Scientific American disses Jedi

Cafe Society
1

An article in the Scientific American considers the Star Wars Jedi to be bad role models.

They are a religious order of intergalactic police-monks, prone to (white) saviorism and toxically masculine approaches to conflict resolution (violent duels with phallic lightsabers, gaslighting by means of “Jedi mind tricks,” etc.).

:grin:

2

The prequels more than proved they were misguided, arrogant, and blinded by their own pompous belief in their supreme infallibility.

3

heh play the old republic MMORPG you’ll like them even less …

4

I’ve always considered them to be more telekinetic ninjas.

5

Which Luke pointed out in The Last Jedi. What I wished had happened is either:

  1. Rey starts a new group of Force wielders with more sensible rules
  2. Rey reads the founding documents and finds out that the Jedi started out fine, but power corrupts/misinterpretation through the centuries and restarts the Jedi with sensible rules

Brian

6

Band name!

7

I think “phallic” lightsabers is a bridge too far.

What else are they supposed to look like? They are laser swords. They are a straight line. What else could they possibly look like?

Are straight lines phallic?

8
9

Touché :slight_smile:

10

The authors have evidently had it with geek culture appropriation :grin:

(And, apparently, with anything that may give favorable attention to a Disney property… I mean, really guys, do remind us for the twelfth time these are Disney trademarks and why that’s not good.)

But seriously, yes, it is a bad acronym for labeling something we should aspire to… or that the corporate diversity officer has decided we must pretend to aspire to. As mentioned the work itself party revolves around how wrong the Jedi were.

11

JFC. I had to check if this wasn’t some sort of send up in The Onion. The fact that the article was even written and published in what is ostensibly a respected scientific journal shows two critical failures we see repeated over and over again:

  • Showcasing a children’s fantasy as an object lesson of what’s wrong with society is a failure of the education system and a waste of education on behalf of the authors and editors of the publication.
  • Progressives, in spite of good intentions, are absolute shite when it comes to naming and marketing their ideological principles. Which clever nitwit didn’t realize the field day that can be had with a social justice acronym of “JEDI”? FFS
12

For all that the Jedi were flawed, they’re still really, really cool, and most people want to be one.

13

What do they have to do with this?

Yup.

They are characters in a story. They have flaws, aren’t perfect, make mistakes…should that be surprising to anyone?

They’d be boring if they were perfect.

14

Jesus. This isn’t your father’s Scientific American. Nor mine.

15

“A thing is a phallic symbol if it’s longer than it’s wide.”
–Melanie Safka

16

If it’s wider than it is long, it’s just a sideways phallic symbol.

17

“JEDI” is used as an acronym nowadays for “justice, equality, diversity, inclusion”.

18

Does that have anything to do with the topic of this thread?

19

The title of the OP’s linked article is “Why the Term ‘JEDI’ Is Problematic for Describing Programs That Promote Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion”. So yes.