Ender's Game Dehumanization

In “ Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others” David Livingstone Smith states “Rather than looking for explanations for why all people deserve to be treated with compassion and respect, we ought to be working at creating a world in which people are treated with compassion and respect. Human rights aren’t lying around waiting to be discovered. They’re made, not found.” Human rights is a blanket term that covers many subtopics from racism to child labor to dehumanization. In the novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card the main human rights issue is dehumanization, Ender and Valentine dehumanize their enemy much like soldiers do now, the government dehumanizes children and only sees them as tools at their disposal much like

“`it's very difficult, psychologically, to kill another human being up close and in cold blood, or to inflict atrocities on them.’ So, when it does happen, it can be helpful to understand what it is that allows human beings `to overcome the very deep and natural inhibitions they have against treating other people like game animals or vermin or dangerous predators.’” (“Less Than Human”). Ender throughout the novel says that he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. In the novel Ender states that the buggers are just like the humans except for appearance towards the end of the novel Ender is told he is playing a simulation, he later finds out that he killed off all of the buggers like it was some sort of game. “During the Holocaust, Nazis referred to Jews as rats. Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals.” (“Less Than Human”) When Ender arrives at battle school he is no longer a person he is simply referred to as “soldier” in order to make him less of a person so that if and when he gets hurt or killed it is not a big deal just like when you kill a bug. These children are simply that, children from 6 to 16 who are generalized and treated like pawns in a game of