Relevant “May the 4th”

Skywalker Ranch interviews / lessons for Star Wars fans filmed in Summer of 1986 and Summer of 1987:

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: The fact that the evil power is not identified with any specific nation on this earth means you’ve got an abstract power, which represents a principle, not a specific historical situation. The story has to do with an operation of principles, not of this nation against that. The monster masks that are put on people in Star Wars represent the real monster force in the modern world. When the mask of Darth Vader is removed, you see an unformed man, one who has not developed as a human individual. What you see is a strange and pitiful sort of undifferentiated face.

BILL MOYERS: What’s the significance of that?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Darth Vader has not developed his own humanity. He’s a robot. He’s a bureaucrat, living not in terms of himself but in terms of an imposed system. This is the threat to our lives that we all face today. Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes? How do you relate to the system so that you are not compulsively serving it?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, “United States Secretary of Health and Human Services” 2025: “Darth Vader has not developed his own humanity. He’s a robot. He’s a bureaucrat” - 1987

Elon Musk DOGE 2025: “Darth Vader has not developed his own humanity. He’s a robot. He’s a bureaucrat” - 1987