fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, January 17]

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Ethics [Thursday, January 17]

"Today we discuss lying," Anakin said as he closed the classroom door precisely on time. "Everyone lies. 'Of course that doesn't make your butt look big.' 'You like her, I like her.' 'I'm totally okay with you moving on.' 'Everything's fine, why do you ask?' It's how the world goes around because no one wants to be trapped in a conversation where someone whines at you for hours on end about how awful their life is."

He looked around the room. "Trust me. Everyone's life is terrible. They're just not telling you about it. Be grateful."

He reached onto his desk for a piece of paper. "Today we're conducting an exercise to see how well you pass this particular social ritual, then we'll discuss whether you think it is necessary. We're playing two truths and a lie. I'll tell you three things about myself and you have to decide which one is the falsehood. Then you'll all tell three things and we'll see how well you can either read each other or keep things hidden."

He gave them a small smile. "I'm very good at this." He schooled his face to absolute neutrality, put his mental blocks up to bar any psychics in the room from gaining an advantage, then recited: "During a war at home I was known as 'The Hero Without Fear.' I named my children after people I met in Fandom. I've never been beaten in one-on-one lightsaber combat." His eyes challenged them to call him out. "Who's next?"

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That's what he's here for, after all.

Karal approached him diffidently once class was over. "Professor Skywalker? Do you truly believe everyone's life is terrible?"

"I can pick up on thoughts and emotions," Anakin said quietly. "I believe everyone thinks that their pain is the only pain."

He bit his lip and made an effort to think of the times when he was happiest - riding Trenor, time with his friends, the perfect moment when he praying and the world just fell away - because he had no wish to inflict pain on anyone.

"I'm not sure I agree with you, but that's not what you said," he persisted, carefully and respectfully. "You said that everyone's life is terrible. While it's true that every person experiences pain in their life, that doesn't mean it's terrible,"

"In this school, it tends to," Anakin replied. "Everyone is in the italics and exclamation point stage of their lives. If something is going well, it's the most wonderful thing ever. If it turns out badly, it's the saddest thing in the history of the multiverse. Everyone at this school has a story that would break your heart, or is convinced that it would. I react to them believing that truth."

"But--" He rubbed his temple and sighed. "Perhaps I simply misunderstood."

Anakin tilted his head. "What did you think I meant?" he asked.

"The way you said it, it sounded as if you meant that everyone's life was terrible, all the time," he said quietly. "Which isn't true. At least, it isn't true for most people."

"My life hasn't exactly been a bundle of laughs, but there are bright spots," he said with a very small smile. "I just get tired of hearing people's terrible stories when they think they are the only ones here who might have ever been hurt. It does a injustice to the rest of us who haven't exactly been wrapped in cotton."

Karal frowned in genuine confusion and sat down in a nearby desk. "How?" he asked. "I mean, how does one person's pain devalue yours?"

Anakin shook his head. "It doesn't devalue it necessarily, but it's certainly no way to endear me to that person. Anyone that wrapped up in themselves needs to take a good hard look at the world around them." He shrugged. "Which was why I mentioned it."

"It's human nature not to see past their own pain," Karal said quietly, thoughtfully. "But I think I understand. It's the selfishness of believing that no one could ever have suffered as badly as they have that irritates you."

He looked up at Anakin questioningly.

Anakin nodded. "Precisely."

Karal chose his next words with great care. "I can accept that the selfishness would be irritating, especially--" With what Luke has told me, he'd been going to say, but he stopped himself. "Well, yes."

He folded his hands, wondering if he was about to earn himself detention. "A person's selfishness cannot effect what you have been through, it cannot change your past. It does not belittle your hurt. To allow other people's failings to effect you so can only harm you. You cannot control what they do or say or believe. Their certainty that their's is the greatest pain which has ever been felt does not hurt you. It is your choice to see it as an injustice that hurts you."

Anakin had been trained too well as a Jedi not to recognize wisdom when he heard it.

"I don't go out of my way to try to have my feelings hurt," he said, but there was only half the bite in his voice that most people would have received.

"No, I didn't think you-- I wasn't trying to say that, I swear!" Karal was just about tripping over his words in his hurry to get that out. "But it's easy to fall into certain habits of thought," he was looking at Anakin earnestly, eyes wide, "and then you end up hurt when you don't need to be."

Anakin was reminded so sharply of Obi-Wan it almost took his breath away.

He reached out to ruffle Karal's hair. "I don't get hurt."

Big liar.

Karal smiled when Anakin ruffled his hair, ducking his head a little as he obviously relaxed. "Everyone gets hurt, it's part of what makes us people," he said lightly.

"I'm not people," Anakin said. "I'm Jedi."

Karal folded his arms and just looked at him. "And I am a priest. I know Heralds, who are nearly identical to Jedi. I know other Jedi. All have a duty to think and act beyond themselves, even if it costs them their lives. We're all still people, every one of us. And so are you," he said firmly, meeting Anakin's eyes for several long seconds before he started to flush.

He'd suddenly recalled who he was speaking to, and how. "And now I'm being unforgivably rude. Forgive me."

Edited 2008-01-18 05:35 (UTC)

Anakin's eyes had gone a little hard. "I've been trained all of my life to put emotions behind me. 'A Jedi shall not know anger, nor hatred, nor love,'" he quoted.

Naturally, being Anakin, he had interpreted it as "ignore it."

He didn't say the first thing which popped into his head. Telling the person he'd already annoyed that his teachers were unforgivably foolish was unlikely to go over well.

He didn't say the second, that it sounded inexpressably sad, for the same reason.

"The Jedi teach that?" he asked instead, wilting a little under Anakin's stare but determined to persevere until he was told to stop. "What does it actually mean?"

"That a Jedi should be better than a slave to his emotions," Anakin replied sharply. "We're not supposed to be bound by planetary allegiances or family."

He shrugged. "I was never a very good Jedi."

Karal digested that in silence, thinking hard. "No one should be a slave to their emotions," he finally said, hoping that the sadness he was feeling wasn't leaking out to bother Anakin. "But it doesn't mean they aren't allowed to feel them."

He looked down at his hands. Vkandis, help me find the words. "You love Luke, I know you do. I refuse to believe it makes you a bad Jedi. It could put you in a terrible position, having to choose between duty and love, but it doesn't mean you can't ever love anyone. And if the Jedi rules say you can't, well." He looked suddenly stubborn. "They're wrong."

Anakin's jaw set in a stubborn line. "I disregarded them and it led to absolute disaster for more than just my family," he said. "The Jedi have their reasons."

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