This is a rather telling bit of dialogue, honestly. One would think that the Jedi and the Senate both serve the Republic, as equals, but even this young senator feels sure enough of their power hierarchy to try and order Obi-Wan to do something he does not want to do. After the rise of the Empire, even oppositional senators have more safety than any Jedi. Palpatine may have a special hatred of the Jedi, but I don’t think he’s the type to allow any enemies to run unchecked. It takes him all the way to ANH to build a weapon powerful enough to allow him to destroy a whole planet, and thus eliminate the powerbase of any senators that defy him. Both the Senate and the Jedi are small in number, but their respective social and political power is clearly stratified. This is to say, the Jedi only have that which is afforded to them by the Republic. They are not the political powerhouse that people sometimes make them out to be, and that is one of the reasons it was so easy for Palpatine to turn the whole galaxy against them.
One of the things that most profoundly affected how I saw the Jedi Order was when I stopped seeing them just as some “organization” and started seeing them as a culture and heritage.
They have art, they have history, they have philosophy, they have rituals, they have values, they have symbols, they have sayings, they have traditions, they have fashion, they have evolution of all those things.
Whatever things they do or don’t deserve criticism for, whatever things I would ask them to change or not change, now come with the context and understanding that I’m not asking some extended boarding school or some day job organization to change their rules.
But that I’m asking a living, breathing culture to change and that carries a different weight to it.
man, culture is just people doing shit, and if that shit sucks then it’s gotta change no matter how hard it’s breathing.
I’m actually fairly sympathetic to the idea that cultures have a degree of moral weight or value that goes beyond just people doing shit. Admittedly this is controversial. But even if this is true, it doesn’t really get the Jedi off the hook.
Of course, any sane view must recognize that cultures can be legitimately criticized (as seems to be implicitly granted by OP). But moreover, the Jedi Order is not just a culture, but also an organization with a great deal of powerthat goes far beyond its own borders.
In the Old Republic, the Jedi have close and somewhat secretive ties to the galactic government. This is an immensely privileged role. Surely this mysterious and influential sect’s activities, agendas, and moral values– including dubious or sectarian moral values– are a matter of public interest! Their special influence on the government could also be unfair and undemocratic, insofar as they’re an unelected tiny set of people whose influence hugely outweighs that of many sectors of the general public.
Moreover, insofar as the Jedi are a sort of religion, this also seems to raise worries about undue religious interference in the state. Insofar as some aspects of their religion are provably true (unlike IRL religions), the matter may be further complicated– but perhaps still not entirely unproblematic. In any case, it seems clear that the beliefs/activities/values of the Jedi, even when considered as a culture, are totally fair game for public scrutiny and critique.
(I’ve spoken quite generally. Pardon me for not knowing the lore very well, here. I would bet the specifics of the expanded universe, or Legends or whatever, will probably back me up in my statements, but I could be wrong.)
I’ve pretty extensively covered why being close to the halls of power is not the same thing as actually having that power and the canon actually shows many, many instances where the Jedi do not have the power the audience often thinks they do.
For example off the top of my head: - they are drafted into the war (per George Lucas’ words) - or how Mace tries desperately to save the Zillo Beast and is soundly ignored - Obi-Wan tries suggesting diplomacy to Chi Cho and is soundly ignored - Yoda tries to just ask for information from the Chancellor about a matter relevant to the Jedi, ie hey so what does the Republic know about Sifo-Dyas?, and is told basically “We’re not telling you jack shit.” and his response is basically, “Well, that went as well as always.” showing that this is hardly the first time - Shaak Ti practically broke her neck trying to get Fives to the Jedi Temple and only made progress when the Republic/Kaminoans agreed because they were planning to kill him in transit anyway - Mace tried to argue for leniancy for Boba to not be put in jail and was soundly ignored - Dooku as a Jedi tried to get aid for Serenno from the Senate and was told, “No and you’re overstepping your bounds, so stop trying to influence us, Jedi!” (which is a potential indication of “and keep your weirdo mind powers out of it!”) - and so on.
The Jedi were drafted into militaryleadership positions and they were granted diplomatic/negotiation abilities (before the Senate made negotiating with the Separatists illegal), but they had very little political power of their own and actively sought to not take it because they didn’t want to rule. And, hell, even when the Republic had had time to scrape up a set of Admirals to replace the Jedi–like that’s why TCW’s creators said they brought Tarkin in, to show this–they were forcibly pushed out of those roles without any real say in it for themselves.
Further, they seem to have almost no cultural power–there are no Jedi-centric holidays, there are no people baking Jedi-themed cookies for celebration, Jedi-themed sayings are not used by the public until after they’re gone, and most people have never even met a Jedi. That was shown clearly in The Phantom Menace aboard the Trade Federation ship–”Have you ever met a Jedi before?” “Well, n-no….”
The Jedi have no say in public policy-making, they are entirely absent from that aspect of government even behind the scenes of public record, they don’t have much influence over the Senate (but they are beholden to the Senate, so the Senate has influence over them), their role is to be negotiators and diplomatic problem solvers, they have a certain amount of power over average citizens when they’re sent on a mission but they are also extremely beholden to oversight from the actual government. And pretty much any time they butted heads with that actual government, the government always seemed to win just by saying, “Nah, we’re not gonna do what you suggested.”
This isn’t to say that the Jedi aren’t able to be critiqued, because literally every single character and group inStar Wars can be critiqued. I could make good cases for why Naboo needs criticizing, but context is still important, as is what the actual scope of their abilities and influence is within the canon!
The Jedi may have more influence than the average citizen just by dint of being close to the halls of power, but that doesn’t mean that they have significant amounts of that power for themselves or that they were listened to when they did try to suggest different paths. Further, we don’t know how much is or isn’t a matter of public record, how much the Jedi’s internal workings were granted privacy because they were a culture/religion unto themselves and how much was there for any random citizen to look into.
We do know, however, that one of the major themes of the prequels and TCW is that the government was constantly chipping away that the Jedi’s autonomy and the Jedi were rather powerless to stop it–that’s precisely why they had an argument about how the holocron with the childrens’ names being stolen should be an internal matter or a government matter. Obi-Wan and Mace wanted it to be internal, Anakin argued the Chancellor should be brought in, and they seemed to realize they had to bow to that pressure.
Or the most blatant example: Palpatine could appoint Anakin to their Council against very much again their wishes and they couldn’t stop that interference, because the Senate had power over them and the reverse was very much not true.
While the Jedi’s ties to the Republic aren’t spelled out to us in the audience, I don’t think they seem at all secretive in-universe. For example we see senator Chuchi refer to the Jedi being under her and the local governments jurisdiction when dealing with the Talz situation. It’s openly regulated by laws.
Honestly, most of the expanded universe material of the current continuity have the populace’s ignorance of the Jedi be from a lack of interest rather than the Jedi being secretive about anything. In Mace Windu: Jedi of the Republic they have an outreach temple to offer spiritual support on a planet suffering from a plague that has no cure. The Queens Shadow book establishes that parts of their temple is open to the public. In Dooku: Jedi Lost the Jedi do a lightsaber demonstration in a showcase on Serenno to introduce their culture and there’s mentions of how there’s holo-documentaries about them.
But the people of the core worlds just weren’t that interested in them
“In contrast, institutions like the Jedi Order did little to cultivate their image or build their mindshare of the Republic’s populace, relying instead on historic precedent. This proved a difficult proposition, as the galaxy strongly favored looking to the future rather than the past.
With eyes toward expansion into the uncharted reaches of the Outer Rim, the traditions of the Core became passé. Opportunity beckoned from beyond the borders of the Mid Rim worlds. The congested planets of the interior were saturated with messages of promise lying outward, a reversal from long-held notions that Coruscant represented the icon of advancement. Republic wordsmiths and artists collaborated to create a sense of civic duty, of manifest destiny, and of deep obligation to spread the Republic banner from Rim to Rim.
For the well-settled and wealthy elite of the galaxy’s most crowded centers, such notions were quaint but uninspiring. It was the citizens of the Inner Rim, those who had been crowded out of opportunity in the Core, who answered the call for new life in the frontier of the Outer Rim. The Core Worlders became more enamored with the fleeting distractions of fame and fashion, transitory fascinations with sophistication that left little room for messages of faith or tradition that the Jedi exemplified. The lack of representation in the galactic mindshare undoubtedly fixed their future, as dark forces were on the rise that would poison the public sentiment toward the Jedi in the decades to come.”
Star Wars Propaganda
They are considered something old and boring rather than new and interesting. WHICH YES, I AGREE WITH YOU THAT THIS IS CRAZY!!?! HOW AN ONE NOT BE INTERESTED IN THE DRAMATIC BASTARDS WITH LIGHTSABERS??? LOOK AT THEM:
*clears throat*
I mean, I love them a normal amount
In some cases The Jedi have even less power than the average Republic citizen because everything one of them does represents the whole Order, while no one would dream to blame a whole planet for choices or actions of one individual.
For example, anyone could have chosen to come and fight for the Naboo against the Trade Federation, but Jedi don’t have that choice:
“I’ve been thinking,” Qui-Gon announced suddenly, keeping his voice low, his eyes directed toward the others. “We are treading on dangerous ground. If the Queen intends to fight a war, we cannot become involved. Not even in her efforts to persuade the Gungans to join with the Naboo against the Federation, if that is what she intends by coming here. The Jedi have no authority to take sides.”
Remember, this is after Trade Federation tried to murder the two of them. Even then they’re still powerless to get involved.
And this is exactly what Darth Sidious exploits.
“The Jedi cannot become involved,” Darth Sidious soothed, hands spreading in a placating motion. “They can only protect the Queen. Even Qui-Gon Jinn cannot break that covenant. This will work to our advantage.”
- The Phantom Menace novelization
I mean that’s it, that’s the whole prequels - Palpatine/Darth Sidious exploiting the fact that Jedi won’t bring down the democracy and go against the decisions of the people, while manipulating the said people to give him more and more power.
I honestly see the Jedi as an opressed group when compared to the rest of the galaxy, and they’re most certainly a minority. Everything from the propaganda and in-universe prejudice that exists against the Jedi, to the way the Senate highly regulates them, to the targeted drafting into the military, to how, in fandom and in universe, they are responsabilized for matters which the Republic is responsible for, to how they ultimately become a target for a genocide while the galaxy stood by and did nothing…
