When I first introduced my kids to Star Wars, I followed up with an explanation of Dualism, Gnosticism, the “Ray of Truth” concept, and authentic versus dangerous forms of spirituality and spiritual gifts.
C. S. Lewis argues against Dualism that we cannot define “Good” and “Evil” without an external standard to define them. If “Good” and “Evil” were truly opposite “forces,” they would not balance; they would cancel each other out. Even if there were two equally powerful “gods,” one good/one evil, to know which was which there would still have to be a “God” to tell us which was which (e.g., the JW idea that Jesus & Satan are brothers).
“Only Sith deal in absolutes,” Obi-Wan tells Anakin in Revenge of the Sith, and that is the fundamental paradox at work in a Dualistic narrative. The interesting irony is that the more honest Star Wars is about its flawed philosophical underpinnings, the more the fans complain–first the prequels undermined the narrative that the Jedi and the Republic are “good,” a narrative already flawed from Obi-Wan’s lies to Luke. I think they’re viscerally reacting against the implicit and now explicit rejection of objective standards.
“Good guys, bad guys: made up words. It’s all a machine,” says “DJ,” the early Han Solo-esque hacker who takes his money and runs.
Dualists and moral relativists always want to have their proverbial cake and eat it, too. They want “good” and “evil” to be relative terms when it suits them and then appeal to morality or to vague concepts like “hope” and “energy” and “good thoughts” when it’s convenient.
So we’re supposed to support the Jedi because they’re the “guardians of peace and order,” yet the Sith also insist they want peace and order. From a Thomistic standpoint, and from what we see of the Republic in the films, the Sith make the stronger claim to promoting “peace and order.” And the “good guys” seem to ambiguate between whether they want “peace and order” or “freedom,” since the two concepts cannot coexist. Hobbes tells us what “freedom” means: the war of all against all for all. It’s the “Outer Rim,” ruled by warring gangsters. The only way anyone can functionally have absolute freedom is to enslave others to some extent.
In the Force religion, as in Modernism and all other permutations of Gnosticism, we hear about “Hope,” and “Freedom” and “Peace,” but we hear no explanation for what these words mean or imply or why they are good things.
We love Star Wars because it seems to be about “good” versus “evil.” However, in The Last Jedi, we’re told to “let the past die,” to destroy all the books, to look within for wisdom. This was really the most honest movie in the Star Wars franchise in terms of expressing what we’ve been hearing all along.
The Lewis Crusade 