I’m done taking the bait with every Tom, Dick and Harry who thinks I’m an ignoramus for actually defending moral certainty. But someone just sent me a link to this and, frankly, I find it hilarious. There are a few good points — or at least interesting ones — swirling around the breathtaking arrogance, intellectual name-dropping and bloviating non-sequiturs. I do like his point about the Jedi being wrong about their black-and-white worldview and I’ll have to ponder that a bit more. But, basically, I think this guy is a perfect example of a surprisingly large number of people who feel threatened by any defense of moral certainty. All I ask is that when reading his borderline-paranoid rant you keep in mind I never said moral certainty is always good or correct. Indeed, I’ve said time and again now (See here for example) that just because you’re certain about X or Y doesn’t mean you’re right. Once you take this into account, his whole tirade becomes little more than masturbation.

Of course, when a Star Wars novelist does it, we call it “art.”

Update: Just for the record, I’ve gotten a lot of email like this:

Dear Jonah,
For someone who claims to have Stars Wars street cred, he is flat out wrong. Obi-wan and Yoda never “insist [Luke’s] sole purpose in life is to slay his father.” (The scripts are at http://galactic-voyage.com/Scripts.htm.) Yoda says for Luke to become a Jedi he “must confront Vader.” (Episode VI, Scene 50). Neither he nor Ben say he must “kill” or “slay” Vader, it is LUKE that assumes confrontation means killing. (Of course, Luke does ”kill” Vader…from a certain point of view.)
Of course, for someone who claims to be a writer, the novelization of Episode III was AWFUL.