In my last I mentioned that I had some problems with the way Karen Traviss, in her new novel Revelation, characterized the Jedi and their history. The last 40+ pages or so of the book include conversations amongst her Mandolorian characters (including Fett) and Jaina--and, honestly, there is a lot of interesting stuff here worthy of discussion. However, I will limit my comments to two major claims that Traviss seems to make (note: obviously it isn't Traviss herself but her characters that make these claims--that said, similar views are recurrent throughout her books and she seems to in general sympathize with the Mandolorian viewpoint).
1. The Jedi enslaved the Clone Troopers and exploited them during the Clone Wars.
2. All of the Jedi--most specifically Luke Skywalker--lack the moral courage to kill Darth Caedus.
Anyways, on to the first point. I can't seem to find the passage I'm looking for, but when discussing why he left the Jedi Order, Gotab basically says that he couldn't stay after the way the Jedi treated the clones (as exploited slaves) during the Clone Wars. He says that he became close friends, and cared deeply about, his troopers, and was disgusted by the way in which the troopers were treated.
Now, as an anarchist, I'm not sure how much we ought to defend the Jedi for fighting in the Clone Wars. In some respects the conflict seems analogous to the Civil War, and a better plan would have been allowing some substates to secede while using nongovernmental means to fight against the corruption and excesses of the Separatist movement. All of this just underlies a bigger problem with the Jedi Order--namely, that they spend too much time being diplomats for the Republic, enforcing their laws, and not enough time rectifying social evils (e.g., working to end slavery on the Outer Rim in The Phantom Menace).
But the claim that the Jedi were somehow "enslaving" the Clone Troopers--or were the ones somehow most responsible for their mistreatment--seems ridiculous. First of all, contrary to the suggestion that the Jedi and Sith are responsible for all wars, the Clone Wars was a war engineered by the Sith in which the Jedi just happened to fight (it is not as if, say, the jedi started a war in an attempt to exterminate the Sith, a la the Jedis' attempts to elimate the 'Brotherhood of Darkness'). And it is not as if it was the Jedi who were primarily responsible for having Clone Troopers under their command. While the Clone Army was created at the behest of Sifo-Dyas, it was a) without the knowledge or approval of the Jedi Council, and b) quickly integrated into the plans of Dooku and Sidious. It was the Sith who manipulated events such that the Republic would eventually use the Clone Army (note also that the Jedi didn't bring the clones to Geonosis until the Army had been "approved" by the Senate). In the end, it was not the Jedi who jumped to wage war against the Sith with a slave army--it is the Republic more generally who fought back against the Separatists, and the Jedi who--with much reservation--agreed with Palpatine's suggestion to serve as generals of an army that would have been used by the republic regardless of what stance the Jedi took on the war. And a cursory glance through the EU novels in the Clone Wars era suggests that Gotab isn't the only Jedi who befriended his or her clone troopers.
And what of the Jedi's "lack of moral courage"? I feel like there are two related questions here: first, would it be morally acceptable for the Jedi to kill Caedus? And second, are the Jedi morally obligated to kill Caedus? If we are to believe that, say, Luke lacks a certain moral courage, then we would almost certainly have to agree with the latter point--that since he has shown himself to be more powerful than Jacen, and since Jacen is so dangerous, that he is under moral obligation to kill him and end the threat. But this seems implausible to me. First off, if we know nothing else, we know that Caedus is reponsible for the death of the people he kills, not Luke. Just because Luke could have killed Caedus before (he had an easy chance in Inferno, and possinly one in Revelation), that doesn't make him responsible for any subsequent deaths that Jacen causes. Second, making it a moral obligation for someone with the means to kill Caedus, to do so, would require Caedus to assume a much exaggerated role in the galactic conflict. It is not as if, before Jacen turned dark, the galaxy was at peace, and his actions alone started a galactic war. He may be the most extreme and most evil proponent of the war, but it hardly seems to me obvious that assassinating Caedus would either end the war or completely end the suffering that has been wrought. It would, I think, end the war's greatest excesses and violations of conventional warfare and human decency. And, in case, Luke has his reasons for not killing Jacen himself, or allowing Ben to kill him, and his reasons for doing something should never begin nor end with galactic considerations since the heart of ethics is the question of how *I* (or, in Luke Skywalker's case, how *Luke*) should live my life. I think Gotab has the burden of proof in showing this supposed 'duty' to kill Jacen (rather than redeem him, neutralize him, etc. etc.) before he can claim that Luke Skywalker lacks "moral courage."
Sunday, March 2, 2008
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