The Hero Figure on the Outside of Society

So, since we didn't have a class last week due to the professor's presence at a conference where he presented a paper on Battlestar Galactica (which makes me incredibly happy, by the way), I have to do another reflective post for the one I missed last week. I was trying to come up with something related to BSG but I haven't watched the show for about a year and I'm drawing a blank. I'm sure that there are a ton of theories on how it relates to social science, but for the moment it's over my head. So, instead I will look at a theory that Professor Jackson brought up in yesterday's class that I found to be very interesting.

In our discussion of Speaker for the Dead and The Martian Chronicles, we got into a discussion of whether humans can ever truly understand the other, something I touched upon in my last post. However, one thing I didn't bring up is Jackson's suggestion that only outsiders in human society can relate to and understand the true outsiders, aliens. This got me thinking about occurrences of this trend in other pieces of science fiction. Obviously, this is a big part of Ender's Game and Speaker as Ender is the ultimate outsider. He is purposely separated from his peers from the beginning in order to cultivate his unique talents and abilities.

To less extreme extents, most heroes in science fiction films and tv shows are outsiders in some fashion. For the most part, the typical hero figure is relatively anti-social, somewhat of a loner, and usually exists on the fringes of society. Off the top of my head I can think of Han Solo, Mal Reynolds from Firefly, and Korben Dallas from The Fifth Element. While these characters are not outsiders in the same vein as Ender, they are outside the normal realm of society in various ways. Both Han and Mal are smugglers, criminals who don't have a place in the developed planets. Mal has a sense of honor from his time in the military, something which also separates him from the criminal world of which he is a member. Unfortunately there is no example of Mal's interactions with the "other." Han, however, originally has one friend only and it's Chewbacca, a completely different species. I mean, come on, they have a total bromance. Like Mal, Han is a criminal and (at least in A New Hope) is extremely anti-social and thinks only of himself. (My friend who's a psychology major even went so far as to write a paper on how Han is a typical example of someone with an anti-social personality disorder.)

The final character I can think of off the top of my head is Bruce Willis's character in The Fifth Element. Korben is an ex-military officer who is now working as a taxi driver. He lives alone, except for his cat, and doesn't like complications (we all know where this story is going). Korben frequently shows his dislike for the political system, something that is assumed to be from his time in the military; he basically wants to left alone, but, of course, he is the only one who can save the world. And he is also the only one who can really relate to and understand Leeloo, who is not human. It's hard to know exactly what she is, but she certainly represents an "other."

The Political-ness of the Other

In this week's class (the first in three weeks) we launched into a very ambitious discussion comparing the alien species in Speaker for the Dead and The Martian Chronicles. To make the conversation even more complicated, we attempted to think of the aliens in terms of Schmittian logic. The question we tried to answer at the beginning of class was whether or not the various aliens were political beings or not. Clearly, we felt that each of the species in Speaker, humans, piggies, and buggers, were political in that they made up distinct groups that interact in a political manner with each other. The simple fact of their interactions, with a special emphasis on the creation of the treaty between humans and piggies, shows that they have political interests and are therefore political entities. These political boundaries are so strong that even though Human announces that the humans and piggies and buggers will now be one tribe, this is not really possible because their cultures and beliefs are far too different.

In our discussion we then turned to the Martians in Bradbury's novel. We saw them in a completely different light from Card's aliens. Unlike in Speaker, there are no real political interactions between the humans and the aliens in The Martian Chronicles. The only interactions are between individuals and small groups. Also, in my opinion, Bradbury seems to make the Martians completely non-political on purpose; they appear to be simply a way of seeing human nature. Because of this, I believe that the Martians' lack of political-ness is an important piece of Bradbury's story. It provides something off of which to base the image of the humans, who are the real focus of the story. Because, as Professor Jackson pointed out in class, when humans are confronted with the other, they are actually confronted with themselves and the need to preserve their humanness.

Another interesting question that was raised in class was whether there can ever be true understanding between two different species of intelligent being. We see what seems to be true understanding between Ender and the piggies and buggers, but some in the class question this. They seem to think that his "understanding" is not complete and is based more on self-preservation and species that are so different can never truly comprehend the other's way of life and beliefs. I don't really adhere to the thinking that Ender doesn't really understand the other species in the book; I think the whole story revolves around Ender's ability to understand the "other" in a way that no one else can. His skill in bridging political and cultural gaps between species is vital to Speaker.

Man's Destructive Nature

One main theme that I found throughout The Martian Chronicles was the destructive nature of humanity. Although the expeditions to Mars begin out of a desire for exploration and discovery, once the planet is deemed safe and free of those pesky alien lifeforms, the settlers move in. Even the way in which the Martians are wiped out by chicken pox is actually caused by man, albeit by accident. It's almost as if Bradbury is trying to show that our destructive nature is something we can't escape from. Even Spender, the one human who tries to preserve Mars and keep the humans out, does so by killing other humans. It's like the characters in the book can't help but turn to destructive actions. Fear is often the driving factor in these decisions. One key example is Sam Parkhill and his rash reaction to the appearance of Martians. He kills two of them despite the fact that they are speaking calmly to him and clearly mean him no harm. He then adds insult to injury by shooting at and destroying a number of their ancient cities when he's running away from them (p138).

Eventually we see this destruction annihilate Earth through a great war. So, the need for destruction does not contain itself to actions against the "other." The father in the last chapter of the book sums up the tragedy very well: "Life on Earth never settled down to doing anything very good. Science ran too far ahead of us too quickly, and the people got lost in a mechanical wilderness...emphasizing the wrong items, emphasizing machines instead of how to run the machines. Wars got bigger and bigger and finally killed Earth" (p180). This passage reminds me of a theory of peace and conflict resolution by Konrad Lorenz. He wrote that although humans are instinctively aggressive, this aggression has been given more leeway by the invention of artificial weapons because they hinder the social inhibitions of killing another human. In other words, guns and bombs and other weapons separate humans from the actual act of killing. This is what I think Bradbury means when he says humans "emphasize machines instead of how to run the machines." When a whole nation can be annihilated by the push of a button, it becomes easier; you don't have to see the people die and the heinous result becomes separate from your actions.

This view of humans as rash, violent individuals is contrasted with the view of the Martians. They are peaceful (aside from their attacks on the humans during the first and third expeditions) and appreciate things like art, science, and religion. On page 67 Spender is talking about his admiration for the Martians and it's hard not to feel the same respect for them as he does. He talks about how they appreciate life for life's sake and they don't question it. The author's intention to make the Martians the fairer species is clear. And why shouldn't we admire the Martians? They didn't destroy each other with a world war. They just wanted to live on their planet peacefully.

Interludes

Bradbury interjects small vignettes in between his short stories to summarize the patterns of human expansion on Mars. What struck me about these short segments is the compressed time-frame of Bradbury's settlement of Mars. Within thirty years, the humans have virtually obliterated the societies of both Mars and Earth.

The first stages of travel are documented: in The Taxpayer, a man demands permission to travel to Mars, while the advent of interplanetary travel is seen in Rocket Summer. After initial exploration, Bradbury describes the descent of settlers on Mars like a swarm of locusts. The short Interim gives the harrowing image of a "twister of Oz-like proportions (that) had carried the entire town off to Mars and set it down without a bump," that hearkens back to the third expedition, where the entire crew is slaughtered by Martians who imitate a middle-American small town.

Again, the idea seems to be that the alien image is contained in our own, and our image in it. Humanity's diseases destroy the martians, and human weapons destroy human civilizations on Mars and on Earth. The martians' madness causes them to emulate us, and Bradbury seems to make the point that we would be mad to continue acting the way we do.

The Martian Chronicles: A Critique on American Society

I enjoy how Bradbury consistently uses the genre of science fiction for his own ends. It is clear that Bradbury crafts many of the vignettes about the future and the colonization of Mars as critiques of American society in the 1940s and 50s. Perhaps this is why Bradbury always said that he is not a ‘science fiction writer’ – because he makes the genre serve as a contemporary social critique so well.

In “And the Moon Be Still As Bright,” the archaeologist Spender, who is on the fourth expedition, criticizes American culture by contrasting it with the ‘ideal’ Martian civilization. On pp. 64-66, he says “'They know how to live with nature and get along with nature...They knew how to blend art into their living. It's always been a thing apart for Americans. Art was something you kept in the crazy son's room upstairs...They'll be flopping their filthy atom bombs up here, fighting for bases to have wars. Isn't it enough they've ruined one planet, without ruining another…Anything that’s strange is no good to the average American." Doubtlessly Bradbury is reacting to the McCarthy conformism and Cold War trends prevalent during the time he wrote The Martian Chronicles. Spender is so fed up with American culture that he is willing to betray his own species and embrace Martian culture as his own. He has forsaken his own and made himself the other.

Aside from the obvious critique on segregation and slavery in “Way In The Middle Of The Air,” another compelling social commentary is the story “Usher II.” This one reminds me a lot of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Apparently Bradbury takes conformism, censorship and McCarthyism to its logical evolution and envisions “moral climate people” whose job it is to ban fantasy in literature and all forms of media. I see the main character as Bradbury himself in this story – perhaps this is what he would do in a similar situation and what he would like to do to all those people that try to censor his work. It is obvious that he, or at least Mr. Stendahl, holds art and the imagination as highly as human life

Did I used to be in a class like Social/Fiction... or Social Science... or something?

We didn't have class this week, but reading Jackie's post on race in Star Wars forced me to wonder: in what sense are there actually race relations in The Martian Chronicles? The humans and the martians rarely actually come into contact with each other, and by the time widespread human colonization is happening on Mars, most of the martians have already been wiped out by disease. The first three expeditions failed, resulting in no actual cultural interaction other than either hostility or disbelief. The fourth expedition succeeded, but only because the martian civilization was absent.

The Martian Chronicles shows us little in the way of race relations. Unlike all of our previous texts, Bradbury shows alien races that are only shadows to each other. In the story Night Meeting, the martian and the human traveler pass each other in time, each unable to perceive that his own civilization is either in ruins or non-existent. One of the stories deals (none too subtly) with relations between black and white Americans. But there are no lengthy dealings between the two races.

Here the analogy with the conquest of the American Indians falls flat. Bradbury ignores the possibility of the two races attempting to coexist, forced to face each other in everyday life. He fails to address the crime of systematically driving out and destroying another people and culture. Instead we miss all of the ugly parts of cultural collision, observing two races that brush past each other in the night.

Racism in Star Wars?

So since we have nothing specific to write about for our substantive post this week, I thought I would comment on something that my friends and I were talking about recently. As I mentioned in my last post, last week during the snowpocalypse I watched Episode I of Star Wars. During the movie, my friend pointed out something that I'd never considered in great deal. She noticed that a lot of the characters and races seem to be fairly racist stereotypes of certain ethnicities. One obvious example is the Trade Federation.

All over the web, there are debates on this topic and it is surely a controversial one. But it got me thinking about our class and our discussion of the "other." In general, we discuss how the "other" is situated within the story and how humans' interact with the alien characters. In this way, we look at what these character interactions say about human nature. What I realized while watching Star Wars is that the relationship between the creator of the aliens (the writer, director, etc.) and his or her creation can also tell us a lot about human nature. Whether or not you think that The Phantom Menace shows clear signs of racism, you can infer a lot about humanity's feelings towards an unknown "other" by George Lucas's presentation of various alien species.

This debate is a complicated one. One could argue that by seeing certain races within the stereotypical characteristics and actions, we are ourselves being racist. In other words, we are projecting our own stereotypical ideas onto Lucas's characters. I don't know that I would go along with this because of the fact that the mannerisms and characteristics of the various races in Star Wars had to come from somewhere. And honestly, it's pretty much impossible for me to look at the race making up the Trade Federation and not see a crude representation of Asian stereotypes. It seemed pretty offensive to me, but if you disagree let me know why. Like I said, there are tons of debates on this topic and I'm sure many of them are very heated.

If you want to see some of the arguments online, check here, here, and here.

Humans Invading Alien Worlds? Ok...

Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles give us a novel view of the "first contact" tale. His cycle of short stories tell of humans traveling through space to greet Martians who can't accept or understand their coming. Then the humans go on to colonize the entire surface of Mars, attempting to make it over in their own image. The colonization of Mars is an analogy to the exploration and settlement of America by Europeans. It can be taken as an extrapolation of European colonization, which first reached across the ocean to America, then into the American frontier; in Bradbury's stories, the European mind-set of colonization is brought by the human race across space to Mars.

The humans initially come to Mars seeking peaceful first-contact. They cannot understand the Martians, and the Martians likewise cannot understand them. This causes an unexpectedly hostile encounter, wherein the humans are killed because they are thought to be incurably insane Martians. The mere psychic presence of the humans has caused an epidemic of madness in the Martian population. This might be seen as analogous to the cultural disease that was inflicted by the visitation of Europeans to America. With no regard for the natives' culture or way of life, the colonists sought to remake the land in their image. Later, we learn that an infection from Earth has wiped out most of the Martian population, the way smallpox killed off many Native Americans.

Humankind, in destroying another culture, cannot help destroying itself. There is a nuclear war that kills off much of the life on Earth. In the final story, the imagery of the Martians in human reflections provides us with Bradbury's stance. Our inability to see humanity in the foreign is the same inability to see the worth of human life. Our disregard for others is the same as disregard for ourselves.

Musings on the Current State of Space Travel

I would like to take this opportunity to write a little bit about the realities of our current space endeavors and ambitions, in light of the dreams and predictions of past science fiction authors. Forgive me if this becomes too personally reflective, but I have been thinking about the topic a lot lately and for a couple of reasons. First, President Obama’s recent announcement of his revision of NASA’s moon plans got me thinking about my childhood dreams of being an astronaut and the prospects of venturing into space in my lifetime. Secondly, after reading “The Martian Chronicles,” which were written by Ray Bradbury back in the 1940s and pinned humanity as having already been to Mars by 1999, I began to feel the elementary pace with which we are moving in regards to space exploration. These two observations really made me disheartened about the prospects of current and future space travel.

I sometimes regret being born in this era – perhaps only one hundred years later and I could have the opportunity to really travel and see the universe – close but no cigar. I would love to be on the Star Trek Enterprise traveling through the “Final Frontier.”

To me the current era feels a little bit stale. The repetition of history has brought us to a time where everything is “corny,” nothing seems unique, post-postmodern movements attempt to tear apart the movement that was deconstructionist itself, or bring back the unity of the modern. Not much seems truly new, untouched and unseen – except of course for space. Yet the real plunge into the mysteries of space look quite unreachable for the lifetime of all those living today.

As Anders Stephanson captures in “Manifest Destiny,” the “new world” provided the Europeans not only with an exciting adventure but the prospects of advancing an intellectual curiosity, namely the idea of a pure society, “a city upon a hill.” Someday when space travel becomes feasible, and perhaps in a more secular world, this excitement will take us into a new “frontier” where our intellectual and philosophical longings can grow. They certainly will mature the closer we come to a realization of the most essential questions: why are we here? How are we here? And what is the meaning of it all? From a purely philosophical perspective, it would behoove us to explore space and seek out the answers to those questions because that is where we may actually find them.

I would be interested in hearing all of your thoughts. Is anyone else disappointed? I mean look at “Back to the Future 2,” which is set only five years from now and has everything from flying cars to moon travel. Or are we actually a lot more advanced than past science fiction writers predicted we would be by today, and am I being unfair? (Certainly with the internet and telecommunications). Do you think we will be able to travel through space in our lifetimes? What is it going to take for us to advance in this area in a significant way? (It took the Cold War last time, no?)

Then My Tauntaun Just Up and Died

So no class this week, cause it was like Hoth out there. Seriously. But anyway, with no class I guess I have to find something else to reflect on. I was forced to watch Star Wars Episode I yesterday so I could reflect on how awful it is. I mean, midichlorians? Really? But I digress. It's still possible to talk a bit more on Speaker for the Dead, (it is a pretty complex book) so I guess I'll do that.

One thing that came up in Speaker that I found interesting was the classic idea of good intentions versus good actions and which matters more. Do motives determine a person's character or do their actions? Card brings this up on page 35 with a discussion among Ender and his students in Reykjavik. In this passage it becomes clear that Ender feels that motives and intentions do play a great role in determining if what they do is good or evil. This makes sense given the evil act that Ender committed because we the readers know that he did it with the best intentions and it doesn't make him evil. This is in sharp contrast with the ideas of the Calvinists who believe that the act itself makes a person either good or evil. One of the Calvinists in the class says, "If the act is evil, then the actor is evil" (p36).

This idea comes further into play with the situation that arises with the piggies. Ender's students discuss if the piggies are evil because they, in human eyes, committed murder. However, Ender brings up the point that this act that appears evil to us, may have a completely different meaning to the piggies, an idea that does turn out to be correct. In this case, the argument for motives over actions holds true again. The piggies thought that by killing Pipo and Libo they were honoring them and bringing them to a better life. In this way of thinking, their actions were good, despite the shocking brutality of what they did. This debate about how important a role intentions play in determining one's inner nature is one that has existed for a long time and I don't think it will be finished any time soon. I hope we can discuss it more in class next time.

Xenocide: Wrong for Over 3000 Years

In Card's sequel, Speaker for the Dead, Ender faces yet another alien species that the humans think they understand. Instead of being a "hostile threat" like the buggers, the piggies are thought of as "savages." In this case, the Starways Congress understands the piggies as little as the IF once understood the buggers. The piggies are a race of extremely psychically-intelligent creatures that endanger other species by microorganisms that are present in their bodies.

The problem the piggies pose is that they, without knowing it, are a threat to human expansion. Again, the threat of xenocide is apparent. However much humankind thinks it has changed its ways in 3000 years, we hear a famous paraphrase from Ender's Game in the introduction to Chapter 17: "Nobody wants xenocide, but if it happens, I want to make sure it's the other guys that disappear."(313) This familiar reasoning follows the logic "if we can't tell what they're up to, it's best to assume they're hostile (or unwittingly harmful)," like we saw in the prisoner's dilemma in class. The humans boost their odds for survival by killing "the other guy" first.

Ender has apparently progressed further ethically in his twenty-odd years of star-travel than the human government has 2000 years since the formation of Starways Congress, which was created nominally to prevent any other inter-species conflict in colony worlds. Carl Schmitt would probably chastise Ender for confusing public conflict with private conflict and erroneously helping his "enemy." Thanks to the Valentine's categories ramen and varelse, Ender is able to distinguish that the piggies are "nearly-human" not "animal-like." Therefore the piggies, though not human, deserve the same rights reserved for humans (and hopefully all other sentient beings). On page 225, Miro compares the piggies to prehistoric man, allowing them the dignity of humanity. From his belief in the piggies' humanity (or raman-ity), Ender is philosophically obligated to help the piggies and humans come to a mutual understanding and a cooperative societal relationship.

Non-intervention and Information Control

Wow, so many things to write about this book. In Speaker for the Dead Card has done it again, except more subtly. In the beginning, he leads the reader to see the logic of the Starways Congress xenologer’s non-interference policy, and then in the end flips the logic around to reveal the darker intentions beneath it.

Starways Congress argued that the policy was in place so as not to “contaminate piggy culture” (3). From their perspective Starways Congress was acting with extreme caution to avoid making the mistake of wiping out the piggies as they had the buggers. “Starways Congress was making sure that if humanity erred, their errors would be in the opposite direction. Minimal information, minimal contact” (3). Their seeming intent was to avoid conflict.

However there is irony in this. The bugger xenocide resulted from a misunderstanding due to lack of communication. This policy of non-interference also results in a lack of communication and misunderstanding.

Perhaps Congress really believed their intention was to keep the piggies from being ‘contaminated’ by the humans, but Ender saw it another way. Towards the end the reader sees the true consequences of their policy of non-intervention. This is a policy that allows for only a one-way flow of information that benefits the humans and maintains their technological superiority over the piggies. The xenologers are also impeded by their own cultural supremacy as they fail to learn the nature of the piggy-tree connection because they disregard the piggies’ talk of how they communicate with their ancestor Rooter. As Ender says to Miro and Ouanda, “You’re cultural supremacists to the core. You’ll perform your Questionable Activities to help out the poor little piggies, but there isn’t a chance in the world you’ll notice when they have something to teach you” (227).

Non-intervention keeps the piggies and humans from ever truly understanding one another, and leads to great misunderstandings and conflicts – as seen in the deaths of Pipo and Libo. The policy of non-intervention, as perceived by Ender, was in place to keep the piggies from advancing and being a real threat to humans, and it had this effect. It was also motivated out of fear - the piggies were seen as a threat to the humans’ survival and advancement, just as the buggers were (299).

What is needed, as Jackie writes, is for “The humans…to learn to see the Piggies as their cultural equals and also to develop an understanding of the differences in their cultures.”

One last observation is on the importance of information and who controls it. I hope we talk about this in class because it is crucial to the entire Ender’s Game series. The one who holds and distributes the information presents it in a certain way. This is how truth is created. It is how the IF propelled everyone to war against the buggers. Conversely, it is how Ender as Speaker for the Dead shaped public opinion against wars - through The Hive Queen and the Hegemon.

In fact, at one point, Jane suspected that there wasn’t an inherent truth but that Ender created truth through his speaking. “She suspected that in fact there was no meaning, that by telling his stories when he spoke people’s lives, he was actually creating order …it didn’t matter if it was fabrication; it became true when he spoke it” (175). Ender sums up our human tendency to believe in the information provided to us perfectly: “We question all our beliefs, except the ones that we really believe, and those we never think to question” (236).

Ramen and Varelse

Card's sequel to Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, brings another dimension to our various discussions of human-ness and what it really means to be human. In this novel we're introduced to a new species of sentient being referred to as the piggies. Their relationship with the humans is complicated: the humans have largely separated themselves from the piggies by use of a fence, but they send ambassadors to learn about the piggie society. However, they are restrained in how they can interact with the piggies in that they are forbidden to even hint at any part of human culture and they can't ask direct questions of the piggies. This relationship, combined with the troubling and seemingly unexplainable behavior of the piggies, causes some people to question whether or not the piggies should be considered to be on the same level as humans. An idea that contributes greatly to this debate is the theory of the four levels of foreignness that is introduced by Demosthenes. In this light, the debate over the piggies revolves around whether they should be considered ramen, another species of human, or varelse, basically an animal (p34). Despite the humans' awareness that the piggies do have intelligent thought and are part of a developed culture, the ideas of "human superiority" (p231) and "cultural supremacy" (p227) remain.

On page 227, Ender addresses these problems when he explains to Miro and Ouanda that they can learn from the piggies and not just about them. Thinking this way is a bit of a catch-22 however, because it means that either they have to hold the piggies accountable for their seemingly murderous actions or they must think of them as simply animals. Breaking through these viewpoints means breaking through the boundary of "otherness." The humans have to learn to see the piggies as their cultural equals and also to develop an understanding of the differences in their cultures. This clearly has implications for real-world interactions; and (not to sound like too much of a hippie) we can definitely learn from the peaceful relations that develop between the humans, piggies, and (we can imagine) the buggers as well. The differences that exist between various human groups (ethnic, religious, national) are no doubt much less than those that exist between the piggies and the humans or the buggers and the humans.

Defining the Friend

I think this weekend we were presented with a positive definition of Schmitt’s idea of the friend, or, rather, since he did not delve into the concept much, the opposite of the enemy. Whether or not the snow storm can be termed a political enemy in Schmitt’s worldview, it had a uniting effect on people. The storm changed normal human relations and interactions. During the storm it seemed that everyone became a Good Samaritan. People walking on the street helped those in their cars who were stuck in the snow. Nearly everyone greeted one another with a smile and sometimes a hello. We were all battling something together and could empathize with one another. Needless to say, a lot of this behavior was due to excitement - something out of the ordinary had occurred.

Nonetheless, the feeling of camaraderie that you get in the face of the other was there. One could say the storm was existentially different from us and the act of bearing it together made us all friends for a day. For that day people greeted one another by saying “stay safe” – it was almost as if our idea of our self expanded to encompass other individuals. Does this mean that the friend can be seen as an extension of oneself, being so close to our own nature? Especially since the enemy is one’s existential opposite?

For that day the storm pushed us to open up to one another and perceive each other as being more similar than different. The enemy can then be seen as the catalyst that pushes people closer together. Does this qualify as another definition of the enemy? Is there any other way to form this friend connection in Schmitt’s view or any other view?

Not All Aliens are as Alien as Other Aliens

In our discussion of Carl Schmitt's philosophy, there were a few interesting points where it seemed that Schmitt's ideas about otherness and war start to unravel.

One of the problems we had was in sorting out what political entities qualified as "enemies." Some of us were able to come up with aliens that had a completely alien system of coordination, which doesn't necessarily qualify as "political." The buggers in Ender's Game never thought of human beings as an "enemy" or even as sentient beings. Likewise, the humans did not recognize the sentience of the buggers. Nevertheless, the humans wipe out the buggers. The bugs in Starship Troopers share this quality, but are still recognized as an "enemy" of humanity.

Carl Schmitt unfortunately didn't have the same Sci-Fi pedigree the rest of us do, and was probably unable (or unwilling) to envision a non-human, non-political enemy. Hive-mind aliens like the buggers, The Borg, or the Zerg from StarCraft lack whatever human politics Schmitt saw as being necessary for enmity. Someone in our class likened a hive-mind "enemy" to a weather system or natural disaster, something Schmitt would not see as an "enemy."

Schmitt Meets the Real Other

I would be lying if I said that some of our discussion on Schmitt didn't make my head spin a bit. Bringing Schmitt's logic into a dialogue about the possibility of alien contact provides some very fascinating, if dizzying, ideas. We went around in circles frequently in class in trying to decide if following Schmitt's logic should and would be the right course to take. Before this, however, we determined what exactly Schmitt's logic purports as the best route. Some felt that going with Schmitt would mean attacking the aliens immediately because of their "otherness." On the other hand, some of us felt that following Schmittian ideas simply means evaluating whether the aliens are friends or enemies, if they pose a threat. In the case of them posing a threat, to the whole population (the question of a united population also came up, but that's a discussion for another time) and not just to some individuals, war is completely justified. Schmitt makes it clear that war is only justifiable when fought against a "public" enemy, not a "private" one. And the very presence of a "real enemy" automatically justifies war (p49).

Getting back to our main focus, we argued in groups whether humanity should or shouldn't use Schmittian logic and whether it would or wouldn't, given the sudden appearance of aliens. It is my argument that we should because whether or not a group of individuals is a threat is key in our interactions with them. (Although if the first contact with aliens turns out as Hollywood usually sees it, we won't have a chance to really assess the aliens before they wipe us out with their advanced technology; sure we might have the opportunity to apply some weak resistance, but with their lasers and heat rays, we won't get much of a chance to think things out politically.) How we determine what constitutes a threat, however, remains to be seen. It could be, as Andrew writes in his blog, that we don't consider the aliens to be enemies due to any crimes that they have committed, "but by virtue of there existing an opposing fighting force which could jeopardize the existence of humanity." In this case, there is the possibilty of huge mistakes being made because, as we see in Ender's Game, an inability to communicate can mean assuming there's a threat when there isn't one at all.

Mapping Concepts of the Political onto Ender's Game

Ender's Game, after reading the Concept of the Political, seems like a war-games scenario testing out a Sci-Fi version of Schmitt's philosophy of politics. Schmitt posits that politics is defined by the antithesis of friend and enemy, the way morals is defined by the antithesis of right and wrong. Schmitt writes that "It is by no means as though the political signifies nothing but devastating war," but from reading Ender's Game, one could be lead to believe that the political does indeed only signify devastation.

The buggers, of course, serve as the "other" or "enemy" that unites the human nations under one cause. Card has provided the nations of Earth with a perfect Schmittian enemy: they came and attacked unprovoked, we are unable to communicate with them- they necessitate the most extreme political action, which Schmitt identifies as war.

Ender, the perfect weapon, is totally personally removed from the war he is fighting. In section 3, Schmitt remarks on the biblical passage "love thy enemy," saying, "The enemy in the political sense need not be hated personally" (p29). Ender feels no hatred for the opponents he defeats in the personal sphere, such as Bonzo and Stilson. Still less does he hate the buggers, the entire race of which he destroys without knowing his own actions.

Orson Scott Card aligns many aspects of his book to Schmitt's philosophy. The Hegemony uses the scare of a bugger invasion to keep control over the world. Peter and Valentine refuse to allow the world to fracture into civil conflict, realizing this would complicate Peter's grab at power. Only Card's hero remains untouched by the concept of the political. Ender desires to live out the rest of his life in peace, helping to heal the crime he committed. Ender is unable to distinguish between personal and political spheres, realizing that people are harmed in both types of conflict. He ultimately chooses exile rather than complicit participation in a system of politics he sees as exploitative and monstrous.

Theoretical vs. Real Aliens

Needless to say, The Concept of the Political is a bit more dry than the previous two books we read. However, there are some important things to take away from Carl Schmitt's political/social theories. In particular, I frequently found ideas that readily connected with Ender's Game. Much of Schmitt's piece is based on the creation of the political through the friend-enemy dichotomy. This obviously has implications for much of science fiction, especially that which involves alien life. In most cases, the aliens inevitably take the part of the enemy. Schmitt even describes the political enemy as "the other, the stranger," and says that he is "existentially something different and alien" (p27). In science fiction, as in reality, this other-ness more often than not leads to conflict because, as in Ender's Game, groups that see each other as alien don't understand each other and can't communicate.

Another connection that The Concept of the Political makes with Ender's Game is Schmitt's idea that the state as a political entity has the right to call on it's members to die and kill members of the enemy in the name of the state. In his words, the state has "the right to demand from its own members the readiness to die and unhesitatingly to kill enemies" when it needs to maintain "tranquility, security, and order" (p46). In relation to Ender's Game, we see this same idea in the fact that the military has the right to "requisition" a human being if they think he or she will be useful in the fight against the buggers, the ultimate enemy. The military in this novel justifies the requisition of children just as it justifies a preemptive strike. I believe that Schmitt would agree with this, in that he writes, "The justification of war does not reside in its being fought for ideals or norms of justice, but in its being fought against a real enemy" (p49). It seems that Schmitt would see the war against the buggers as justified, given the limited information available to the humans. I look forward to hearing how the rest of the class related this reading to science fiction themes.