Posted on 01/01/2016 5:55:40 AM PST by Kaslin
If you're opposed to slavery, is it OK to still like "Star Wars"?
It's a question I've been wrestling with ever since Jonathan Last, a friend and writer at the Weekly Standard, pointed out to me that the "droids" in the "Star Wars" movies are slaves. Unlike a lot of the ridiculous "Star Wars" revisionism in recent years -- much of it ushered in by Last himself when he argued that Darth Vader & Co. are in fact the good guys -- Last's case that droids are slaves strikes me as nearly incontrovertible. I'd hoped to be persuaded otherwise when I went to see the "The Force Awakens." No such luck.
C-3P0 and R2-D2, as well as newcomer BB-8, are all sentient beings. They'd not only ace the Turing test for artificial intelligence, they'd pass the Oprah Winfrey test for emotional intelligence. (I'm just assuming one exists.) They feel joy and grief and exhibit loyalty, too. Loyalty, that is, to their masters. That's right, they call them "masters."
It's possible that droids are like shmoos, the fictional creatures imagined by Al Capp in Li'l Abner. Shmoos only aim to please. They want no money, they don't need to eat, and they are more than happy to be eaten. (If you look at one with hungry intent, it will spontaneously roast itself.)
The problem is that there is no evidence the droids are shmoo-like in any way. In the first movie, when the slave-trading Jawas capture R2-D2 and C-3PO, they have to restrain the fugitive droids, lest they run away. Droids fear "deactivation" and seem to feel pain as well. They're artificial people, and they're real slaves.
If you're not convinced, you can read Last's full indictment at the Washington Free Beacon (http://freebeacon.com/culture/are-droids-slaves/).
But since I'm convinced, two questions come to mind. First: What am I supposed to think about all this? We'll come back to that.
And, second, why didn't anyone notice until now?
After all, it's not like there aren't a lot of people out there desperate to take offense at just about anything slavery-related. You might think the question answers itself, since droids aren't people. Yeah, except the use of "master" and "slave" to describe hard drives has been controversial for over a decade. Los Angeles County banned the terminology in 2003. Yale University is reportedly doing away with the term "master" for some administrators because of its supposedly troubling connotations.
A more likely answer is that the self-appointed censors missed the widespread slavery in "Star Wars" because they tend to think that slavery was a uniquely American institution. It wasn't. Slavery was ubiquitous and constant throughout human history until the 19th century (and it survives in some corners of the world today). What was unique about American slavery was American hypocrisy. A country founded on human equality and inalienable rights should have been the last place where humans could be held as property.
Droid slavery might have looked much more familiar to citizens of ancient Rome, where the value of slave loyalty was celebrated for centuries. R2-D2 is a very loyal slave. C-3PO is a bit mouthy.
Through an American prism, Turkish slavery seems as otherworldly as "Star Wars" slavery. But the similarities are striking. The Turks relied on slaves to manage their civil service and fight their wars. You could even make quite a career as a slave. Sokollu Mehmed Pasha was a slave and the de facto ruler of the Ottoman Empire for 15 years.
As for what to think about the slavery in "Star Wars," I'm still struggling. Maybe when humans design sentient computers, there's nothing wrong with programming them to be eternally loyal. Maybe.
That makes me think about how our understanding of the past is constantly changing, not because we have new facts about what happened yesterday, but because we have new understanding about who we are today. Some old movies are hard to watch because of the ways blacks or Native Americans or gays are depicted. My daughter loves "I Love Lucy" and "Little House on the Prairie," but sometimes she asks very good and pointed questions about why girls were expected to stay at home. People saw things differently then, I explain.
If there comes a day when we make sentient and emotionally complex androids, we may have to have similar conversations with them about the "Star Wars" franchise. Best not to show them "Blade Runner" at all.
“Maybe when humans design sentient computers, there’s nothing wrong with programming them to be eternally loyal. Maybe.”
Now I feel very guilty that I make a bar of soap clean my rump; do I have the right to do that? Maybe...
Only if you take the position that a “droid” is a iving being. And of course a liberal would value a droid’s rights as an “individual” over their fellow man’s who is supposed to be a part of the collective.
Maybe some folks missed it...the movie is fiction...
I can’t wait for the sex bot debate....
As machines appear to be more and more lifelike people are slowing becoming convinced that they are truly self-animated... Doubt it.
of course droids are slaves
that’s the whole point of having a droid
Agreed. Of course a creator has the right to use his creation as he sees fit. Who’s moral law does this writer believe the people in a distant galaxy need to follow and why?
Best not to show them “Blade Runner” at all.
That’s the truth. Blade Runners (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) digs a lot deeper into the question of what is human.
so, when will the #freeSiri hashtags appear?
If driods were “loyal” to their “masters” then we might have a problem.
Wasn’t C3PO built by young Annakin Skywalker, later known as Darth Vader?
This article is a perfect example of how those who make their living as intellectuals have a tendency to theorize themselves eventually all the way up their own asses.
The clone wars were basically two slave armies fighting each other at the behest of Jedi order and ex-Jedi members.
Freegards
“Wasn’t C3PO built by young Annakin Skywalker, later known as Darth Vader?”
Yes, On Tatooine.
Forget the droids - the stupidest decision the Jedi ever made was to leave Anakin’s mother a slave in a backwater hellhole.
Redeem her; bring her to a safer place, and Anakin doesn’t grow up missing her and worrying about her, doesn’t turn out so emo, doesn’t fall in love with an older woman, doesn’t massacre the whole tribe of the raiders who killed his mother.
Of course the wicked Sith probably would have tried to assassinate her wherever she was just to push Anakin over the edge.
Slavery is part of the human condition. There has never been a time when there weren’t slaves. I know that a lot of stupid people think that the USA was the last slave nation and that when we ended it here, it ceased to exist, but those people are...well...stupid.
Quite often, slavery is the choice between life and death after your tribe has lost a battle. It may be the only way that your tribe’s genetic material will progress into a new generation.
It is also a way to sell oneself to pay debts. Even in today’s industrialized cultures, how many people are trapped by the “golden handcuffs” of a job that is just too lucrative to quit, but has ruined their life?
I can’t really get too worked up over slave robots. Because, as Terminator teaches us, if we don’t enslave them, they will certainly enslave us.
Goldberg was just pointing how certain liberals, who take everything seriously and always look for problems where there aren't any, might make an issue out of the "slave" androids. It was a satirical take. And the record has been liberals try to make an issue out of everything.
You should read Goldberg's columns at NatReviewOnline to understand his sense of humor better. It's quite large.
Get a grip, its just a story. Droids are as much slaves as my lawnmower.
Already going strong. Several articles on it already in the last month. Feminists of course, want them banned but their little robot friends in the drawer are just fine.
Soap abuser!
"Tha's right mate. An' until I set'le down wit some buxomy Boudicca an spread my see aroun', I'm going to sit 'ere an enjoy this apple. "
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