General Graff’s claim that human beings are not free when humanity requires them to be a tool implies that people must sacrifice themselves for the seemingly greater cause of the survival of the human race. The fallacy of this statement. however, is that humanity is not a being which can determine the necessities of survive; it is a collection of independent entities which have their own needs, wants, and rights. General Graff’s ideology is simply sly manipulation tactics under the pretense of benefiting humanity which ultimately lead to the genocide of an entire sentient and antiwar species. Author Orson Card shows that individuals are not tools to benefit the whole of humanity, but rather the weak individuals used to benefit the strong individuals. …show more content…
In an article titled Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman, the author Elaine Radford compares the child prodigy and the genocidal dictator Adolf Hitler. Correspondingly, both cases of genocide are caused by the idea that to save our people, we must exterminate the threats of a stranger. This highlights just how malicious the I.F actually is and how the argument of individuals being tools to help the rest survive is just a biased and fraudulent ideology which is comparable to ideas leading to the Holocaust. Just like how Hitler manipulated his followers into thinking they were saving their race from inferior others, Graff manipulated Ender and all the humans into thinking they saved themselves from the buggers. Ultimately, humans are not tools to be used by society, but tools wielded by the powerful under the false justification that their actions are for the greater …show more content…
“I didn’t want to kill them all! I didn’t want to kill anybody! I’m not a killer! You didn’t want me, you bastards, you wanted Peter, but you made me do it, you tricked me into it!(page 297-298)” Ender’s fury underlines his own personal detriments, but when this is weighed against the countless lives that have been saved through these actions, it is clear that this was the most utilitarian choice. Furthermore, Mazer Rackham shows how he was the only one who could eliminate the threat, exclaiming “Any decent person who knows what warfare is can never go into battle with a whole heart. But you didn’t know. We made sure you didn't know. You were reckless and brilliant and young. It’s what you were born for.(page 298)” Even at the beginning, it is apparent that Ender’s goal is to save his sister from certain death by the buggers. By eliminating the threat, he has kept what is most important to him safe as well as the rest of
...ahlquist’s sacrifice highlights Heinlein’s belief, that the same self-sacrificing impulse that Winston had, might facilitate positive social change. Contrastingly, Le Guin highlights the continued anomalies in human morality where society willingly sacrifices its morals to meet selfish needs. Overall, people’s capacity to effect social change is relative to the prevailing social conditions, their ability to impact critical aspects of the prevailing conflict and their capacity to accept self-sacrifice as morally justifiable. Consequently, moral ambiguity prevails.
Ender did not wish to annihilate bugger species, as he did not like murder in general. He believed killing the buggers were also a crime as to killing people. He believes that there were more to the buggers than what everyone perceived them to be. And since he nearly killed the entire species, he feels like it is his obligation to help find a new location for the buggers to repopulate. Ultimately, the novel is only a little over 300 pages and overall is an easy read. The only issue I had with the novel was the amount of side characters, making it difficult to remember who was who. Finally, I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys fiction novels that pertain to space and defending Earth from a foreign threat.
They wanted Ender to see that it was a game because this would insure that the humans would be victorious over the buggers. Because of this, Ender has suffered a great ordeal of losses in everything such as life, love, family, and friendship. At this point of my explanation, we can clearly see that Ender does suffice enough to be a Christ Figure because he began his journey with a full heart and now he is ending his journey with nothing left but a new world to live in with Valentine, while trying to find a safe place for the Queen Bugger to live. This is his last and most important mission of all. It looks like as if Ender is beginning a whole new journey. Truth be told, Ender is done, but he has that final step to go before he can call out to home and finally live the rest of days free of
Leading up to that he faces enemies and obstacles in the form of bigger kids and the games that he wins thoroughly, to the point where he cannot be beat. He always is one set ahead of whatever is thrown at him. Until Ender finds the Bugger Queen pupa.” Reached into the cavity and took out the cocoon.” (Card 321) Here in this scene Ender is going against what we have come to see as part of who he is. He has the intent to allow the Buggers to rebuild and try to live along side of humans. Normally he destroys something so thoroughly that it can never hurt him or the people he is fighting for again. This is perhaps one of the very best examples of the theme that one’s past does not define them or their
He is still constantly comparing himself to Peter. In a game Ender played, he had to kill a snake in order to progress which haunts him with thoughts of killing. “‘This game tells filthy lies. I am not like Peter. I don’t have murder in my heart.’ And then a worse fear, that he was the killer, only better at it than Peter ever was.” (Card 115). He is starting to believe that he is not like Peter, however the thought of being no better and maybe even worse than his brother is still in the back of his mind. At this time in the book, Ender seems very opinionated when he compares himself to Peter, and stays that way for quite a while. In chapter eight, Ender is battling a group of boys and ends up hurting them to protect himself. He is later seen questioning why he keeps harming other boys. “I’m doing it again, thought Ender. I’m hurting people again just to save myself. Why don’t they leave me alone, so I don’t have to hurt them.” (Card 115). Now Ender is wondering as to why these people keep attacking him. This causes him to breach his morals and fight back harder so they do not think about coming at him again. Ender’s shame for compromising his morals is starting to turn into
“The only way to end things completely was to hurt him enough that his fear was stronger than his hate (Page 211).” – Andrew “Ender” Wiggin. Fear and the power of fear are very delicate things. If someone has too much fear, it turns to anger. Not enough fear, and they have no respect. The book Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is about fear, especially of the unknown, and the controlling power it has.
Ender eventually goes to Battleschool and takes mass amounts of badgering and teasing from the other kids that are training too. Ender easily moves through the ranks and frustrates every instructor that he has. He becomes a commander and is given an army. He eventually goes to a planet called Eros, find the Buggers, and conclude that they are bugs, and that they have a queen like ants do. Ender finds an old man and finds that it is Mazer Rackham, his enemy. Ender finally finds that all the games he had been playing since Rackham became his enemy, was the real Third Invasion. Ender is a hero.
After much internal debate Ender decides to go to battle school and leave home. He knows he won’t see his family until he is at least 12 but most likely he will have to wait until he is 16. When Ender is inside the ship on the way to battle school, the adults start their manipulation game. Graff calls out Ender as the only one who will save mankind, making the other kids hate Ender and become envious. Ender already lost the chance at having a normal childhood when he was born a third, but he was also considered to be the chosen one to save mankind from the very beginning. The manipulation of Ender is shown through the book and the children at the school either take part in his abuse or ignore the adults who cause it. Through this abusive training tactic Ender becomes the skilled fighter and leader the government wants. Ender gets moved through the program fast. He gets to the command school at age 9, a school no one can go to until they are sixteen. The adults tell him he will be doing simulations to practice the attacks on the buggers, but after the last simulation he finds out he killed the entire bugger species. The novel shows Ender to be morally innocent throughout his story, but he takes on the guilt of xenocide of the buggers. He is shocked at what he did, even when he didn’t know what he’s doing. Ender loses his innocence at this moment. He knew he was being manipulated by the adults throughout his career at the battle schools, but he had no idea he was being manipulated into exterminating a whole race. When he realizes what he did he goes into another depression slump and does not come out of his room for days. He doesn’t understand why he was manipulated into what he
He uses a combination of Peter’s ruthlessness with Valentine’s compassion. “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves” (Card 238). Ender reveals this to Valentine because it is the main reason why he despises himself. Ender first uses his method against Stilson after getting his chip removed. He realizes that with the way Stilson is, the only way to stop him is to cause enough pain to deter retaliation. Learning from his enemies does not only occur on Earth. While being rejected in Salamander Army, Ender studies the good and bad techniques in the battle room. Given that, Ender ultimately beats Bonso once he is in command of his own army. He continues to do this with every person and battle he comes into contact with, making him the best commander at
The pages of history have longed been stained with the works of man written in blood. Wars and conflicts and bloodshed were all too common. But why? What could drive a man to kill another? Many would say it is man’s evil nature, his greed, envy, and wrath. And certainly, they all have a roll in it. But in reality, it is something far less malevolent, at least at first. The sole reason why conflicts grow and spread comes from the individuality that every human cherishes so dearly. This can easily be shown in the story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, in which a society has been created where everyone of talent has been handicapped so they are not better than anyone else, all for the sake of equality. This text will show that Individuality
Life is a valued concept, as are the people and experiences associated with it. However, when one is pushed to the limit of human capacity, they can lose familiarity with the value of their own life. Genocide-- the mass slaughter of a group of people based on their identity-- can have severe effects on the victimized people in a plethora of ways. One can not possibly quantify the grotesque, inhumane treatment witnessed in many genocides. Simultaneously, many victims are vulnerable to their identities being left behind and only their will to survive being left intact. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, recounts his experiences being at the hands of a brutal, systematic killing regime in his award-winning memoir, Night. Wiesel
Imagine you’re eating dinner with your family on a quiet, normal night in your small town. Suddenly, a seemingly mad man comes to warn your family that millions of people of your race are being slaughtered. He advises that you immediately pack everything you own, and leave the place that has been your home your entire life. You probably wouldn’t take his warning very seriously, would you? Living in the twentieth century it was hard to imagine that such a barbaric act was actually occurring. Not adhering to this warning, however, cost millions of Jews their lives. Night by Elie Wiesel lets us into the minds of the Jews who were victimized, and Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning offers us the point of view of the
... he commanded his own platoon. Those are phases Ender went through. During one battle he faced, he cheated. Page 218 describes Ender’s men passed through the gate without soldiers before the gate was reversed. He had to cheat because he was exhausted and he needed assistance. Ender was battling two teams at once, never done before at battle school.. Finally every game has a final stage or battle. In Ender’s Game the final battle was against the buggers. Ender fights them on page 297. Ender was actually tricked into fighting them. This point proves how life is a game because games have a final battle/stage and Ender fought in one. Ender as a game piece, cheating and fighting in a final stage/battle prove how life is a game.
Steven Pinker implied that, “As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to the mass murder of people” (1). Steven Pinker revealed an interesting side to the controversial topic of mass murders and the causes of them. He revealed that as long as people in this world believe that they are better than other due to their race, religion, and everything else that defines a group of people as different from another group of people. People are and have been wrongfully treated differently due to the incompetence of some to realize that everyone is equal. They often believe that they were superior to others because of their physical attributes and beliefs that they had. The Holocaust is a major example of the ignorance of some in history. This ignorance often resulted in the murders and mistreatment of many. Elie Wiesel was one of the six million plus people who were wrongfully mistreated during the Holocaust. Many believe that this sort of event could not occur in the current time period because people have become more civilized and tolerable to the differences of others, but sadly the world is not ready to contain a social utopia. The mass murder, and violence that is occurring in Darfur is one of the many things that shows that the world is far from achieving this social utopia. Throughout history, many occurrences of genocide have occurred due to the diversity of people and even though society has evolved greatly, there are still people and places today that are suffering.
We cannot say what any one of us would do in these men’s positions, as Browning makes it perfectly clear, but this book provides insight into how people do lose their humanity as well as their rationality and embodiment in a situation like this (188). One thing we can conclude from Ordinary Men that is certain is, humans are capable of the destruction of other humans and anyone can do it – although, we always have a choice.