"A Jedi knows enough of the law to operate within it. Jedi should respect, and do their best to live by the laws of the land they are living in. However, these are man's law, and like man, subject to flaws. A Jedi must act for the best interest of mankind as he/she sees the situation." (Jedi Compass, Respect the Law)
The law can be complicated, and everything is meant to streamline a healthy society. The Jedi Compass leaves one wondering when one should stand up to the law, and when they should leave it alone. It even makes it seem like there is a door open to becoming part of the rebel forces, as Luke Skywalker did against the Empire. As with everything, we have to explore what it means to Respect the Law. What you will be learning in this lecture is the Light Aspect’s take on how traverse this particular ethic.
America decided a long time ago that separating religion and government was the best method of running a country, and quite a few Western countries have come to agree with the philosophy. But today, as in multiple times in history, we can see a number of other countries which have not moved towards such a system. For Muslim countries, Sharia Law is still of great importance because it keeps the people in line with the structure that Allah intended for them. Cultures across the world have some disagreements with pieces of Sharia Law, and call upon those pieces to be taken out of commission on the basis of human decency.
Despite a dislike for many of the horrible things that go on in the world, Jedi in the movies were charged with working on the mission at hand. In Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn mentions that he is not on a mission to free slaves, but that he made an exception for Anakin because he felt it was the “Will of 'the Force'”. In this, Qui-Gon was acknowledging respect for the law while recognizing when he had to break the rules because it was “meant to be”.
In real life, we have examples of people that stepped outside of the law because it needed to be changed. Sometimes it works, and other times it may not at all. Rosa Parks is the woman we all remember as having stayed on a bus to make a statement. But did you know that she wasn’t even the first? The question now becomes: where did the others go wrong? Well, the first one was a 15 year old student, and while she went on to help change the law- no one really knows her name. She challenged the law in the court room. But what really won over the masses was that Rosa Parks had the right team behind her to take forward an idea- the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Boycott caused the business to lose a huge profit, eventually leading to the Supreme Court overturning the law. By taking away profits peacefully from Montgomery buses it became apparent the toll it would take on the country at large. It also demonstrated that the majority of African Americans could be reasonable in their arguments, and that they had just as much worth as any other citizen.
But the wrong response can create catastrophic results. During the 1900s, Los Angeles saw two major riots take place: The Watts Riots and the LA Rodney King Riots. Both ended horribly for the rioters, and caused the police to “up their game” and increase local government spending to accommodate the upgrades in training and equipment. The Watts Riots, however, did have one good consequence come from the incident, however it should be noted that an anti-poverty program was established only at the insistence of Martin Luther King, Jr., whom opposed the riots themselves.
There is a common misconception that because the Jedi in the movies did not get involved in politics, that real world Jedi have to adhere to the same rules. This isn’t the fiction where a Jedi has the grand status of being an advisor to a government entity or automatically gains the role of a general in combat. We live in the real world, and here there are a variety of ways that we can impact the laws in our respective countries. When considering your own role in helping your community it is will be necessary for you to define whether or not politics is something which should be part of their journey. This can be as simple as just educating yourself and voting when the time arises, or it can be more involved, making the decision to step into the role of an actual politician to make your town, city, county, providence, state, and/or country a better place.
As with any action that challenges or supports a government, our actions echo into the future. When we look at the line “Respect for the Law” we have to recognize that there are some things which are not worth fighting against. We can gain support from others, a lot of conquests started with one person’s ambitions who managed to attract a large enough army to move on, but it doesn’t mean that what we do to impact the future is going to actually help it. Sometimes it will do more harm than good, just look at the conflict in the Middle East.
Where the Jedi Compass does not preclude participating in civil unrest, what we do clarify here at Force Academy, is that our actions in a sovereign country should be dictated by the laws that it adheres to. We do not believe in stepping over the line and joining an extremist group which engages in violent activity. A Jedi’s whole life can be summed up in the words of the Military Police Corps, we are to assist, protect and defend healthy civilization.
A Jedi’s role is to be there for society, but society must define what it wants. We can act as guides and attempt to convince people that they are heading the wrong direction. But as with the Jedi Virtue of Tolerance, we should never impose our values upon them unless they are an abusive threat to your or another person.
Everything we do impacts the world around us. Beyond the shattered glass could be a better future or a worse one, it is up to us to decide how we move forward. A Jedi should exercise wisdom in every action they take, knowing that beyond the glass they are about to hit, lies a future that may or may not hold the best possible outcome.
In everything we have talked about, we spoke of countries which hold true to the value of the law. However, not all societies have a way of properly enforcing the laws. Corruption can run amok, and even in a country where something is technically illegal, the local law enforcement may be corrupt, or too scared to enforce the laws. For your assignment consider for a moment that you are in another country, and you are in a situation where you need the aide of a local cartel which is heavily involved in human trafficking. Do you allow the modern day slavery to continue (in an area where it goes unchallenged by local authorities), and continue with the mission at hand? Or do you do something about the situation that you are witnessing, knowing that it would mean you would make a lifetime enemy of the cartel you are attacking?
At what point do you see yourself as needing to overstep the law?
May the Force Guide and Protect You.