posted
I'm rereading some books I should have read more closely in college, and I am blown away by Hannah Arendt.
In the introduction to On Revolution, Arendt talks about how excuses to justify war change over time. "Conquest, expansion, defence of vested interests, conservation of power in view of new and threatening powers, or support of a given power equilibrium - all these well-known realities of power politics were not olnly actually the causes of the outbreak of most wars in history, they were also recognized as 'necessities', that is, as legitimate motives to invoke a decision by arms. The notion that aggression is a crime and that wars can be justified only if they ward off aggression or prevent it acquired its practical and even theoretical significance only after the First World War had demonstratd the horribly destructive potential of warfare under conditions of modern technology."
The reasons listed above seem immature to our modern sensibilites, considering the inherent horror of war, e.g., going into Iraq to free the Iraq's people is infinitely more just than invading the country in order to hoard their resources. Freedom does not fall easily into the traditional justifications of war. And with the advent of the nuclear bomb and the possibility of a nuclear holocaust, "To sound off with a cheerful 'give me liberty or give me death' sort of argument in the face of unprecedenteed inconceivable potential of destruction is not even hollow; it is downright ridiculous. Indeed it seems so obvious that it is a very different thing to risk one's own life for the life and freedom of one's country and one's posterity from risking the very existence of the human species for the same purpose that it is difficult not to suspect the defenders of the 'better dead than red' or 'better death than slavery' slogans of bad faith."
This quote is especially poignant because I am here as a direct result of so many people who stood up and said that they would be better dead than slaves, but as Arendt goes on to mention, these people fought with the thought that their fight would lead to a generation who would not be in their position. The fighters may die, but they knew that civilization would survive. Even those who believe the opposite, "Better slavery than death," submitted still believing that freedom would not vanish from the earth forever, and that freedom would just arise in a more timely and prudent occasion.: the possibility for complete world annhialation changes this.
Ardent uses the first World War as the harbinger of change, 1) the distinction betwen soldiers and civilians was no longer respected because it was inconsistent with the new weapons then used...it is the function of the army to protect and defend the civilian population. In contrast, the history of warfare in our century could almost be told as the story of the growing incapacity of the army to fulfil this basic function, until today the strategy of deterrence has openly changed the role of the military from that of protector into that of a belated and essentially futile avenger."
2) No state or form of government, will be strong enough to survive a defeat in war. Total war is not a football game where if you lose one game, you have a week to heal-up and go again and hope to see your opponent again in the play-offs. It's total war and unconditional surrender mean that not only did we bomb Hiroshima, we told Japan that they cannot maintain a standing army. Hitler knew that total meant exterminating the Jews. "no government, no matter how wel established and trusted by its citizens, could withstand the unparalleled terror of violence unleashed by modern warfare upon the whole population...under the conditions of modern warfare, that is since the First World War, all governments have lived on borrowed time.
3) The armament race as a strategy of deterrence, which aim at avoiding rather than winning the war it pretends to be preparing. After reading, "On the Beach" a handful of years ago, I don't want to fight or win a nuclear war. And as the pertains to the changing role of the military, "the military are no longer preparing for a war with the statesmen hope will never break out; their own goal has become to develop weapons that will make war impossible."
4)The interpretation between war and revolution. War happens with another for traditional reasons, Revolutions occur within one nation for only one reason, freedom. These are both violent apolitical(not-prepolitical) movements, which exist as the asymptote of politics.
Arendt has a deep appreciation for the Greeks, but the Greek polis, the city-state, defined itself explicitly as a way of life that was based exclusively upon persuasion and not upon violence. "(That these were no empty words, spoken in self-deception, is show, among other things, by the Athenian custom of 'persuading' those had been condemned to death to commit suicide by drinking the hemlock cup thus sparing the Atehnian citizen under all circumstances the indignity of physical violation.)" Arendt argues from the point of view that communication is an essential and definitive human characteristic, not war, and that we have been weaned on too many lies about the beginning of man. "That such a beginning must be intimately connected with violence seems to be vouched for by the legendary beginnings of our history both biblical and classical antiquity report it: Cain slew Abel, and Romulus slew Remus...whatever brotherhood human beings may be capable of has grown out of fratricide, whatever political organization men may have achieved has its origin in crime. At the end of the introduction, Arendt offers another account for the beginning of human affairs that is no more or less self-evident and could act as our salvation, the first sentence of St. John, "In the beginning was the Word."
Child Ender is modern man. He doesn't fight Stilson for traditional reasons, goods, power, or gain. It's not an act of warfare as much as it's a revolution for freedom against an oppressor.
Despite his incredible analytic abilities, Ender has not reached the level of humanity necessary to persuade Stilson not to beat him up. Ender cannot act politically because he isn't talented enough, so he acts apolitically. He is a failure. This is even manifest in his unwittingly killing Stilson. You can map Stilson's death onto the way that US may bumble into a nuclear holocaust. What may begin as showing the world a lesson, showing the whip but not using it, could end in incredible and unforseen destruction.
posted
The analogy breaks down because, though Ender killed Stilson, he didn't destroy the whole world.
Stilson would not have ceased to beat Ender up with any argument whatsoever outside of force. The Stilsons have no morals, no heart, no personhood to be appealed to. Or rather, they are persons but they refuse to see the personhood of the Enders, so that there is no possible argument the Enders could use aside from force which the Stilsons can hear.
This is because Stilson has free will. Ender can NOT make Stilson's choices for him. That is the fundamental block on the ability of Ender to shape his interactions with Stilson.
Any use of force involves the possibility of unforseen damage, collateral damage, unintended destruction.
Just because Stilson didn't realize beforehand that he was in danger from Ender, doesn't mean it isn't still his own doing that he died. He chose to engage in the battle. Not Ender. He CHOSE.
I have no sympathy for the whining Stilsons. Let them open their eyes and see, before it's too late, the humanity and personhood of the Enders. Let them see.
[ December 24, 2003, 04:11 AM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
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posted
"The Stilsons have no morals, no heart, no personhood to be appealed to. Or rather, they are persons but they refuse to see the personhood of the Enders...."
Anne Kate, there's an argument that neo-Peter makes in Children of the Mind that applies here: that merely by defining somebody else as "not a person," you are removing your OWN personhood. In other words, if YOU give up -- if you decide that the other person will never see you as a person, and behave therefore as if they are an unreasonable enemy -- then you yourself have eliminated your own personality.
Your phrasing above -- that Stilson is not a person because he does not recognize Ender as a person -- is an example of how seductive the easy path is.
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quote:Stilson would not have ceased to beat Ender up with any argument whatsoever outside of force. The Stilsons have no morals, no heart, no personhood to be appealed to. Or rather, they are persons but they refuse to see the personhood of the Enders, so that there is no possible argument the Enders could use aside from force which the Stilsons can hear.
I always thought that Stilson was a fat nine? year-old bully. Not incredibly bright, not incredibly caring, though he was terribly insecure. Dollars to doughnuts ( ) his parents didn't read to him. There is an argument to be made that he had more heart and moral acumen than Ender because Ender committed atrocities that Stilson wouldn't have. My analogy isn't perfect because both Ender, Stilson, and everyone watching the fight didn't die. But the unintended consequence owing to Ender's superior knowledge or technology is kind of the same in that Ender never intended to, and on many levels, intended not to, kill Stilson.
quote:Just because Stilson didn't realize beforehand that he was in danger from Ender, doesn't mean it isn't still his own doing that he died. He chose to engage in the battle. Not Ender. He CHOSE.
He chose to engage in battle, he choose to engage in a contest using the Marquis of Queensbury rules and the Geneva convention and all of the other dictums of traditional civilized war. It's kind of like how we expected our enemies in the Middle East to act, and why we were taken aback when two civilian towers were attacked. For months, we were screaming, "That's not fair!"
Stilson chose a battle where the loser is on the ground with a black eye, comes back perfectly healed, and tries it again the next week. Instead, Stilson ended up dead. He went to play soccer match and Ender used a knife and cut him. Stilson chose one game, it was Ender who chose another. That they were resolving their issues by violent games is already a break down of politics.
Stilson entered a traditional war for traditional reasons, a war as old as mankind and as old as the playground, a war for power, enlarging his kingdom, glory, pride. Those reasons aren't seen as necessities to us anymore. Ender on the other hand, Ender was fighting a revolution for his freedom, and our sensibilities deem that a reasonable impetus for violence. Then Ender brought out the nuclear bomb. Do I think it's unimaginative and leads to the indignity and degradation of the human soul, well, those weren't tears of joy Ender was crying after the incident.
Stilson was fat insecure and clumsy, but he wasn't looking to do murder or even horrendous violence. Stilson wasn't in some sort of religious frenzy, and was sort of blase about the entire affair, a routine whooping, and he obviously possessed a voice because he was taunting Ender. Given what I know of the first ten pages of that book, I cannot endorse Ender's actions, I can't even find them permissible, and you seem to be doing both which I find immature and not a little bit disturbing. I'll grab a copy of Eyes on the Prize.
posted
This is a great topic, because it's so personal to both of us. Stilson beats up Ender because he can't recognize Ender's humanity or personhood. Because he is simply unable to understand what things are like from Ender's point of view, or to have any empathy with that, or to put himself in Ender's shoes. Therefore he recognizes for himself the RIGHT to persecute, humiliate, terrorize, and injure Ender for his own amusement, in perpetuity. That's the assumption we start out with, and Ender can try dozens of strategies to get Stilson to see that he's also a person, but all the non-violent ones don't have the slightest effect. Because the fact that they are coming from Ender makes them null and void to begin with, in Stilson's mind. No argument, no logic, no appeal to morals or decency, can possibly work, because it's only coming from Ender, whom Stilson has already negated in his mind as a non-person.
However, actual violence, physical pain, or the threat of physical pain, DOES work. It is to be hoped, of course, that the action required will serve to teach Stilson better, rather than destroy him, but you know what? There's always a risk in something like that. If Stilson gets destroyed, it's too bad, but it's just one of those things. He had a choice all along. He could have changed his heart, but he refused. There is a choice involved. Stilsons have free will. They can decide. They made their choice, and they stuck to it, and so I don't weep for them all that much. I weep more for the many many Enders who lived and died and never found the power or the ability to fight back.
Thank you for reading Eyes on the Prize. <<<<hugs>>>> I'd be delighted to know what you think about it.
[ December 24, 2003, 07:11 PM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
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posted
The fact that Stilson is only nine is very true. Stilsons are always crippled human beings. They are pathetic. But Ender was six. No matter how pathetic they are, they still wield life or death power over others.
Hitler was also pathetic.
It's all just a difference in scale.
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quote:Stilson would not have ceased to beat Ender up with any argument whatsoever outside of force. The Stilsons have no morals, no heart, no personhood to be appealed to.
How do you know that? We certainly never get to peek inside Stilson's head.
quote:That's the assumption we start out with, and Ender can try dozens of strategies to get Stilson to see that he's also a person, but all the non-violent ones don't have the slightest effect. Because the fact that they are coming from Ender makes them null and void to begin with, in Stilson's mind.
Again, how do you know this? Ender doesn't take the time to try other possibilities, and we have no idea what is going on in Stilson's mind.
There is only two relevant differences between Stilson and Ender in the situation: (1) Stilson started it, and (2) we get to see what Ender is thinking, but not what Stilson is thinking. I'm sure if OSC wrote the scene from the perspective of Stilson, it would be Ender who'd be called the heartless, immoral nonperson. After all, Ender is the one killing people, with little provocation - or at least provocation that normal kids would only respond to with crying or wild punching.
quote:Hitler was also pathetic.
Was Hitler an Ender or a Stilson?
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posted
Hitler was a Stilson, of course. And I'm not talking about the specific Stilson so much as I'm talking about Stilsons as a type. I know them well. We meet them again and again in various circumstances, our whole lives long. In history and world events as well as just our experience of them from the playgrounds and highschools of our lives. How long do you think we should have to try before we can say they aren't ever going to listen? Is a decade long enough? 20 years? 40? Or should we wait for generations?
The amount of time you wait makes no difference. They aren't ever going to change until they are made to change.
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posted
I've met people that acted like Stilson, but I haven't met anyone with "no morals, no heart, no personhood to be appealed to." I've met many people with whom certain appeals to logic and decency don't work, but that's hardly grounds for saying such appeals could never work with them, that they could never learn, or that they have no personhood.
(I'll add that there have been those who have claimed you fall in that category - the Stilsons. There have been those who claim I'm in it, too. Given this, I do not like the suggestion that such people should give up on appeals to sensibility with us, destroy us violently instead, and then claim it was our own choice to be destroyed.)
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quote:That's the assumption we start out with, and Ender can try dozens of strategies to get Stilson to see that he's also a person, but all the non-violent ones don't have the slightest effect. Because the fact that they are coming from Ender makes them null and void to begin with, in Stilson's mind. No argument, no logic, no appeal to morals or decency, can possibly work, because it's only coming from Ender, whom Stilson has already negated in his mind as a non-person.
If Stilson had already so fully negated Ender as a person, why would he take the time to bully him. I don't have a copy of the book here, but wasn't Stilson embarrassed, threatened, or put-off by Ender sometime in class?
I definitely don't remember Ender running through the gamut of any non-violent methods, especially concerning the root of the issues between them, and I don't remember Ender thinking about anything as deeply as he reasoned the effectiveness of violence. He was worried about what would work, and what would work the best, and having that trumph any concerned with decency, dignity, or humanity.
Your apologies for his actions just sound like those apologies I hear from parents who yell and beat the tar out of their kids in order to get them obey. Ender's recourse showed his lack of savvy, and to the extent that non-violent communication is the an essential characteristic of humanity, a want of humanity. In his defense, he was six years-old.
I think we over-prescribe inhumanity to villians because it takes an incredibly keen eye, nimble mind, and deep reservoir of knowledge to deal with them appropriately. Shrinks over-prescribe drugs and surgeons over-prescribe surgery for similar reasons.
posted
This is what happens when we start looking outside the story to tell us what characters mean and are.
Ender isn't "modern man" or a metaphor for the modern military any more than Stilson is himself a metaphor for past history of foreign relations.
Ender is what he is. A vastly intelligent, somewhat wise, frightened, bullied, outnumbered, lonely little boy in elementary school. He wasn't just frightened and bullied in school either, he had the grinning goblin of Peter at home to contend with, as well as parents whom we now know did much less than they could've.
quote:Child Ender is modern man. He doesn't fight Stilson for traditional reasons, goods, power, or gain. It's not an act of warfare as much as it's a revolution for freedom against an oppressor.
Despite his incredible analytic abilities, Ender has not reached the level of humanity necessary to persuade Stilson not to beat him up. Ender cannot act politically because he isn't talented enough, so he acts apolitically. He is a failure. This is even manifest in his unwittingly killing Stilson. You can map Stilson's death onto the way that US may bumble into a nuclear holocaust. What may begin as showing the world a lesson, showing the whip but not using it, could end in incredible and unforseen destruction.
Freedom from oppression-or at least from external, foreign aggression, is a justification for war as old as the hills, Irami.
You who, as usual, sit On High in moral and ethical judgement...tell me, how else could Ender have ended his suffering at Stilson's hands? A method he could reasonably have been expected to know, I mean? His choices were, utltimately, twofold. Ender could either continue to endure Stilson and Stilson's little crew, or he could take some form of action to try and stop it. Ender knew-as do I, and you if you have any knowledge of bullies-that ignoring them, or waiting for them to stop bothering you simply doesn't work.
So Ender could tell a teacher or a parent. But this would only be partially effective. Teachers and parents are simply not there, and in fact they're not there in the times Ender is most vulnerable. Besides, telling a teacher or parent would've guaranteed further torment. He could've tried "statesmanship", although what bearing this word-even as an analogy-has on a schoolyard fight I don't know. What possible chance does this have of working? Stilson doesn't resent and envy and fear Ender for something Ender did to him. He feels those things for Ender because Ender is Ender!
Someone who resents you not for anything you did, but because of who you are, isn't going to be responsive to dialogue in the best of circumstances. Certainly not immediately before a fight, when dialogue appears-rightly-to be weakness. The point isn't that Ender isn't talented enough, the point is that no one is talented enough to "talk Stilson down" from thrashing Ender.
What could Ender have said to Stilson, Irami? Do you have an idea? Or not?
Ender is not a failure. He is a failure if you arbitrarily apply your moral and ethical landscape to him. When in fact Ender accomplished his goal-Stilson would never bully him again.
Now, then. This is seperate from Ender's excessive use of force, which was intentional. Ender cannot have been expected to know that it might result in Stilson's death. He is not a doctor. He's never beaten a foe or seen one beaten in such a fashion. He's never seen anyone die.
This is different from how so-called superpowers wage and prepare for war. We know what could happen, but like all previous generations we try not to think about it. Or when we do, we end up with things like MADD. Your metaphor fails for this reason.
quote:There is only two relevant differences between Stilson and Ender in the situation: (1) Stilson started it, and (2) we get to see what Ender is thinking, but not what Stilson is thinking. I'm sure if OSC wrote the scene from the perspective of Stilson, it would be Ender who'd be called the heartless, immoral nonperson. After all, Ender is the one killing people, with little provocation - or at least provocation that normal kids would only respond to with crying or wild punching.
Wrong. There are vastly more differences. Ender was the one accidentally killing people, when he is attacked without provocation first. Ender is not a "normal kid", either.
quote:I definitely don't remember Ender running through the gamut of any non-violent methods, especially concerning the root of the issues between them, and I don't remember Ender thinking about anything as deeply as he reasoned the effectiveness of violence. He was worried about what would work, and what would work the best, and having that trumph any concerned with decency, dignity, or humanity.
Of course he was, geeze. He didn't have time to ruminate on the morality of nonviolence and pacifism. It was fight now, or take a beating.
There is nothing wrong and ignoble of being concerned first with what works. There is something distasteful about armchair quarterbacking on Tuesday morning, examining with the clarity of hindsight in microscopic detail a person's behavior, and then sitting in judgement with the distance and safety of the passage of time and telling someone they did something wrong or right. It's not only distasteful, it's a flawed way to evaluate people. You'll always get bad results. You cannot judge people that way and expect to get anything accurate or truthful from the judgement. You have to judge them by what a reasonable person could be expected to know at the time the thing was happening.
Ender cannot have reasonably been expected to know intuitively the finers ethical points of nonviolence and pacifism as such a young child, particular given his experience with Peter, much less reasonably be expected to have had all of that flash through his mind at the same time as fear and adrenaline.
quote:Your apologies for his actions just sound like those apologies I hear from parents who yell and beat the tar out of their kids in order to get them obey. Ender's recourse showed his lack of savvy, and to the extent that non-violent communication is the an essential characteristic of humanity, a want of humanity. In his defense, he was six years-old.
Wow. You finally mentioned it. And you'll have to go a lot deeper to compare Ender to violent parents. How, exactly, do those apologies sound like theirs?
Incidentally, Stilson is a person. Even craven bullies are people. Humanity includes both the pinnacle and the pits of emotions and morality. But humanity has nothing to do with whether someone will survive unscathed or survive injured or die when they attack someone else, inviting a response.
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posted
Since you asked, if I'm Ender, and I can't come up with a reasonable solution, and no, I do not consider his actions a reasonable solution, I try the next best diplomatic solution, fail, fight, and go home with a few scrapes and bruises and spend the next week spending my considerable cognitive powers studying on how to imbue a sort of civic responsibity either into Stilson or into all of those onlookers who watched the fight happen without having the gumption or the sense of duty to step in. If three people stood up in that crowd told Stilson that he was better than bully, the entire dynamic is different.
This could be the overarching moral of the four book story. Of course, beating Stilson to a blood pump as a public display of your monsterous inclinations works too, but I like the other way.
__________________
quote: There is something distasteful about armchair quarterbacking on Tuesday morning, examining with the clarity of hindsight in microscopic detail a person's behavior, and then sitting in judgement with the distance and safety of the passage of time and telling someone they did something wrong or right. It's not only distasteful, it's a flawed way to evaluate people. You'll always get bad results. You cannot judge people that way and expect to get anything accurate or truthful from the judgement. You have to judge them by what a reasonable person could be expected to know at the time the thing was happening.
We are talking about the murder of a nine year old boy by a six year old boy, maybe a little armchair quarterbacking is called for.
One thing, since time is short. It was not murder. Murder requires intent. And if you want to armchair quarterback, do it properly. Don't sit there in your ivory tower dispensing moral judgements with a set of facts and beliefs you have but Ender could not have reasonably be expected to have.
Then again, ivory tower judgement seems to be your forte, so take that for what it's worth.
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posted
You are talking about fictional characters coming from the mind of one man who created each dilemma and choice and course of action each character took.
If three people in the crowd told Stilson he was better than bully, he would either ignore it, become defensive about it, become angry, or change his ways. His choice and action wouldn't be his choice--it would be the authors. Characters have no free will. The most truthful characters do have hte illusion of free well, and perhaps as they are written, their choices and actions seem to flow out from them. But that comes from the written character. Stilson's character was the bully. Changing that character would change the drive of the entire novel.
Ender had to face adversity in his young life when he has no concept of life and death. Six year olds don't yet have that capacity. Sure, they do have morality in terms of knowing right from wrong as they are taught by family and their culture. If Ender or the crowd had changed Stilson's character into a redemptive character, then how could Ender's character keep his consistency in using brutal force because it was what he knew to escape his oppression and excel and beat the game, when his first lesson in that would instead be "Use of proper words and negotiation techniques could easily bring about change."
Then how easily would it have been to talk to the buggers?
That didn't happen till later, when Ender became an adult capable of the emotional grasp needed to fully understand death and its ramifications on the dead and the living. So he then spends his life making up for that, wishing he had known as a child.
But because he WAS a child, he didn't know.
But his author DID know. Ender isn't some outward overarching symbol of anything. If he is, it's because someone has imposed this role onto his character. Ender made the choices he did and took the role he did because it was written that way.
If Stilson were a real boy?
In a crowd of children watching a fight, none among them would have the notion to tell Stilson that he is better than bully. Why? They don't want to get the crap beat out of THEM. Because fight watchers generally want to see a fight, not to have someone talked out of it. Because kids generally don't think or talk that way in elementary school. They start thinking and talking like that in adolescence, as their brains continue to develop. If three kids had said, "You're better than bully," most likely Stilson would have gotten defensive with his weakness called out in front of others. Defensiveness would bring out anger to cover fear of weakess being exploited, and Stilson would have gone on to prove that he is strong in his OWN mind, strong in terms of his own connotation of strong.
Ender did not premeditate Stilson's death. He DID plan to fight him to free himself from the oppression. How Ender was written, he also had Peter's oppression coupled onto Stilson's oppression, and his fighting tactics got nasty because his emotions got the best of him. But he's six and most six year olds, even despite great intelligence, have little capacity to truly regulate strong emotions. Ender may have committed manslaughter, but until he reached adolescence, he wouldn't have a true concept of what he'd done. As written, his understanding happened very early, but as said, he IS a fictional character and each nuance of his personality controlled by the man who wrote it.
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posted
See, I do think this is where it gets mixed up. Ender and Stilson are little boy characters written by a fully grown and mature man.
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quote:spend the next week spending my considerable cognitive powers studying on how to imbue a sort of civic responsibity either into Stilson or into all of those onlookers who watched the fight happen
You're a scared little boy, who is being threatened. You're not a sociologist trying to understand the way things work. Are you really sure this is what scared little boys, no matter how smart, are capable of doing?
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posted
See, even if you were a trained sociologist, you're still a human being first. That means you have considerable emotions and first reactions and being able to take a beating and walk away and spend a week analyzing it...
quote:See, even if you were a trained sociologist, you're still a human being first. That means you have considerable emotions and first reactions and being able to take a beating and walk away and spend a week analyzing it...
You're one exceptional human being.
Or you are just an adult. I don't know what kind of lives people live to allow them to throw tantrums every time they are beaten, or allow them even to run away everytime they are beaten, but that's an incredible sense of entitlement. Contrary to what Rakeesh thinks, I don't live my life in an irovy tower. I work overtime at a regular job and live a regular life. I tend to find trouble slightly more often then most, but I think that's because I don't live my life ignoring or running away from it, and the same sense of duty and responsibility I talk about on Hatrack is made manifest in my everyday actions and interactions. At this stage, I'm beaten more than I win, but it's a big and cunning world and if I can hit .320 with a hand full of homeruns and stolen bases, I'm living pretty well. But I don't that that lacking the sort of entitlement described above is exceptional. Then again, I don't have bloodlust.
posted
I wouldn't call it throwing a tantrum or running away. Sure, running away would be one option open instead of taking a beating. The other would be to defend yourself. Humans have a fairly strong instinct for self-preservation. So as a human being coming against something that threatens you, it's really going to be hard to overcome that instict and let yourself get beaten up.
That's why suicidal folks ARE ill, because that instinct has gotten messed up.
That's why Ghandi was such an extraordinary individual. He didn't fight for that self preservation on an instinctual level.
I suppose, compared to Ghandi, the rest of us are just children and have a lot of growing up to do.
That's fine. I'd rather fight back enough so I don't get the crap beaten out of me anymore. I've had that happen enough times.
You can't reason with a drunk man, whether with power or with liquor.
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quote:So as a human being coming against something that threatens you, it's really going to be hard to overcome that instinct and let yourself get beaten up.
I think there is a false dichtomy, doing violence and doing nothing. It's a strangely American approach, though not uniquely American. There is an entire realm of action between violence and impotence where most good people live. Ghandi did fight, but unlike Ender and those ladies in the Chicago's cell block, he just didn't narrow or degrade his soul by killing. His being able to short-circuit his self-preservation instinct in the name of independence between India and Britain and peace between India and Pakistan, when I'm sure that at any one point in time all three parties "had it coming," is a lovely display, but not that uncommon. Firefighters do it. Cops do it. Soldiers do it. Teachers do it. Anyone who chooses not to live in a gated community does it. It's no strange feat to place your morals above your health. Though I do wish that more people took the time to think about the whys and the hows.
posted
You put it all on Ender, but why not ask why Stilson made the choices he did? Why does he choose to beat up little kids? What is it about him that causes him to fail to empathize with others? Or to get his jollies from putting people into great distress? Why is that fun for him? Why, when it's been explained to him again and again, when he's been taught the concept of justice and fairness, when he's been cajoled and requested and begged and reasoned with, does he refuse to see? Why is he filled with delight at the prospect of tormenting someone helpless, and watching them suffer? What sort of human being is he?
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I think it serves as evidence that Stilson's death is ultimately a monstrous and inexcusable mistake committed by a young boy who, even by the age of six, has been so manipulated by authority that he cannot conceive of any other response to bullying than overwhelming violence that OSC -- the person who wrote that particular scene -- has decided to completely ignore Stilson's murder in the screenplay treatments he's written up so far. Because, let's face it: giving that killing the screen time it would deserve would in fact present Ender as a brutal little monster, since we don't have the benefit of internal exculpatory narration in film.
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quote:You put it all on Ender, but why not ask why Stilson made the choices he did?
1) Stilson didn't kill anybody.
2) It's easier to believe Stilson acted out of ignorance, where a better argument could be made that Ender should have known better.
It took a few posts to get him to be considered a person, so this is a step in the right direct.
quote:Why does he choose to beat up little kids? What is it about him that causes him to fail to empathize with others? Or to get his jollies from putting people into great distress? Why is that fun for him?
It doesn't sound like he has a whole lot of skills. It could be the only thing he does well. Some people can knit beautiful afgans or play quidditch.
quote:Why, when it's been explained to him again and again, when he's been taught the concept of justice and fairness, when he's been cajoled and requested and begged and reasoned with, does he refuse to see?
I'm not ready to take this as a given. Most of the people I know who have been in and out of jail or have picked up too many bad habits, have done so expressly because they were not taught the concept of justice and fairness, or begged, requested, or reasoned with, I'm skipping "cajole" because of the bad connotations. And if they were taught, the criminals weren't taught by an able teacher.
It's one of the reasons that I liberally apply moral arguments to everyday human relations, because I don't take for granted that people have been exposed to, or thought through, the morality of their actions. It's easy to believe that Stilson just hasn't thought about it. Ender, on the other hand, from all of the pomp surrounding his uncanny precociousness, and the level of thought he took in his actions surely was on a different level. It's reasonable to assume that when he consciously chose to break with standard playground protocol, he realized that the reason the standard playground protocol had evolved was to avoid serious injury. That's why it's easy to portray Stilson's death as Ender's negligence.
Point taken. You think in an ivory tower, and dispense judgements from there.
quote:Then again, I don't have bloodlust.
Sure you do. It's in everyone. Statements like, "I don't have bloodlust" invalidate your own capability of making moral judgements. Maybe you've repressed that so-called baser impulse, or maybe you've reasoned against it to a point where it's no longer an impulse, but it's certainly still there. And refusal to condemn violent response to bullying is hardly "bloodlust", it's simply practicality. In fact, condemning a violent response to bullying as bloodlust is self-righteousness.
But you might agree with that.
Violence in self-defense isn't "throwing a tantrum", either. You're going to have to do better than painting those who disagree as impolite children and yourself as the learned adult.
quote:I think there is a false dichtomy, doing violence and doing nothing. It's a strangely American approach, though not uniquely American. There is an entire realm of action between violence and impotence where most good people live. Ghandi did fight, but unlike Ender and those ladies in the Chicago's cell block, he just didn't narrow or degrade his soul by killing.
Certainly there are more responses than violence and nothing. Similarly, violence is not always barbaric bloodlust. And someone's going to have to refute the stupid comparison between Ender and the female cast of Chicago. They were first-degree murderers killing unexpectedly other human beings out of revenge. Ender was a frightened, outnumbered, alone child who responded to bullying with violence and went too far-unintentionally.
quote:His being able to short-circuit his self-preservation instinct in the name of independence between India and Britain and peace between India and Pakistan, when I'm sure that at any one point in time all three parties "had it coming," is a lovely display, but not that uncommon. Firefighters do it. Cops do it. Soldiers do it. Teachers do it. Anyone who chooses not to live in a gated community does it. It's no strange feat to place your morals above your health. Though I do wish that more people took the time to think about the whys and the hows.
I'm surprised that when you were creating that list you missed the most obvious point. That being that the people you mentioned are trained to do that. They have indoctrination that teaches them why overcoming the instinctive self-preservation is important or even necessary. And it doesn't always work even with their training. Desertion is a crime for a reason, after all. Gandhi had a long-term goal in mind that included self-preservation of his nation. He reasonably and ricorrectly expected that, given a medium-term effort that included personal physical risk, the long-term benefits would be enormous.
These people are entirely different from Ender. Ender wasn't a third as old as the youngest of the people you mentioned. Ender was alone. Ender had no training. Ender had not nearly the depth of experience those people had. Ender had no ideology making self-sacrifice important or even reasonable. Ender had no expectation of anything more than further torment. After all, his other experience with bullies was with his brother who was not, at that time, the flawed savior of humanity we come to know in Children of the Mind.
You don't mention this until quite a bit later, and his age has gotten less than a cursory nod from you...but Ender was alone, outnumbered, outweighed. He was not a cop, or a soldier, or a teacher (?), or a Gandhi or a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A scared, panicked, alone, and outnumbered little boy with the strong belief that he's going to get his tail kicked cannot be expected to behave in the same fashion as those types of people.
Intelligence or "uncanny precociousness" isn't the same as being level-headed in a crisis, being able to manage one's fear, being able to harden into a diamond under pressure instead of crumbling into coal dust...these things have little or nothing to do with high intelligence.
You're sitting calmly in your room, at your desk. You're warm, under no threat of physical violence. You're not alone, or at least if you're alone you don't feel lonely while reading. You're calm, there's no adrenaline. No instinctive fear coursing through your mind and body. Your brain isn't remembering the only other experience with bullies you have, of the superbly cruel and cunning Peter who doesn't stop, just perhaps delays (at best).
None of this, though, stops or even slows down your rush to judgement. It is sad that I am not blessed with your apparent abilities in crisis-management and ignoring fear to think rationally under great stress. I could be an ER surgeon while defusing a bomb and landing a jet on an aircraft carrier at night if I had a tenth of what you're requiring of Ender, for God's sake! And Ender was only six!
quote:I think it serves as evidence that Stilson's death is ultimately...
Once again you use exactly the correct word, Tom. Ultimately the mistake does belong to Ender's puppetteers. They knew exactly what the reaction would be when Ender's monitor was removed, particularly when it was removed later than usual. It was, as we know, another of their "real-life" tests of Ender. They waited longer to take Ender to Battle School to see how he'd perform.
quote:1) Stilson didn't kill anybody.
2) It's easier to believe Stilson acted out of ignorance, where a better argument could be made that Ender should have known better.
It took a few posts to get him to be considered a person, so this is a step in the right direct.
Well, it's taken some time for you to use the word "kill" instead of "murder", so indeed progress is being made.
Why should Ender have known better? His brilliant intelligence? How intelligence will respond is shaped by its experience with similar past events. The only similar experience Ender had was with Peter. Peter, who he could never escape. Peter who knew him so well and was thus able to inflict great cruelty. Peter, who was unbeatable in every way to Ender. Suddenly Ender is faced with a group of bullies he can defeat, but faced with them in the place he is free of Peter. And you're expecting him to do what? Just take his licks there? Is he not permitted to wish for one sanctuary free from torment, Irami?
Apparently not. Whether or not Stilson is a person is irrelevant. Personally I think he is. Nor did he deserve to die. At the same time, Ender did not intend to kill him. Nor can anyone reasonably examining what happened expect Ender to have understood that what he was doing when he was doing it might kill Stilson.
quote:It's easy to believe that Stilson just hasn't thought about it. Ender, on the other hand, from all of the pomp surrounding his uncanny precociousness, and the level of thought he took in his actions surely was on a different level. It's reasonable to assume that when he consciously chose to break with standard playground protocol, he realized that the reason the standard playground protocol had evolved was to avoid serious injury. That's why it's easy to portray Stilson's death as Ender's negligence.
Sure Stilson thought about it. He thought he liked it. It is clear he thought that much. You think bullies don't enjoy the power they feel when they're doing it? You're deluding yourself. Whether or not they're not also in pain or would enjoy something else more-acceptance, for instance-is something else.
Nor is it reasonable to expect that when Ender chose to break with "standard playground protocol", he should've known life-threatening injury would result. What experience does he have with life-threatening or even serious injury? Has he ever seen someone seriously injured? It's obviously never happened on the playground. The closest he's gotten to it is perhaps to have read of it. It's easy to portray Stilson's death as Ender's negligence only if you're typing on a computer, a grown adult, thinking and writing in safety, unthreatened and unaltered by the changed brain chemistry resulting from fear.
posted
The thing about firefighters, cops, soldiers, and even teachers, is that when they're fighting and putting their own health aside for someone else's, they're doing so from a position of power. By their status in society, firefighters and cops hold power. Soldiers hold power by right of their weapons and training. Teachers hold power over their students in many ways--grades, wisdom, age. When you are in a position of power, it's SAFE to put your own health aside for others. You don't NEED to fight for yourself. You are already taken care of.
Stilson is in a position of power, Ender is not. Despite Ender's brilliance, he is just a six year old boy who does not understand the concept of life and death. Because Ender has no leverage other than his ability to stop Stilson from beating the crap out of him, Ender fights. Yes, Ender does take it too far and when he's old enough to understand just what he did, he's shocked, appalled, mortified, disgusted. But that realization comes when Ender is an adult. The same thing happens when Ender writes about Peter.
But Ender could only recognize those things when he is: 1) an adult 2)in a position of power.
Stilson holds the power. The responsibility is not Ender's to take the beating and figure out a way to eventually get Stilson to get over himself. Ender's job is to keep Ender alive and well. It is Stilson's job to recognize his abuse of power. But will he? Most likely not, because it's that power that he lusts after and relishes and makes him who he is, for the time being. Sure, maybe Stilson bullied because it's what he's best at. That still makes him a bully. Sure, Ender defended himself and killed his tormenter because that's what he's best at. That still makes him a killer.
When you hold power, it's your responsibility not to abuse it and oppress those who are under you. Oppression brings out the nastiness in human beings on both sides.
But it still remains that Ender and Stilson were written from a grown man's perspective. Their characters are six year old little boys who would only know what happens to them in the present. For a six year old, a week is FOREVER. They're just beginning to learn to regulate strong emotions and tempers and such. They don't know what life and death really mean. They don't get the concept of mortality.
Ender knew he had to face a bully at the end of his school day. It was either he gets beaten up, or he stops the bully from doing so. For a normal six year old, a fight would ensue and one child would win and one would lose and both would still be alive. A normal six year old would be content with stopping the bully and going home unbeaten. A normal bully would leave that kid alone after that--continued attempts to beat the kid up would allow others to see the bully's weakness and remove him from power.
Ender is not a normal six year old and neither is Stilson. Ender DOES defeat Stilson--then he takes it one step further and makes sure to end all bullying.
A six year old wouldn't have that concept.
Stilson would have left Ender alone after that, were he a normal six year old.
But he wouldn't have.
Stilson and Ender were written by a grown man, so they have cognitive abilities beyond the range of a six year old.
Were Ender and Stilson two grown men, Ender would have much more to drawn upon for problem solving through his situation. He would have access to power and not be as powerless when facing Stilson.
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posted
Ender didn't know he was killing Stilson. Graff and his program did their best to create this person and condition him to use deadly force unwittingly.
It is more analogous not to general policy, but the training of people to deploy a WMD without hesitation.
Edit: Also, a reason Card refused to make Ender's game into a teen hearthrob vehicle was because it is important that he be a child. Children are very malleable.
quote:Irami wrote: Stilson chose a battle where the loser is on the ground with a black eye, comes back perfectly healed, and tries it again the next week. Instead, Stilson ended up dead. He went to play soccer match and Ender used a knife and cut him. Stilson chose one game, it was Ender who chose another.
Irami uses the word loosely, but I think the word "game" illuminates an important point. Bullies think it's a game. Stilson probably either thinks it is extremely likely that he won't get hurt, or he doesn't think about getting hurt at all. Whatever he's thinking, Stilson clearly enjoys the power of being a bully, especially after the extended period of time when Stilson was not able to get away with hurting Ender because of the monitor.
Ender sees things differently. He sees a threat. Most of the time, his violent encounters have been with Peter, who often threatens to kill him. For Ender, the threat of violence is a threat to his survival.
The natural instinct for mammals is to choose fight or flight. This would be the same instinct influencing his opinion when he first chooses to defend himself against Stilson's imminent attack. This is different from the choice he makes after Stilson is on the ground. But getting Stilson on the ground makes further violence easier with the increased heart rate and adrenaline.
When Ender sees the threat of violence from Stilson, the psychology of his past with Peter is affecting his thinking (as has been mentioned at least twice already). He wants escape (he agrees to go with Graf to Battle School to escape Peter), not just from Stilson, but from any other bullies in the crowd of onlookers. He is being held at first by other members of the crowd. He feels desperate, cornered. The one, consuming thought in his brain is avoidance of further beatings. (Like Irami said, we know what Ender is thinking. He does not consider non-violent means.) His intelligence shows in his thought of preventing future violence by this lesson that he doesn't fight by the rules, and therefore is to be feared and avoided. This separates him from the other children, not only in his ability to think that he could break the rule of not beating an opponent while that opponent was helpless, but also in his willingness to do so while knowing that it would further alienate him from the rest of his peers. He condemns himself to a life of solitude, further enhancing a theme that crops up again and again in the book.
Ender does not know that Stilson won't come back, "perfectly healed" as Irami put it, but less likely to hurt Ender again. In fact, he's told that Stilson is in the hospital when Graf come to get Ender for Battle School. When does he find out Stilson died?
As human beings mature during adolescence they try to figure out how things work, most often by experimentation and observation. Ender had already observed how effective violence was for Peter. There was no mention in the book of Ender ever observing effective non-violent means. Ender was experimenting with preemptive violence as a solution. It made him sick, and think he was being like Peter. But it worked. The children who had been holding him did not come after him when Stilson had been beaten to a pulp. Of course it wasn't the only solution, and may not have been the best solution. But it was a logical choice for Ender to make.
quote:Irami wrote: I always thought that Stilson was a fat nine? year-old bully. Not incredibly bright, not incredibly caring, though he was terribly insecure.
The book just says that Stilson "wasn't bigger than most other kids, but he was bigger than Ender." It makes no other mention of Stilson's physical attributes, intelligence, or age.
quote:Irami wrote: If Stilson had already so fully negated Ender as a person, why would he take the time to bully him. I don't have a copy of the book here, but wasn't Stilson embarrassed, threatened, or put-off by Ender sometime in class?
It wasn't directly addressed in the book. However, there are Ender's stigmas of being a Third, having a monitor and always knowing the right answer in class. These things make Ender an obvious target for a bully. I highly suggest finding a copy and rereading those first ten to fifteen pages. Looking at the book, I can understand much better why OSC had Ender put Stilson down so violently.
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posted
I'm not arguing, by the way, that Stilson's death was unnecessary from a literary standpoint; more than anybody here, I was disappointed and almost outraged by OSC's decision to downplay that killing in his screenplay.
In my opinion, the death of Stilson is the single most obvious example of two of the novel's major themes: the callousness of authority in war, and the justifications often provided for violence.
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quote:I could be an ER surgeon while defusing a bomb and landing a jet on an aircraft carrier at night if I had a tenth of what you're requiring of Ender, for God's sake! And Ender was only six!
Exactly.
Irami's argument rests on abilities and skills he thinks Ender should have had. In that case, it's another situation entirely, and he's using the names of Ender and Stilson to inspire interest in entirely different scenario.
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posted
Looking at Ender as a moral agent at all at that point in the story (or arguably anywhere in Ender's Game) might be a mistake. Graff and the other military men built him into what he was. Part of the book's point for me was that they, and not Ender, were the authors of his crimes.
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quote: But it still remains that Ender and Stilson were written from a grown man's perspective. Their characters are six year old little boys who would only know what happens to them in the present. For a six year old, a week is FOREVER. They're just beginning to learn to regulate strong emotions and tempers and such. They don't know what life and death really mean. They don't get the concept of mortality.
See I disagree with you here Mack. The reason why so many people here on Hatrack do identify with Ender is because they are like him, and felt the way he felt at the ages that OSC wrote him being. Many educators got outraged when OSC wrote Ender as being as he was because they said kids don't develop that way. But some do. I think Ender was Extremely Aware of his own mortality. This is why he reacted so violently. The time thing is somewhat of a valid point. However at about the age of 6 or younger when I was doing multiplication I realized that time moved slower as you got older because one year as a fraction of your age became less and less. So I was very cognizant of the passing of time. I had already also learned not to cry regardless of what criticism leveled at me. By six I was already recieving military style dressing downs (minus the cuss words) and I DIDN'T CRY.
Ender hadn't actually studied self-defense at the time. So while still being knowledgable, his killing of Stilson is far more innocent than what happened with the Bonzo Madrid in Battle school, simply because he hadn't made a study of lethal techniques used in killing. He was using advanced logic in wanting a complete victory over Stilson so the rest of the kids didn't bother him. There are six year olds that are more than capable of that kind of logic, and I think you are underestimating them Mack.
quote:I realized that time moved slower as you got older because one year as a fraction of your age became less and less.
You mean the reverse, right? That time is perceived as moving faster as you grow older for that reason?
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But his author DID know. Ender isn't some outward overarching symbol of anything. If he is, it's because someone has imposed this role onto his character. Ender made the choices he did and took the role he did because it was written that way.
Two questions: 1) Does this mean OSC is guilty of murdering Stilson? 2)Does this mean that if I do something wrong, it is God's fault for having me do it?
quote:You put it all on Ender, but why not ask why Stilson made the choices he did? Why does he choose to beat up little kids? What is it about him that causes him to fail to empathize with others? Or to get his jollies from putting people into great distress? Why is that fun for him? Why, when it's been explained to him again and again, when he's been taught the concept of justice and fairness, when he's been cajoled and requested and begged and reasoned with, does he refuse to see? Why is he filled with delight at the prospect of tormenting someone helpless, and watching them suffer? What sort of human being is he?
Stilson is a nine-year-old human being, that's what - although the mere fact that he's a human being should be sufficient to explain why he can't see the concept of justice and fairness very well, despite being taught it again and again.
As for why it is fun for him and why he gets joy out of it, we don't have any indication that that's the case. That's just the conclusion Ender jumps to, as a tormented six-year-old.
quote:Looking at Ender as a moral agent at all at that point in the story (or arguably anywhere in Ender's Game) might be a mistake. Graff and the other military men built him into what he was. Part of the book's point for me was that they, and not Ender, were the authors of his crimes.
But Ender is a person - how could he not be considered a moral agent?
quote:Many educators got outraged when OSC wrote Ender as being as he was because they said kids don't develop that way. But some do. I think Ender was Extremely Aware of his own mortality.
I think the educators got outraged with Ender's apparent cognitive abilities. The reason why I don't think Ender WAS aware of mortality (not just HIS) is because he was able to kill Stilson and not know that his blows would kill. Were he aware of mortality, he, being Ender, would have stopped just short of killing Stilson. Ender also killed all the buggers...all of them. And the reason why a child had to be the commander was because they hadn't yet developed that sense of mortality, of finality. Ender comes to the realization sooner than most at the end.
quote:I had already also learned not to cry regardless of what criticism leveled at me. By six I was already recieving military style dressing downs (minus the cuss words) and I DIDN'T CRY.
That's more common than you'd think.
quote:There are six year olds that are more than capable of that kind of logic, and I think you are underestimating them Mack.
No, I think I understood and read the book differently at that point. What I saw is that Ender not only had to knock him down, but had to knock him OUT, so that Stilson and his buddies would know that Ender had taken them out completely and could call any bluffs. Ender didn't KNOW he had killed Stilson until much later in the book. His intent was to beat Stilson so that he could avoid further torment. Because he hadn't studied lethal techniques, he didn't know he'd kill him. He just thought he BEAT him. And he did, in the way that was Ender's throughout the book. He took his enemies apart completely. Part of that ability I think came from his having no real knowledge yet of mortality.
quote:1) Does this mean OSC is guilty of murdering Stilson? 2)Does this mean that if I do something wrong, it is God's fault for having me do it?
Don't be silly.
1. You can't be guilty of murder of a fictional character. 2. God didn't write your book. You have free will. God's just read ahead of you and knows how it will end not matter what choice you make. Your book of life is a choose your own adventure.
quote:As for why it is fun for him and why he gets joy out of it, we don't have any indication that that's the case. That's just the conclusion Ender jumps to, as a tormented six-year-old.
That's the way of bullies, Tres.
quote:But Ender is a person - how could he not be considered a moral agent?
As a character, Ender does question his part of being a moral agent for what he did in his childhood.
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posted
I think you excuse Stilson too much, Irami. He wasn't actually involved in a give and take situation. It's not just normal playground rivalries, and may the best man win.
No, Stilson specifically does NOT pick on people his own age and size. Stilson is picking on Ender BECAUSE he is so small and seemingly helpless that Stilson can get a bit of fun without putting himself in any danger at all, so he thinks. He doesn't want anything like a fair fight, no. If he did, he'd be fighting the other nine year olds.
Stilson enjoys toturing the helpless. He gets joy from it. It makes him feel good. He revels in it. He's done it for years and he would have continued to do it for years more, but for the mistake he made about Ender.
Yes, it was a shame he had to die to learn that lesson. Yet I will not blame Ender. The fault for Stilson's death is still squarely on Stilson's shoulders. When you corner a wild tiger and make it fight for its life, whose fault is it if you are killed? The tiger's? No, it is your own fault, even if you mistook the tiger for a helpless kitten.
There are no accidental deaths, in our laws, that occur while committing a felony. If you break and enter into someone's home and they shoot you dead, whose fault was that? Theirs for using unnecessary force? Because you would not have killed them? How could they know that? If you would be safe from such as this, then it's quite easy to do. Don't break and enter someone's home. Similarly, if Stilson would be safe from being killed by Ender, then he could have done so in a manner which was quite simple. He could have left Ender alone.
I cry no tears for Stilson.
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I will shoot someone dead who breaks into my home.
I will fight back against those who would hurt the helpless, not using undue force, but worrying more about stopping the harm done to the helpless than what possible harm might befall those who are doing the hurting.
I will defend myself from aggression.
I will attack any hijacker of a plane I am flying on, seeking to disable or kill them.
I don't initiate battles, but neither do I shy away from those started by others, if I judge that fighting can achieve something worthwhile.
I do see the humanity of the aggressors, yet when choosing between the life of the aggressor or of the victim, I choose the life of the victim.
If that makes me a monster in your eyes then so be it.
[ December 29, 2003, 09:29 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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posted
You know what bullies ALWAYS say when they find out they have accidentally taken on someone who will fight back? "It's not fair!" "She hurt me!" "Waaaaaah!"
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quote:If that makes me a monster in your eyes then so be it.
No, it doesn't, but it may make you a Stilson in your eyes - or at least, in the eyes of another Anne Kate who sees your actions but not the motivations behind it.
quote:You know what bullies ALWAYS say when they find out they have accidentally taken on someone who will fight back? "It's not fair!" "She hurt me!" "Waaaaaah!"
Actually, I think the most common response is viewing the person fighting back as a bully, and hating them.
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quote:But Ender is a person - how could he not be considered a moral agent?
Because he's not autonomous. He's not acting on his own behalf. If someone else is manipulating you, they are the agent in charge of your actions, and so they're the one responsible (sorry about the indefinite 'they' -- feeling a little grammar-weary tonight). Take Estella in Great Expectations. She's not responsible for her actions. She was raised to be who she is by Miss Havisham.
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