker. Luke was a young man who desires to take part in the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. This Empire was a military dictatorship which was led by a tyrannical Emperor and his underling Darth Vader. Luke however lives on Tatooine a small desert world where he must help his uncle farm moisture. Through an interesting chain of events Luke soon finds his ability to join the rebellion with Obi Wan Kenobi, an old master of the Jedi Knights. The Jedi knights were once a great force of warriors, who maintained balance through the lands. Their fall was brought about when the Empire gained control, and the Jedi Knights were hunted down and slain; few of the Jedi survived. Their power was known as, The Force, and their ideals are not far from philosophies and religions found in the world today. The way of the Jedi is found as a combination of many different philosophies, but predominantly the three that I will focus on show in the philosophies of Taoism, Buddhism, and a dying worldview known as Zoroastrianism. All the mentioned philosophies are synthesized into what is known as the force. The force was studied by the Jedi, and the Sith. The force has a balance between good and evil, thus there are two sides of the force. This echoes the balance aspect of yin and yang found in Taoism, but the good vs. bad falls more into Zoroastrianism. Through my investigation of the Philosophy behind Star Wars I will continue to break apart elements of both the way of the Jedi, and the idea of the Force itself in order to accurately depict just what the world may be able to take from the philosophy of Star Wars.

3 comments:

  1. Would you say there's also an element of western New Age magical thinking in the mix, as well? The "force" of mental will and discipline as The Secret, etc.?

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    1. I would say that the force can encompass an element of New Age mental will and discipline. A lot of ideas in the force stem from George Lucas himself, and I would say this definitely placed some western New Age thinking into the way the philosophies merged in order to form the creation of the Jedi religion.

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