posted
Are you interested in preparing and presenting a paper on themes involving Ender and Philosophy? See below for project information and submission requirements:
Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader.
Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.
Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:
“A Childhood Deferred?”: the ethics of hyper-specialized training for the very young; “The Military and their Monitors”: issues of privacy and civil rights during wartime; “All-Out War”: just war theory and the ethics of total mobilization of Earth society against the buggers; “We Know What You Think”: how and why monitors could be used to keep track of individuals’ inmost thoughts and desires; “They Aren’t Normal; They Act Like—History”: Hegel and the cunning of reason in history and future wars; “The Hook and the Raft”: does the I.F. “System” colonize the human and bugger “Lifeworlds”?; “The Giant’s Drink”; Ender’s training is a simulation, but are we living in one?; “Know Your Enemy”: the strategic philosophies of Sun-Tzu and Ender Wiggin; “Ender’s Game and the problem of Dirty Hands”; “Constructing Subjects in Space”; Foucault and Ender’s military leaders; “Bugger All!”: when cultural incommensurability turns into conflict; “Wiggin’ the Dog”: ethical and political dimensions of stage-managed wars; “Down with the Warsaw Pact!”: the epistemology of blogging; “Locke and Demosthenes”: ‘virtual’ politics with false personas; “Of Bachelard and Battlerooms”: philosophy of bodies in space; “Peter’s in the Mirror Again”: virtual simulations and artificial intelligence; “Valentine’s Day”; philosophy of emotion in Ender’s Game; “Like a Gun”: is Ender responsible for the terrible consequences of his actions, or has he been a pawn for the I.F.? Wm [at Motley Vision] interjects: please note that in later editions OSC changed the name of the alien race from buggers to Formics.
Submission Guidelines:
1. Submission deadline for abstracts (100-500 words) and CV(s): March 19, 2012.
2. Submission deadline for drafts of accepted papers: June 18, 2012.
Kindly submit by e-mail (with or without Word attachment) to: Kevin S. Decker at kdecker@ewu.edu
It's a call for abstracts (in other words, a paper summary) for possible inclusion in a collection exploring Philosophical themes and questions raised, explored, and suggested by Ender's Game.
Posts: 2689 | Registered: Apr 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hmmm... as a point of slight nitpick, the OP references presenting a paper while from what I can see it's just submitting a paper. There doesn't seem to be any sort of conference or forum for presentation, though I could be missing it.
Regardless, it's a neat idea and definitely thanks for the heads up. I would even recommend crossposting it on the Other Side as I know there are some philosophers over there who might be interested and may not check over here that often. I'm a historian by trade, but I've dealt with more than my fair of philosophy (Foucault in particular, for better or for worse). If I have the time I very well may submit an abstract and see what happens.
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Taalcon: Then it's most likely not for you
Actually, I'd blame it on the fact that you barely explained what this is or why anyone should do it (other than offering them an "honorarium", which could mean several things).
What it seems like is a cheap exploitation of various properties in a sleezy attempt to sell books. It also doesn't sound like you pay the contributors at all, despite the fact that you aim to make money off of this, which is equally sketchy. Maybe I'm just missing something, but those are my impressions, given the information present in this thread.
But I digress, you're right in your assumption. This probably isn't for me.
Posts: 1324 | Registered: Feb 2011
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm sure I don't have enough for a Scholarly Paper on the subject, but I do find the Ender's Game - Philosophy of War to be an interesting concept.
In short, you do absolutely everything you possible can, suffer any insult or provocation, to avoid war. But when war comes unbidden, you strike back with overwhelming force. The goal is not to win the battle, nor even to win the war, your goal is to destroy the enemies The Will to War.
That's the principle that Ender applied to the young bully Stilson on the playground. Ender knew a simply one time defeat of Stilson would only encourage more intense retaliation at a later date. Ender wanted to end the war absolutely, once and for all. So, he struck back at Stilson with such overwhelming force that Stilson would never ever even remotely consider attacking Ender again.
Sadly, in that case, the strike back was so intense it left Stilson dead. But that does not invalidate the principle. Rather, it confirms it. You create a circumstance in which any potential enemy so greatly fears the consequences of an attack, they they are reluctant to ever attack in the first place.
Likely the school yard bully who replaces Stilson proceeded very cautiously after Stilson's death. Bullies and countries tend to forget that just because people won't defend themselves, doesn't mean they can't. Pushed too far, then can and will.
You make war such a horrible, devastating, and painful thing that the enemy loses the Will to War. They simply can not bear the thought of continuing, and will do anything to get the war to stop.
I think many countries today could do with a bit of this Philosophy of War. The USA has been mired and muddled in every conflict since World War Two, simply because they do not have this philosophy.
First they start half-hearted wars based on greed and/or posturing. Then they do not enter them to win. They are playing at the game of war. They are building hearts and minds, or engaged in some pointless notion of nation building. Consequently, these wars turn into quicksand that wastes lives and never end.
You only defeat the enemy when you defeat the enemies Will to War. We will never defeat terrorism until through better actions on our part, through diplomacy, or through utter committed defeat of the enemy, we destroy that all important Will to War.
Right now certain individuals have the Will to War in Iran, but that is a Will based on greed and corruption, and as such is a war that can only increase the Will of enemies against us.
Remember the first part of the Ender's Game philosophy is avoid war at all cost, suffer any insult or provocation, do not go to war until war has come irrevocably to you.
I think this philosophy could easily and wisely applied in the modern world; both on a small scale and a large.
posted
I hope that you don't mind some critical feedback, but a) this seems more like military strategy than philosophy, and b) you keep using Will to War and Will without defining these terms. What do you mean by them?
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't know why he capitalized it, but "will to war" seems pretty easy to understand from context (not to mention linguistically).
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
1. I knew exactly what the original post was about. 2. It was just nice of Taalcon to give a heads up.- I appreciated the effort. 3. And what happens with any submissions has nothing to do with Taalcon.
So please CALM DOWN.
Posts: 1 | Registered: Mar 2012
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
