Tag Archives: Star Wars

Nothing is Safe From the Kremlin

Unless you have been hiding behind the woodshed or simply refusing to partake in any of the national discussion you should be aware that the Russian launched a coordinated and sophisticated campaign to influence the 2016 Presidential election.  They did this by amplifying fault lines already present in a politics and our culture; this is standard covert tradecraft but now made more powerful and more destructive through the emerging mass media of the Internet and social media. The Russian’s goals included more than defeating Hillary Clinton at the box office but also fanning the flames of social passions, pitting Americans against Americans weakening us with our own outrage and willingness to spew venom at each other and thereby strengthening their position.

This campaign extended far beyond stoking the emotions surrounding political operative but according to a new study even into our most cherished popular culture; the Russians weaponized Star Wars.

Considering the chaos and pain the fight over Star Wars: The Last Jedigenerated and the heavy political overtones of that fight it should be no surprise that it was yet another front in this Psy-Op war.

This is not to say that the entire ‘SJW destroyed Star Wars‘ bullshirt is a Kremlin creation; that misses the essential nature of how these sort of operations work. They do not create fault lines in a society they exploit existing fault lines, aggravating the divisions, inflating the emotions, turning a disagreement into a battle and a battle into a war.

Personally I think Star Wars: The Last Jediis the best entry in the franchise since Empire, but even then I can recognize that it is not a faultless film, the Cato bright scene, while essential to Finn’s character arc, drags a bit and need a minor rewrite, and some of the elements are heavy handed, look around the world today, the richest people are not arms dealer. Quibbles aside it is wonderful film with strong character, character arcs, and with the most to say about the nature of evil and heroism since the first movie. The very stands it took made it a target for aggrieved people and that made it into tool to be used against us. As I said these fault lines existed before the film and the Russian exploited them brilliantly but we do not have to keep falling for this operation.

It is up to each of us, no matter where we stand on any political spectrum, to resist this attack on our nation, politics, and out culture. This sort of attack cannot defeat us it can only lead us to defeat ourselves.

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi and People who Cheat at Games

Having been a tabletop role-play gamer since 1979 I have seen my fair share of cheaters. People who produced character with fantastic statistics, math errors that always break in the players favor, and fudged die roll. One thing that seems to exist as a common trait among these varied cheaters over the decades is that the invested considerably in the game as part of their identity. Doing well at the game was not simply fun for them but a validation of their self-worth and confirmation of their superiority. Of course the fact that had to cheat to achieve these aims undercuts the effect. For everyone who was aware of the cheater the effect was quite the opposite and it is only with a heaping serving of denial and delusion can that ultimately weak faced me erected and maintained.

What does this have to do with Star Wars: The Last Jedi?

People invest more than just games with a sense of their identity. People do it with spectator sports, it’s part of why rioting occurs both for victories and defeats, they do it with religion, they do it with their artistic creations. And of course people take popular culture and make it part of their identity.

Several years a national news story centered on a woman who had arrived for her Jury duty wearing a starfleet costume from the Star Trek franchise. She insisted it was not a costume but a uniform and that it represented the high ideals and morality of the United Federation of Planets. She had taken the themes of Star Trek and incorporated them into her identity, binding them so tightly to her sense of self that she simply could not envision performing her civic duty in any other mode than the one she had adopted from the fictional Star Trek setting. Star Wars too has themes and ideals that it presents as a moral good, all fiction does this, and there are fans that take those ideal and meld them into their identity.

Let’s return to gaming for a moment. A strange thing often occurs when you confront someone who has been cheating, they get angry, really really angry. They’ll wail that it has been themselves who have been wronged, they’ll try to divert attention to the misdeeds of others, they’ll lash out at their accusers and not at all uncommon they’ll make it impossible for the game to continue, destroying the enjoyment for everyone. Attacks on the cheating are in effect attacks on their identity and this provokes powerful overreactions. It is far easier to displace that anger than to confront the awful truth of why it mattered so much to the cheater.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

It’s clear to me that there are a sizable number of Star Wars fans that have built a significant amount of the self-identity from the fantasy franchise. It’s perfectly okay to dislike a movie, to me disappointed in a franchise, Alien 3, and Star Trek V both leap to mind, but this sort of anger, vitriol, and poison indicates an unhealthy attachment to the fictional characters. There is something about the character Rey, Poe, Finn, and Kylo that strikes these fans right at their cores and is irreconcilable with their self-image.

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