Ender's Game and Philosophy E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 411

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

A threat to humanity portending the end of our species lurks in the cold recesses of space. Our only hope is an eleven-year-old boy. Celebrating the long-awaited release of the movie adaptation of Orson Scott Card's novel about highly trained child geniuses fighting a race of invading aliens, this collection of original essays probes key philosophical questions raised in the narrative, including the ethics of child soldiers, politics on the internet, and the morality of war and genocide. * Original essays dissect the diverse philosophical questions raised in Card's best-selling sci-fi classic, winner of the Nebula and Hugo Awards and which has been translated in 29 languages * Publication coincides with planned release of major motion picture adaptation of Ender's Game starring Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford * Treats a wealth of core contemporary issues in morality and ethics, including child soldiers, the best kind of education and the use and misuse of global communications for political purposes * A stand-out addition to the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series

Leseprobe

Contents

Introduction: What Is Ender’s Game?

Notes

Part One THIRD: THE MAKING OF AN IMPOSSIBLE CHILD

CHAPTER 1 “The Teachers Got Me Into This”: Educational Skirmishes … with a Pinch of Freedom

Liberal Education Is Paideia’s Game

Vocational Prep: A Heaping Tablespoon, or the Main Dish?

Is Battle School Just Trade School?

Should Critical Inquiry Be Socratic or Social?

Critical Inquirer for the Dead

Educational Skirmishes

Notes

CHAPTER 2 Illusions of Freedom, Tragedies of Fate: The Moral Development of Ender Wiggin

Putting a Name to Evil

Evil and Its Refrain

Graff’s Sacrifice

The Moral Development of Ender Wiggin

Notes

CHAPTER 3 Xenocide’s Paradox: The Virtue of Being Ender

“A Little Private Moral Dilemma”

“The Name of Ender is One to Conjure With”

Plato or Aristotle?

Notes

CHAPTER 4 Teaching to the Test: Constructing the Identity of a Space Commander

“They’re Gonna Make You Do Time Out in the Belt …”

“Leader’s Aren’t Born, They Are Made”

Battle School Panopticon

Testing 1, 2, 3 …

“I’m Sure You Can Get Your Training at Someone Else’s Expense”

Every Action Has an Equal and Opposite Reaction

Notes

Part Two GAME: COOPERATION OR CONFRONTATION?

CHAPTER 5 The Enemy’s Gate Is Down: Perspective, Empathy, and Game Theory

Understanding Your “Enemy”

Understanding, Empathy, and Love

Loving Your Enemy

Back to the Game

The Enemy’s Gate

Notes

CHAPTER 6 War Games as Child’s Play

Paradox of the Heart and the Head

War Games

The Problem of Dirty Hands

Death Games and Moral Decision-Making

Moral Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fainter

Ender’s a Willing Pawn

Notes

CHAPTER 7 Forming the Formless: Sunzi and the Military Logic of Ender Wiggin

“Of Course We Tricked You Into It”

“The Enemy Outnumbered Him a Thousand to One”

Mazes and Formlessness

Notes

CHAPTER 8 Do Good Games Make Good People?

So What Is a Game, Anyway?

Games Without Goals?

This Game Is Deadly Serious

Do Good Games Make Good People?

Notes

Part Three HIVE-QUEEN: ALL TOGET HER NOW

CHAPTER 9 Bugger All!: The Clash of Cultures in Ender’s Game

Two Sides of the Same Coin, but Which Side Is Which?

When One Face Is Up, the Other Face Is Down

Two Faces of the Same Coin, and I Am the Metal in Between

Notes

CHAPTER 10 Why Ender Can’t Go Home: Philotic Connections and Moral Responsibility

Communicating Across the Galaxy

That Blasted Fantasy Game

Ender’s Quest for a New Home

Notes

CHAPTER 11 Of Gods and Buggers: Friendship in Ender’s Game

Ender, the Superman

Happiness or Power?

Ender, the Political Animal

“I the Sweetest Friend You Got”

Notes

Part Four WAR: KILL OR BE KILLED

CHAPTER 12 “I Destroy Them”: Ender, Good Intentions, and Moral Responsibility

“He Didn’t Just Beat Him. He Beat Him Deep”

“I Didn’t Want to Hurt Him!”

“All His Crimes Weighed Heavy on Him”

“Nevertheless, It’s Still You Doing Those Things”

Notes

CHAPTER 13 Ender’s Beginning and the Just War

“The More You Obey, the More Power They Have Over You”

“I Don’t Have Murder in My Heart”

The Moral Equivalent of War

A Waste of Brief Mortality

“At Least You Have Some Survival Instinct Left”

Notes

CHAPTER 14 “You Had to Be a Weapon, Ender … We Aimed You”: Moral Responsibility in Ender’s Game

Involuntary Bugger-Slaughter

Why It’s Not Okay to Let Rich Kids Drown

“You Tricked Me Into It”

“The Real Education Was the Game”

“I’ll Tell Your Story to My People, So That Perhaps in Time They Can Forgive You …”

Notes

CHAPTER 15 The Unspoken Rules of Manly Warfare: Just War Theory in Ender’s Game

Peace Is the End of War

The Rules of the Game

Playing by the Rules

The Justice of Ender’s Games

Ender’s Last Game: The Justice of the Third Invasion

Notes

Part Five HEGEMON: THE TERRIBLE THINGS ARE ONLY ABOUT TO BEGIN

CHAPTER 16 Locke and Demosthenes: Virtually Dominating the World

A Child’s Rise to Power

“Every Citizen Started Equal, on the Nets”

“[He] Knew How to Exploit Fear in His Writing”

New Friend Request from Hannah Arendt

“We’ll Be Too Entrenched to Suffer Much Loss”

The Heart of the Matter

Notes

CHAPTER 17 Ender’s Dilemma: Realism, Neoliberalism, and the Politics of Power

Survival of the Fittest

Why Can’t We Be Friends?

Ender’s Dilemma

The Power to Persuade

Fighting for the Future

Notes

CHAPTER 18 People Are Tools

Chosen to Save Humanity

The Tragedy of Ender’s Game

The Court-Martial of Colonel Hyrum Graff

What Is Ender’s Game?

Lessons from Ender’s Game

Notes

Convening Authorities of the Court Martial of Colonel Hyrum Graff

The Ansible Index

The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

Series Editor: William Irwin

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, and a healthy helping of popular culture clears the cobwebs from Kant. Philosophy has had a public relations problem for a few centuries now. This series aims to change that, showing that philosophy is relevant to your life—and not just for answering the big questions like “To be or not to be?” but for answering the little questions: “To watch or not to watch South Park?” Thinking deeply about TV, movies, and music doesn’t make you a “complete idiot.” In fact it might make you a philosopher, someone who believes the unexamined life is not worth living and the unexamined cartoon is not worth watching.

Already published in the series:

24 and Philosophy: The World According to JackEdited by Jennifer Hart Weed, Richard Brian Davis, and Ronald Weed

30 Rock and Philosophy: We Want to Go to ThereEdited by J. Jeremy Wisnewski

Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy: Curiouser and CuriouserEdited by Richard Brian Davis

Arrested Development and Philosophy: They’ve Made a Huge MistakeEdited by Kristopher Phillips and J. Jeremy Wisnewski

The Avengers and Philosophy: Earth’s Mightiest ThinkersEdited by Mark D. White

Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the SoulEdited by Mark D. White and Robert Arp

Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Knowledge Here Begins Out ThereEdited by Jason T. Eberl

The Big Bang Theory and Philosophy: Rock, Paper, Scissors, Aristotle, LockeEdited by Dean Kowalski

The Big Lebowski and Philosophy: Keeping Your Mind Limber with Abiding WisdomEdited by Peter S. Fosl

Black Sabbath and Philosophy: Mastering RealityEdited by William Irwin

The Daily Show and Philosophy: Moments of Zen in the Art of Fake NewsEdited by Jason Holt

Downton Abbey and Philosophy: The Truth IsNeither Here Nor ThereEdited by Mark D. White

Ender’s Game and Philosophy: The Logic Gate Is DownEdited by Kevin S. Decker

Family Guy and Philosophy: A Cure for the PetardedEdited by J. Jeremy Wisnewski

Final Fantasy and Philosophy: The Ultimate WalkthroughEdited by Jason P. Blahuta and Michel S. Beaulieu

Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper Than SwordsEdited by Henry Jacoby

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Philosophy: Everything is FireEdited by Eric Bronson

Green Lantern and Philosophy: No Evil Shall Escape this BookEdited by Jane Dryden and Mark D. White

Heroes and Philosophy: Buy the Book, Save the WorldEdited by David Kyle Johnson

The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You’ve Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your WayEdited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson

House and Philosophy: Everybody LiesEdited by Henry Jacoby

The Hunger Games and Philosophy: A Critique of Pure TreasonEdited by George Dunn and Nicolas Michaud

Inception and Philosophy: Because It’s Never Just a DreamEdited by David Johnson

Iron Man and Philosophy: Facing the Stark RealityEdited by Mark D. White

Lost and Philosophy: The Island Has Its ReasonsEdited by Sharon M. Kaye

Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is as It SeemsEdited by James South and Rod Carveth

Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain SurgeryEdited by William Irwin

The Office and Philosophy: Scenes from the Unfinished LifeEdited by J. Jeremy Wisnewski

South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something TodayEdited by Robert Arp

Spider-Man and Philosophy: The Web of InquiryEdited by Jonathan Sanford

Terminator and Philosophy: I’ll Be Back, Therefore I AmEdited by Richard Brown and Kevin S. Decker

True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things with YouEdited by George Dunn and Rebecca Housel

Twilight and Philosophy: Vampires, Vegetarians, and the Pursuit of ImmortalityEdited by Rebecca Housel and J. Jeremy Wisnewski

The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for MugglesEdited by Gregory Bassham

The Ultimate Lost and Philosophy: Think Together, Die AloneEdited by Sharon Kaye

The Walking Dead and Philosophy: Shotgun. Machete. Reason.Edited by Christopher Robichaud

Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach TestEdited by Mark D. White

X-Men and Philosophy: Astonishing Insight and Uncanny Argument in the Mutant X-VerseEdited by Rebecca Housel and J. Jeremy Wisnewski

Superman and Philosophy: What Would the Man of Steel Do?Edited by Mark D. White

The Ultimate Daily Show and Philosophy: More Moments of Zen, More Moments of Indecision TheoryEdited by Jason Holt

The Ultimate South Park and Philosophy: Respect My Philosophah!Edited by Robert Arp and Kevin S. Decker

Forthcoming:

Sons of Anarchy and PhilosophyEdited by George Dunn and Jason Eberl

Supernatural and PhilosophyEdited by Galen A. Foresman

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ender’s Game and Philosophy : the Logic Gate is Down / edited by Kevin S. Decker. pages cm. – (The Blackwell Philosophy and PopCulture Series) Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-38657-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s game. 2. Science fiction, American–History and criticism. 3. Wiggin, Ender (Fictitious character) 4. Philosophy in literature. I. Decker, Kevin S., editor of compilation. PS3553.A655Z59 2013 813′.54–dc23

2013006641

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Background © Roman Okopny; spacecraft © Sven Herrmann; city © Murat Giray Kaya (all istockphoto); Boy © Tim Kitchen/Getty Images.Cover design by: http://www.simonlevy.co.uk/

Introduction

What Is Ender’s Game?

In his introduction to Ender’s Game written six years after the book was originally published, author Orson Scott Card goes both backwards and forwards in time to talk about the inspiration for the story and its public reception. One of the most interesting things about Card’s novel is the diversity of its audiences. Now with the 2013 film adaptation of Ender’s Game, starring Asa Butterfield as Andrew “Ender” Wiggin and Harrison Ford as Colonel Hyrum Graff, the story of a young boy under siege from all quarters in a not-too-distant future will get its widest reception yet, and never at a better time.

Card tells us in his introduction that he was fascinated by the underlying premise of Isaac Asimov’s original Foundation series, the epitome of Golden Age science fiction, celebrating the marriage of reason and technological progress. Granted a one-time-only Hugo Award in 1966 for “Best All-Time Series,” Asimov’s Foundation (1951), Foundation and Empire (1952), and Second Foundation (1953) use the conceit of “psychohistory,” an incredibly advanced form of mathematical sociology, to plot the decline, fall, and rise of a Galactic Empire and the secret “Foundation” colonies of scientists whose job it is to make sure that the cosmos doesn’t descend into a new dark age. About Foundation, Card writes:

The novel set me, not to dreaming, but to thinking, which is Asimov’s most extraordinary ability as a fiction writer. What would the future be like? How would things change? What would remain the same? The premise of Foundation seemed to be that even though you might change the props and the actors, the play of human history is always the same. And yet that fundamentally pessimistic premise (you mean we’ll never change?) was tempered by Asimov’s idea of a group of human beings who, not through genetic change, but through learned skills, are able to understand and heal the minds of other people.1

This idea had immense appeal to Card when he read of Asimov in the late sixties, near the peak of American entanglement in Vietnam and social unrest tied to the war and the civil rights movement. It’s no surprise, then, that as a young person Card turned to sci-fi for healing rather than mere entertainment.

Like Asimov’s predictions about the distant future, Card’s (although centered closer to the present) concern things that haven’t happened yet and some things that may never happen. This doesn’t make them wholly fantastical, though, as Card’s uncanny predictions of the Internet, the use of child soldiers, and biological warfare (in Speaker for the Dead) show. Like Card, philosophers often pose questions about the intersection of time, change, and human nature: can we ever change? What resources from our past have we forgotten? Is human nature inherently violent and disruptive, does society or some malevolent force guide us to be so, or can we ever transcend our temptation to cruelty and the use of brute force?

As Card himself admits, Ender’s Game is a disturbing novel. It’s unrelenting in the degree to which its protagonist is oppressed in social, military, and ethical ways. In the chapters in the first part of this book, “Third: The Making of an Impossible Child,” four philosophers and educators consider how Ender’s character and moral development are affected by the system of monitoring children on Earth for the correct temperament and abilities to become a child soldier. Ender’s existence as a “Third” is a rarity in an overpopulated world in which parents are restricted to two children. So not only is Ender’s very birth a consequence of the policies of the military regime that both protects and controls the Earth, but his education and socialization—at least after Colonel Graff spirits him away to Battle School—are carefully controlled to produce the result Earth needs. But is this any way to treat a child?

In one of the letters Card received after the publication of Ender’s Game, an army helicopter pilot confesses:

I read Ender’s Game during flight school four years ago. I’m a warrant officer, and our school, at least the first six weeks, is very different from the commissioned officers’. I was eighteen years old when I arrived at Ft. Rucker to start flight training, and the first six weeks almost beat me. Ender gave me courage then and many times after that. I’ve experienced the tiredness Ender felt, the kind that goes deep to your soul. It would be interesting to know what caused you to feel the same way.2

Of the many audiences that have appreciated Card’s book, the men and women in uniform are the most surprising in their identification with the main character. As in the case of the army aviator, their sympathy mainly has to do with the shared experience of training and combat and the resultant transformation of a person’s entire worldview. In the second section of this book, “Game: Cooperation or Confrontation?” four authors take on the philosophical connections between war and games that make up the bulk of the novel’s adventures. These chapters show that empathy as well as strategy, and the ability to commit oneself to something for its own sake, are all vital needs of space commanders.

And what about the poor buggers? The hive-queens and their drones are portrayed by the International Fleet Command of Ender’s time as merciless and predatory. All they care about is ­eliminating every human from the face of the galaxy. Only a select few—Mazer Rackham, and eventually Ender—can understand what they might do next. But Leon Perniciaro, who wrote a master’s thesis entitled “Shifting Understandings of Imperialism: A Collision of Cultures in Starship Troopers and Ender’s Game,” points out how different the portrayal of giant, insect-like alien invaders appears in Robert Heinlein’s 1959 shoot-em-up StarshipTroopers versus Ender’s Game, with Card’s surprising use of the ­buggers, or Formics, as foils but not enemies.3 Card’s sympathetic ­portrayal of the aliens opens up the possibility that philosophy can assist us in understanding, rather than demonizing, those who seem to present themselves as our enemies. So in the third section of this book, “­Hive-Queen: All Together Now,” three philosophers discuss all things Formic and ­philotic, showing how “others” from different cultures have contributed to the development of humanity’s image of itself.

“We’re saving the world, after all. Take him,” says one of Graff’s ­colleagues when the decision is made to recruit and train Ender Wiggin. Some of Ender’s most peculiar and incompatible traits—his ability to empathize with and even love his enemy as well as his violent streak—have emerged in the I.F.’s analyses as “the right stuff” for a commander who will lead a strike at the bugger homeworld. From the very beginning—as a number of the authors in these pages point out—Ender knows what he’s being trained for, and the logical limit of what he’s being asked to do is complete destruction of the buggers—xenocide. So why does he continue to play along? In the fourth section of this book, “War: Kill or Be Killed,” four authors—including an Air Force colonel—scrutinize ethics in times of war to assess the degree to which Ender, Graff, the International Fleet Command, and humanity as a whole are responsible for the “evil that men do” in times of conflict.

Ender’s Game may be unique in science fiction in that it has at least two sets of sequels. On the one hand, three books, beginning with Speaker for the Dead (1986), continue the sociocultural prophecies as Ender travels the universe and gets married on the planet Lusitania. On the other hand, the “Shadow” series, beginning with Ender’s Shadow (1999), tells the story of Ender’s Game from Bean’s perspective and then dives into the fate of Earth after the Third Invasion. No one can fault Orson Scott Card for the “big picture” thinking of his Enderverse, with developments that are both shocking and challenging to our sense of what’s good and true. In the final section of this book, “Hegemon: The Terrible Things are Only About to Begin,” four philosophers sketch the world that war and invasion have created—a future Earth in which the experience of every child is electronically overseen by the military and in which anonymous personalities on the nets determine international relations.

So it’s time to begin the exercise. The battleroom door is opening. Your reactions will be monitored. Don’t settle for anything less than victory, and remember: the enemy’s gate is down.

Notes

1. Orson Scott Card, “Introduction” to Ender’s Game, Author’s Definitive Edition (New York: TOR Books, 1991), xii.

2. Ibid., xxii.

3. Leon Perniciaro, “Shifting Understandings of Imperialism: A Clash of Cultures in Starship Troopers and Ender’s Game,” MA Thesis, University of New Orleans, May 2011, http://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2322&context=td, accessed October 1, 2012.

Part One

THIRD

THE MAKING OF AN IMPOSSIBLE CHILD

CHAPTER 1

“The Teachers Got Me Into This”

Educational Skirmishes … with a Pinch of Freedom

Cam Cobb

What does Ender’s Game tell us about the art of education, or ­pedagogy? And what on Earth does this have to do with freedom? To answer these questions, we need to step back in time. For thousands of years, people have debated the structure learning should take. For Socrates (469–399 BC), education was an interactive experience involving ­critical inquiry, dialogue, and a collaborative process that encouraged people to question the world around them by reasoning things out. Socrates left quite an impression on his students, most notably Plato (429–347 ). Intermingling his own views with Socrates’ in a long dialogue called the , Plato envisioned ­education as the identification of natural skills of children with the aim of preparing them to take on roles in society that corresponded to their perceived abilities. Children gifted in the use of reasoning, for instance, would join the “guardians” and rule the state. For Plato, then, education would be highly selective, and would also train the young for their future work. In this regard, Plato emphasizes his own kind of vocational education, centering on training in a skill or trade to prepare for a career. While Socratic critical inquiry and Platonic “vocational prep” aren’t exactly opposing philosophies of education, they do at times conflict with one another.