Star Wars As a Window Into the Psychopathic Mind

J. Wesley Judd discusses the use of Star Wars to study psychological disorders in an article for Pacific Standard. Lando Calrissian as a gambling addict? Well, that's certainly one possibility. Darth Vader as a sufferer from PTSD, or someone with borderline personality disorder? There I have to disagree. The guy just wants to rule the world--or the universe. Or else he's a Gray Eminence. ;) Nothing difficult to understand there--move along, move along--most of us run into his type all the time. IMHO, he doesn't have a personality disorder. He's ambitious and he knows what people with personality disorders want to hear. Now, the Emperor--there's someone with a personality disorder. More about the use of Star Wars for such purposes in a paper by Ryan C. W. Hall and Susan Hatters Friedman, Psychopathology in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: the use of Star Wars' Dark Side in Teaching, 10 Academic Psychiatry 1 (May 2015) (subscription may be required).

A Long Time Ago, In a Jurisprudence Far, Far Away

Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law School, is publishing How Star Wars Illuminates Constitutional Law in the Michigan Law Review. Here is the abstract.

Human beings often see coherence and planned design when neither exists. This is so in movies, literature, history, economics, and psychoanalysis – and constitutional law. Contrary to the repeated claims of George Lucas, its principal author, the Star Wars series was hardly planned in advance; it involved a great deal of improvisation and surprise, even to Lucas himself. Serendipity and happenstance, sometimes in the forms of eruptions of new thinking, play a pervasive and overlooked role in the creative imagination, certainly in single-authored works, and even more in multi-authored ones extending over time.

Serendipity imposes serious demands on the search for coherence in art, literature, history, and law. That search leads many people (including Lucas) to misdescribe the nature of their own creativity and authorship. The misdescription appears to respond to a serious human need for sense-making and pattern-finding, but it is a significant obstacle to understanding and critical reflection. Whether Jedi or Sith, many authors of constitutional law are a lot like the author of Star Wars, disguising the essential nature of their own creative processes. 

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Data Collection, Data Breaches, and Star Wars

Dan Solove (George Washington Law, Teach Privacy) points out that the Empire might have defeated the Rebel Alliance had it mastered data collection. Think about the data breaches in Star Wars alone. Dr. Solove also notes something that has always bothered me: Ben Kenobi is not exactly a great alias when your actual name is Obi Wan Kenobi ("this is not the Jedi Warrior named Kenobi you're looking for. Move along, move along.")

Now, Luke's sister Leia was, I believe, living under an alias: she had been adopted after her mother died in childbirth. So it's possible that the Empire (and Darth Vader) did not know who she was at the beginning of Star Wars, especially if she had a new birth certifcate and the government of Alderaan sealed her adoption records. However, Vader certainly knew who Luke was, since he lived with his uncle (Vader's brother). At any rate, an entertaining look at information privacy, data collection, and Big Data in a Very Big Film Franchise.

Drink Up! Oh, and Live Long and Prosper!

Ah, the uses of trademark law! Check out Vulcan Ale, now for sale in Vulcan, Alberta, in honor of the town's centennial. If you'd rather have Romulan Ale, or a Star Wars, Monty Python, or Game of Thrones brew, check out the possibilities here.

Now I Am the Master! (And the Little League Coach) Darth Vader as Everyman

NPR's Andrea Shea seeks to deconstruct Star Wars's Darth Vader and discovers there's a touchy-feeley side to everybody's favorite tough guy. Read (and hear) more here.