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QUESTION:
Throughout the Ender series, of course, one of the main topics in the
book is destroying the various species. Are you trying to convey to the reader that
it is alright to destroy a race to insure human survival? Or, are you trying to take
the other approach by telling us that it is wrong to do this?
-- Submitted by Matt Kauffman
OSC REPLIES: - March 28, 2003
I'm trying to tell people that it's a very hard decision, but that a species has a
right to do what is necessary to protect its own survival. In human history,
however, the decision to commit genocide has usually come, not because it was
actually necessary to destroy the enemy utterly in order to survive, but because the
rhetoric of dehumanization got so heated that there was nowhere for it to go
except murder. That was the rhetoric of Nazis and most present-day Islamic
nations about Jews, it was the rhetoric of Hutus about Tutsis, and it was the
rhetoric of Christian Serbs about Muslim Serbs. The challenge to decent people is
to recognize when the danger is real and there is no alternative but destruction.
I wonder if there has ever been a time in human history when utter
destruction of an enemy was required. Usually all that is required is the destruction
of an enemy leadership that seeks genocide against you, and then decent treatment
of the replacement government. We've had two generations in which warlike
Germany and warlike Japan have been at peace with their neighbors because that
is how they were treated by us. And it is quite possible that the story of Iraq,
Afghanistan, and even Iran will end similarly, by one road or another.
But what depresses me deeply is that the Islamic rhetoric about Israel and
Jews in general is so false, so evil, and so universally pounded into the Muslim
people in most Muslim nations that Israel may well - indeed, may already - find
itself in a position where completely unjustified and virtually unprovoked
genocide is committed against the Jews - or, in order not to die as a people, the
Jews have to commit terrible acts of war against their enemies. It is hopelessly
unnecessary to have this situation, which is caused by leaders stirring up hatred
about an all-purpose enemy in order to shore up their own unworthy regimes.
In the Ender series, however, we're talking about interspecies conflict, not
intercultural. And because species would be far more different than cultures, the
dangers are far greater. We have, in fact, destroyed or nearly destroyed other
species before - sometimes unwittingly, sometimes through criminal negligence,
and sometimes through deliberate action. If someday one of these species might be
sentient as we are sentient I do not know if that will slow us down from the strong
possibility of such a murderous course of action. And yet ... IF we met such a
species, and the only way to stop them from destroying our genetic heritage
completely were to destroy theirs, then I believe, morally, we would be completely
justified in doing so. At the same time, we have the moral obligation to make sure
that we do not pose the same threat to others.
War of any kind is a terrible thing, but communities, and species, have the
right to protect themselves from destruction, enslavement, or other dire threats;
and in the struggle to save themselves from aggression, they cannot be expected to
use only the exact amount of force required and no more, since it is always
impossible to know just how much force really is required. Since one's own
destruction is the result of guessing too low, the natural response is to guess too
high, and a nation involved in a defensive or protective war cannot be faulted for
guessing wrong. Nor, for that matter, can a species. So in Ender's Game, though I
assign responsibility for the near-destruction of the Hive Queen (and Ender takes
it upon himself), I do not assign blame, because I don't consider there to be any
blame. You can't be held responsible for not knowing what you could not know at
the time of a crucial decision.
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