A Geek History of Time - Episode 31- Jedi, Buddhism, and Counterculture

Episode Date: October 13, 2019

In our first episode about Star Wars (!), Ed illuminates how the Jedi should be inherently countercultural figures. He explains where he thinks Lucas planted the seeds of their ultimate failure (hint- it’s because he didn’t do any homework on Buddhism), and Damian gets to go ham on the Jedi Order, something that he truly loves doing.

And we begin with good days sir. Geeks come in all shapes and sizes and that they come into all kinds of things. I was thinking more about the satanic panic. Buy the scholar Gary Guy-Yaks. Well wait, hold on. I said good days sir, not defending Roman slavery by any stretch. No, black art. That's bad.

Let him vote. Fuck off. When historians, and especially British historians, want to get cute, it's in there. OK. It is not worth the jury. No. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect an artery to the real world.

I'm Ed Blalock. I'm a middle school world history teacher in Northern California and the father of a not quite two year old, Damien Hooth the Hacker you. I'm Damien Harmony, I'm a high school Latin teacher who dabbles in world history nowadays. I'm the father of two proud pogo owner and to my right is our new producer, producer George. Say hi. Hello. All right. Oh, that's George. That's George. Yeah, there you go. The master of the mixing board Who makes sure that I'm actually audible More often in this season than I was clearly in the old one. Oh, oh, sorry, sorry speaking up now. Yeah, all right. So there you go.

And if not by manipulating the board, by just telling me I need to speak up, there you go. Either way, it works. So you were audible last season. It just most of it was you slamming the table. Yes, yes. And telling you good day, sir, and Generally getting angry when you decided to mangled the English language Which admittedly has it coming but there you go or when I brought up Don Henley being in Lord of the Rings you heathen Heathen bastard as my son would say you're missing the fucking point he heard that I'm I don't know if I'm sorry. I'm not. I was okay. I told him that's a home joke.

There you go. I'm glad to have had such a positive influence on your boy. Don't worry. It's coming back around to your kid. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. All right. So as we mentioned in at the end of our last episode Mm-hmm I've been wanting for a long time to talk about this topic. Uh-huh

It took us forever to get around to talking about Star Wars, which is remarkable and now we're gonna do it. Yes STDs in the Star Wars universe. No, that's one of yours. Oh right. No, this is what am I in. Okay, okay. The Jedi Order and Counterculture. So it's kind of related because it made a lot of sense. Yeah. Or my alternate title. How George Lucas doesn't understand Buddhism, like at all. So my thesis here, I'm gonna open with the thesis rather than round about coming to it later. My thesis is that Star Wars and the Jedi are essentially counter-cultural.

Okay. It's in the DNA of the story. It's in the concept of what the Jedi were at the beginning of the franchise. Because the world that they live in is technological and they're mystical. That's part of that. That's part of it.

I'm gonna get into more of what we need as we go on. That's a good starting point. All right. But Lucas is misunderstanding of the spiritual roots of the philosophy he tried to create led to the Jedi Order becoming an unintentional villain. I like this already. I knew you would.

I knew you would. And we'll get there. You'll have your moment. Yes. But first, yes, let's talk about the original trilogy and counterculture. Okay. So Star Wars was released in May of 1977. Yes. I have never lived in a world that did not have Star Wars in it. Bite me. Yeah, both. You're a child. That year Jimmy Carter was sworn in as president in January. you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, kind of ties in very neatly with my thesis, was to pardon Vietnam draft dodgers. Yeah, he issued a blanket, essentially a blanket pardon

to anybody who had dodged the draft. I love that he pardoned people who decided not to go and kill other people in another country. Yeah. And people got angry at that. Yeah. There's other president just before him, pardon the guy who wiped his ass with the constitution.

And he was like, well, fairs, fair. Yeah, fairs, fair. Yeah. Yeah, oh, wow. I never thought of that parallel. Yeah, it's pretty remarkable. It's great. Yeah, roots played on TV,

ooh, which marked a cultural shift in perception of the African-American experience. Uh-huh. It broadcasts that oftentimes painful and ugly history into everybody's living room, didn't mess with, wasn't just African-Americans were living their cultural history. It was everybody seeing all of that and seeing how difficult and painful and traumatic that

was. Yeah. Demonstrations were held in 10 cities across the US, calling for passage of a civil rights law for people with disabilities. This is a 1977. The ADA didn't get passed until the first Bush administration. I can see 91. 91. Yeah, 91.

In December, which is after Star Wars, but it's worth noting here. Of 77? Of 77. I was born in December 1977. Bite me. Project Half Blue made its first test flight. I've never heard of this.

Half Blue would eventually lead to the development of the F-117 stealth fighter. Oh. In the years immediately preceding Star Wars, Nixon had achieved quote unquote peace with honor in Vietnam with drawing all US troops in 1973. Right. Saigon failure, I was born 75.

Right. And a set of scenes that played as chaos and massive US failure showed up on TV screens all over the world. Yes. Not just in the US, but all over the world. It was a massive, massive black eye. Even though we weren't actively

fighting anymore, it was still perceived rightly as being a huge loss for us. Well, and I mean, one of the most iconic pieces of that was when they chopper everybody over, they didn't have time or space to do anything other than push the chopper into the water. Yeah. And it was that pushing of the chopper into the water really lent this air of impotence to our involvement over there. Yeah. You know, I would go differently than impotence.

I think it showed the, we're completely spent. Yeah. Not so much impotence, but just exhausted. I think it showed the, we're completely spent. Not so much impotent, but just exhausted. Just we have finally, in fact, been blood white by this. And it's over. Like, it was a defining metaphorical moment for the realization that, no, no, this is just over. There's no, there is not going to be a surge.

There is not going to be any, any, like, we're done. Yeah. Whether we like it or not, we're done and we lost. Yeah. And the other iconic scene from all of that is over the embassy in Hanoi with people desperately clambering to get onto the helicopters to get out, to try to get away. And knowing that there was going to be a blood bath,

a massive purge of anybody who'd been associated, affiliated with us, and there was not anything we could do to protect those people. To protect those people who'd been left behind. I mean, it was just, yeah, it's... Or to get those people out that we had promised... The we had promised to help. Yeah.

Yeah. So, also, Watergate needs to be mentioned here again, because it had basically proven the hippies were right about Nixon all along. Like, the hippies in the counterculture, and I'm going to get into more detail about who the counterculture were, but they had been saying since the late 60s that, you know, the establishment was corrupt. Right. The man was out to get everybody, you know, I mean, not quite going so far as to be straight up

a conspiracy theorist, but there was definitely this sense that like anybody don't trust anybody over 30 was a thing and You know anybody who's part of the establishment just couldn't be trusted right? Yeah, and there and yeah They are out only for their own power and they're yeah, like you said not trust Yeah, and and and so watergate Basically proved that they were right. Yeah. Like even paranoid have genuine enemies. Yep. And the moment somebody who is paranoid figures out that they have a genuine enemy,

it just fuels everything else. Yeah, it does. And so, you know, we've since discovered through interviews or at least documents and all this stuff that no, as a matter of fact, Nixon was an authoritarian. The people in his administration wanted to try to find a way to make it illegal to be against the war. They wanted to try to find a way to make it illegal to be black. And so they started the war on drugs.

There's a way of accomplishing that because those two goals weren't actually doable. Well, and to go further, all of that was to keep him and his ilk in power. Like, that was feeding the, quote, silent majority, and that was disfranchising cities, because that's where most African Americans that I'm lived, and children both... Well, in the coded language, the coded language about law and order. Yeah. You know, suppression of young people, you know, delegitimization of the old. Delegitimization of them. Yeah. All of that.

Lovely. We've learned. Yeah. Thankfully, we live in a more enlightened era. Right. None of this sounds familiar now. So now having having set the stage for this is what the world looked like when Star Wars was made and we showed up on screens. What exactly do I mean by counter culture? was made and we showed up on screens. What exactly do I mean by counter-culture? It's an important point. The movements against the Vietnam War and in support of broadening of civil rights

for disenfranchised or marginalized communities in the US, especially the African American civil rights movement, but then later the gay rights movement. Like we saw disability rights and anybody, anybody who was disenfranchised, oppressed, you know, however you want to say it, all of those movements kind of at once have all been identified by historians as being connected in a very large overall movement against the dominant cultures, mores and prejudices. Okay. And so the roots of the movement go back to the post-war beatniks and other groups

who started talking about being rebellious, started talking about trying to reveal the emotional underbelly of, on the surface that looked all idyllic, 50s and early sixties You know think of how you know I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed my man a starving hysterical Right that was a shot across the bow right to all of the leave it to beaver conventions of of the culture and young people

of the culture and young people, people younger than Keroak and I'm forgetting the other major book. Ginsburg. Thank you. Sure. People younger than the two of them heard that and were like, oh hey, so wait, you know, all of this stuff I'm experiencing that is my dad working too hard and never being home, my mom taking pills in order to deal with her own stress level and all this stuff and all this all this rot that I'm experiencing that I'm being told

well. No, it doesn't really count. Don't worry about it. And everybody's trying to put on this brave face. No, somebody actually there is somebody out there seeing the truth. Wait, that validates what I'm thinking and that led to the hippies and the hippies and the boomers were the ones who picked up where the beatniks started. Right. And just largely thanks to demographics, once the boomer generation got largely into the counter culture, there was no way the dominant culture could stop it. That's true because there were just two goddamn many. Well, they'd made them.

Yeah, they'd made, oh my God, I made the army that will destroy me. Well, and that gets to what we talked about last season about being afraid of the kids. Yeah, being afraid of the youth. Yeah, and the hippies and the hippies, not only affiliated groups, were the children of the dominant culture,

white middle America, rebelling on a vast scale, and they were empowered by the burgeoning wealth of their sector of society, and they were afforded new freedom, most especially by the invention of birth control. Previous anti-authoritarian movements had existed, but the counterculture that arose out of the 60s was special, like I said, because of sheer numbers. The boomers simply outnumbered all the other rebellious generations that had come before, and they had been raised as the princes

and princesses of the silence, who had lived through a depression in a world war and wanted to provide their children with everything they hadn't themselves had. So you have this generation that was being raised, again, within Middle America, within the dominant culture, you have this generation of the boomers that were being raised with unfettered access to more resources than their parents had. More opportunities, more entertainment options,

more opportunities for all kinds of stuff than their parents had had. And so it shouldn't be any surprise that the resulting generation was one of activists who shouted really loudly about injustice. But it was, it was shocking. It was scary. It was like, wait,

what are you making all this noise about? I fought the fascists, why are you calling me a fascist at the dinner table? At the same time though, the boomers, while they wanted to rebel, they wanted to come back. Oh yeah. They absolutely wanted to, I mean, history's proven it, but also like their ideas were,

no, we're going to do this because this is, this is okay for us to do, it's safe to do. Children are valued for one of the first times, truly valued, not just like, hey, we'll stop abusing them a little, but like actually valued, they're being made in record numbers. Triple the amount of kids, or parents who had three kids, quadrupledly in amount of parents who had four kids during the baby boom.

And as I recall, the baby boomers very much wanted all that same material, wealth, and success when they were older. But for right now, we've got some rebelling to do. Yeah. It's so existential and we don't want the war. Oh, well, yeah. Yeah. So, it's interesting, the parallel that occurred to me while I was doing the research and writing

this is the CNNmen generation in China. Because the government said you're only allowed to have one kid. So everybody in China for a generation, unless you had the connections or the necessity, you only had one kid. And those children were raised again as the sion, the princes and princesses of the four two one. Yeah. Yeah. And and you know 20 this is 20 years after and because of male preference. Well, yeah, that that that gets into a whole other issue. I didn't I didn't get to. But you know, these these kids being raised as only children, of course, they're going to want more freedoms. And of course course they're going to want more freedoms and of course they're going to want more material opportunity. But again, the dominant culture reacted with

shock and in their case tanks and machine guns because China. So this is kind of a thing. If you have a generation that you suddenly give all of this money and privilege and everything too, you're going to wind up having rebellious young people. Like... Tienman was 1989. Yeah. Ken State was 1970. Okay.

Just pointing out that in America, Watton killed its kids too. And... I'm going to argue there's a scalar issue. There might be, but... Yeah, well, the uprising scale is now. Yeah, but... So it could be proportional. But also the, the, the, the, Tiananmen Square was in some ways a threat to the state.

Kent State was not, and the amount of adults who were interviewed after the fact, saying, I'm glad they shot those kids. I hope they shoot more. Yeah. Was in the 60s and 70s percent. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's also townies versus college folk. Yeah. But there's-

And the anti and the basic anti-intellectual bias that we always have to deal with because we're America. Mm-hmm. So- And also- But yeah. And also, sit down, shut up, and worship your country. Yeah.

Because freedom. Yeah. But I would just like to point out, yeah, Tim and Square, yeah, you're 100% right, but it's not like we didn't kill our own kids. No. Okay. Yeah. Point, point granted, point seated. So the counterculture, very broadly called for greater individual freedom of expression.

Yes. Yes. Okay, I don't want to have to have the same haircut. You have dad, you know, I don't want to dress the way you dress. I don't want to be a robot wearing, you know, a gray suit, gray flannel suit. Which is the Beatles' haircuts were considered long. We're considered like, oh my god, such long hair. Right.

Like, really really yeah, so pacifism Expansion of civil rights including racial and gender equality Although by our standards today the gender equality part had a lot to Lot to catch up to so the racial. Well, it's not the racial, but yeah There were steps there absolutely such a good Growth of social justice and sexual liberation. Yes. It cast the dominant cultures being authoritarian.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Not wrong. We've talked to the very one. Talking about Nixon here, not wrong. Yeah. Militaristic stifling, uptight, and unjust. Mm-hmm.

It glorified rebellion with a smaller or a big one. Mm-hmm. Seeing something happen. The ideal of the individual following their bliss okay and propagated the idea that utopia could be achieved by everybody doing just that if everybody was just free to follow their bliss do it made him happy wouldn't the world just wind up being perfect

was was not ever like explicitly stated but that was that was kind of the direction that the movement was pointed in. And there is a little bit to that that it was explicit or at least it was like, we're trying to turn on tune in and drop out. There were also beans. The whole point of being there was to be yeah, so I mean there were you yeah the the the the hippie the hippie the hippie roots of you do you man, you know and Now that there was a growth a notable growth in communes and alternative communities Mm-hmm during this time period which had always existed But a great many more of them them sprang up in this time period

for these very reasons. Same with dangerous ass cults. Well, yeah. And when we're talking about alternative communities, that's like a subset of alternative communities is crazy ass cults. Yeah. Yes.

And also fetishization of the East. Yes. Which, getting to, On the way there though, you got to take a second and talk about Joseph Campbell. Ooh, because Joseph Campbell became a big deal to the counterculture. So did the Hobbit. This is true. Yeah, this is true. Yeah, Which is of course a Cambellan hero myth itself. Oh, yeah Joseph Campbell Attracted a lot of attention from from people within the counterculture young people amongst them a young George Lucas He wrote in the hero of a thousand faces about the universality of the human subconscious Mm-hmm, which is hippie-pie-snick talk, if ever there was.

He was the original proponent of the very phrase, following your bliss that's taken from him, that's his phrase that he coined, in order to find spiritual fulfillment and personal actualization. Now that's part of the hero's journey. Yeah, boomer catnip this dude. Okay.

Along the way, he specifically described the hero's journeyed story arc Yeah, yeah, boomer catnip this dude Along the way he specifically described the hero's journeyed story arc that he discovered existed in every culture around the globe in one form or another George Lucas latched onto that idea and consciously integrated it into the Star Wars story I might be jumping ahead. Okay, which all but gladly jump back. Okay One of the most important catalyzing events in the hero's journey is the death of the mentor, the death of the older. Yes. Boomers would have loved that shit.

Oh, and parents would have freaked out about that. You freaked out the holy hell out about it. Yes. Didn't actually bring that up specifically, but it was an important point worthy of mentioning there. Now, you talk about fetishization of the East. Yes. Buddhism also got a lot of attention from the baby boomers

as an alternative to Christian churches that to them seemed way too tied to origin morality, hierarchical authority, hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, they're too busy, they're too busy trying to tell me that I can't go out and make love, not war. You know, old ideas of, especially sexual morality, but morality across the board. We're just like, no, why are you obsessed with this?

You know, and everything, you know, cut the butter square, mainline Protestantism was like, this is what we're rebelling against. And so Zen Buddhism became popular amongst the beats in the 1950s. Okay. That was actually how Zen Buddhism got introduced to the United States. They were influences on the later countercultural movements of the 60s.

Herman Hess's novel, Siddhartha, cultural movements of the 60s. Herman Hess's novel, Siddhartha, was almost required reading for members of the Boomer generation. My parents of course remember the 60s so they weren't there so they didn't read it but nearly everybody around them did. I know on snuffles of mine did. And concepts like karma reincarnation, meditative practice, Dharma, I mean, all of these terms that actually mean something in Buddhism right? got picked up and watered down and adopted in ways

that reflect the original meaning, but aren't totally correct. What's the difference between that and appropriation? That's a really good question. I genuinely, I think for me, appropriation has a certain amount of pantomime costume play to it. Look at me, look at me. I'm...

It's performative. I'm, yeah. Whereas this was, no man, that's groovy. I like that. You know, and it's, I heard this thing that I think is really cool, and I don't really understand all of it, but this nugget of what it is,

I think is worth something, and I'm going to try to build part of my personal philosophy around this. As opposed to that person over there has this hairstyle, that hairstyle looks cool. I want to look like that person, so I'm going to do that hairstyle. When I don't understand any of the underpinnings of what that hairstyle symbolically means. Or, you know, I think it looks cool to wear an Indian headdress when I'm, you know,

a 20-something model and I'm going to do a music festival, so I'm gonna wear it and like whatever. No, man, that's a ritual. That's a ritual. A little bit, yeah. Like, you know, yeah. Look at pictures of Beans and you see a lot of like, hey, I'm tribal. Oh, yeah, no, there was. There. Look at pictures of Beans and you see a lot of like,

hey, I'm tribal. Oh yeah, no, there was. There was. The musical here, they called themselves the tribe. You know, you had. There was, you know, bringing that up. It's worth pointing out with modern concepts of all the stuff, there was a lot of appropriation going on.

Okay. And I'm not trying to make excuses for. No, it's not. It's in that regard. It wasn't, it wasn't actually something that had occurred to me when I was writing about it, but you are, you do bring up a meaningful point. There was, there, there is, there is at the very least a whiff of appropriation involved in this. Right.

And I think there are some areas where we can point out and go, yeah, no, that, that was totally not cool. And this over here, well, maybe there's a shabby, there's nuance to it. Sure. But so these ideas out of Buddhism, these Buddhist concepts, became part of the background noise of the era. Yeah, I mean, the Beatles actually saying instant karma is going to get you. Yeah. Or I might have been John Lennon's song specifically. Well, yeah, yeah. But prior to that, they Lennon's song specifically. Well, yeah, yeah. But prior to that, they were doing Citar and... Well, yeah, yeah.

Obviously, what Harrison was doing. Yeah, all the stuff Jefferson was doing, they wound up going and getting pulled into Maharishi, Mahashiogi and all that stuff. And yeah. And so now, you know, talking about these ideas being picked up and kind of blended in the sense of, you know, the mechanical thing with the blades, whipping things, being blended into the rest of the zitgeist, this leads, I want to talk about the impact of counterculture

on cinema. Okay. Because we're coming around, we're getting there. The Hayes Code, which we mentioned in kind of in passing when we were in the very first episode when we talked about the Comic Code Authority, CGA, got abandoned entirely in 1968. Now it had kind of been on the way out for a long time.

There had been a bunch of movies that had been made, that had not adhered to the Hayes Code and they'd gotten away with it. But finally in 68, everybody that was involved just said, you know what, we give up. We're not going to keep trying to police the stuff anymore. And the MPAA instituted its rating system in place of the code. And again, this is a self-governing body. Yes, no legislation ever involved. That's why they're trying to. That's why they're trying to make sure nobody passes any laws.

And this opened up whole new frontiers of expression for American filmmakers who wanted to get access to studio money. And so movies in the 70s across the board became sexier, became more violent, became more frank in their depictions of authority, they became more rebellious, and they were simultaneously across the board generally darker. There were also, as I recall, becoming greater expressed, like it used to be the studio would hire certain directors to do certain things

You know this is a John Ford movie. This is Howard Hawks movie. Yeah, but At this point you've got a tour to the extreme. This is this is the era know about until. Yeah, but the sanitized version of reality that had been pushed by the Hayes Code was no longer the only one that could get made in the studio system. Right. So you started seeing stories where authority was, like the counterculture said, not to be trusted.

And you start seeing Bonnie and Clyde, which is, I mean, let's talk about hyperviolence, certainly for the era, but also by modern standards, it's not that much right home about, but based on when it was made, it was my God, the horror, the graduate, which, which let's talk about rebellious against authority. Let's talk about pointing out the hypocrisy, wait, I see what you did there. And dog day afternoon. Oh, well, if you're going to do dog day afternoon, you got to go back to Godfather. Well yeah.

Okay. And Godfather, where sunny gets killed. And also a little bit earlier, where Sunny beats the shit out of... That would catch up. Yeah, where Sunny beats the shit out of Carlo, and even back a little further, the scene where Carlo beats the shit out of Tally Aschire,

Connie. Yeah. It's done almost all off-screen, except for this door that's going and you're in the doorway. It's clearly meant to put you there and you hear the screaming and all that. Way more explicit. Oh, yeah.

Way more explicit. Way more explicit. Absolutely, right. Yeah. And, worth noting in Dog Day afternoon is that it very explicitly involved one of the main character being a closeted homosexual. Yes. Which, like, no, no. You don't talk about those things.

You don't talk about those things. Yeah. Now, no, no, we're talking about it, and it's a critical plot point. Yes. Like, so, so this is, this is a huge, huge shift in the landscape completely. And the people who are in charge of the studio are now the children of the original studio creators quite often.

I think Darryl Xanax kid, I know that Alan Lad Jr., he's the one who ends up green lighting Star Wars. And fighting the studio in the board of the watches, he ends up quitting over it. Yeah. You've got that going on, so you've got people who don't have the same values as the studio in the board of the coaches, he ends up quitting over it. Yeah. You've got that going on, so you've got people who don't have the same values as the studio, and they've realized that

they need to make big movies to pay for the little movies. But there's like that appreciation of art, and you start to see black exploitation film. Ah, yeah. You know, you were seeing so much, you're seeing so much more accessibility to making films and so much more representation on films. Yeah.

Yeah. And so now I need to shift sideways again to talk about foreign cinema and the influence of foreign cinema. Okay. I have a feeling. I know where you're going to go with this. Okay. I'm going to see if you write down a word and show it to our producer George. Okay.

And he will laugh at me if I'm right. Okay, so go ahead. Alright, so Foreign Cinema started to influence American film more directly. Thanks to the counterculture because they were looking at sources outside of traditional storytellers, traditional western storytelling. Courassawa, in particular. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean obviously. Yeah.

How, like, where's the neon? It's Star Wars. It's at its Star Wars. Yeah. So Courassawa had a really powerful influence on George Lucas. If we were another time, in another episode, a cinematographic analysis of their work would make the influence unavoidably obvious. I grew up with my dad saying that

George Lucas only ripped off Kurosawa. Like just shot for shot for shot. And there's so much where he has quite the late to stand on. Oh yeah. Totally. Yeah. As I say here, cinematographic analysis, their work would make a longer treatise than we have time for in this podcast. But the influence of Kurosawa on Lucas is as obvious as Ford and Peckin Paz influence on Kurosawa, which it's worth noting. Yes, it's worth, it's my favorite phrase. It's worth noting that. The genre of film that I'm talking about here is Gidageki,

which is Samurai movies. Okay. Okay. Of a particular kind. And they are themselves the Japanese adaptation of our Westerns. And we can get into talking thematically how that works. But most directly influential on Star Wars in Curacao is is Curacao is filmed the hidden fortress. Yes. Okay. Which involves a tall skinny guy and a short fat guy getting caught up in the struggles of an exiled princess whose family's territory has been conquered by a cruel war lord. A mysterious cany wandrower who turns out to be a retired samurai general comes to her aid and the evil war lord is defeated in the end.

Does that sound familiar to anybody else at the table here? Yeah, it does. Let me think. Harry Potter. Good try. Okay, well, uh, the hobbit. Yes, yes, yes, as a matter of fact. Yeah. No, there's there's this whole genre. Oh my god, I hadn't thought of that, but no, I still don't see it.

So, but there's a whole genre of wandering Ronin films in Japanese cinema. It's like I said, they're equivalent of our westerns. It's called Gideigeki. I already used the word a second ago. And if you're a western director who's been influenced by Japanese films, it's going to play a major role because it's a huge big thing. The stories center around wandering Ronin, fighting bandits, resisting oppressive local lords, and generally committing acts of armed night air entry during the Aedo period

of Japanese history. Okay. They are almost all of them set during the Ado period. Okay, and that's, again, our westerns are set in a specific time period. In a specific, in a specific time period. And it's important that I point out that it's the Ado period because that was a period of rigid governmental control over society. It was a military dictatorship and these

stories are about wandering swordsmen who are fighting very frequently against corrupt local authorities. Okay. So they are counter-cultural. Okay. Okay. Certainly to a Western viewer who's gonna look at this, I'm gonna say, okay, no, man, this is speaking my language. I'm a baby boomer who thinks of it, but you know, falling is bliss. Yeah, yeah. Following, following his own individual moral code, you know, the amount of people who are hitchhiking at that time, by the way, is actually startlingly high. Women could go hitchhike on their own across the United States. That is a faster version of what you see with the wandering heroes. This is true. Yeah, that's the point. And Jack Herald-Rack wrote a book called on the road. On the road. So yeah, this is all okay.

Yeah. These films are a romanticization of both the Ronin themselves and of the Aedo period in precisely the same way that Westerns are romanticization of cowboys and gunslingers in the Old West, G. DiGecki, Jedi. Yeah, it's gonna say, you're saying that a lot. He couldn't have been any more obvious about where he's getting his sources. For anybody who knows anything about foreign cinema, I was like, oh.

Right. Now, was he saying, hey, this is an homage or was he just a property? He, he, I don't know. And that might be a false dilemma. He, I don't know. And that might be a falsely talking. That might be a false dilemma. But I genuinely don't know. Okay. I think it was probably in homage.

It was probably an Easter egg for anybody who was knowledgeable enough about it. Okay. That's my assumption, but I could totally be wrong. There have been plenty of other places where Lucas has proven to not be as brilliant as we all want to think he is. But so Star Wars was countercultural. Because authority was corrupt, evil, and oppressive. Yes.

The rebellion was motivated by a dedication to freedom for individual so-fantrights. Yeah. Okay. The rebellion was multi-species and sexually egalitarian. The Empire was all white human dudes in Nazi coded uniforms. Yeah. The central conflict was ultimately spiritual with a spiritual force being the deciding factor and the destruction of the Death Star

and ultimately the second Death Star and the defeat of the Empire. And even though the leaders themselves were not of that religion, they would very often say may the force be with you. No, of course, but with you. Now, finally, we get to the Jedi themselves. Jedi Knights in the first movie, episode four, because Lucas are described as guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic. We know that they fought in something called the Clone Wars and they carried the coolest sci-fi weapon ever

conceived of. I will fight you on this. No, you have no argument for me on this. Okay. We know that they have a connection to the force and their connection to it made them peerless warriors. Yes. Okay. So far. A more civilized weapon for more civilized. Yes. Yes. So far this is textbook wandering swordsman Stick from Japan. Yeah. Complete with the sword. Yeah. Yeah. Taken straight out of G.D. I get by the way the sword looks very katana e Oh, yeah, it's not curvy, but it's called a saber. Yeah, weirdly. Yeah, um, but yeah, yeah This is totally cribbed out of g die geeky substitute Zen Buddhism for the force swap lightsabers out for katana and

You're there. Yeah, okay in episode four. Oh my god, his name is Obi-Wan. They wore an Obi. Obi. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In episode four, that's essentially all we know. That's true. The Jedi are, as far as we know, wandering knight to errant, who have access to wizard ninja trickery and can achieve superhuman feats of skill thanks to their connection to the force. And that's it. There's no other backstory. There's only the one movie in which to explain so there's nothing else there. And there's a guy who pulls a gun and he pulls the sword and the sword wins. Yes. Now I need I need here to mention splinter of the mind's eye. Oh God. Why? Why? Oh God. Because it's incest. Well, yes, thanks to it being written before Canon had been settled

about the fact that they were brother and sister. Right. So yes, it has that problem. However, however, you just yes, however incest. Yeah, I know. Okay. I know. But not not the issue of incest But but the other point the other but the other the other point I would yeah the other point I want to make is first off That that is quick inducing and It was quick inducing enough that I have essentially found a way to compartmentalize those issues from everything else about the novel.

Sure. And having compartmentalized that issue, this is another I will fight you. Okay. I am genuinely not certain if it's again compartmentalizing that one issue. Nearly a great Star Wars novel or the greatest Star Wars novel that has been written. You're gonna have to fight me because I have all of the pre-Disney Star Wars novels. Yeah, I know. And I read them all on number times. And Sturgeon's Law applies 90% of them are crap, but the 10% that are worth,

that are worth it are worth fighting for. I'm gonna fight you on the 90%. Well, it's more like 65% of crap. All right, well, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, because there's some people that really don't like the use on Vaughn, and so I'm willing to let that be the fuzzy part in the middle.

I think it's brilliant. My favorite book comes out of it, in the middle. Okay. I think it's brilliant. Mmm. My favorite book comes out of it, but okay. Okay. Okay. So here's the deal. Sure. Uh, in, in that book.

Mm-hmm. Splinter of the mind. Splinter of the mind's eye. Okay. The depiction of the Jedi is, uh, the comparison is is well not comparison the depiction of of what the jet i is what loose concept of what the jet i were is they were nights templor

he he it is it is it is your wandering swordsman right with wizardry and now we're gonna up the amount of wizardry you're learning thanks to the situation that you're in right but it was uh But it was written, you know, to capitalize on the success of the first movie while the second movie was still being written. Okay. And there's no, we still don't have the Jedi code. But the wandering swordsmen aspects are all there and that's true. You know, a whole lot of stuff in the story

has been overtaken by other canon since. Right. But it really gave a very clear idea and as a historical document in the development of canon, it's really important because it gave a very clear idea of what it is that everybody who was writing these stories still fought the Jedi work. True, very true.

And it is a wonderful snapshot of that exact thing. Yeah, now we get to Empire, Yoda shows up and the Jedi get more codified. Right. There's an accepted training methodology that apparently starts in youth somewhere. He just says he's too young. We don't know He's too old. Sorry. He's too old to be trained, you know, so okay well before 18 so clearly The Jedi code shows up for the first time and under that I have multiple bullet points There's a really heavy emphasis on not attachment,

action being free of emotion. There is no emotion, there is peace, is the line out of the code. Now that Jedi code is not in the movie, it is not film cannon. Okay. So it shows up in a novelization of the movie, or where does it show?

I'm asking you. It's novelization of the film. Okay. of the movie or where does it show? I'm asking. It's novelization of the film. Anger and fear are explicitly in the film link to the dark side. And you will know when you are calm at peace. All of that's there. Yeah. And light side and dark side have a distinct moral element attached to them.

True. Light side good, dark side bad. Even more so than the first movie, because it was mentioned that Darth Vader, that Darth Vader is a master of the dark side of the forest. Yep. Only a master of evil, though. Only a master of evil. And so there was this, you know, light side good, dark side bad. But now Yoda doubles down on that. Oh yeah. You know, hatred, fear, anger, all of these, the dark side are there. Right. And you know, you need to stay on the light side.

And the light side isn't joy. The light side isn't love. The light side isn't compassion. Right. The light side is peace. And sacrifice your friends. Well, yeah. Let them die.

Yes. Jedi are now more monastic in character. Mm-hmm. Well, and Yoda is a hermit. Yoda is a hermit. Wars do not make one great. Very fast. Which sounds a little odd for a group defined by their skill with blazing space katana.

True. True. And their thing is called the Force. The Force itself is an expression of, well, of course. Yeah, power. Yeah power There is I put this down in my notes twice the codification of the light side of the force versus the dark side of the force They are in there they're shown as being in opposition to each other that are described as being opposition to each other and mutually exclusive and mutually exclusive Once you start down that dark path forever will dominate destiny Yoda tries to make Luke understand he must master himself. Yeah.

Before he can defeat an external enemy and also throw off everything that you used to know, including all the shit you learned from your uncle Owen and brew. You must unlearn what you learned. You must unlearn everything. It is my concerted opinion that this is the first misstep Lucas made in the codification of the Jedi code, and it is here that the Jedi start the change from counter-cultural wandering heroes to, I really don't know what. Is it the separation of the light and the dark that you're talking about?

It's separation of light and dark. It is the moral weight suddenly being thrown on the difference between light side and dark side. It is the change to this weight all of a sudden there's this monasticism element involved. All of a sudden it's we carry lightsabers but we're supposed to be peaceful and to add peace and calm and like, and instead of that... There's all this weird junky, like... Yeah. Dicotomy, weird kind of thing going on.

And it's very, again, this is this and that's that instead of a blending of it, instead of a duality within each of us. Yeah. Instead of the yin and the yang. Yes, because... Okay. Because Buddhism. That's actually what. Yes, because, because Buddhism. That's actually what I have written here, because Buddhism.

And I got to talk a little bit about Buddhism, just in case people in our audience aren't familiar with the history, what's up? And well, I was just going to say, and a great time to talk about Buddhism would be after we shell products for other people. Since we're talking about non-attachment Since we're talking about non-attachment. We're talking about non-attachment.

We need to show the level of attachment we have to making a living. Exactly. There you go. So we will catch you all on the other side of the break and you will feel wonderfully refreshed by all of the wonderful products that we shell for you. And remember, if you want us to shell for you,

we are happy to. There are very few things that we're not willing to show. It just has to be something that there was good find marginally interesting or useful. Yeah, that we could get behind supporting somebody buying. Find our contact information at the end of the set-up. There you go. Otherwise, we'll see you at the other side of this break. Hey, Ignatian Ed here.

And Damian. Damian, you in the market for a new book? What, you know what I am? All right, well I got it, I got it serious to recommend to you. Oh, this fantastic. You know what, I would love to read a book about like, Irish folklore and Celtic folklore,

but set in urban setting in America. Got anything? Wow, that's not at all artfully set up, but I do as a matter of fact, have something for you. The American Fairy Tale trilogy by Bishop O'Connell starts with the stolen. The second volume is the forgotten, the final volume is the return. You'll remember the second volume later. The uponning son of a bitch.

No, that's the title is the forgot, which is fine because I'm sure they could find it on Amazon and they would actually find the title without having to rely on your baddie memory Good day sir and on that note back to the show Oh, what a sweet ad that was. That was. Some of your best work. And yours. Thank you for that matter.

So Buddhism. Back to Buddhism. Now that we've shielded material things, I need to talk about non-attachment to material desires. Now do you think that George Lucas' love of Buddhism comes from his creation of the movie American Graffiti. There was a character who was on Roller's Skates named Buddha.

So I'm wondering if you just had a crush on the gal who played Shirley. A might've, okay. A might've, but for the purposes of what we're talking about here, because that came out of left field, I have no skill set for responding to that effectively right now. For those who don't know Buddhism was born in what is today, Northern India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BC.

It's an ancient highly nuanced rich spiritual tradition with a literal millennia of philosophy and established orthodoxy, but I'm going to oversimplify it for purposes of what we're talking about here. So this is a quick and dirty, but attempt at being respectful over simplification. Buddhism is centered on spiritual practice to escape from the cycle of death and rebirth. The four noble truths, the foundations of Buddhist practice and belief, are that life is suffering. Okay, suffering is caused by desire Anyone who says differently is selling something. Yes. Yes. Thank you dread pirate Roberts

Suffering is temporary as all things are and we can escape suffering by following the eightfold path Okay, okay, so four precepts eightfold path correct Okay. Okay. So four precepts, eightfold path. Correct. Got it. Now, non-attachment, which is huge deal to the Jedi. Yes. Central, central tenet of the Jedi code. Non-attachment, no, there is no emotion, there is peace. I'm not, I don't have attachments, anything. It is a critical aspect of Buddhist spirituality. One has to reach a state of freedom from desire in order to achieve Nirvana, which is escape from reincarnation.

Right, you're on this willy reincarnation. You keep coming back because you ain't getting it right, or because you need to learn more. Yeah, in order to not want anything, you have to not be attached to anything. Right. Widenly believed in the Buddhist world that to really make progress to Ward and Nirvana

one should live a monastic life separating oneself from the corrupting influence of the world. But not a sketticism either, right? Because there's that whole thing about if you play the note with the thing too tight, break your string, but if you play it too loose, you don't get any music. Yes. And he realized that the middle path. The middle path.

Because the Gautama Buddha first tried to become an aesthetic to find enlightenment through sheer aestheticism. Which was a tradition in that place. Which was a tradition in that place and time. And he realized that wasn't working. And he had grown up being a prince, being surrounded by, you know, never, never, never suffering, having all the amenities and he realized that was never going to lead to enlightenment either.

And so he sat down underneath the Ginkgo tree and eventually had had the realization that the secret was the middle way, right, which is the eightfold path is the definition of how to achieve the middle way. And the eightfold path is right views, right intention, right speech, right livelihood. That last one's the fourth one there, I just mentioned is important. We're gonna come back to it in a second. Right effort, right mindfulness, right thought,

and right understanding. Some of these feel overlapping and I know that there's probably language thing. There's translation from Sanskrit into English involved. Basically, what it comes down to is your head has to be in the right place. Your actions have to be the right actions coming from the right place. There's a thing in one of the books about that. There's motivation is key. You have to be doing the right thing for the right reasons

because you're doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. You're still bound up in desires. When Luke talks to his son Ben. So this is no longer canon. Legends speak. Yeah. Yeah. So, but when he's talking to his son Ben about how to go about things, he has this little

lecture that he gives him. And he says, your intention doesn't matter. The result doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the action. Which sits a little closer to that. Oh, yeah. And if you think about what, you know, and keep in mind this is an author taking on the...

The Jedi Code. Jedi Code. Yeah. That George Lucas inspired and other authors, et cetera, et cetera. But I do think it's interesting that you just brought something like that up Like it's clearly there is someone's going back to source material and going. Yeah. No, no, let's let's yeah nuance this a little bit better. So so Universal love and compassion

Our least throughout all of the facets of the eightfold path. God, this is also so painfully similar to what Anakin tells Padme while he's trying to seduce her in episode two. Remind me. Which attachment is forbidden, but we jedi are bound to love. And so some might say that we have to love. Oh yeah. And so he's that, you know, says,'s okay that I'm checking you out while we're pretending to be refugees, even though like we ever enjoyed. And then he also talks about how like, you know, again, attachment is forbidden about how

and you get a lot of exposition through Anakin. Yeah. That seems to be Lucas having read a book finally about it. Trying to figure out how to retcon and fix what he, yeah, but he still managed to bollix it like completely because there's a whole lot of other context that he's still missing. So one has to strive not to harm others and further one has a moral duty to help others who

are suffering. Okay. Okay. That is part of right action, that is part of right intention, is to reduce the overall amount of suffering being experienced by people in the world. Right. Now Buddhism spread from India through China during the northern and southern Joe dynasties. Time for? Well, we're talking about it ends with the Tang Dynasty in 618 AD. Oh, okay. So we're talking about 4th and 5th centuries AD. Oh, sure.

AD. So it started BC. Now we're in AD. B-C-E. Right. Right. So it started BC, now we're in AD, BCE, right now, CE. It had by the Tang Dynasty, it had become the dominant philosophical force

in Chinese culture and government, having you served the place of Confucianism and Taoism. Okay. Confucianism had ruled the Roost for forever. Taoism had been the kind of background noise behind Confucianism. Buddhism showed up and said, no, no, Confucianism has not worked.

You've lived through hundreds of years of an unending warfare. And so now I'm gonna tell you how you can escape all the suffering that you've been undergoing and people and Buddhism. Sounds especially good to a peasant. Yeah. Now, martial arts ironically are really tied

very heavily in with Buddhism, with the Shaolin temple and Hanan province being the birthplace of a, you know, the best known school of Wu Shu. So I'm shangmouthing, right? Yes, and it is the home of Chan Buddhism, which got carried to Japan and became the root stock for Zen Buddhism.

Zen in turn, grew to become the Buddhism of the samurai in quotes around that phrase. Okay. And Zen philosophy deeply informs Japanese martial arts. All right. Japanese archery. Right. Any sword art you study, there's going to be part of part of your training is going to involve ideas out of Zen Buddhism about not thinking in the moment, not getting bound up in conscious thought reacting without... Right. Quite gonginning.

Basically, yeah. Now, I have a question for you. That number one, Qui-Gon-Gin, a very asiaticic inspired name. Yeah. But my question is more of this Zen Buddhism, as you understand it, is there an emphasis on linearness, on a line of some sort, on a, a leads to be leads to see, or this is the path?

Not in the same way that or this is the path. Now, not in the same way that Taoism has the path, but is there anything where it is, again, there's a, I don't wanna say narrowness, but that there is a path that you need to walk, and if you stray from that path, you're not doing Zen. No. Okay. Not, No. Okay. Not, not, okay.

I mean, individual traditions within zen, different lineages of teaching might have that, but overall, it's not a core part of zen. Okay. And shinto, is there that? No. Shinto is Japanese animism, which remarkably enough was one of the few Eastern philosophies

that didn't somehow get swallowed up into everything in the counterculture. Sure, sure. So all of this brings us back around to G. DiGecki. Sure. Because the wandering swordsmen who are the heroes of those stories are all molded by Zen. Right. They're all molded by Zen Buddhism.

They are all steeped in Zen Buddhism. They're all steeped in Zen Buddhism. Uh-huh. Uh, Chan and Zen Buddhism are themselves influenced by Taoism. Okay. Okay. Uh, basically, if you take Mahayana Buddhism and you throw Taoism at it, what breaks off is Chan Buddhism. Chan Buddhism. Okay. maybe an imperfect analogy,

but that's kind of the metaphor I'm gonna use. All three of them become really hard to explain succinctly, because there's a lot of unspoken or ineffable. A big part of Taoism is the idea that Taoism itself, the Tao, is ineffable. And you cannot speak of the Tao, so to try to explain what Taoism itself, the Tao is ineffable. And you cannot speak of the Tao, so to try to explain what Taoism is, is almost impossible.

But a short, broad description would be to say that Zen teaches enlightenment comes in a single brilliant moment of egoless understanding. When you achieve extinction of yourself, your self-awareness, your ego disappears. The illusion of your separation from Nirvana is broken. Very good. To reach that moment.

I have baby boomer parents. Yeah. Okay. So do I. But again, mine weren't there for the 60s. Mine weren't. Very much there for the 60s. So, very much there for the 60s. Yeah, Zen practitioners meditate and work to empty their minds of thought.

Zen meditation is, I'm gonna sit here and I'm going to become thoughtless. Like, not, I'm gonna flake on somebody's birthday, but like, no, I am literally going to empty my head completely of any kind of conscious thought I am literally going to empty my head completely of any kind of conscious thought. I'm going to be. Yeah, I'm just simply going to be without ego. In samurai philosophy, warriors sought to train and focus to a point that their actions came from a nonverbal, reactive state of mind, divorced from any kind of thought, conscious thought, any

kind of emotion. Okay. Attachment to life itself would lead to hesitation and battle, which would lead to death. Okay, so there's almost a layer of perfection of the soul. In a way. Yeah. Yeah. You know, very hamphisted, but, but through constant practice, constant refinement, or can get closer

and closer and closer to achieving that state of eaglessness that one needs to be in for enlightenment. Right. Okay. For some samurai characters who are really devout, in quotes, Zen types, there's this idea that, you know, if I, if I just do this enough, I can eventually cut my way to enlightenment by just, you know, if I, if I perfect my sword stroke as my as my meditative thing, that'll be my version of what a monk is doing when he's sitting there perfectly still, not doing anything.

Only by forgetting oneself entirely and focusing beyond conscious thought on the moment, can one guarantee victory and enlightenment, simultaneously. So it's a warriorization co-opting of a peaceful philosophy. Yes. Yes. Now to a western film student, watching the genre of sword westerns that came out of this culture, it looks like super fast, deadly warriors who have a spiritual belief system that makes them utterly fearless in the face of death, which Jedi.

And the Japanese movies I presume the main characters are with the exception of Toshira Mufuni. Are largely stone-faced. Are largely what's the word I'm looking for. There's a placid countenance to what they're doing. There's this thing called eyes like Flint. Yes. It kind of depends. It's stoicism.

There is a lot of stoicism even Toshirami Funei. It's stoicism but behind that stoicism is is a raging is a raging wildfire of passion behind it. Right. It's part of the reason he said goddamn brilliant. Yeah. But yeah. So so there is because it's it's a central facet of Japanese culture, this idea of outwardly you are serene. Right. Is the thing anyway, extend the spiritual elements of all of that out into Bukurajir's space magic territory

and you have the Jedi. That's what this is. As they were first roughly sketched out in the first movie. But then Lucas had to expand that whiz bang out into a fully fleshed cosmology and he paced it in what he understood of Buddhism, made that the Jedi code, made that the basis of the Jedi order and called it good in Empire. Okay.

But he missed some really critical points. The wandering samurai of G. DiGeki are noble in their way, but they're also world weary, hard-eyed and cynical. Right. And they are this way because they're Buddhists who kill for a living. Right. And they know that they're violating

the critical Buddhist principle of right livelihood. Yeah. Okay, one, one, like it's right there in the eightfold path and they, and they, and they are aware of that. It is, it is a central part of the theme of the stories is that they get sucked into these adventures because that part of them that is noble wants to help the young lovers escape, wants to help the locals overthrow their tyrannical overlord. Is somehow a catch? Yeah, because they want to fix that. They yearn to get away from the fact that they know that they are inherently doing sinful

things. Okay. If that makes sense. To the extent that sinful is a concept that applies in Buddhism, but you get what I mean. I would say like, the Romans had this word with scalera. It's not just crime. It's not just violation of your principles. There's a filthiness to it.

There's a staining that happens. And here's the thing. There is imagery in the dialogue in G.D. Gecky movies that consistently comes up that talks about I'm living in a blood-soaked world. No matter how hard I wash, I'll never be able to get the blood out from under my fingernails. I mean, it's just, and it's never stated as, you know, lady, my god, the God, you know, the spot, the spot, out damn spot. It's, no matter how hard I scrub, I'm never gonna get the blood out

from under my fingernail. Right. It's world weary and this is who I am. I am flawed, but I can still do the right thing. Okay, so there's a next, you have to accept it in order to go and protect those that you Can't help but be attached to yeah, okay, okay

And and so this this idea of a cynical mercenary with a heart of gold is is a is one of the foundational tropes of G diegeki because the audience the audience, the audience were Buddhists. And they understood the dichotomy inherent in the heroes very existence. Lucas never got that memo. Okay, the Jedi. He's saying that dichotomy is being outside of you,

not within the- The dichotomy is outside of you, and the duality, there is this monicchian quality to the duality, there is this monicion quality to the duality. There is God, there is anti-God. There is, you know, light and dark are, because he didn't pay any fucking attention to Taoism, which says light and dark are two halves of the same coin. They can't be separated.

They're not in opposition. They're aspects of each other. They're aspects of one another. And in the Yin Yang symbol, that symbolized by the fact there's a dot in each one representing the other one. They are inseparable there within one another. But when you take a Western Judeo-Christian, Manician mindset, you get a TNC surf shot. Well, yeah, you just appropriate the symbol and don't understand the meaning behind it.

Yeah, nicely done by the way. Now I could get into talking about Pureland and Nitscherin Buddhism as reactions to this spiritual tension. Okay. But Lucas never fucking bothered, so I don't know why I should. Well, well, he does bother later though,

because well, he doesn't Disney does, because they talk with Ray doing the thing, the fort, am I getting ahead of him? No, no, not at all. The fort has a tension and Luke updates the force, and he has separated from the force. She even says, you've cut yourself off from the force. Yeah. And he finally dies with... Part of the reason I love that fucking movie so much is because whoever wrote it went, okay, like, okay, all right. You didn't do your fucking homework.

I'm doing your homework for you. We're gonna fix this. Right. We're gonna redo this aside. We're gonna make this work. Which by the way, the mosaic and the pool, right before you get out to that ledge the yin and yang. Yeah. Basically it's Star Wars. Yeah. But that's what it is. Yeah. And so from Lucas, we get box top Buddhism. It has all the emphasis on detachment from emotional concerns. All the monastic urges, I've got to be separate from the world. I've got a, you know, purity of purity of my thought. I can't be attached to anything. But with none of the emphasis on compassion,

genuine pacifism, and straight up justice, we're not here to free slaves. Well, you know, like, like the most damning fucking line in that whole trilogy. Right. Wait, no, you're supposed to be the guardians of peace and justice. You're telling me slavery is not enough of an injustice for you to like, like generations

of, of GDGekki actors. Right. Like, spun in their graves. Because no, that's not what a GDGekki hero would do. That's not what a Jidageki hero would say. That's not what a Jedi should fucking say. But Lucas didn't do his homework. Non-attachment. We can't get involved in this. We got to look at the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that we got, you know, these millions of people are going to get utilitarian with this. Right. Utilitarianism and Buddhism and Buddhism no like they don't work together

Yeah, I would point out George Lucas was born and raised in Modesto yeah, okay, I'm a desk. Those are central Valley. Yes central Valley is very different than the left coast central Valley is transplants from Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, yeah, and Texas, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma. They're transplants from it and they brought with them their Midwestern culture, their Midwestern ideology, about God will come and pluck the good ones up and leave the rest of us centers to burn. So God is imminent, not eminent. Nice. In their religion. And you and I talked last season in the wrestling one about the bloodletting that happens in the South as

far as religion goes to. And the result is you have that plus plus about 40 years, so two generations later, and George Lucas, is growing up in that culture. Yeah. So that culture is going to give him a lens through which he can see Buddhism. So even if he had done his homework, it's entirely possible.

He's still wanna screw it up. He, yeah, because, I mean, he couldn't help but do that because of the lens that he had in front of him, because of the region that he came from, you know what a sucker I am, regionalism, because of the region that he came from and because of their ideology about, essentially predestination.

Yeah. And, you know, what later becomes destiny and stuff like that. So, no, we're not here for the slaves because that's their destiny. True. Now it. And also I have my job to do. Yeah. And there is that Midwestern, you know, they don't like you, but they'll give you the shirt off their back. Yeah. Like from, I think it's a music man. Yeah, the music man, that's what it's. And because I have a friend who loves the music man, it's a quote to me all the time.

But this idea of, I gotta take care of mine and my clan comes from Borderland thinking from Scotland. Because the laws are set up by those in power, counterculture is now clannishness. Counterculture is now, I gotta be loyal to mine. And Qui-Gon-Gin is absolutely an expression of that. Told from George Lucas having been born in Modesto,

having been raised by people who probably were transplants from a borderland area, which had been previous and on and on and on. Yeah, oh, yeah. No, that's a compelling explanation for a big part of where this is coming from, definitely. Now, some samurai stories make these same mistakes. Mm-hmm.

There's a very notable, one of my favorite stories actually out of lone wolf and cub, which is a long running manga series that there's been a whole bunch of movies made of, also live action films, which is about a wandering Ronin and his toddler son. Okay. And he pushes the kid around in a cart,

and it's ridiculous over the top, crazy. And he is one of the most cynical and one of the most jaded and he's an assassin for higher character. And at one point, he actually gets hired by a local lord to kill a Buddhist, a living Buddhist saint because the Buddhist saint is kind of acting as a leader of the people in a resistance about taxes.

And he keeps coming to Lord's saint, you gotta lower the taxes for the people and the Lord's like, I'm trapped. The shogun is telling me what I gotta charge for taxes. I can't do anything about it. And as long as he's around here, keeps coming to me saying, I gotta lower the taxes. The people are rallying behind him.

And I'm stuck. So you're a Ronin, you've got no station in the world. I need you to kill him. I need him, I need him, and you can kill him, get out of here and,

you know, I'll pay you and nobody asked to know about it. And our hero is really conflicted. Right. Because on the one hand, he's got to stay alive, he's got to keep body and mind, body really conflicted. Right. Because on the one hand, he's got to stay alive, he's got to keep body and mind, body and soul together. He's got to support his toddler son. Right.

On the other hand, he is still in the same space. On the other hand. Yeah. And on the other hand, this is literally a living saint. And he actually winds up encountering the saint who tells him, if on the road you should encounter the Buddha, kill him, which is taken out of Buddhist scripture, but is being used completely out of context in that passage. What it's supposed to be about is,

one of the challenges we have to face is if we're too focused on achieving boot-a-hood, we're never gonna get there, you have to divorce yourself from the desire to achieve boot-a-hood. Right. But in this case, it's, no, no. If you literally put an end to it.

We are literally to the point where, no, no, you have your karma, you have to live out. If that means you've got to kill me, because the saint knows exactly what he's talking to. He says, well, you know, I've got this friend who's in this dilemma. It's stupid wacky conversation. Like, obviously, we know what you're talking about. And so the saint knows that he's saying, I've been sent to kill you. What should I do?

And he says, if you've got to kill me, that's your karma. Kill me. You're gonna have to deal with that. Like, like, wow. And so they get it wrong too, in the sense of, I need to find a story to tell. Do they get it wrong? Or do they get it Christian?

Isn't that Judas and Jesus? Isn't that kinda? One of you is gonna betray me? Mm-mm. No. The overtones are all very different. Okay. It would, I'd have to relay the whole plot line.

Okay. But suffice to say, they, even the writers who were doing this stuff in Japan who know or should know the, you know, Buddhist philosophy behind it, they get it wrong too. But not, not in the way that Lucas did. Lucas codified all of this and then doubled down on it. Yeah, he crystallized it.

He crystallized it. Yeah. And, and in the prequels now all of a sudden, we have the Jedi Order, which had been made canon thanks to other media. It got fully fleshed out based on the logical outgrowth of everything Lucas had set in stone before. Right. Okay.

So, and childhood apprenticeships, monastic trappings without genuine monasticism because it's boring. I mean, let's be honest. Yeah. And legal of this is an important thing. Legal authority as a quasi-official arm of the Republic Senate. That's all bothersome, but the last part is a relic of a Western or not being able to reconcile wandering swordsman with the idea of a stable government. Right.

Never mind the example of every western like ever. Yeah. Or the historical example of actual Ronin in Ado period, Japan. Somehow there had to be an order and that order had to have official authority and that order is simultaneously moralistic and morally bankrupt. It is. The dark side is inherently evil. Right.

Is a Western, I've already said it, Manikian dualistic idea, utterly alien to Eastern philosophy. And we didn't come here to free slaves. Right. Is a disservice to real Buddhists who have literally died for the freedom of the oppressed. Right. It turns the freedom of the oppressed. Right.

It turns the Jedi into dicks. Yeah, quite handedly too. And yeah. Take it away. The Jedi had it coming. The Jedi had it coming. 100% true. Jedi had it coming for a number of reasons.

One, they run an underground adoption ring. Okay. They steal babies. Yeah. Like there's no talk of like what an honor this is for the parents. There's no talk of anything other than like, oh, we would have sensed him and brought him.

Like straight up, like Obi-Wan, not Obi-Wan, I'm sorry. Quite gone, Jin. Not only are we not here to free slaves, but oh, here's a slave that actually serves our needs. You know what, we're gonna take him with us. Great, you're gonna take his mom? No, because you know, attachment. And also, I don't have enough the money to buy her.

So I'm gonna legitimize slavery a little bit more and gambling, and she'd add it. Yeah. Which by the way, slavery's legal on that planet. Therefore, he's in some ways using the force to steal property. Yeah, which is its own problem But they we can get back to the you know, and if they're legally the guardians of things and they should be operating within the law At some point in episode two Yoda says to bring

Django Fett to the Jedi Temple for questioning. Yeah. Does not issue a bench warrant. Does not go to a judiciary branch. Is operating... You know, here's a question. Do we ever see any kind of judicial branch in the Old Republic? It's mentioned.

The courts take longer than the Senate to decide things. Right. And... Because Lucas isn't at all like leaning toward any kind of pro crypto fascist, kind of ideas about, you know, strong men and government. Well, and okay, let's take for a second that he's actually saying that this is a corrupt Republican, it's collapsing from within and therefore that's given birth to that. Fine, you still have a self-appointed group of religious zealots who have access to a power that no one else has access to.

And that becomes a basis for their authority to kidnap a man and bring him to church. Okay. That's how they get jango. Well, okay. Jango. I'm gonna hold you up for a second. Sure. Because I'm a medievalist and a Catholic.

Where's the problem here? Like, are you saying church authority doesn't extend to enforcing their own law? Like, you could make the argument that within their own property, yes, but you can't go grab people and then bring it to your own property and go, up, keep these. Doesn't work that way. Okay, you're a heathen. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. I just happen to believe that you don't separate and families from their children because of a

self-appointed group who are a gen-darm of the current administration. Okay, yeah. And there we can agree. Yeah, deeply. So they go to Kidnapp a man. Yeah. And he fights back. Yeah. Rightly so. Yeah. Because he knows who the Jedi are. He's already dealt with Lord Tyrannus. Yeah.

And he knows that they steal children. And he has a child. And he knows that if he's gone, then they could pick up his child and do whatever they want with it. Okay. So he fights, keeps his freedom. The Mandalorians are their own problem. They are every libertarian's wet dream. And so they are definitely their own problem, their own problem. But in this case, they're correct. It's kind of like when my two least favorite teams play, I root for injuries.

Yeah. But I mean, I actually don't, I don't want these people not to be able to feed their families. But Django fights back hard and beats a Jedi. Showing actually that the force ain't all it's cracked up to be. It's not this amazing thing. It just makes you a little better at jumping and running and faster at things and you get to use a cool sort. But a guy in armor in the rain can beat your ass. Which is kind of interesting.

So it makes me wonder if the Jedi aren't vulnerable to the rain because Jangle loses his head on Gianosis. Okay, meaningful point. Yeah. So yeah, the Jedi absolutely have a coming because they kidnap children because they kidnap children, because they kidnap adults, because they're trying to enforce their own rules. But more importantly, they have it coming because they can't do a head count. That's weird because they have a thing

for cutting off heads, but they can't do a head count. Like, there's a prophecy that straight up says, there will be one who is born, and he will be able to bring balance to the force Yeah, there's two Sith And thousands of Jedi we got thousands. So either a bunch of them have to convert We have to kill down all the way down to two That's really bad odds For everybody.

Yeah, yeah, it's not a pretty picture for anybody involved. So on top of that, so you got that. So then instead of like, okay, they already proved that they kidnapped children, that they killed the parents of the children, that they do that. If they were smart and ruthless, because they are ruthless. They have very little

Ruth, but if they're smart, not even baby, not even baby. No, no, no, they're a bit Deborah E, but they're not very ruthless. I think, but they if they were smart, they would kill the child. Because he's going to bring balance to the force, you're winning, dude. And you're supposedly the good side. Good is dumb to quote Lord Helmet. Yes.

So not only that. Or dark helms. Yeah. Or you have to corrupt the light so that the light and the darker and distinguishable from each other. Which totally makes sense to me. Because the Sith never lie. The Jedi always lie. So it seems to me that they're trading places. Yeah. The ends are justifying the means for

the both of them. Yeah. And then on top of that, they, I mean, they have a slave army that they have manufactured for them, the clones, that they stole. Obi-W want shows up and they're like oh you must be here for it. He's like of course I am Thank you. I'm going to now take it now Here's it improperly and kill thousands accidentally. Yeah, well here's here's here's what I'm gonna point out though Uh-huh that particular moment. Mm-hmm is So incredibly true to the experience I've had playing the Star Wars role-playing game. Like, that is such a player character move. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. You must be here for the shipment, of course I am. I totally am. The shipment, the shipment I'm here for. Who's gonna ship? Of the things, yeah. Of the stuff from the people, yeah. So yeah, they can't do a head count.

They steal slaves. They steal slaves again on mass. And in their inability to do a head count, they don't kill the one person that could actually bring their order down. And if you're going to take this kid, and he's going to bring balance to the force. Maybe don't give him such an easy mommy issue to have him to be that easily manipulated. Like just

once make an exception and take his mom and give her an apartment across town and give him a visitation. If he's so fucking special, let him visit his mama in an apartment across town every weekend. And then he'll be better adjusted since you already took him too late and you admitted it. And you had him watch a horrific murder and participate in essentially corporate espionage at the age of eight. you're doing all that. You might as well keep his moral compass nearby,

instead of be like, a tough rock skid, you know? And when you grow up and get older, we're gonna not supervise you so that then you can go and find her in just in time for her to die. And then you're gonna slaughter a whole village of people, which frankly is the most jedi thing that Anna can have done to that point. for her to die. And then you're gonna slaughter a whole village of people, which frankly is the most Jedi thing

that Anna can have done to that point. Mm. So yeah, the Jedi, 100% had it coming. They deserved everything that they had coming to them. There were no innocent Jedi. The only innocent people were the janitors that might have gotten killed when they were purged. But the Jedi are horrifically evil for the universe.

They even plotted taking over the Senate at one point. They also went in, and again, so stupid. They went in and they went to attack the chancellor. He had his powers legally. It's unfortunate, but those were legal powers. There is a structure in place that you can go to do this and they flat out said, oh, we don't have time for that. Since when? You let a reward right gone for 10 years. I mean, Grandchitz is also only your slaves that have been manufactured for the horses. Nobody

deal. And on top of that, they bring the B squad. That's not so good. And then on top of that, they never actually read the orders. Order 66 should not have been a surprise to them. No. It was a contingency order. Hey, wait a minute. There's order 65 and order 67. Yeah.

What, what, can I get a non-redacted copy this maybe you know like? Yeah, no, I'm sorry that's that's that's that's eyes only for yeah I'm sorry. I'm on the Jedi Council. Yeah, like yeah, there's not really anybody here that outranx me I need to see this. Yeah, I am a general. I'm yeah, so What the hell is up? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, they absolutely had it coming. Yeah. And it looks like that. It coming because they're an outcropping of what a central valley person thought Buddhism was gonna be. Yeah. And so the Jedi didn't have to wind up like this. They're at the end of a new hope, they were one thing.

Okay, and it was taken from source material that was very heavily, of course, influenced by Zen Buddhism and all this stuff. But then, George never bothered to learn more than the chapter headings of the Cliffs notes of Zen Buddhism. And he decided, well, no, I've got to flesh this out now. And his preconceived notions and his dualistic view of the universe, his, his, his, the, not too many. Dicomatic. Okay. Yeah. Dicotomatic. Not that. Dicotomatic. His Dicotomatic view of the universe,

his, his, all of his particular brand of Judeo-Christian baggage. Mm-hmm. And I'm saying this is devout Catholic. I don't mean baggage in a, in a, in a, in a negative connotation. I just mean all of the preconceived notions, all the biases that he had because of that. Yeah. Basically meant that, and him not doing his God damn homework,

meant that when he tried to build out from there, he was using all the wrong parts. Yeah. And what he wound up building was a in an order of of as you say people who who essentially are are villains. They're they're they're at best anti heroic. Yes. And they're not even really anti heroic because Anakin is an anti hero. Right. Who falls and the idea of falling is an inherently Judeo-Christian falling from grace kind of idea that also doesn't really exist in Buddhism. I mean the closest thing you have is an Eastern philosophy, the idea that a demon is a spirit who is somehow broken. Right. but there's not the same idea that no, no, that is evil. And this is good.

Right. That's a Judeo Christian Western kind of kind of dichotomatic idea. And so there is, there's a moral set of ideas within Eastern philosophy, but it doesn't have the same note of good versus evil. It has more to do with imbalance versus out of balance and compassionate versus not compassionate. And yeah, I'm kind of wandering away from the field, but the Jedi didn't have to wind up this way. They wound up this way because George Lucas was cribbing things together and being lazy about it, and it is one of the things that makes me happiest about the new films is that people have actually taken that and gone, okay, maybe we can

rent con this into something that makes people who use the force not necessarily have to be assholes. Yeah. So, that's it. I like it. So, having set all of that, what does that leave you with as your parting thoughts on this? thoughts on this. Um, I would push us back just a little bit in that a movie is not a philosophical treatise, a book could be. And since the original source material for this was movies, and since movies are almost

always a snapshot in time, of the time in which they were made. I don't know how fair it is of us to attack the movie's lack of understanding of Buddhism, which it cribs from. Considering that just 12 years earlier, the beats were cribbing from it without knowing shit about it either. So the culture, it's almost like this was an inevitable outcropping of the baby boomer generation. So I guess the real takeaway is the baby boomer's ruin Star Wars before it even got to the theater. Wow. Damn! That actually manages to be even harsher than my ending note, which I didn't know was doable, but there we go.

There you go. So baby boomers, if you understand what Twitter is, you can find either of us on the Twitter at at Geek History Time and feel free to you know at us. I'm at duh harmony on the Twitter. And I'm at EH Blaluck on the Twitters. So yeah look us up tell me tell me I'm wrong. Yeah tell me I don't know if you're if you're an unabashed fanboy of everything that happened in Empire and so forth, feel free to call me a cook. I'm fine, I'm expecting that from at least a couple of quarters

when it if this gets heard by those people. And just so you know, I really enjoy the most recent movies and you can die mad about it. Yeah. So. You reading any books? As we mentioned in our last episode, right now I haven't had time. OK.

So when I can recommend it. OK. It's called Trader. And I believe it's by Matthew Stover. And it is my favorite Star Wars book. Okay. It's in the middle of a series called It's the Yu-Juan Vaung series And correct me if I'm wrong about the the author there, but It's called Trader and it's about Jason Solo, who is essentially the basis for Kylo Ren. And it is a book that is entirely about existentialism.

Okay. And I think if you built the Jedi around existentialism, you'd have a much more good based group. Because there would be that stern optimism that Jason absolutely embodies there. But because they are, as you said they were, poorly cribbed versions of Buddhists, his idea of stern optimism of having to make a choice,

of having to endure the pain and choosing to do good or bad is considered to be that of the dark side. And he falls. He absolutely falls. And he becomes the outline of Kylo Ren. And many, many books later, he and his sister end up fighting through another wonderful series. And she kills him because he becomes the next Darth Vader.

So, Trader by Matthew Stover, that's where his fall begins, and it is a fantastic book as far as philosophy goes. Okay, yeah. existentialism is the key then. Yeah, I think so. All right, interesting. So, all right, well,

that's pretty much what we have for this episode. Right. And for a geek history of time, I've had Blalock. I'm Damien Harmony. I'm Joe Scharge. And keep rolling 20s. Oh, D6s, because I need the wild die. Right.

And then get the explode. you