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The philosophy of the Force may be “the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen,” but it is certainly not the only example of wishful thinking which pervades our culture and yet, when pushed to its logical conclusions, betrays our foundational beliefs in the nature of good and evil. Some rejoice in Nietzsche’s refrain, “God is dead,” and yet they still believe they can uphold something resembling a universal declaration of human rights. They fail to see that without a higher power in which to ground morality, there is no definition of good or evil which can withstand the will of the majority, the law of the stronger, or the whims of any particular nation or culture to treat its citizens however it wants. Or consider the rationalization we often give to excuse someone’s unusual or deviant behavior: “You do you.” There’s a strong implication there that everyone ought to be able to do whatever they want and that no one should ever judge them for it. That there is no such thing as a universal standard of right and wrong to which they may be called to account. It’s an attempt to set ourselves free from our moral responsibility to our fellow man, just as the philosophy of the Force would set us free from our moral responsibility to a higher power in favor of a balance between the Light and the Dark. But, as Lewis points out, “the most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find
The philosophy of t h e Fo r c e m a y b e t h e greatest achievement o f w i s h fu l t h i n k i n g t h e world has yet seen,
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