Moral Dissonance Of The Republic

[Galileo_Galilee]

According to TV Tropes:

The Republic in its entirety, and the Jedi specifically, employ millions of clones as slave labor. They are sent out to fight and die without regard for their own wants or desires, going their entire lives without being allowed to make a single decision for themselves. Leaving the military, for any reason, is considered treasonous desertion and A.W.O.L., even if the clone in question has not yet even graduated training or only leaves to become a farmer. Even clones who are unable to become soldiers, due to either physical or mental deformity, are not released from service, instead becoming support workers for the military industrial complex. Throughout this treatment, however, the Republic government and the Jedi continuously speak about how their war revolves around the core concepts of freedom and liberty, and they see no problem with ensuring this via the martial might of those fundamentally without liberty. Ironically, the Jedi themselves would likely have the best understanding of the clones, because although they have a right to leave, they themselves for the most part never had a life that preceded training in the Jedi academy.

They call this moral dissonance. A moral dissonance is a double standard, sometimes unintentional.

But this does shed a darker light on the Republic, and perhaps some corruption.

[DigiFluid]

Yeah, the Republic in its waning days had really become untenable. This line of argument has come up before in that "The Case for the Empire" article from a number of years back, and I think there's some real validity to it. To paraphrase, as well as add some of my own arguments:

• ten years before the Clone Wars began (Episode I), the Republic's main governing body--the Senate--was already completely unwieldy and ineffective at managing the collective good of its constituent members. This was the case even without the machinations of Palpatine; that the Senate and Senators were too mired in petty interests and squabbles to actually govern anymore. Hell, when one of their own members was invaded and conquered, the best that the Supreme Chancellor could muster was a motion to send a committee to investigate the claim--when the ruling sovereign of the planet in question personally appeared before the Senate!
• between the Trade Federation and the Techno-Union, the Republic economy was completely beyond the control of its ruling body. Coruscant, the Core Worlds, and the entire Republic were quite literally at the mercy of the handful of off-world plutocrats calling the shots for trillions of other beings
• the Jedi Order can quite rightly be seen as an aristocratic position of hereditary nobility. As we learned (much to many fans', including my own, chagrin) in Episode I, the ability to use the Force is biological in nature. The count of midichlorians in one's bloodstream dictates whether or not one will have this power; and the Jedi Order was in a position of galactic authority. They recruit, raise, educate, and train all of their own members, with no outside oversight whatsoever, and apparently have the legal authority to arrest the Chancellor and/or dissolve the democratically elected Senate
• there was simply no way for the Republic to defend itself--or any of its members. Even though they were not the only power in the galaxy, they maintained only a smallish navy and no infantry whatsoever. Had it not been for a rogue member of the aforementioned nobility, a clone army would never have been raised and the CIS could have flattened the Republic in no time flat

The Republic was dead on its feet long before Palpatine took over. With his rise to power, he saw to it that its weaknesses were shored up. As much as George Lucas and co. want to paint Palpatine and the Empire as evil (destroying an entire planet is morally dubious at best), it's hard for me to look at it that way. It seems to me more that it's the logical evolution of a stagnant republic.


And I think you were looking for "hypocrisy" more than "dissonance".

[General Jumper One]

I always knew that Palpatine was a "good" guy trying to build the Republic into an Empire that wouldn't die out, he just did it the wrong way and with the wrong intentions.

[Gatefan1976]

I think that is a fairly, narrow, perception of the Jedi order there Digi.

[DigiFluid]

Not my fault that George Lucas didn't think through the implications of his frakking midichlorians and his shoddy prequel writing

[Gatefan1976]

Not my fault that George Lucas didn't think through the implications of his frakking midichlorians and his shoddy prequel writing

how do the midiclorians have anything to do with it dude??
(but yeah, shoddy prequals sure )

[DigiFluid]

Because if the Force was a "mystical energy field" accessible to all, as implied in the OT, there'd be considerably less wrong with it. It would be an organization open to anyone. But midichlorians make it biological and hereditary, so tough sh!t if you don't have the right parents! That makes them a closed caste nobility with extraordinarily broad powers of authority to defy the democratic process at their (and only their!) discretion.

Pair that with the Jedi's endless religious war against the Sith costing billions of lives across thousands of years and you've got a scary, scary group. It's no small wonder that people didn't much like them.

[Gatefan1976]

Because if the Force was a "mystical energy field" accessible to all, as implied in the OT, there'd be considerably less wrong with it. It would be an organization open to anyone. But midichlorians make it biological and hereditary, so tough sh!t if you don't have the right parents! That makes them a closed caste nobility with extraordinarily broad powers of authority to defy the democratic process at their (and only their!) discretion.

Pair that with the Jedi's endless religious war against the Sith costing billions of lives across thousands of years and you've got a scary, scary group. It's no small wonder that people didn't much like them.

Err, besides the skywalker family, there is no "canon" evidence that midiclorians are transmitted via paternity or maternity is there? In fact what little evidence of having foundlings and such sorta contradicts this idea. Also unless Obi-wan and Qui-gon went to Tattoine, it is likely that Aniken would have lived and died as watto's slave (of course, you could argue "will of the force")

As to the war with the Sith, It wasn't like the Jedi actually went out looking for a fight, they reacted to the Sith invading SW "known space" during the great hyperspace wars, and really, billions of people would have died anyway and the Sith lords would have merely subjugated the entire SW universe wouldn't they??

Finally, the Jedi order was (mostly) revered during the height of the Republic, it was only after Palpatines rise to power, he performed the galaxies best "snow job" on the Order, tuning them into the villains of the peice, hardly a revolutionary tactic, but effective.

[SGSargon]

I was under the impression that the clone army was genetically modified to be complete obedient and therefore there won't be any "free will" issue.
From AoTC script:

LAMA SU: We modified their genetic structure to make them less independent than the original host. As a result they are totally obedient, taking any order without question.
[...]
LAMA SU: Apart from his pay, which is considerable, Fett demanded only one thing - an unaltered clone for himself. Curious isn't it?
OBI-WAN: Unaltered?
LAMA SU: Pure genetic replication. No tampering with the structure to make it more docile... and no growth acceleration...
[...]
LAMA SU: They're immensely superior to droids, capable of independent thought and action.

They're created only for one purpose and cannot do anything else.

[SaberBlade]

I was under the impression that the clone army was genetically modified to be complete obedient and therefore there won't be any "free will" issue.

They're created only for one purpose and cannot do anything else.

The movie does make it seem like they are just being used as cannon fodder, rather than using using whatever previous military establishment the Republic already had in place. The movie didn't really give them any type of personality at all as we saw them turning on the Jedi without a second thought.

It's really in Clone Wars that the Clone Troopers seem more than just Battle Droids who mindlessly following orders. They seem to believe in what they are doing, but are also detached as they understand they are fighting someone elses battle. However they still take it very serious when someone betrays them, attacks their home (Kamino) and I seem to remember them also saying something along the lines of trying to worthy of Jango as his clones.

For me, I don't really think it makes a difference that they were clones and programmed to obey orders

[DigiFluid]

Yeah...both the TV series and the Republic Commando novels do a great job of showing the individuality of and differences between the clones.

[mandogater]

Yeah...both the TV series and the Republic Commando novels do a great job of showing the individuality of and differences between the clones.

I always thought of the clones as believing the Jedi betrayed them and therefore no longer deserved their trust.

[Gatefan1976]

I always thought of the clones as believing the Jedi betrayed them and therefore no longer deserved their trust.

The clones had a trigger command to make them turn on the Jedi.

[Galileo_Galilee]

General order 63.

Sigh.

[DigiFluid]

I always thought of the clones as believing the Jedi betrayed them and therefore no longer deserved their trust.

The clones had a trigger command to make them turn on the Jedi.

Both points are essentially correct. Clone training also included 150 emergency contingency orders--basically a set of general orders to be used in the most dire of circumstances. Order 66 was one of these:

In the event of Jedi officers acting against the interests of the Republic, and after receiving specific orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander (Chancellor), GAR commanders will remove those officers by lethal force, and command of the GAR will revert to the Supreme Commander (Chancellor) until a new command structure is established.

Text of other emergency orders are in the link above.