My best friend in 7th grade had older siblings and they had all read Ender’s Game. He read it and told me I had to read it. Being the impressionable 7th grader (2006-7) that I was I gladly obliged.
I found the book to be deeply fascinating. It opened my eyes to ‘new’ technology like ‘ansible’ (can communicate anywhere in the universe instantaneously) and really opened up my imagination to what I could do with my life.
Growing up in rural South Carolina with dreams of being an explorer or an astronaut seemed kinda far fetched. Most people just wanted you to be a Dr. or Lawyer or get a job at BMW. Ender’s Game showed me that it was ok to be different. It was ok to love to read books and to think that one day I too could have an impact on society.
For what it’s worth: Mark Zuckerberg also had Ender’s Game listed in his books section on FB. But truthfully back in ‘07 I was busy writing poems on MySpace (FB wasn’t rural yet) hoping that I would one day be as influential as the Demosthenes character in Ender’s Game
It is one of the great mysteries of life how an author can write a couple of books (this and Speaker for the Dead) that are literally all about loving the 'other' and still be homophobic.
It's no mystery at all if you believe people when they say things, and exercise the principle of charity.
Card is a believing Latter-Say Saint, and believes that a loving God has declared gay sex is forbidden. Someone who loves you would want good things to happen, ergo there must be a reason.
One can dig into the whys, but if this is really a "mystery," it's solved now.
It's a phenomenon dubbed the "Brain Eater" by author James Nicoll on Usenet[0]. I don't know what it is about science fiction and fantasy authors in particular - maybe it happens in other fiction genres too and I'm just not aware because I don't read them as much, but a lot of them seem to succumb to extremist (usually right-wing authoritarian) politics, fringe science, conspiracy theory or other such crackpottery at some point in their careers, with their writing sometimes suffering as a result of these beliefs seeping in and taking over.
>I don't know what it is about science fiction and fantasy authors in particular - maybe it happens in other fiction genres too and I'm just not aware because I don't read them as much, but a lot of them seem to succumb to extremist (usually right-wing authoritarian) politics
i don't know about fantasy but for sci-fi i think it's obvious: it's because a technocracy inevitably becomes a fascist dictatorship. that's why the nazis were heavy on industry and eugenics ("science" is the ultimate moral authority and all that). it's also for example why the mcguffin in Captain America: The Winter Soldier is so plausible (it was hydra whose aim was to use an ai to a-priori adjudicate who was guilty etc).
why writers in particular? not sure. probably having something to do with feeling confident in their ability to create fictional worlds and translating that into some kind of presumption of ability to govern real worlds.
Edit: lol no responses only downvotes. Don't point out flaws in technology ideology or else people will get bad. Lol
I can see how an obsessive focus on science and technology as ends in themselves could lead to their promotion over other values. An overt emphasis on science and technology could lead to the dismissal of other human emotional needs, or to downplaying the importance of emotional skills or interpersonal relationships.
It could also be that personality traits that correlate with obsession with science or technology could also correlate with obsession on rigour, rules and control in other aspects of life.
So I think I understand where the connection comes from, and it probably wouldn't be difficult to find examples of individuals in whom there is a connection.
However, I think you're somewhat off about technocracy inevitably leading to fascist dictatorship, and especially regarding your example of the nazis.
Focus on technology and industry fit the nazi agenda well, of course. They needed both as means for their war machine. The emphasis of economical power in general probably wasn't bad for their agenda either, because economical security has a lot of power in the minds of people. (That's true even generally, but especially in Germany at the time; there was huge economical turmoil in Germany prior to the nazi regime, so emphasizing industry and economical stability would have been very useful for getting popular support.)
I think authoritarian governments and leadership like to turn the tools they need to extend and maintain their power into virtues or moral duties. This can be work, industry, or anything that promotes social pressure towards obedience and respect for the ruling authority. The same goes for anything they can use to get what they want, but power and control are a great part of that.
The means may thus be presented as morally desirable ends, along with any personal obsessions of the leadership, of course. The leadership itself may even like to believe in the virtuousness of their means; if, for example, science or parts thereof (e.g. genetics, or at least a selective understanding of it) can be seen as support for something they want either as personal obsessions or as a means for control (e.g. eugenics could be both), you can be pretty sure that support is going to be turned into a part of the ideology even if the true motives come from elsewhere.
So while technocracy might be one very useful tool for an authoritarian dictatorship, there are many other dynamics in play. I'm not really sure fascist dictatorship is an inevitable outcome of a technocratic mindset when that outcome also has so many other necessary constituents (which generally have to do with group dynamics and other social psychological stuff) and actual causes.
Among the technocratic, there are also lots of people who are very individually minded, and certainly not in favour of an authoritarian dictatorship. Whether individualism taken to an extreme is pro-social either is another thing, but I'm not at all surprised if drawing a direct line between technocracy and the nazis yields downvotes at HN.
>In an August 2013 essay Card presented as an experiment in fiction-writing called "The Game of Unlikely Events",[173] Card described an alternative future in which President Barack Obama ruled as a "Hitler- or Stalin-style dictator" with his own national police force of young unemployed men; Obama and his wife Michelle would have amended the U.S. Constitution to allow presidents to remain in power for life, as in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Hitler's Germany.[174][175] Card's essay drew extensive criticism, especially for its allusions to Obama's race and its reference to "urban gangs
Further down in this comment chain I posted a link to a literary essay that enders game is about fascism. I got heavy downvotes. I'm sure that by quoting this paragraph from wiki I will get more downvotes. People are in denial about their heroes.
> "I'm sure that by quoting this paragraph from wiki I will get more downvotes."
I normally downvote comments that complain about downvotes, but not for quoting well-sourced interesting/concerning background facts about relevant authors.
>I normally downvote comments that complain about downvotes, but not for quoting well-sourced interesting/concerning background facts about relevant authors.
Below I linked to a published literary essay and I got downvoted.
Not by me, though. I think that comment could have used a bit more explanation beyond calling it "nazi apologia" with a link. Like a bit more explanation of what exactly makes it nazi apologia.
Look at the length and substance of that comment of mine and the one that started this subthread. They are similar in length, similar in glibness. I don't know what the score of gop is but it's not grayed out so I'll assume it's higher than the score for mine. What is the difference in the two? Maybe homophobia is more palatable than nazism. Maybe mine accused the reader instead the author (but almost everyone that responded defended card). Maybe Wikipedia is more authoritative than a literary journal.
I don't know. I don't speak for other commenters. Card's homophobia is pretty well documented, however, and from some of the comments to your other posts, I get the impression that the argument that it's nazi apologia is pretty thin. I haven't read the article, though.
I never thought of it like that before, that reading sci-fi at an early age opens up your imagination to what's possible, in your life and in the world. It definitely had that effect on me now that I think about it.
tldr; orson scott card is a bigot and ender's game is nazi apologia. if you don't want to read the above it's been written about in numerous places (google "ender's game book fascism").
in your comment, I was pretty sure that there would be a point in the quoted article where the author went from reasonable background/description, to instantly jumping to a completely nonsensical argument, and I was not disappointed.
> The difference between Peter and Ender is not in what they do, but in what they are
What? That's incredibly dumb.
This like saying a serial killer, and someone who shot a person who shot at them first, are the same thing. You can't just ignore context because it's convenient to your argument. By this reasoning, anyone who's not an avowed pacifist -- who wouldn't even fight back against naked aggression -- is equivalent to the worst murderer.
Maybe Ender went too far, but he did act in self-defense, against other kids who tried to maim or even kill him. Peter killed animals because he wanted to. That is nowhere close to the same thing.
Like, does the author of this piece seriously believe that self defense is never justified or something?
> Ender is “kind” and “good” even when his actions seem to belie that characterization.
Ender is ruthless against those who go out of their way to threaten him, that's true enough, but in the context of the story he has an awful lot of threats to his life for a little kid! Brutally fighting back is completely understandable. What else would you even expect him to do, in that situation?
If you're gonna find fault with the story here, pointing out that the adults are all complicit in letting Ender be abused, sure that's bad and dumb. But given that they're doing that, blaming Ender for desperately fighting back is utter nonsense.
>Maybe Ender went too far, but he did act in self-defense
the book is literally about a kid committing genocide and the reasons why he should feel okay about it (ie a pretext). or did you not read it through to the end?
The final battle scene in the book, at least in the old polish release I had, stuck with me for a long time.
Because Ender did the suicide strike thinking it was simulation, and thus he would be finally released from the program as dangerous.
It's literally an attempt to get released from service on medical discharge. He was only told he was operating real world warships after the fact. Before that scene, he assumed (and while there were possible hints, at that point he is increasingly getting less mentally stable) that it was graduate school equivalent of Battle School - as that's what everyone excluding Bean (and that is AFAIK only in the retconny later novels) was told.
To clarify, yes, Speaker for the Dead is the book Card wanted to write, but he found he had to write Ender's Game first to lay the groundwork. And he did. He wrote them in that order (Ender, Speaker). A prequel usually refers to a work produced later that comes chronologically before.
What an author starts spouting completely nonsense arguments, why would I waste my time continuing further?
The author apparently thinks self defense is as bad as killing for the heck of it, if they're that dumb, why would I be interested in their moral judgment for anything else?
Tbh, I think it shows that you went into the link looking for something to fail it over. I don't think the author makes the claim you think they are making.
Yes, I expected that it would make a nonsense argument based on the description of the person linking to it, and that's what happened.
Look, it's them that made the argument. I even quoted the relevant parts. They're clearly arguing that Ender is aggressive and bad because he's violent in response to violence against him. Self defense apparently doesn't count.
If they want to make an argument that makes sense instead, they should do that.
Yes, you quoted a section that describes how the characters in the book view (and struggle with) the fact that the main character kills violently and how that is justified by the different circumstances.
And then somehow claimed that the author describing that means the author thinks circumstances don't ever matter.
Uhh, no. You can even look at other parts of it and see:
> Card thus labors long and hard in Ender’s Game to create a situation where we are not allowed to judge any of his defined-as-good characters’ morality by their actions. The same destructive act that would condemn a bad person, when performed by a good person, does not implicate the actor, and in fact may be read as a sign of that person’s virtue.
"The same destructive act"? Notice again how the author apparently thinks fighting in self defense is the same 'act' as fighting because you want to hurt somebody.
Maybe next up they can argue that target shooting is the same as shooting a person in the face, because either way you're shooting a gun!
> even when his actions seem to belie that characterization.
This isn't just the author asserting how the characters see Ender, it's also clear that the author thinks that "[Ender's] actions belie that characterization". But that's only true if you view fighting back against bullies as not good, if you view self defense as unkind.
Thus, the author's argument is clear: self defense is not acceptable. They won't come out and say it explicitly, because that would make it obvious how dumb the argument is, but that is nevertheless what they're asserting. Instead, they argue it while pretending not to.
Are you sure you're reading the same article? Their argument of "context doesn't matter, only the bare literal act" is quite clear.
Reasons why he should feel Okay with it? He was Tricked into committing genocide, and the story goes on to show that the aliens weren't bad and how the entire war stemmed from the type of misunderstandings that come from interacting with an alien consciousness.
It's far from being a book that advocates for or otherwise encourages genocide
By this reasoning, if tomorrow we found out that the violent video games we've been playing controlled robots somewhere killing real people, that would make everyone who played those games ruthless killers who should at the very least be imprisoned for life, if not executed.
The whole point is that genocide is such a horrible act that while all of the adults are pushing for it, none of them are willing to actually make the call. Ender was manipulated into committing genocide so that the adults could all tell themselves that it was someone else who did it.
And he never feels okay about it. He reaches a sense of peace with the overwhelming guilt, but only by giving his life entirely to that purpose.
The parent comment explicitly says context was ignored. He committed genocide/xenocide because he was literally being deceived and then spends the next 2 books regretting and making up for a move he wasn't responsible for.
The literal example here would be playing any video game but instead of it just being a game you were literally killing whatever the game is about.
In that case, wouldn't you feel that you were wrongly deceived? That you're not truly a killer? But in your eyes and the article's... you absolutely are a killer. 100% responsible and the book is wrong for teaching otherwise.
To me Ender's Game is about how it is almost impossible to not start to love something you know deeply. He couldn't both understand and wipe out the buggers, because understanding them meant seeing their beauty, so he had to be tricked. This touched me deeply.
I found this particular work to be quite balanced. You need to read Ender's Game as a prequel to the Speaker for the Dead where Ender actually grows up.
I think that's reading a little too far into Ender's Game for the average 7th grader... It is a fantastic novel.
The author of the article you posted (who was basing the nazi thing on another author's work) stated this in regards to the "Ender is Hitler" argument, "...Radford’s essay says many things with which I do not agree, and its tone is often intemperate..."
So your bias against Ender's Game is based on a guy who was biased against the very argument that has led to me writing this comment.
I agree. However as someone who read Enders Game as a kid but didn’t know any better I get some folks emotional attachment. I have fond memories though if I read it now there’s a good chance I’d hate it.
Yet I’d recommend those folks who are now adults and cite it as their most influential piece of fiction to go out and read more fiction! :).
Just to be snobby I’ll throw out Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. Beautiful and contemplative.
My best friend in 7th grade had older siblings and they had all read Ender’s Game. He read it and told me I had to read it. Being the impressionable 7th grader (2006-7) that I was I gladly obliged.
I found the book to be deeply fascinating. It opened my eyes to ‘new’ technology like ‘ansible’ (can communicate anywhere in the universe instantaneously) and really opened up my imagination to what I could do with my life.
Growing up in rural South Carolina with dreams of being an explorer or an astronaut seemed kinda far fetched. Most people just wanted you to be a Dr. or Lawyer or get a job at BMW. Ender’s Game showed me that it was ok to be different. It was ok to love to read books and to think that one day I too could have an impact on society.
For what it’s worth: Mark Zuckerberg also had Ender’s Game listed in his books section on FB. But truthfully back in ‘07 I was busy writing poems on MySpace (FB wasn’t rural yet) hoping that I would one day be as influential as the Demosthenes character in Ender’s Game