You seem to be missing the point. Society more often than not tends to paint rebels as heroes. There are millions of movies about the Generic Resistance trying to overthrow the Generic Empire, and every single one of these movies paint the resistance as heroic and the empire as evil.
Even if the Rebel Alliance is not shown as heroic, they are still ‘gritty hardcore’ protagonists in comparison to the generically evil empire.
I have never once seen a movie in which the hero is fighting for the loyalists, or where loyalists are shown to be less than evil.
I can’t speak for movies, but I’ve played quite a few video games where rebel alliances are decidedly a Bad Thing. Others give the player a choice to play as a rebel or a member of the “legitimate” authority, painting both sides as morally ambiguous.
This type of thinking becomes a problem if it leaks into real life, as anyone who commit mass murder are deserving only of scorn. Summery executions are not acceptable. Slaughtering civilian populations is not acceptable. And yet people who commit brutal atrocities are still praised just because they happen to also be “fighting the power”. Che being a rebel is the only reason he is so popular.
Rebels are more likely to be in a situation where violence or large-scale civil disobedience are the only options (apart from simply accepting oppressive structures). Obviously civil disobedience is going to lead to a lot more casualties on your side. So when a rebel resorts to violence, they’re seen as correcting a legitimate grievance and doing what they’ve been forced to do, while an existing power that tries to thwart them has other options at its disposal. If you have the option of sending people to prison, but you decide to kill them all, that makes you MUCH less sympathetic than the people who had the power to kill, but not to capture or otherwise disable their enemies.
Please stop twisting my words. All I was saying is that Luke Skywalker would not have as much fan support if his faction was leading a civil war as apposed to a rebellion. Most rebellions are named after political goals (independence, democracy, etc), but they just call themselves Rebel Alliance. I’m not saying they are bad, I’m just saying that it is clear everyone goes into movies these days thinking rebel=good, more powerful side=evil.
Probably because people are generally disillusioned by governments and other powerful people. If you want more realism, don’t look for it in movies.
But now that you mentioned the subject, his blowing up the Death Star did result in millions of people (most of whom lacking a choice in their side) dying very painful deaths (I know the Empire blew up a planet in the movie, but 2 wrongs don’t make a right).
Not equivalent. The Death Star was a weapon. Blowing up that weapon was the only way to prevent the Empire from using it on other peaceful planets. Of course it would have been ideal to shut it down and take the Imperial soldiers prisoner, but the rebels don’t have the resources to do that. They’re rebels. All they can do is blow stuff up.
The rebels and the government might do the same sorts of things, but the difference is that the government
could be merciful, and chooses not to. The rebels aren’t given that option. To be merciful would be to utterly doom their operation. We want to believe that if they did have power, the rebels would do better than their predecessors. In real life they often don’t, but a lot of people keep hoping despite the odds.
I don’t like how you’re referring to religion itself as tyrannical.
Obviously I’m not going to agree with LW that religion is inherently tyrannical (if he thinks that), but religion is one of the tools that powerful people often have at their disposal. Historically, they’ve often been able to weaponize it against the would-be rebels, keeping them from demanding better treatment out of concern for their souls.
I guess I’m saying that the whole pro-rebel thing is ultimately born of our optimism. If we know that the current authorities have freely chosen to abuse their power, we want to believe that other people will do better. Even if the rebels do the same sorts of things, we know that often, that was the only way for them to combat the authorities. We want to believe that they’re better than the people who we
know are freely cooperating with evil. It isn’t until the rebels gain a similar level of power that we’re able to judge them on the same scale as their former oppressors. By that point, they have power, and if they happen to be evil, it’s too late to stop them without starting a second rebellion.
But we hope against hope that when they gain power, things will somehow be different.
