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Clerical Error #13, in re: Star Wars
It's a well-considered piece, Tom, and in many ways parallels some of my own thoughts on the subject. Permit me to expand or divert a bit from it.
It is suggested that the Force comes from all living things. That, to my mind, makes it less a divine concept and more a psychic one, that this is a power that flows in this universe essentially because living things contribute to it.
To ask what the Force wants, then, is to ask what living things themselves want--not individually but en masse, in some sort of inherent democratic sense. Sure, a predator wants its prey dead, so he can eat it; but if the predator were able to discuss it, it would say that it does not want all prey animals dead--it wants all of them alive other than the one it is presently hunting or eating, so that there will be food later. Apart from in the oceans (where the situation is not so clear), predators are outnumbered by prey anyway; herbivores in the main do not kill the "creatures" they eat, but only eat excess from them, often eating parts of plants (such as fruit) which the plant intends for them to eat (so as to transport the seeds to another location within their digestive tracts).
Thus the Force wants actions which promote life because that is the consensus of the majority of beings which contribute to the force.
The Force is thus inherently democratic--as is the Republic. It is a fundamental assumption of both the Force and the Republic that the opinions and desires of "the majority" are both good and right. These thus are natural allies, to some degree, although the "majority" considered by the Republic and that considered by the Force are different sets (one a subset of the other), and so will not always be in agreement.
Anyway, I thought I'd contribute this to your thoughts. Thanks again for your series.
--M. J. Young
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