YES!!!!

One of my favorite celebrity/spiritual activists, Russell Brand, often quotes the following:

YES!!!!

One of my favorite celebrity/spiritual activists, Russell Brand, often quotes the following:

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts. … And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Brand usually sums it up with “The line separating good and evil passes … every human heart,” but I had never seen the full quote until searching for it just now and feel that ending very well reflects what you wrote about Kylo Ren and Annakin Skywalker.

It seems to me that this message is even more relevant in today’s divisive political/cultural landscape. All my life I’ve been a social chameleon, friendly with all the subcultures in school growing up – the jocks, the rockers, the art kids, the nerds, etc. – and, I believe, this has served me well.

However, in the past few years, people seem to be hardening in their identities so I’ve faced a fair amount of resistance for suggesting that the people they are demonizing are just like them, that they have good traits and bad ones and each is deserving of compassion and love.

I see this trend in myself in my own political stances, too. It seems the egoic desire to create Us and Them is strong and perhaps stronger in times of turmoil.

How do we overcome this? I think the first step is awareness, i.e. knowing that this tendency exists.

Thanks for writing such a thoughtful review of the movies!

-Bryan