Is the dark side of the force inherently evil?

Fear and hatred corrupt. The Dark Side feeds on these emotions and twists the perception of the users.

Hatred, even if it is of someone who deserves it, does more damage to those who harbor it than those it is directed at.

Not all sith are inherently evil I forgot which one it was but one sith lord actually tried to negotiate peace with the jedi

What's considered "evil" is subjective to begin with.

Generally speaking, yes. But I also have to agree with these guys

I know it's a different opinion but I agree with both :)

I'm not a Star Wars fan, so i can't know for sure.

In the books, Jacen challenged Luke about the dark side of the force. Jacen who was quite contemplative felt that the force was one thing that bound all things and could not therefore have separate parts. Luke admitted that there indeed was no dark or light side of the force since the force simply reflected te desires of the people who weild it, but since people themselves have both good and bad sides, this was reflected in the force, so there is a light side and a dark side of the force from a certain point of view.

Of course, all thats been trashed with the new movies, so who knows?

Yes.

To me the darkside of the force is power without restraint. It is power without any principles to guide it other than the desire for more power. Is that evil? Maybe. Must a Sith misuse that power is the question. Its really hard to gauge how good or bad of a leader Palpatine really was. For all we know the people of the Empire may have thought he was a good leader. It may be possible that some Sith made good leaders. Democracy does tend to bloat itself with bureaucracy which can be just as bad for a society as leaders who have near complete power. Even so, it was the Moffs who likely did most of the actual ruling just as the Roman empire depended largely on its regional rulers to maintain order.

I'm pretty sure George Lucas said the Dark side of the force was in and of itself a corruption of the force.

Yes. It's pure evil. Why else would an otherwise sane human being get to the point that they blow up entire planets?

They did a really s***ty job showing Anakin changing from a hero to a madman, but that is exactly what happened. He just snapped. Started killing fellow Jedi, children, entire planets.

You are giving Lucas too much credit. All he was after was a "bad guys wear black" philosophy where you have polar opposites butting up against each other.

Yes.

Beata

He didn't 'just snap' it was due to many things over the course of his life that got him to where he was.

I realize what Lucas was shooting for but it was really poorly done.

Even if you want to save your wife and unborn child via Dark Side Force Power: he went from that, to actually attacking his pregnant wife in less than an hour.

Yes. The thing with his Mom and Dooku were supposed to be his gradual descent into madness but it didn't hold any water for me. Thus: it seems like he all of a sudden just went "I'm a bad guy now!" and started doing the most.

The movie "Chronicle" did it almost perfectly.

@edblank: So it was poorly done in your opinion, I don't see how being torn away from his mother at a young age which causes his fear, then going to find his mother only for her to die in his arms which sends him into anger and then his hate for Dooku all the while being manipulated by Sidious for years makes poor grounds for going to the dark side. Adding ontop of this trying to save his pregnant wife from dying, but by that point his mind was twisted by the dark side to quote Yoda..

"The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader."- Yoda to Obi-Wan

I didn't see anything wrong with Anakin's fall, it certainly wasn't "oh he just snapped" no...it was more than that.

I think it's just most dark side users have evil intentions.

I read this as "I liked the prequels". Which is fine. I am not a hater of them, but I do have my criticisms.

Well you tell me what is good and what is evil in the first place.

No. Darth Vectivus, Mace Windu and Kyp Durron are examples of this.

I agree completely. The very broad structure of the prequel plots is fine, but the execution is awful.

One great example is the scene where Anakin tells Padme that he killed all the Sand People. Not just the men, but the women and the children. For once in the prequels, you can understand and sympathize with Anakin's anger and rage at the sand people and his horror and disgust of his own actions. It really works...until Padme reacts to the news that her boy toy just murdered a bunch of innocent children with mild surprise and sadness and says something completely out of character and trite along the lines of, "To be angry is to be human, Anakin." This completely unnatural reaction to finding out your loved one just murdered a bunch of people undercuts what was otherwise a great scene. The prequels are just a mess.

However, I kind of like the idea of seeing them rebooted. Obviously, I don't want to see it now, but another decade or two in the future, Disney should go back and fix these God awful movies. No more crappy CGI. No more flat characters. No more nonsensical motivations. No more stilted dialogue. No more metachlorians. They can keep the basic outline of the story, but everything else should be rebuilt from the ground up.

i guess you have to be of pure heart to keep from going to the dark side.

@ms-lola said:

That is hilarious. They should have pointed out that he grew up in the desert too.

@batwatch: yeah the light and dark side are social constructs, just like good and evil.

Yeah, no question.

I disagree entirely that good and evil are social constructs. I think the are objective reality. However, I see the force as a tool that can be manipulated by individuals who can wield it for good or evil.

Personally, from what I've read on both sides of the Force, neither is good nor evil. The Light Side focuses more on love and compassion while the Dark Side focuses on power and strength. But both sides have their negatives if one focuses on simply one side of the Force.

When you follow just the Light Side, you risk becoming less emotional as we see with the Jedi of the Old Republic, as while they claimed to be about caring for others, they refused to allow themselves to give into natural emotions such as love, which can lead to much confusion within a Jedi as we see with Anakin since they become more robotic and detached from others.

When you focus solely on the Dark Side, you risk becoming obsessed with power and it forces you to abandoned things like love and kindness, leaving you with emotions such as anger and fear, transforming one into a much more hateful, power-hungry person who cares about no one but themselves, which we again see with Anakin when turns to the Dark Side and becomes less about saving his wife and more about gaining more power for himself.

Personally I believe both sides have their benefits and negatives, but when one is able to find a balance between the two, relying on both the Light and Dark Sides of the force together, one could become very powerful, but maintain control of that power due to still having love and compassion towards others.

From my point of view the Jedi are evil.

BB

I never understood why Good and Evil are such complicated things to understand.

Yeah I'd say so, the films seem pretty black hat vs white hat.

I think the dark side of the force was always intended to be evil in, that the belligerent light-dark dichotomy as a whole is a reflection of the artist's concept of good and evil, which is metaphorically presented as a physical conflict in the blank canvas that is the galaxy, and ultimately based on the opposition between choices that cause peace, and those that cause suffering, the latter chosen by people who lack vision or are distracted ("seduced by the dark side") from making the proper light side choices. There are two main arguments in Star Wars for why we should make light side choices. The first is that dark side choices can cause yourself to suffer by generating internal or external strife (Star Wars villains are often profoundly conflicted, disfigured, or just plain miserable), and is immediately acceptable because your own sensory experience is directly accessible to you. The second argument is that dark side choices can cause suffering of all kinds for others, and is not immediately acceptable because it requires a certain faith (based on theory of mind) that other people experience suffering which is analogous to and no less valid than your own, because others' sensory experiences are not directly accessible to you.

Aren't social constructs an aspect of objective reality?

Ugh, terrible, clunky line. And even that feeble attempt at introspection is unbelievable in that moronic prequel Anakin.

Of course it's evil, that's the point

There is no good and evil in nature. Good and evil are created and defined by society.

Yes, the dark side of the force is evil.

Well, the Force kind of transcends concepts of "good" and "evil." I mean, it really depends where you're getting your info from as some sources say the Dark Side is a corruption of the Light Side which is the supposed natural state of the Force. However, the way I interpret it, the Dark Side is just a side of the Force that can only be tapped into via "dark" but frankly normal emotions such as anger, hatred, fear, and so on. Some people can handle it without becoming murderous psychopaths like Mace Windu, and others (most) can't. The Dark Side itself isn't really evil I don't think. Also, the Dark Side holds Force powers that are much more destructive and offensive which appeals to more evil and sadistic individuals which is why most Dark Side users are bad.

@batwatch: Right? Good point about the desert.

I always found the light/dark side concept makes it hard for Star Wars to have good "gray" characters imo.

@rouflex: "Not a Star Wars Fan"... so basically not a life fan.

Meh.Dark Side powers is the path.And I'd love to have yellow eyes:)

Sure, social constructs are an aspect of reality, but good and evil are not social constructs. Just because cars are objects, that does not mean all objects are cars. Good and evil would exist even if society refused to acknowledge them.

No, I disagree entirely. Murder, theft and assault are inherently evil. Raping a child is evil whether or not society acknowledges it. Slavery in the pre-Civil War South was evil even though most people living in that society would not acknowledge it as such. Morality is not a popularity contest.

Yeah... Sue me for not liking Football, Stars and Clones.

The Force isn't evil.

People are.

Oh I agree that not every real thing is a social construct. I was just saying that evil being a social construct would not mean that it is not objectively real. What it would mean is that a description of the difference between right, good, wrong, and evil would be an expression of the attitudes or biases of the person who conceptualizes it, and therefore would not be the same for every person.

As you have made clear in your exchange with Lunacyde, you reject this expressivist model of morality, and hold that the difference between good and evil is an objective fact, that things can be inherently evil, or evil independently of anyone's opinion, similar to how a certain cannonball is heavier than a bullet, regardless of what I think, because sound reason infers it with a high amount of certainty from what our senses tell us about interacting with them, and other people can correct me if I'm wrong, because we are all experiencing the same reality, fundamentally, even though individual consciousness reduces it.

My question for you is, how can you correct me, using facts and not opinions, if I'm wrong about what is good and what is evil? Where are the facts that lead you to believe that evil exists not just for you, but everyone, that evil is objectively real?

@rouflex: Yeah, I don't care for Football either.

What is good for me is good for you. What is bad for me is bad for everyone.

Moral relativism is illogical. Truth is not relative. Truth is unchanging and it applies to everyone.

Claiming that there is no such thing as truth as a truth, is an illogical argument. There is such a thing as absolute, objective truth.

The truth is good and it can be a slap in the face to those who don't want to accept it.

@dum529001 said:

@darthmummy said:

@batwatch said:

@batwatch said:

@lunacyde said:

@batwatch: yeah the light and dark side are social constructs, just like good and evil.

I disagree entirely that good and evil are social constructs. I think the are objective reality. However, I see the force as a tool that can be manipulated by individuals who can wield it for good or evil.

Aren't social constructs an aspect of objective reality?

Sure, social constructs are an aspect of reality, but good and evil are not social constructs. Just because cars are objects, that does not mean all objects are cars. Good and evil would exist even if society refused to acknowledge them.

Oh I agree that not every real thing is a social construct. I was just saying that evil being a social construct would not mean that it is not objectively real. What it would mean is that a description of the difference between right, good, wrong, and evil would be an expression of the attitudes or biases of the person who conceptualizes it, and therefore would not be the same for every person.

As you have made clear in your exchange with Lunacyde, you reject this expressivist model of morality, and hold that the difference between good and evil is an objective fact, that things can be inherently evil, or evil independently of anyone's opinion, similar to how a certain cannonball is heavier than a bullet, regardless of what I think, beMcause sound reason infers it with a high amount of certainty from what our senses tell us about interacting with them, and other people can correct me if I'm wrong, because we are all experiencing the same reality, fundamentally, even though individual consciousness reduces it.

My question for you is, how can you correct me, using facts and not opinions, if I'm wrong about what is good and what is evil? Where are the facts that lead you to believe that evil exists not just for you, but everyone, that evil is objectively real?

1. What is good for me is good for you. What is bad for me is bad for everyone.

2. Moral relativism is illogical. Truth is not relative. Truth is unchanging and it applies to everyone.

3. Claiming that there is no such thing as truth as a truth, is an illogical argument. There is such a thing as absolute, objective truth.

4. The truth is good and it can be a slap in the face to those who don't want to accept it.

1. Not necessarily. Different people react differently from each other to things.

2. I'm not proposing that moral opinions define reality and therefore that truth is relative to opinion, merely that morality is opinion, is representative of people's partiality toward certain situations, which is the foundation of evaluation, in goal or preference-based prescription in general. I'm sorry if that was unclear.

3. I didn't say there was no such thing as truth, in fact I contrasted a truth that could be demonstrated (cannonball heavier than bullet) with a moral proposition, which seems to describe a person's attitude toward something and not the objective reality of it. If you can demonstrate the contrary, please do.

4. How could anyone accept your "truth" if they don't think it actually is a truth to begin with and you guys don't seem to want to show how it is?

Also I think you'll find I'd be happy to accept a reality where morality is absolute. I just don't think it is, and I don't want to sweep this problem under the rug and live a comfortable existential sham, but rather confront the problem, try to see the world as it is. Don't speak of what you don't know.

@darthmummy said:

@dum529001 said:

@darthmummy said:

@batwatch said:

@batwatch said:

@lunacyde said:

@batwatch: yeah the light and dark side are social constructs, just like good and evil.

I disagree entirely that good and evil are social constructs. I think the are objective reality. However, I see the force as a tool that can be manipulated by individuals who can wield it for good or evil.

Aren't social constructs an aspect of objective reality?

Sure, social constructs are an aspect of reality, but good and evil are not social constructs. Just because cars are objects, that does not mean all objects are cars. Good and evil would exist even if society refused to acknowledge them.

Oh I agree that not every real thing is a social construct. I was just saying that evil being a social construct would not mean that it is not objectively real. What it would mean is that a description of the difference between right, good, wrong, and evil would be an expression of the attitudes or biases of the person who conceptualizes it, and therefore would not be the same for every person.

As you have made clear in your exchange with Lunacyde, you reject this expressivist model of morality, and hold that the difference between good and evil is an objective fact, that things can be inherently evil, or evil independently of anyone's opinion, similar to how a certain cannonball is heavier than a bullet, regardless of what I think, beMcause sound reason infers it with a high amount of certainty from what our senses tell us about interacting with them, and other people can correct me if I'm wrong, because we are all experiencing the same reality, fundamentally, even though individual consciousness reduces it.

My question for you is, how can you correct me, using facts and not opinions, if I'm wrong about what is good and what is evil? Where are the facts that lead you to believe that evil exists not just for you, but everyone, that evil is objectively real?

1. What is good for me is good for you. What is bad for me is bad for everyone.

2. Moral relativism is illogical. Truth is not relative. Truth is unchanging and it applies to everyone.

3. Claiming that there is no such thing as truth as a truth, is an illogical argument. There is such a thing as absolute, objective truth.

4. The truth is good and it can be a slap in the face to those who don't want to accept it.

1. Not necessarily. Different people react differently from each other to things.

2. I'm not proposing that moral opinions define reality and therefore that truth is relative to opinion, merely that morality is opinion, is representative of people's partiality toward certain situations, which is the foundation of evaluation, in goal or preference-based prescription in general. I'm sorry if that was unclear.

3. I didn't say there was no such thing as truth, in fact I contrasted a truth that could be demonstrated (cannonball heavier than bullet) with a moral proposition, which seems to describe a person's attitude toward something and not the objective reality of it. If you can demonstrate the contrary, please do.

4. How could anyone accept your "truth" if they don't think it actually is a truth to begin with and you guys don't seem to want to show how it is?

Also I think you'll find I'd be happy to accept a reality where morality is absolute. I just don't think it is, and I don't want to sweep this problem under the rug and live a comfortable existential sham, but rather confront the problem, try to see the world as it is. Don't speak of what you don't know.

Are people dead when they are killed??? Is that relative??? Do people still live when they are devoid of life????

The answer is no.

Truth is not relative.

Morality is presented as a truth. Truth can not be relative so neither can morality.

@ms-lola said:

This is a very good example of fact vs truth.

Unfortunately, as much as my gut and heart say otherwise. "Good" and "Evil" are quite subjective. I doubt very much that the unspeakably savage things that Saddam Hussein did, he thought were evil. HIS sense of "good" and "evil" was likely...what is good for ME is good...what is NOT good for ME is evil. There are lots and lots of people who think that way (though I doubt most of them have the interest, or power to go as far as Hussein did).

History has shown, repeatedly, that what different societies perceive as good and evil vary WILDLY over the course of centuries, even decades. The ancient Aztecs (yes even most of the common people seemed to believe it was good and reveared) human sacrifice was "good" for their civilization. The "Christian" and "Muslim" leaders and gentry thought it was okay to slaughter each other under the name of their God (ironically notionally being the same one). BOTH thought they were the "good" ones. The Inquisition thought they were doing good torturing and killing masses of Jews, Muslims, and "witches", in unspeakable ways.

We can look back now from a, hopefully, more enlightened point of view and go, "Holy Inconsistancy Batman!" However, at the TIME, these people THOUGHT they were doing good. They didn't try to hide anything, they wrote detailed histories. The same can't be said of Hitler for instance. He made lots of footage and histories for if he WON, but as soon as the Nazi's realized they weren't going to they started destroying all the evidence because they know how horrible what they'd done was

Today, and I hope from here out. Society, at least, will recognize that "good" means not harming others (at least), and trying to make the world a better place for all. Evil means taking all you can for yourself, no matter who it hurts, or hurting others just for the enjoyment of it.