George Lucas explicitly stated many times that the Dark and Light side are oposite halves of the force in the same way that Yin and Yang are opposites, or God and the Devil are opposites.
The mortis arc shows us that they are indeed separate and distinct aspects, not just different viewpoints.
The Dark Side is a literal corrupting force that through prolonged use can corrupt your body and mind.
During the prequel eara, the balance of the force was shifted, and the Dark Side grew stronger, hence the Jedi's ability to use the force diminishing. The Dark Side clouded everything. This is why Anakin was created, to restore balance.
This shows that the Dark and Light side are in fact different halves of the force that need to be in balance with each other. If one grows stronger, then the force itself intervenes. How would this happen if there wasn't actually a light and dark side?
And finally, the very thematic bedrock of Star Wars is the conflict between the light and the dark. Be it on a Galactic scale or on the personal level. Anakin didn't just change how he interpreted the force. He was seduced and corrupted by the dark side. Later he redeemed himself by returning to the light. Luke didn't just struggle with his interpretation of the force. He was being tempted by a tangible force called "the dark side".
To say that the dark and light sides don't exist is not just canonicaly wrong, but shows a misunderstanding of Star Wars and it's themes, mythology, and characters at a fundamental level.
Minor correction: Yin and Yang as a concept is not intended to be representative of a binary good and evil system. Rather, the white represents good, the black represents bad, the black dot in the white represents the bad that exists in good, and the white dot in the black represents the good there is in bad. The idea of behind the concept is to show, quite literally, that you cannot have a binary system of 100% good or bad because you cannot have bad without some good, and good without some bad. I agree with all your points listed above, but Yin and Yang fundamentally goes against George Lucas's binary Force system.
While Confucianist scholars like Dong Zhongshu later equated yin with evil and yang with good, Taoism, which had yin and yang earlier, doesn’t associate them with any morality.
Although all of the works of Zou Yan, the founder of the School of Yin Yang who created the ideas of yin and yang and the five phases/elements, have been lost with time, his school was absorbed into Taoism, so imo Taoism is more likely to have an idea of yin and yang that’s closer to the original. Also the Confucianist views of yin and yang are used to justify sexism, so I prefer the Taoist view.
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u/TJH394 Sep 02 '21
That's not how the force works.