Xenocide and the Conception of the Enemy

In my last blog post I defended my belief in Ender’s innocence in his actions. Despite his self-censure in “The Hive Queen and the Hegemon” for his act of xenocide, I believe that he was innocent because as a child and as a tool of the International Fleet (IF) he was not to blame. I wanted to expand upon this idea in light of Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political by examining the role of the IF. Having established Ender’s innocence in his actions, was the IF justified in 1) causing the xenocide of the buggers to occur, and 2) its manipulation of Ender?

Firstly, was the IF justified in committing xenocide? Although it did not directly take part in the act of wiping out the buggers, it did train the children that would carry out that act. The IF is an entity, and it is a political one because it fulfills Schmitt’s definition of being the decisive entity to determine the friend-enemy grouping. It classifies the buggers as the enemy and accordingly, in an extreme case, decides to wage war against them. Schmitt says, “If such physical destruction of human life is not motivated by an existential threat to one’s own life, then it cannot be justified…The justification of war…reside[s]…in its being fought against a real enemy” (49). Granted Schmitt is talking about human beings and not other creatures. But, as we find out later, the buggers are sentient beings and therefore, for my purposes, their lives have as much intrinsic value as human lives. The IF, according to Schmitt, would be justified in its actions because it faced the threat of a real enemy, an enemy that threatened its own, as well as that of the entire human race, existence. Schmitt does not condone war, he does not praise it, but he does justify its existence as an extreme case in the political sphere. Therefore, the IF is justified in its decision to wage war against and eventually eliminate (or as Schmitt would say “negate”) the enemy.

Was the IF justified in its manipulation of Ender? My previous blog post had a blatant bias against the IF, implying that the burden of xenocide should have fallen upon it and not Ender. I want to reconsider this by examining it from Schmitt’s point of view. Schmitt says,

“The individual may voluntarily die for whatever cause he may wish. That is…thoroughly private matter – decided upon freely. The economically functioning society possesses sufficient means to neutralize nonviolently, in a “peaceful” fashion, those economic competitors who are inferior, unsuccessful or mere “perturbers.” Concretely speaking, this implies that the competitor will be left to starve if he does not voluntarily accommodate himself” (48).

I believe that Schmitt uses the phrase “voluntarily accommodate himself” sarcastically, meaning that the individual must comply with the state, the decisive entity because of its political power, or it will be neutralized. This is especially true in the society in which Ender grows up in; a society in which Ender would not have even been born if not for his purpose of fulfilling the IF’s, and in therefore in this society, the state’s and the political entity’s, goals. Schmitt would most likely agree with the IF’s decision to manipulate Ender as it was necessary in the waging the war, which as we established above, was justified. I disagree, however, emotionally if not logically. By Schmitt’s logic, the manipulation of Ender makes perfect sense. But my sense of empathy forces me to pity Ender and on a moral basis, oppose the IF’s actions. The actions of the IF saved society as a whole by sacrificing one child. They were based in the political sphere, not the private sphere, a distinction that is made quite clear in Schmitt’s essay. I will conclude with a statement of Schmitt’s which I found particularly relevant and enlightening: “The enemy in the political sense need not be hated personally, and in the private sphere only does it make sense to love one’s enemy” (29).