Star Wars and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy Series) - Kevin Decker [82]
The struggle begins! Each refuses to see the other as a co-equal subject, and each sees in the other the means to create a world of their own design. Both risk all in the life-or-death struggle for supremacy, for it is by such a struggle that, Hegel thinks, we come to know and value life with all its creative possibilities.124 In the end, one reaches the brink of terror and backs down, only to become the slave of the other. This, in simple terms, is how Hegel understands the historical emergence of the relation between masters and slaves.
It’s tempting to think that at this point the master has what he wants. As master, he can command the labor of the slave and make the world into what he wills. Freed from the drudgery of mundane work, the master can live in lavish surroundings, indulge in fabulous pleasures, and do pretty much as he pleases (think Jabba the Hutt). It certainly looks as if the master has what he wants, just as it looks as if the Emperor, with his crimson-clad guards and fawning courtiers, has what he wants; but appearances can be deceiving.
It was to be recognized by another, an equal, that the master risked everything to become master, not to live a life of pleasure. The slave is a human being, but as long as he remains a slave he cannot give the master the recognition he desires—the recognition of an equal. Why does this matter? Hegel expresses it this way: “Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged.”125 Although I am surely something independently of others, the understanding I have of myself, of the value of my projects, of the meaning and sense of my experiences, is dependent upon the way others see me. Naturally, I must trust in and value the judgments of those who evaluate me. If I judge them to be unequal, incapable of understanding or passing judgment upon the value of my life, then their opinions are worthless to me. Only an equal is capable of understanding me in the way I understand myself. Thus, if I am to gain the recognition I desire as a self-conscious being, if I am to understand the truth about myself and my possibilities as a human being, then I must seek out an equal.
But this is impossible for the master. By definition, the master “prefers death to the slavish recognition of another’s superiority.” 126 And it is only through death, his death or that of his adversary, that the master achieves what he wills—lordship. The possibility of peaceful co-existence with co-equals—with other masters—is likewise foreclosed. The original struggle for (a one-sided) recognition is merely transplanted to a new site. For as long as the master refuses to recognize the other as a co-equal subject, for as long as he wills that he be master, his most important human aims are, and will forever be, frustrated.
Of course it goes without saying that the slave’s aims are likewise frustrated. Being a slave is only a happy state of affairs in bad histories. In reality slavery is a brutal and inhuman institution, and the brief glimpse of slavery on Tatooine that we get in The Phantom Menace is tame and whitewashed. Nevertheless, the situation for the slave is also not what it might at first seem.
To begin with, it is the slave whose labor creates the world of things, and through that labor he comes to experience himself as a creative being. This is certainly the case for young Anakin working in Watto’s shop. While the master cannot in the end be satisfied with himself—for he can choose only to live a life of animal pleasure or fight anew and die in the field of battle—the slave can go beyond himself and his situation by overcoming his fears. In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke’s experience in the cave