🎭 TREE 678: Only a Sith…

I’m writing about black and white thinking this week.

In episode three of the Star Wars prequel trilogy Obi Wan and Padme go to the lava planet hoping save Anakin from himself. Anakin force chokes Padme unconscious, then he and Obi Wan have an awkward chat which reveals Anakin’s complete conversion to the dark side.

Anakin: If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy!

Obi Wan realises he’s lost his protégé and friend. Fortunately, even in his sorrow, he has the presence of mind to say something meme-able.

Obi Wan: Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

He doesn’t say, ‘This black and white nonsense – it’s crazy Sith talk.’ No, the line is, ‘Only a Sith deals in absolutes’ because Obi Wan is stuck in the same binary thinking as Anakin. All the Jedi had become rigid in their tradition. They were blind to possibilities beyond light OR dark which enabled Sith Lord Palpatine to seize power by working within the twilight realm of politics.

‘Only a Sith deals in absolutes’ is a genius revelation, if it was done on purpose. But then I remember the ‘I don’t like sand’ scene from episode two. Maybe the writers had no idea what they were doing, which makes the point even more powerfully.

It’s not a new point.

Jesus, who was also good at meme-able lines in stressful situations said, ‘… all who take the sword will perish by the sword’ (Matthew 26:52, NRSV).

Jung’s whole thing with the Shadow.

Comics replay this endlessly with heroes and villains that look and act awfully similar to each other.

It’s ridiculously easy to act and think in the same way as your enemy/opponent with no clue you’re doing it.

How do you see it and stop?

Ninja moves.

You play a different game.

Loving your enemy isn’t weakness. It’s the way that you protect yourself from becoming like them. It’s the way out of binary thinking. It’s how you face the darkness in yourself and overcome it before you try to deal with your enemy/opponent.

Coming of age in American church in the 90s, I got to live through a classic example of thinking and acting like your enemy. Christian purity culture was completely and constantly obsessed with sex and had the objectification of girls and women at its core, just like the over-sexualised culture it was fighting against.

I haven’t abandoned LAWRENCE X JEFF, but other things are pushing their way to the front of the queue.

Grow slowly
Jeff