Restore Order to the Galaxy

May the Fourth Be With You

In honor of May the Fourth, Star Wars Day, I bring you some reflections from a serious Star Wars Fan.

Last week I asked my students to right about their favorite superhero. One smart kid asked, “Can it be a villain or does it have to be somebody good?” I spared them a discussion on the shades of gray in good vs. evil and said, “You can write about either, dear. My favorite is Darth Vader.”

Suddenly my students seemed to understand why I want them to sit in seats and be quiet.

A while ago I worked for a gun violence nonprofit. I learned a ton and the people were wonderful. When asked why I worked there, I talked about the gun violence that I and my students have experienced in west and north Philadelphia. But they never asked the real reason. If they had, I would have said, “I want to restore order to the galaxy.”

I’ve often read that liberals think that people are inherently good and conservatives think that people are bad. I think neither. I think that people are born with instincts that, if not trained and disciplined, will lead to behavior that is antisocial at best. Therefore, rules must be enforced from early childhood that maximize pro-social behavior and minimize anti-social behavior. Within that, autonomy is wonderful, but children, if left to their own devices, will scream, run around, beat each other, have sex at early ages, and hang from ceiling beams. Don’t ask me how I know.

While I grew up with some chaos due to our economic circumstances, my mother instilled certain proper behaviors in me from early on. “Don’t call attention to yourself,” she taught me. This skill has probably saved my life many times and made it possible for me to live in dangerous places and survive dangers situations. Not calling attention to yourself can require discipline if you want to scream, cry, or any number of understandable human instincts. But if you learn early, you can do it, and fly right under the radar until you want to surface.

Our galaxy has descended into chaos. The structures that encouraged order: family, religious organizations, schools where there were serious consequences for bad behavior, are pretty much gone. In cities, chaos reigns. People have no respect for stop signs. I regularly have to put up my hand and wave to make sure an oncoming car does not mow me down on my walks. The idea that you stop at the stop sign is just… gone.

Order means that someone has to be in charge. I knew that my mother was in charge when I was a kid. It gave me a sense of security. Now I know that my cat Loviefluffy is in charge. This also gives me a sense of security. One moment please, she wants a cat treat… be right back.

There. I have served my furry overlord.

When I first went to a synagogue, I felt extremely calm in the presence of order. People knew what to do. Things were clean. Food was served, people stopped eating at the right time to go into the sanctuary. Children were extremely well behaved. There was no screaming.

My church was not like that. It was chaotic (though nothing compared to what I deal with now.) We used to say, “If you don’t like organized religion, try us! We’re disorganized religion!”

That has its merits, once a baseline has been established of how people will behave. Someone will bring the coffee, someone else, the bagels. Now don’t get me wrong, no one hung from the ceiling beams in my church, but the level of democracy was out of control and distracting. My friends who grew up Catholic are no doubt laughing at this concept, especially those who were beaten by nuns.

Creativity, entrepreneurship, even love and romance, can only thrive when people have a sense of safety. Safety does not come from everyone doing what they want. It comes from everyone doing what they are supposed to do, and everyone else being able to count on it. You will stop at a stop sign, I will cross at a cross walk. You will not murder or you will go to jail. Therefore, I feel safe from murder.

I love the orderly rows of certain gardens, little plants smiling at the sun in rows.

When I taught full time and had to go to professional development meetings, I was taught that desks in rows are racist. Seriously. Children must be in little groups because that’s their culture. Every classroom I go into now has desks arranged in groups of four. That means the children are looking at each other, not at the front of the classroom from which you might expect the teacher to instruct. They are distracted by each other, and believe that the purpose of school is to talk to and play with their friends. Teachers are irrelevant, annoying, and to be hated and subverted unless they facilitate disorganized play.

Yet when we have standardized testing, the desks must be in rows. So when I walked into my classroom last Thursday and saw the desks in rows, I though, “Darth Vader has come and rearranged the classroom.” It was beautiful to see the children silently working, under threat from their fifth grade teacher who monitored the test. With proper authority, whom they learned to fear at an early age, they can control themselves. But if there are no consequences… why bother?

Darth Vader may have taken it too far, but if you watch Anakin grow up, you see why. He snapped when his mother was killed. Then he became devoted to restoring order to the galaxy.

As I child I was always an extremely “good” kid, so I have no idea what punishments in school were like. I would have been suicidal if I had ever been in detention or things I only heard about. I lived to please my parents, teachers, and any other authority figure.

Now later in life I have taken that too far, but as a child, it is not bad to want to please the authority figures, because children have no idea how to govern themselves unless they are taught. Children who grow up without order turn into adults who are unable to act in pro-social ways. Put a gun in one of these people’s hands, and how can you expect anything but rampant death and destruction?

Given that Darth Vader is a fictional character and unlikely to show up to save the day, I ask you, dear readers: were any of you kids who experienced punishments as a kid? What worked? What were you afraid of?

When your children act up, what do you do? My child is purrfect, so I do not have this issue to contend with. But when I do not behave correctly, she bites me. Simple.

I have to get ready for Zen, the most orderly thing I know. So with that, I wish you an orderly May the Fourth.