The Star Wars Approach to Social Change
The Real World is Far More Complicated
We finished watching the first season of Andor on Disney Plus last week1. I had a similar reaction to others I saw on Twitter. It seemed somewhat slow, especially when contrasted with an action hero like Luke or Rey or Poe or a host of others taking the fight to the bad guys. But underneath that was a story about how colonies lost their cultural identity to become cogs in the system of Imperial control (or that of its Corporatist predecessor). Prisoners treated like animals, working around the clock providing weaponry for the military industrial complex2. Andor helps explain how The Rebellion was emerging across the galaxy with minimal coordination. It was the natural outgrowth of oppression. Karis Nemik explains it to Cassian Andor:
Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks. It leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire’s authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege.
In many ways, this is the same sentiment expressed by Princess Leia when she’s taken about Governor Tarken’s ship. After insulting his smell, she delivers this marvelous line: “The more you tighten your grip, Tarken, the more star systems will slip through your fingers”.
I love that line. I’ve repeated it many times over the last four decades plus. It speaks to the arrogance of power and the nature of resistance. This is true whether its a corporate entity or a Christian University or a political administration. It is what generated the Women’s March in 2017 and what propelled voting numbers in 2022. It feels good to think that “the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice” on behalf of the little guy standing against the powers that be.
But that’s not how social change works. We may assume that Governor Tarken will be swayed by the passion and inevitability of Leia’s statement. But of course, he instead destroys her home planet of Alderon.
The rebels often think that those in power will be shamed by pointing out their hypocrisy or by critiquing the impact of their rhetoric. But holding power is not dependent upon moral consistency. Holding power is too often an end in itself and thereby self-perpetuating.
An example of this power imbalance shows up in Empire Strikes Back when Han Solo is captured by Darth Vader’s people. When Lando Calrission complains that “We had a deal”, Vader tells him, “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it further.”
So what tools are available to push back? In the Star Wars universe, the Force plays a role as do motifs of forgiveness and reconciliation. Those may work well as individual attributes but do little to change the structural dynamics. To do that requires going after the legitimacy that power depends upon. At least at first. After that requires a vision of a different kind of social order that relies on flourishing and diversity rather than control and sameness and working to see that come to fruition.
Two final thoughts. First, the events of the last couple of weeks — the shootings at Club Q, the visibility of people like Fuentes and his enablers (including one in Florida), the ongoing attacks on teachers and librarians as “groomers”, the Christian Nationalist zealots — suggest that we have a long way to go to push back on those advocating for control and sameness. Left to their own devices, their stream of bilge will continue to poison our social discourse and make it hard to move toward our imagined society.
My second thought is a warning. It’s not just “my side” that feels powerless against the Empire. I dare say that many of the January 6th defendants believe that they were doing their small part in battling tyranny. When people from a variety of perspectives can define themselves as the Loyal Rebellion standing astride the Powers that Be, our ability to address our common purpose while navigating our differences becomes impossible.
This will involve spoilers.
I hope you realize that this is barely fiction.