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).
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