fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, January 10]

Anakin walked into his classroom precisely on time and gave the students assembled there an appraising glance.

Except for how his glance lingered on a couple of faces as his eyes widened slightly, it wasn't possible to tell what he thought of them.

"I'm Master Skywalker," he said in a voice that was intended to carry, "this is Ethics, and we're going to skip the introductions--I'll figure out who you are--and move straight to our first discussion."

He paced around the room, cloak flaring out behind him, as he handed out the syllabus. "Today's topic," he said. "Self sacrifice: knowing the difference between saving people and being a pretentious twit."

"Any time I ask a a group of people what they would do to save someone they love, they all blither on about how they would set the world on fire, lie, cheat, steal, kill, die, et cetera, et cetera. I've been at this school too long to believe that half of you haven't already been put into this situation and I'm in no mood to hear adolescent ramblings about how wonderful you were or might hypothetically be. We're going to ground it in reality.

"Over the summer there was a woman who was in charge of this school. She had been placed in power legitimately, was allowed to punish in accordance with that power, and began pushing the boundaries of her authority almost immediately. She called students to her office, punished them for slights genuine or imagined, and began escalating the severity and frequency of her punishments, going over the line into what was no longer acceptable."

Anakin crossed his arms over his chest, the scars across his face very evident in the light coming through the window. "It eventually took a team of highly qualified adults to take her out. Today's topic: when do you draw the line? When do you admit to yourself that a problem cannot be solved, that to sacrifice yourself isn't a statement, it's merely pointless? How long does it take for you to check your ego?"

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Adah pulled out her notebook and wrote down her response without even too much thought. It was, oddly enough, a subject she'd thought about often. When finished, she carefully tore out the sheet of paper from its perforations and offered it up.

"I draw the line very shortly. Self-sacrifice for a person in my condition is possibly one of the most moronic things I could possibly do. I wouldn't have the capability to save myself in most situations, let alone someone else. Especially since no one would probably bother saving me, either."

Not that Adah was bitter about any particular, specific events or anything, no. It continued.

"The one time I can think of where I may have done something out of 'self-sacrifice' was done entirely on accidentally and purely out of my own pride. What I did, I did not do for anyone but myself. I got nothing from it. I don't plan on doing something like it again. 'A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.'"

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it," Anakin repeated aloud, giving Adah a pleased smile. "My old teacher used to say that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view. Two nations can go to war, equally convinced they are the only one in the right. Are the sacrifices made by the soldiers on one side less worthy than that of the other?"

"Oscar Wilde," Adah wrote in response with a slight nod, giving credit where credit was due. "None more worthy than the other, and I find it highly dubious that a sacrifice should have to be made in the first place."

"And moreso when those urging the sacrifices are nowhere to be found near the battles," Anakin replied cynically.

Another slight smirk, another light grin, and thoughts of Nebee Toorlexa and his radio and codes, his hands in dictating the fate of a small hole of the jungle and the bigger hands that guided him. And then a slight shift, to the redheaded tyrant called Our Father, and she picked up her pen again to make another point.

"Not necessarily. I'd rather be demanded sacrifice from a faceless entity than by one who stands there demanding it from you, blind in his ignorance and the fact that words and actions failed to be cohesive."

Anakin found himself traveling back to a red office, promising to do things for a man he'd looked up to as a father.

"It's far worse when they demand it knowing exactly what it will cost you," he said.

Adah was quiet for a long, considerate moment, looking up at Skywalker as she tried to focus onhis point from all angles. And finally, she shook her head.

"No; I think ignorance is worse. Knowing and presenting an influencing case is just good planning. Manipulative and immoral, on certain perspectives, but effective. When someone doesn't even know what they're doing because they're blinded by the same rhetoric that's been handed down to them by people who know. Knowing makes self sacrifice a choice, and choices are avoidable. Ignorance makes it a tragedy and only adds to the continuation of the mindlessness of the sacrifices."

Anakin gave her a pleased smile. "Well argued."

Adah returned the smile, and gave a crookedly bobbing nod of appreciation for the compliment.

Ethics [Thursday, January 10]

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