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Ender's Game, Wingnuttery and Appeasement
Nov. 5th, 2013 10:52 amI've said previously that I am willing and able to enjoy fiction without liking the author and/or their political leanings. Now, if said author uses their work as a soapbox to preach their personal views, I may object, but as far as I can remember Orson Scott Card (OSC, henceforth) did not do so in Ender's Game. In fact, some of his readers, including this fellow, found Ender's Game very inclusive.
I'd like to take a riff on a throw-away comment in that article, that OSC became a wingnut after 9/11. My riff on that comment is two-fold. First, people do in fact change over time. I, and to a lesser extent the author of the linked piece, have gotten more liberal over time. Our life experiences and who we associate with have caused that change. OSC apparently went the other way. (His most reason essay is that Obama will be creating a national police force from black street gangs to take over America.)
Second, great trauma can cause great change. In 1938, the memory of World War 1 was fresh. WW1 was a war fought over a "damn-fool thing in the Balkans" as somebody famous said, and the mistakes that led to it resulted in the deaths of millions. So people, acting on that memory, tried everything possible to avoid war. By 1945, this avoidance was called "appeasement" and ridiculed. The "lesson" of that war was to fight all aggression, leading to (among other things) the mess called Vietnam.
So now we argue over the lesson of 9/11. OSC seems to see the lesson as "kill all Muslims." I see it as "perhaps we should remove ourselves from that region, or at least stop trying to impose leaders on them."
In any event, I intend to go see the Ender's Game movie, and hope to enjoy it.
I'd like to take a riff on a throw-away comment in that article, that OSC became a wingnut after 9/11. My riff on that comment is two-fold. First, people do in fact change over time. I, and to a lesser extent the author of the linked piece, have gotten more liberal over time. Our life experiences and who we associate with have caused that change. OSC apparently went the other way. (His most reason essay is that Obama will be creating a national police force from black street gangs to take over America.)
Second, great trauma can cause great change. In 1938, the memory of World War 1 was fresh. WW1 was a war fought over a "damn-fool thing in the Balkans" as somebody famous said, and the mistakes that led to it resulted in the deaths of millions. So people, acting on that memory, tried everything possible to avoid war. By 1945, this avoidance was called "appeasement" and ridiculed. The "lesson" of that war was to fight all aggression, leading to (among other things) the mess called Vietnam.
So now we argue over the lesson of 9/11. OSC seems to see the lesson as "kill all Muslims." I see it as "perhaps we should remove ourselves from that region, or at least stop trying to impose leaders on them."
In any event, I intend to go see the Ender's Game movie, and hope to enjoy it.
