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it reveals a certain mode of exercising power—the way of the Sith Master. The Master rises to his station and maintains his dominance over his apprentices or slaves by evoking and playing upon their fears. And the apprentice or slave maintains himself as a slave by allowing those fears to determine his being. This interplay between power and fear is what the nineteenth-century German philosopher Georg Hegel (1770-1831) called the “master-slave dialectic.” By looking at the Star Wars saga through the lens of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic we will not only better understand the nature and limits of the Emperor’s power, but also why—apart from the Hollywood impulse to give audiences a happy ending—that power failed. And, as an added bonus, Hegel’s analysis forces us to look most carefully at the personal exercise of power, bringing into sharper relief the various characters within the Star Wars galaxy and their motivations.

Masters and Slaves: Who Rules Whom?

Thales, the very first philosopher in the Western tradition, was once asked, “What is most difficult?” He replied, “To know thyself.” Indeed, Thales was not far off the mark: coming to understand ourselves and the value and meaning of our experiences really is one of the most difficult things any of us can do. Similarly, coming to understand how self-knowledge is itself possible, how it arises, and in what it consists is one of the more challenging problems philosophers grapple with. In Star Wars, two of the most compelling themes are Luke’s journey of self-discovery and his father’s redemption as the result of his own coming to a new self-identity at the end of Return of the Jedi.

As unlikely as it may sound, it’s the problem of self-knowledge that ultimately leads Hegel to examine the relationship between master and slave. For Hegel, knowledge about ourselves as individuals, knowledge about the value and meaning of our projects and experiences, necessarily implies a relationship to other people. Our individual self-understanding does not arise independently of others; rather, it emerges in the context of a relationship with other people. Their recognition (or lack of recognition) of us as having valuable, independent projects and experiences shapes how we perceive ourselves. Not surprisingly then, the type and quality of our relationships to others will have a direct influence on our capacity to know and value ourselves. Some relationships can enhance our capacity for self-knowledge while others, like the relation between a master and a slave (or between the Emperor and his subjects), distort the picture we have of ourselves. But, what’s really interesting about this is, the fact that it is the master, and not so much the slave, whose self-understanding is distorted by the relationship. Let’s see why.

From the standpoint of self-knowledge, the individual becomes aware of herself as an individual (she becomes self-conscious) at the moment when she confronts another like herself, a subject capable of interpreting and understanding the world.122 In this meeting, the two are aware of each other, but that awareness carries with it a certain tension. Insofar as the other is a co-interpreter of the world, she is a subject for whom the world presents itself. On the other hand, insofar as the world remains an object to her, the other is likewise an object within that world.123 When, for instance, Luke and Vader first meet in The Empire Strikes Back, Vader is torn. On the one hand, he regards Luke as a trophy, a mere object of conquest. On the other hand, he also sees Luke as a potential rival to the Emperor, an equal and partner.

In any case, at this point the individual is only aware of herself in terms of her capacity to interpret and understand the world. What she lacks is an understanding of herself as an active creator, that is, as a being with meaningful projects and goals. Yet in order to know herself in this way, the individual must somehow fashion a world according to her own will; she must, in other words, make for herself a human world. Then and only then