Another Entry to the How Is X Like Y? Genre

[T]he incredible effort that very bright people use to make up credible (though obviously wrong) assertions of deep wisdom in Star Wars is very like the incredible effort that very bright people have traditionally used to construct credible (though obviously wrong) assertions about the deep wisdom of the bible, particularly the old testament.

The source material, in both cases, is a viscerally entertaining though intellectually shallow attempt to use parables to fabricate a philosophy. The stories are good but the arguments crude and contradictory -- as you'd expect in philosophy created by the primitive minds found in bronze age tribes and Hollywood.

But both sets of stories became extremely popular and both were told to many very bright people during their formative intellectual years. As they aged, many of those bright people doubtless spotted the laughable problems in both sets of stories and moved on to more sophisticated fare. But many others maintained bizarre affection, not only for the good stories but for the idea of their underlying wisdom.

With no actual underlying wisdom to point to, these bright people spent absurd amounts of time constructing elaborate arguments to explain why the bible/Star Wars does not really mean the crude and idiotic stuff it obviously asserts but much smarter, subtler stuff that hidden deep in the subtext.

That is commenter Scoop at this post. With both Levitt/Dubner and Gladwell currently having books on the bestseller lists, maybe Scoop should consider trying to get a book deal on the basis of this comment.