Kevin S. Decker, a lecturer in philosophy, Saint Louis University
The (perhaps) last episode of George Lucas’s Star Wars series, Revenge of the Sith, opened in the United States on May 19. Mr. Decker was 9 years old when his parents dragged him “kicking and screaming” to the series’ first film in 1977. Now he admits to being a bigger fan of Dr. Who than of Star Wars. But along with Jason T. Eberl, an assistant professor of philosophy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, he edited the new collection Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine (Open Court).
Q. Does Mr. Lucas philosophize, or merely cobble together tidbits of pop-culture philosophy?
A. Different from other films, like the Matrix films, the Star Wars films don’t wear their philosophy on their sleeves. Lucas is not, per se, an academic. He’s not trying to put across any more complex moral message, explicitly, than it’s good to be good, and it’s bad to be bad, although it’s difficult sometimes to tell the difference. But there’s a lot more to it because it’s such a rich story. ... Lucas is to be commended for leaving so many loose ends for the rest of us to pick up on and explore.
Q. Does “Star Wars” tell us anything new about philosophy?
A. I think it was Bertrand Russell. ... No, no, it was Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, who said science fiction is the last legitimate playground for the philosophical mind. ... An interesting thing that the films have done by being created in reverse order is that the dualistic story, the good-versus-bad, white-versus-black story of the first three episodes, has now been muddied up. That’s interesting to explore, and it humbles us when we remind ourselves that we are part of a morally ambiguous universe.
Q. You write that “Star Wars” is about “identity, truth, freedom, and the tragic side of life. ...” But isn’t it a violent wish-fulfillment fable?
A. The conflict-driven story -- these are films about star wars -- latches into a very old idea in philosophy, which is from Aristotle’s Poetics: that passionate, action-driven stories can be a catharsis to our own thoughts, to our own emotional states.
Q. Who is tops, in “Star Wars” philosophy: Plato, Augustine, Machiavelli, Descartes, Nietzsche?
A. The two that leap out would be Plato and Nietzsche. Plato is the most famous and certainly the most revered and ancient dualist. The original black-versus-white scenario in episodes four through six is very Platonic. But also Lucas must have reflected on that famous Nietzsche quote -- “When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you” -- when he depicted the struggles that Anakin goes through in terms of being confronted with the immensity and tragedy of life, and losing.
PETER MONAGHAN
http://chronicle.com Section: Research & Publishing Volume 51, Issue 39, Page A10