Star Wars can tell us a lot about the modern world - and The Force Awakens suggests we could be on the Dark Side

Is Donald Trump more accurately compared to Emperor Palpatine or Yoda?

Carrie Fisher plays with her dog Gary on the red carpet of the European premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Getty)

“May the Force be with you.” The reflexive response from Catholic fans of the “Star Wars” saga might be, “And also with you.” This makes perfect sense, as George Lucas intended the Force to serve as an allegorical stand-in for various Western and Eastern religious concepts of a transcendent spiritual reality, a personal God or impersonal cosmic energy. That’s what it — and the “Star Wars” franchise itself — became. They have always inspired those disillusioned with aspects of organised religion, yet who still yearn for a nebulous “something more,” which is to say that the Star Wars universe, and the overwhelming popularity of a new episode in the franchise, has the chance of becoming a unifying secular creed in a deeply divided country.

The moment is ripe. Many Americans, angry with the status quo, view our society as currently “out of balance” between those forces that seek to destroy the values we most hold dear as a nation, and those who valiantly seek to defend them.

There’s just one problem: if our society is indeed out of balance, Star Wars offers no guidance as to who is on the Light Side and who is on the Dark.

Is the metaphorical Light Side of the Force represented by those calling for liberal tolerance of ethnic or religious groups even in the face of potential threats to safety and security, while the Dark Side is represented by isolationists wishing to impose a monolithic set of Judeo-Christian cultural values? Are those desirous of an armed citizenry ready to defend itself akin to the Rebels who resist the tyrannical overreach of a centralized government? Is Donald Trump more accurately compared to Emperor Palpatine or Yoda?

The first six Star Wars films showed how a democratic Republic may, through fear and the threat of war, devolve into a tyrannical Empire in order to preserve “a safe and secure society.” Lucas wrote his original treatment for Star Wars at the time of the Vietnam War and Watergate; his frustration with political demagoguery and technologically sophisticated, yet morally stunted, plans for weapons of mass destruction is evident in his screenplay for A New Hope — think of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s wistful description of a lightsaber as “an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.”

Severing an opponent’s arm is still a form of violence, but it requires looking your enemy in the eye — a far cry from the bombs dropped by remote-controlled drones or the Death Star’s super-laser.

That sense of morality seems almost quaint today.

Appropriately for our times, The Force Awakens appears to be set in a galaxy in which nostalgia for the good old times of the Rebellion against the Empire is noticeable by its absence: people have forgotten the Jedi, the Force, everything important. The impressive Rebel victory that rounded out the first trilogy now seems hollow and the First Order — Empire 2.0 — rules, while the masked Kylo Ren pledges to complete the work of Darth Vader. It’s almost as if the freedom struggle that destroyed two Death Stars never happened.

The major political dimension of The Force Awakens is thus more likely to resemble the aftermath of 9/11 rather than the Cold War that inspired the first trilogy, reflecting Americans’ concern about wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were worth the sacrifice, considering that the jihadist hydra has now grown a new head in the form of Isis.

As both Americans and the young protagonists in The Force Awakens struggle with a morally complex landscape, it’s important to remember Darth Vader’s central moral flaw: namely, believing that he could determine his own fate by controlling those around him.

His children and their comrades, however, learn how to accept tragedy as life is inherently uncertain and involves calculated risk; “Never tell me the odds!” proclaims the ultimate rebel, Han Solo. Instead of dominating others with power, which actually betrays one’s own fear, Rey, Finn, and America must be courageous and foresighted when thinking about complex issues such as racial violence, immigration, terrorism, and economic inequality.

“May the Force be with us”—we’ll need it.

Jason T. Eberl is the Semler Endowed Chair for Medical Ethics and Professor of Philosophy at Marian University, Indianapolis. Kevin S. Decker is Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Washington University. They are the editors of “The Ultimate Star Wars and Philosophy.”