Star Wars on Trial (21 page)

Moving on.

Are you familiar with the Buddhist doctrine of the Eightfold Path, where all daily activities, pursued in the proper spirit, lead toward Enlightenment? Are you familiar with classical Zen, which finds Enlightenment specifically the study of the martial artstraining to do the earthly equivalents of, as you so vividly put it, "super-ninja-leaps with Way Cool psychokinetic powers." If study of the martial arts can be a religious practice on Earth, why not in Star Wars?

JOHN C. WRIGHT: I am quite familiar with authentic Zen Buddhist practice. I once studied at a Zendo under a Roshi.

The question yet again contains a logically impermissible inference. This is the formal logical error of the excluded middle. Merely because some Buddhists can use martial arts as a meditative technique appurtenant to their religion, it does not follow that all martial arts studies constitute a religion.

Certainly the Jedi in Star Wars are meant to have an exotic, oriental flavor to them: they are fencing with nuclear kendo sticks, after all. But the same flavor could be attributed to any movie where ninjas fly around on wires or perform spooky magic tricks. The spooky ninja-magicians in Star Wars are following in the footsteps of Bruce Lee, not following the footsteps of the Enlightened One.

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: I now direct your attention to your observation "If the Force were a god like Odin or Zeus, the audience would be puzzled why the Sky Father is supporting both sides of the conflict. Therefore, the Force itself has to be neutral, an inactive and nondemanding sort of god, etc." Since you are apparently the last person on Earth who hasn't heard that the Force was a direct metaphor for the ancient concept of the Tao, let me direct your attention to Stephen Mitchell's translation of this passage from the Tao Te Ching: "The Tao does not take sides."

Perhaps it would be easier for you to understand if, instead of the Force-instead of calling it a god, which it is not, and is never said to be-we call it Life. After all, Life is what it's about, yes? And Life gives us everything that's good, and a great deal that's bad: Poetry and art, beauty and family, civilization and science ... and it also gives us smallpox and Ebola, aggression and greed and jealousy and murder. Without bias or prejudice. Without taking sides. Whether it's good or evil depends on what we do with it. Does using the word Life as the metaphor help clear up your confusion?

JOHN C. WRIGHT: The question yet again contains a logically impermissible inference. It is an informal error of logic to assert that "everyone knows" such-and-such, or to address the person rather than the argument. The former is called argumentum ad populum; the latter is called ad hominem.

The formal logical error of the undistributed middle is also present. Merely because a misunderstanding of Taoism represents the Tao as ethically neutral does not mean that all ethically neutral phenomena are religious.

Electromagnetic energy, for example, can be used both for the electric toothbrush and the electric chair. It is neutral. By the logic of the honorable counsel for the Defense, a film portraying electricity as neutral would be "religious" because life is neutral.

A vague awe and respect for "the life force" is not a religion. It is not even a philosophy: it is a sentiment. Star Wars does have a sentiment. It does not have a religion.

If "everyone" knows that Star Wars is a metaphor for Taoism, then "everyone" has not read enough Lao Tzu to have a serious discussion on the matter. I suppose that is fine, because those who follow the Tao say that the Tao that can be spoken is not the spoken Tao. Those who truly follow, on the other hand, follow, and do not say.

The Tao might not take sides, but, under heaven, there is a way to follow the Tao and a way not to follow it. Taoism has a definite ethical character and metaphysics which Star Wars does not have, and, as a bit of boy's adventure fiction, is not meant to have.

The question is not whether the Force is neutral, but why it is neutral. It is neutral because the plot requires duels between good and bad psychic swordsmen.

It is not neutral because the movie is Taoist in message or sentiment.

It is Taoist to say: The wise ruler sees that the bellies are full and the minds are empty. The crooked tree is useless to the carpenter, and therefore it flourishes. What is the shape of an uncarved block? What did your face look like before you were born?

It is not Taoist to say, "Do not give in to fear and anger, or forever will it dominate your destiny!" or, "In my experience, there is no such thing as coincidence."

I do not recall, in the scene where Qui-Gon measures the midichlorian blood count in his young apprentice, that what was being measured was Anakin's potential to embrace these questions and paradoxes.

If Star Wars counts as a movie of religion equal in stature to Taoism, why, then, so does Flying Ninja Guillotines of Death or Lightning Swords of the Shogun Executioner.

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: I have no further questions for this witness. Pointing up the numberless confusions and misrepresentations in the balance of his testimony serves no purpose, as many of them proceed from his fundamental misunderstanding of the metaphysical premises of the Saga; I'm simply trying to help him understand, not to embarrass him.

DAVID BRIN: Objection!

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: You object to my trying to help him understand?

DROID JUDGE: Sustained. Save your speeches for your closing statement, Mr. Stover.

MATTHEW WOODRING STOVER: Fine. The Defense's witness can handle the ethical end of the argument; I call novelist, critic and allaround swell guy Scott Lynch.

TO LIE during my interview with the evaluation board of my first volunteer fire department. Because of Star Wars.

Or perhaps it was more of a calculated omission. In response to the question, "Why do you want to be a volunteer firefighter?" I rattled off a string of boilerplate platitudes-it seemed like it might be fun and interesting, a chance to serve the community, nobody likes to see his neighbors screaming and on fire, et cetera. The members of the board nodded sagely, examined the line on their evaluation form that read Possible Raving Freak YIN, circled N, and that was that.

How might they have replied if I'd cleared my throat and said, "I've wrestled with a deep-seated desire to be ajedi Knight ever since I was old enough to tie my own shoes, and this seems my best chance to act on that desire in some fashion"? Replied? Hell, they would have pinned me the floor and helped the nice men in white coats jab the needle into my arm.

Nonetheless, it's true. I have a Jedi complex dating back to that fateful afternoon in 1983 when my father took the five-year-old ver sion of myself to see Return of the Jedi, a film that was to my brain what an industrial electromagnet is to a handful of iron filings. Some days, I might as well be standing on a street corner holding a handlettered cardboard sign: Will deflect blaster bolts with lightsaber for food.

It could be said that the Jedi represent an ideal I have never been able to forget-an ideal that, in my own bent and silly and imperfect fashion, I still try to cherish.