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.
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I think it's so interesting that you bring up the concept of motive and intent, because I think it runs so deeply in the Ender series and particularly in Speaker for the Dead. It's an anthropological concept as well as one of empathy, and I think part of Ender's struggle in these books is dealing with the fine line between the two. The non-intervention policy imposed by Starways Congress takes anthropology into account but not the empathy aspect that the zenadors find so vital in the interaction with the piggies. And yet, the zenadors don't understand what Ender grasps immediately: that it wasn't murder, it was reverence, because their society could not logically exist by killing off the most valuable citizens without some very specific reason.
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