De-individualization and the Human Experience

Eugene Albert O. Javillonar/ID:101935

PH102 Section AA Ma’am Palacios
A Philosophy Paper on the Book Ender’s Game
I. Introduction

The Book and Context: Child Hero

The book Ender’s Game is written by Orson Scott Card and it follows the story of Ender

Wiggin in a sci-fi setting of a unified Earth facing the threat of alien war. The book mainly

follows the experiences of Ender as he is conscripted to the earth’s military fleet command at the

tender age of six for his intellectual brilliance and moral empathy. In his stay in the Battle

School, Ender encounters the struggles of military life and the constant pressure from the leaders

of the military institution in making him their greatest fleet commander against the Buggers, an

advance ant-like alien race that have twice invaded and almost conquered the Earth. He is treated

as the last hope for mankind and that through the instructions of the military they force him into

constant situations of isolation, deprivation of normal friendships and communications, unfair

examination and tests, and psychological monitoring. All these efforts are done in the attempt of

producing a tactical mind able to face any circumstance no matter how impossible the obstacle is

and win. Though the intentions of the military school and commanders are for the greater good

of mankind, their process has taken a toll on Ender’s personal psyche. Anxiety, distrust,

paranoia, and inner conflict plagues Ender as he endures the training, but in the end he succeeds

in destroying what was thought to be an insurmountable alien force.

Ender’s Game carries with it many moral and philosophical themes as I progressed

through the story. Many of these themes comes from the experiences of the characters who are in

the book mostly children. The premise of children being dragged into the harsh reality of the

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military way of life and the unforgiving costs of war bring with it many moral and psychological

dilemmas. Though the children are said to be the brilliant geniuses of mankind, their lack of

experiences in developing themselves adds many layers of ideas on what it means or what is the

costs to be a “tool” for the betterment of many. By seeing the world created by Orson Scott Card

through their eyes and emotions it opens up avenues of thought and reflection that I could have

neglected and never have thought about. Because of the idea of being children, the book

demonstrates on how these children transform themselves, unknowingly, into trying to think with

the conviction of seasoned military personnel. They do so even when they have never naturally

grew in an open and free environment. Through their trials the book revolves under such

concepts of isolation, friendship, internal struggle, prejudice, objectification, jealousy,

domination, fear, psychopathy, self-actualization and war.

For this paper I will focus on the theme that struck me the most. This theme is about the

concept of internal struggle of the price of being a “tool” for the greater good. Following the

protagonist, Ender Wiggin, as his experiences in the book gives a good example of how it feels

like when we are placed in situations of de-individualization and objectification, but because we

are human, we struggle to maintain that internal balance of who we are and what we are called to

be. Thus the formal thesis statement for this philosophy paper is the following:

The experiences of the fictional character Ender Wiggin in the book Ender's Game by Orson

Scott Card is a good example of the struggle of de-individualization; and the struggle of

accepting objectification and developing an internal balance of a human identity.

II. Analysis and Reflection

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Military Conscription: To be a Soldier

To be those tools who seek a greater purpose I realized that it requires the processes of

de-individualization. This process was done through the military institution that Ender entered.

Like Ender’s own conscription and training experience, the military plays a crucial role, because

the military is the institution that provides the processes of objectification for greater pluralistic

goals. Ender and most of the other characters are placed in that situation of being the chosen

elite, and in the Battle School they attended they are rendered and torn away from normal

society. The rules are different and life in itself is different there. As Goffman (1969) would term

it, the military is an example of “total-institutions.”

The military objectifies its personnel; they view them as tools and objects, and in order to

manage them they attempt to strip the humanity from them. Goffman (1969) states that this kind

of an institution incorporates its individuals to take strict schedules and routines. The person is

no longer seen as a person but as a “plural” soldier. In many ways it’s like the human person

simply gets absorbed into beings of units and ranks. Who they are and were before the military

becomes irrelevant and more importantly the goals of the whole become the goals of the few.

Just like in the book the goal of the military becomes Ender’s and the children’s purpose. The

military dominates almost all aspects of life, and the isolation from the free society subjects the

person to believe in only the institution. Ender himself experiences this domination, the

protagonist states “- And the despair filled him again. Now he knew why. Now he knew what he

hated so much. He had no control over his own life. They ran everything. They made all the

choices. Only the game was left to him, that was all, everything else was them and their rules and

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plans and lessons and programs, and all he could do was go this way or that way in battle.” (p.

119)

Ender felt consumed but though total-institutions could be related to prison life,

concentration camps and asylums, the thing about militaries is that a majority of the time, there is

a choice for the individual on whether he should accept being recruited. A person can choose to

enter such a place and surrender such freedoms. Ender made that choice to objectify himself in

order to fulfil that greater good when he was asked by Graff before being recruited into the

school. Though he was a young child he accepted the idea that the world would need him. He

would need to sacrifice his time and self for a purpose greater than himself. By being less of

himself he can be more for many others. This action is what I would usually do in order to

achieve that clear conscience. That active decision of letting others think for me allows me to not

deal with the stress of what I want. Thus what many would want, that becomes my desire

because I do not desire anything myself. By being blind and simply following orders it makes it

possible to have no guilt or regret. In a way though this is similar to cases of what Arendt (1978)

calls wrong, because it is this very reason that atrocities of war are committed because soldiers

were not thinking of the actions or the orders they executed. For my analysis though it deals

more with that struggle of choosing to be lead rather than leading because it is what we believe is

right. To fight off natural human tendencies of like want, fear and others things, we take away

the “I” in our beings, and follow instead the general “We.”

There are things we all want, personal desires and wishes, but when we feel the need to

be more for what we personally want, to follow a grand ideal we really want to actively pursue, it

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becomes easier when see ourselves in the bigger picture. This is the de-individualization the

military has done to Ender Wiggin. He does not become a none-thinking slave of the military,

but he subjects himself to their thinking and tries to incorporate that in himself. He becomes a

piece of what the military or the world says is the bigger picture. To experience what Ender

experience is to de-individualize personal thinking. Through the military process it allows him to

supplant personal desires with pluralistic ones. These greater needs he could not possibly uphold

constantly if he wasn’t constantly supported by the military institution. For him or any person to

be a hero for greater purposes there has to be an active decision to sacrifice the self as a human

being with unique personal desires. With what is personal surrendered the processes of being a

“tool” becomes easier to accept, but as it will be mentioned later, no matter the goal there will be

an inner conflict.

To be a Hero

It has always intrigued me in what it means to be more than me. By reflecting the book

and Ender’s experiences I was able to think about the costs of being more than me. To be called

to do more and be more for the sake of many is what Ender Wiggin was tasked to do. But as I

followed his story I entered his same struggle. It is the dilemma of what will happen to me. What

will become of my happiness, my wants, my dreams, and my life? When a person is called to

being a hero by many the usual answer is that he will sacrifice all of those individual longings.

His personal life doesn’t matter anymore. This is the case for what we usually see in the common

comic case superhero. In media, and movies our heroes their struggles are usual against the

enemy and not against themselves. They chose that life and they sacrifice. And that no matter the

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struggle, that calling is who they are no matter what they think. I believed that they had no

conflict and that they didn’t second-guess themselves. For Arendt (1978) it is what she calls “a

harmony with oneself.” They open themselves to being what they want to be. Ideally they don’t

waver on who they are, but for Ender Wiggin it is a different case. His experience is what an

ordinary human being would think about. He was given the choice of accepting the invitation of

the military to be trained, that same opportunity given similarly to most other people. Though he

accepted the price of being a soldier, in the processes of the training he had to constantly endure

a struggle with himself.

This experience of the protagonist shows me how conflicted a person can actually be no

matter how important the outside goal is. The choice was given to him to be great, even if he

accepted being that great person; he struggles in making that meaning and mission his own. This

internal conflict of what he is telling himself to be, what others is telling him to be, and what his

consciousness is telling him to be. Ender is bombarded with the concept of being a “tool” for

mankind. He is not called to be so much as a heartless and objectified soldier, but that his

personal being is now forfeit in relation to the bigger picture. According to the military character,

Gen. Graff of Card (1991) he states that- “Human beings are free except when humanity needs

them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. I think humanity needs me-- to find out

what you're good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if humankind survives,

then we were good tools.” (p. 28)

The question now is can a person really be void of himself and his desires, to be that

“tool” and replace his desires for the desire of the general good? Though the usual way of

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thinking is that you should be who you really want to be regardless of what others think, the

problem is that Ender himself wants to be that hero, but there is still a conflict. Through Ender’s

experience and by reflecting on it myself, a person can be that tool. A person can in a way by his

own choice lose personal longings, but like Ender, he will be in conflict internally. When we

become needed, and accept that purpose, we lose our freedom and our beings. But “in the

company of ourselves” as Arendt (1978) will say, we will still face ourselves on dealing with

that choice, even if we vehemently believe in it.

In this manner we see what thinking does, and how its process is intrinsic to being

human. Though we can attempt to de-individualize ourselves through institutions, a constant

internal conflict will arise. Even if we believe in the cause, our other self, the “Two-in-one” will

always question. Just as Ender will always question his purpose, and though he would reaffirm

himself with thoughts of becoming the hero, becoming the soldier who will always win; there

will always be that human struggle that is caused by the very act of thinking. Accepting ways of

living, or denying them and choosing something else, any path will always be subject to internal

struggle caused by thinking.

III. Conclusion

To be Human

In conclusion this experience of Ender Wiggin and the children of the Battle School is so

common and real because even if we strongly tell ourselves to be something, to be what we think

we need to be, or what others thinks needs us to be, the process of thinking always makes us

question. Even if it is the right thing, and no matter the examples and good arguments, because

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we are human we will think and be conflicted. Thus no matter the processes of de-

individualization, even if it is active choices and ones we completely agree upon, because we are

human and that as long as we think, we will question and struggle about its meaning.

That is the costs of being human, and the mastery of the book of using children makes the

emotions felt in the book so relatable and real, because even at so young an age we will already

be experiencing that internal conflict of thinking. There’s no true process de-individualization,

institutions can help to some extent, like the book’s International Fleet, but as humans, I will

always revert back to being an individual who has self-interest, who has desires and dreams

when I am at the company of myself. Thus that struggle and inner conflict of choices, good or

bad, which are caused by thinking is intrinsic to what it means to feel the human experience.

IV. Bibliography

Arendt, H. (1978). Two-in-One. The life of the mind (pp. 179-192). New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich.

Card, O. S. (1991). Ender's game (Rev. ed.). New York: Tor.

Goffman, E. (1969). Asylums: essays on the social situation of mental patients and other
inmates. New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine Transaction.