Thoughts on The Acolyte

I finally finished The Acolyte series last night. 

As always with Star Wars, there is a lot of criticism of the show (mostly about it being "woke" or the supposed lesbian themes) which is just utter and complete nonsense. 

The acting and the special effects were fine, good even. Some of the actors put in excellent performances. All of the characters deserved to be in Star Wars.

Still, the show is bad, a failure. It was the writing. The show lacked clarity in its message and its plot. There is space for a show about the period 100 years before the Clone Wars, highlighting the problems in the Old Republic that led to the separatists, and the problems in the Jedi Order that allowed the Sith to return. 

To do that, you need to have more clarity about what the Jedi believe, and why parts of that belief are wrong or dangerous. The inherent tension in Star Wars is that it is essentially clearly a bi-polar morality - the Light side of the Force versus the Dark side of the force. A Manichean universe. But that leaves little room for grey. 

Most people misunderstand "grey" in morality, IMO. They see grey as eliminating black and white. But Grey cannot exist without black and white, it is a mixture of the two but black and white still exist, and grey exists in shades, but even those shades tend towards black, or white. The yin-yang symbol is itself misleading, the drop of the opposite color in each is still distinct and separate. In reality, there should be grey in there. 

For Star Wars, this becomes an issue as the story expands beyond the original trilogy. Those are excellent films, but they are set in a time of moral clarity - Light and Dark. The Jedi are the wise ones who understand and define the difference between Light and Dark. But when you start out to create prequels, to explain how the Light lost so badly that the Jedi were nearly extinct, that the Old Republic, a representational democracy transformed into an authoritarian empire, then you have an issue. Because Light and Dark so so easy to see in the original trilogy, how do you make them HARD to perceive, even for the "wise" Jedi, in the prequels?

The easy answer is you don't. You go the "Satan" route, with some outside force that transforms and overwhelms the "Light", corrupts it despite many of the Light understanding what is occurring. Individual failings are the culprit here. The Light and the Dark remain distinct from each other. It is to Lucas' credit that he didn't go this route. (though I don't want to denigrate that route, Tolkien follows it and it works brilliantly in his legendarium because he has exceptional moral clarty and message clarity throughout his work).  

Lucas, being a post-World War II American, believes inherently in complexity and "grey." He decided that the prequels are not merely the success of the Sith, but the failure of the Jedi. He decided the heroes of his mythos had to have feet of clay.

And yet... there remained the struggle between the Light and the Dark. And the Prequels biggest failure (after starting the story with Anakin as an 8 year old) was that they never quite found the way to show the grey. Thee Sith are clearly about domination, power, greed and the Jedi are the good guys defending against that. 

So The Acolyte has a problem. Now, some Star Wars has started to understand the issue. Dave Filoni in the Clone Wars cartoon, with Father, Daughter, Son, Force, Light, Dark balance storyline hinted at it. And Lucas' prophecy that Anakin would bring "balance" to the force hints at it. The problem is that the Jedi and the Sith both equate emotions with Evil. This is the Jedi failing, they see no good in emotions, merely unbalance, and so they strive to destroy attachment, taking children from parents early to avoid creating bonds. The Sith use emotion to gain power, but the use of that power is always for selfish reason. 

Star Wars has never made clear that the Jedi are benevolent not because they seek power from balance, but because they use that power for greatest good for the greatest number of people, they are unselfish. The Sith are malevolent not because they seek power from emotion, or imbalance, but because they use that power for selfish ends, to impose their will upon others.

The Acolyte has the right tools for the job, it shows a Force cult of witches who clearly have no trouble with attachment, with emotion. They use both sides of the Force, but they are not malevolent, they appear to merely wish to be left alone on the planet Brendok.

The wheels fall off because the show never properly shows us what the witches want, what the Jedi want, or what the Sith want. Much of this is to preserve mystery, they who is shaped as a murder-mystery. But because we never get a full understanding of motivations the whole thing remains muddled. There are hints that the writer understand what they need to do - for example, Mother Aniseyais says "This Isn't About Good Or Bad. This Is About Power, And Who Is Allowed To Use It." - but overall the motivations remain muddled. 

An equal failure of the writing is that so much of the conflict depends upon bad decisions and misunderstandings. And those poor decisions are out of character for Jedi, or even Sith. The initial conflict between the Witches and the Jedi could be solved by honest conversation, yet neither side engages in that despite clearly being led by individuals who would clearly chose such talk first. 

Later, the four Jedi hide the truth for weak reasons, and it was obvious such a lie would fester. And then at the end, the Stranger and Osha leave Mae behind for the Jedi, with the Stranger wiping her memory (huh?). Again, why? Why not take her with them? All they did was leave information for the jedi behind that way. Poor writing. 

The Acolyte was a good idea, but the writing never rose to the occasion. It is interesting to compare it to Andor. The writing on that show is superlative, it is probably the best Star Wars media product, period. It covers complexity well, but it does benefit from moral clarity - the Empire is clearly malevolent. What it shows is not why some rebel, but why some serve such a clearly evil organization. And, of course, Andor is just as "woke" as The Acolyte. More so, in fact, with a very clear same sex relationship whereas The Acolyte only hints at them, 

I don't regret watching The Acolyte, it wasn't a bad show at all. I would like to see more of the surviving characters, a new season would be good. But I do hope that with Dave Filoni in charge we see more clarity in Star Wars writing across the board. His record on that is mixed, however. 

What I would really like to see is a Clone Wars-style cartoon set during the Galactic Civil War, starting with the aftermath of the Battle of Yavin. With Han, Luke, Leia, and Chewbacca as main characters, just like we see Anakin and Obi-wan in Clone Wars. Drawing on all the old extended universe material for inspiration (Jaxxon! Zeltrons!) and showing new fan favorites like Ashoka (how does she escape that  Between Worlds place?) and Rex interacting with the OT characters. And Wedge. We need Rogue Squadron back. 😀

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

To Criticize or not to Criticize...

 Self-examination is important. Challenge your own beliefs. I try to do this to myself constantly. It is important that others do this as well.

Head of Socrates in Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (Rome)

For example, consider a semi-popular phrase among the nerd/geek community: "Don't yuck someone's yum." Essentially, this phrase means, don't point out the flaws in things that other people like. You can dislike something without criticizing or bitching about it.

Anyone who knows me knows that being critical is a huge part of who I am. I review things, I criticize them in the classic sense "to consider the merits and demerits of and judge accordingly" and apply this to art others may simply accept at face value. So, when faced with "don't yuck other's yum" I find a valid point about how I can reduce other' pleasure and make their lives measurably worse. I really do try to work on this, especially with the people I love or those more vulnerable than I. Slamming a child's favorite book or movie is mere cruelty.

At the same time, too many people simply accept art. They don't recognize that they become what they watch, read, and listen to. The songs you hear, the TV you watch, it slowly but surely changes your views, your morality, your ethics. It is impossible NOT to be changed in this way, just like the drip-drip of water WILL wear down every rock eventually, no matter how hard. Rivers dig channels through the earth. If you listen to "WAP" and similar songs enough times it WILL change how you think about women. Maybe not in a bad way, I leave it to you to parse those lyrics, but it will change you.

That's why we rightfully have made the n-word, blackface, and open racism taboo. Because we realize how corrosive they are to society.

As is so often the case, there is a balance to maintain. We have to balance the potential damage of unexamined, and unchallenged art with the potential damage of simply ruining something for the joy of destruction. It's not easy, and there is no single answer, every piece of art, and every interaction, requires a new assessment.

I tend to err on the side of criticizing, as is apparent from the many reviews on my blog. Especially in formats like this, where those who wish to avoid close examination of a given work can simply look away. On the other hand, I rarely review anything that I cannot recommend in someway. Most art has some good in it.

But what matters isn't that I am critical, in the best "to consider the merits and demerits of and judge accordingly" sense, what is important is that we ALL try to live more critically. We all have this capacity. It just requires exercise and patience.

As Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." So, as we come to the end of the year, please, let's all examine our lives!

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Some thoughts on Socrates & Plato

The Debate of Socrates and Aspasia by Nicolas-André Monsiau.

We cannot help but see Socrates as the turning-point, the vortex of world history.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy (1872), p. 73

I really enjoyed my 'deep dive' into CS Lewis and his fiction during the summer of 2019. I decided to do something similar in the summer of 2020, looking at Socrates & Plato. It turned out to be a more difficult project, not in terms of reading but in terms of getting my head around the subject. In the end, I limited myself to Socrates, looking at Plato beyond his role as Socrates' recorder was just too much for a summer.  My plan was to read some of the dialogues, some of Aristophanes' plays in which they appear, and some biographies. I intended to focus on Socrates and Plato as people, their thinking on rhetoric, and reexamining my past in-depth readings in the dialogues, which were 30 years ago.

I started my Summer of Socrates by reading Rosamond K Sprague's edition of Plato: Laches and Charmides, which I still had from my days as an undergrad. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed Laches. Charmides was more shocking, as I had forgotten how blatant it is about Socrates' 

homosexuality (the dialogue is framed as Socrates trying to seduce a young man noted for his beauty - but note other sources argue Socrates restrained himself from sex). Also, it takes place at a palaestra, reminding me that, somewhat ironically, Socrates and Plato were both jocks.

[Edit: The homosexuality isn't shocking. What shocked me was how bawdy and blatant it was, the "locker room" of it.  It would have been equally shocking if Socrates was drooling over a young woman. This level of bawdiness wouldn't be out of place in one of Aristophanes' plays, but just felt odd in a Socratic dialogue -  which undoubtedly says something about me, because I had read this dialogue before and I should not have been surprised by it.]

Rereading these really highlighted a couple things for me. One, is that language impacts this even more then usual. I compared two different translations, an old, 19th century translation and Sprague's much newer one.  There were definite differences that impacted Plato's meaning.  The modern translation made the sexual connotations of Socrates' interest in Charmides more apparent. I would like to know more about the exact Greek word used for 'courage' and what shades of meaning it has. In Charmides, the virtue being defined is usually translated as 'temperance', but the actual Greek word is  'sophrosyne' which clearly means much more then temperance or even moderation. In both cases it is clear the goal is not to define that one virtue, but to define Virtue itself.  

I was also struck by how much lack of context left the works untethered historically. The 'characters' in the dialogues are all historical personages, prominent Athenians whose reputations are supposed to inform our understanding of the dialogue. Nicias was one of the commanders of the infamous Sicilian expedition renowned for his caution. Laches was one of the commanders who lost the Battle of Mantinea. In Charmides, both Charmides and Critias were infamous as members of the 30 Tyrants. None of this is mentioned in either dialogue. 

I then turned to another of my old undergrad works, Aristophanes: Lysistrata/The Archanians/The Clouds, translated by Alan Sommerstein. I love Aristophanes' plays, which are earthy, funny, and really help you see how the Athenians were real people (who liked dirty jokes), humanizing them in ways that are often needed as our study of the past can transform them into metaphorical marble statues. Only The Clouds dealt specifically with Socrates, and I'd forgotten how annoyed The Clouds made me, because the Socrates who appears within that work is so utterly different from the Socrates we find in Plato's dialogues, literally espousing opposite opinions. But it is important to see how his contemporaries viewed him.

I turned next to Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths by Robin Waterfield. This work challenged by preconceptions of Socrates and helped me put him firmly back into the context of his life, within Athenian history. It was well written and often convincing. For example, his description of Athenian religion placed the impiety charge of which Socrates was convicted in its proper context, reminding us that religion and patriotism were linked in Athens (it is still dominating our political thought today). 

The weakest section of the book was a long digression into Athenian politics and Alcibiades where Socrates barely appears at all. It provides context, but a work on Socrates should not have long stretches with no mention of the philosopher.  Waterfield's interesting twist is that he makes a case that Socrates' conviction and execution were, by Athenian standards of the day, justified. It boils down to what one thinks of Socrates' role, if any, in the rule of the the 30 Tyrants.  Plato, writing long after the fact, positioned Socrates as a foe of the Tyrants, but in the same source he mentions that many of them were friends and relatives of Plato (and friends and students of Socrates as well). As Waterfield points out, that is hardly a convincing case, and it is easy to see how Socrates could be associated with Tyrants. 

Then Waterfield pivots again at the very end, this time to the Thargelia. This reminds us that not only was Athenian society steeped in religion in ways we find difficult to understand (as permeated by religion as modern America is by commercialism) but also that ancient religion was literally blood soaked, even "rational" Athens still practiced essentially human sacrifice (though perhaps it was ceremonial). This ends the work with the idea that Socrates is just a scapegoat, that his trial is similar to the Thargelia if less ritualized. 

I found myself with new questions after reading Waterfield's work, I wondered if Socrates SHOULD bear some blame for Alcibiades, Critias, and the Thirty Tyrants. Did his teachings lead some to mass murder? His defenders, Xenophon and Plato, argued after the fact he was not connected to their excesses but obviously biased defenses long after the fact should not be wholly convincing. I tried to deeply rethink my understanding of Socrates -- perhaps he drank the hemlock cup because he knew he deserved it. But perhaps not, as a friend pointed out to me, Socrates' teachings do not really support their actions. In the Meno, for example, he "shows that the non-citizen slave - with the right training - is just as capable of the Socratic method as a free citizen." The more I consider it, the less convinced I am of any of Waterfield's arguments. 

The next book in my deep dive didn't help much. Plato's Republic by Simon Blackburn was not a
history at all, but an analysis of Plato's ideas by someone who doesn't really like Plato very much.  A useful corrective, as Plato does get more then his share of hero worship but he allowed his own real-world politics into the mix too often.

My final book for the project was The Hemlock Cup by Bettany Hughes.  It is the best of the works I've read to date. It is a detailed history that frames the tale with his trial and execution (apparently that is irresistible to his biographers) but what Hughes highlights that Socrates is really 'donut' subject - tons of information available on the people and world around Socrates, but he himself is absent because he left no writings (the parallels with Jesus are striking).  In order to counter this absence, Hughes focuses on the archaeology, recreating Athens at each stage of Socrates' life as he would have seen and interacted with it, while inserting the documentary evidence we do have. It is brilliant, a technique I shall have to remember if faced with a similar donut subject myself in the future. 

The Hemlock Cup was a very good read, I definitely think I understand Socrates better having read it. It certainly gave me a better perspective and understanding when I turned to the final book in my Socratic 'deep dive':  Plato: Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo translated by G.M.A. Grube. This is another reread of my undergrad textbooks, and it was interesting reading these dialogue translations after my previous readings.  

I was particularly struck by this bit: "Finally, I went to the craftsmen. For I was conscious of knowing practically nothing and I knew that I would find they had knowledge of many fine things. In this I was not mistaken … the good craftsmen seemed to me to have the same fault as the poets: each of them, because of his success at his craft, thought himself very wise in other most important pursuits, and this error overshadowed the wisdom they had." (Plato, Apology, 22.D) This reminds me a great deal of STEM types who assume history or other Humanities are 'easy' and blithely make pronouncements about those areas of studies despite their own relative ignorance.

The biggest takeaway I have from this "deep dive" is a better understanding of my personal ignorance regarding Socrates and Plato, as well our collective ignorance of Socrates character and thoughts. This is known as the Socratic Problem, and it has dogged scholars and philosophers for hundreds of years. Socrates left us no writings of his own, nor any hints of things he wrote that other writers mention. All we have are the writings of a few people who knew him personally. Of these, Aristophanes' comedies are the only contemporary writings. Two of his students, Plato and Xenophon, wrote extensively about him, but they wrote long after he was dead. Thus the "donut" status mentioned above. The broad consensus is that earlier Platonic dialogues are close to Socrates' authentic thoughts, especially when the match what is said of him in other sources. In later writings, like The Republic, Plato is using Socrates as a character to express his own philosophies.  

My "deep dive" into Socrates and Plato had shifted quite a bit as I delved into it. First, it was immediately clear the topic was way too huge for one summer of study, even for a cursory examination. So I abandoned Plato to focus on Socrates, who had always fascinated me more. But even Socrates on his own was far to large of a subject, and in the end, after a perfunctory look at his wider views, I was led by the books I read to focus on his place in Athenian politics and society.  I didn't come to many firm conclusions -- like so many of mankind's most influential thinkers much of his life remains shrouded in the unknowable -- but I learned a great deal.

Considering that many of mankind's greatest minds have grappled with Socrates and come to no firmer conclusions then I did after my light summer reading exploration, I'm fairly content with my conclusions. 

Last summer I was too buried in research and writing to do a "deep dive" on any subject other then my work. But I certainly hope I have an opportunity to do one this summer. 

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.