Schmitt's Concept of the Political

Hello everyone:

I enjoyed reading this piece, because it is the first time I have read something from Germany during the Weimar Republic period. The first important point I noticed was the interesting use of semantics by the author - he examines the linguistic background for public versus private enemies, by looking at both Plato's Republic and the books of Matthew and Luke. I suppose I implicitly understood the difference between the two, but he explains them in such a manner as to make it perfectly clear how the state deals with the two - that is to say, as the same entities (pg. 28-29). In fact, he goes on to point out the vital differences in word use regarding the German reparations following WWI. He explains that the nations being paid held it aloft as tribute from a defeated nation - this inflamed the German people, who wanted it called reparations or a pension. I have always been taught that WWI was generally one of the larger causes of WWII, and that the reparations didn't help, but it really interests me to learn that one of the major points of contention was over a bit of language.

From this one point, I started considering how this work applies to today. What is striking to me is Schmitt's argument revolves around the inherent importance of the state as the least common denominator of the political (politics being something he doesn't acknowledge unless a state is highly weakened), and how much that is no longer the case in today's world. The modern-day example that comes to mind is the dynamic between Islamic terrorist groups and the United States. In addition to actual skirmishes being fought around the world, this is both a battle of words and ideas. Bin Laden wrote extremely eloquent pieces decrying the decadence, inherent sloth, and other problems he saw within the American people. George W. Bush responded with equally polemic words, decrying the [Islamic] terrorists as extremists, enemies of freedom [the core of America], and so forth. Similar to the situation in Europe following the first world war, there are fairly large differences of opinion, but these could have been solved. The problem is (in an extremely simplified analysis for the sake of this post], leaders on both sides were unwilling to compromise or back down, and things deteriorated with such aggressive uses of language. This falls right back into a later passage of the work, on page 33: "war is the existential negation of the enemy." This holds true today - both sides are in the business of utterly eliminating "the Great Satan" and the Islamic fundamentalists, respectively. This is not a perfect match, because the soldiers on both sides are no longer clearly marked, and even more importantly, both sides are no longer states. It is just interesting to consider many of ideas by Schmitt on state-to-state interactions, in terms of recent events.

Have a good evening, England prevails, etc

-Mike

Ender's Game: Post-class Reaction

Our class discussion about Ender’s Game was in large part a topic that is really important to me: communication (or lack of it) between two different sides. I agree with Mike that lack of communication has been responsible for a lot of destruction and violence in our history. And I truly believe that if people tried harder to communicate and understand “the other” whoever that other may be then a lot of problems could be resolved and the situation would not turn to violence. I see a lot of conflicts around the world where both sides just try to make the other side look more monstrous and just want to destroy or suppress them. Such violence, hate and narrow-mindedness can never lead to good. But I also agree with Jen’s point where she says that well sometimes the other side really does mean you harm for whatever reason. So I guess when it comes to matters of life and death and a situation of hostility it is important to try and fix things by trying to communicate and understand but one also can’t just stand by and let themselves be destroyed.

In one of my classes we are currently looking at the issue in Tibet and I just read one of the Dalai Lama’s books. The things he advocates are truly beautiful. He talks of peace and a symbiotic relationship between China and Tibet (he is not even demanding Tibet independence, he is just asking for just treatment of his people), he also wants to make Tibet a land of “Ahimsa” which means a place of peace and non-violence, and he advocates caring for the Earth and nature. One key point he makes is “Universal Responsibility” and he says that all of humanity needs to realize that they are responsible for this world and that one can’t just live separate from issues that happen in it, because we are all connected. I mention the issue between Tibet and China because it is the perfect example of a clash of two cultures...China has been basically raping Tibet for half a century, but a lot of the Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama are still pushing for understanding, communication and peace, now the younger generations are getting restless and are starting to consider more violent ways to fight back. So this is the perfect example of the issue we faced in class…what to do with an aggressive “Other” because that is what China is. Plus the Tibetan people are fighting for their survival (China is basically slowly committing cultural and religious genocide). And there is a great communication gap between the two. I just learned more about his issue, so it is fresh in my mind and something that really frustrates me because I just can’t understand why things like this keep happening. Which goes back to the point I made in the first part of this post: if only people made an effort to communicate and understand then maybe interactions with “the Others” won’t be as negative and violent.

And finally I would like to say that I also agree with Tim, this book really is one of the best we have read and it made me really think about important ideas.

Reflection, Class 9

I couldn't help but think about Mars Attacks while we were talking about Ender's Game. In that movie, they try to communicate, sort of succeed but it turns out they were wrong and the aliens were hostile. It was using logic and reasoning, as opposed to gut instinct, that led them down the wrong path and got everybody killed. Except for the guy and his grandmother with that terrible country music who saved the day. And in Aliens last night, thinking that they weren't as bad as Ripley said they were got Burke into trouble, besides him being a jerk in the first place. So sometimes, thinking the aliens mean you no harm is kind of stupid.
At the same time, thinking the aliens, or other groups, are always out to get you is equally stupid. I watched this movie, Fail-Safe, for my capstone that dealt with Cold War era mentality that forced these pilots to ignore voice commands from the commanders, even the president, because voices could be faked. The problem was that they'd gotten orders to go and attack Russia based on a computer glitch and Russian jamming of transmissions meant that they couldn't receive nullifying orders in the proper time frame. These pilots didn't even question their orders, never mind that they'd never gotten a go ahead order (which also speaks to the success of their training) and figured that the country had been attacked and they had to go in. At the moment I can't think of examples where the aliens meant no harm the entire time, because we established in Ender's Game the aliens were hostile for a while, but I'm sure they are out there. Probably in Star Trek.

Class 3/18

I personally think asking the class to put themselves in the position to decide how to handle the buggers was a bad idea. I know that the intention was to foster a debate about the morals and factors that went into such a situation. However, it quickly devolved into a few people saying the IF were absolutely right and a few saying they were absolutely wrong. I don't think there was any real development of an argument other than the two sides becoming so entrenched that they were not able to see the others perspective.

As far as the discussions of a possible movie. I am probably one of the few that believe a movie could work for this book. However, I think Card would have to be removed from the project. If a movie version let the audience know that Ender was not just playing a game then the entire point of the story would be missing. The story works because not only is Ender shocked but the reader is too. If the viewer knew in the beginning, where would the shock be?

I think this is one of the best books we have read yet. I just wish we were watching Starship Troopers this week because I can see alot of parallels with that, not so many with Aliens.

Reflection on Ender's Game

Hello everyone:

The thing that kind of bothered me about today's class was how many people (but not all) decided that they would make the same choice as the IF, if they were in charge of the situation. I am not attacking them for their decision, but I am afraid that my understanding of the circumstances forces me to still disagree. I definitely heard where people were coming from by saying that the human-to-human conflicts are different than the human-to-bugger issue, but I must stick with the points I made in class - the underlying points remain the same. If we agree to attack some sort of other based merely on two facts - we cannot communicate with them, and they seem to be hostile - then the world will continue to not be a friendly place. I brought up the example of how the colonists treated the Native Americans (which Lena later echoed in relation to another point), so I thought I would try and bring up some additional anecdotal evidence here.

The other biggest example that comes to mind is the manner in which the Roman empire worked- this isn't a perfect fit, but some of the ideas here apply. The Romans made it their policy to allow nations to either surrender and assimilate into Rome, or be destroyed utterly. This led to the destruction of some "barbarian" tribes in Germania, because they wouldn't comply (barbarian being a Greek word taken by the Romans and later civilizations to: the original meaning comes from "barbar" being used to describe the (seemingly) nonsense language of the outsiders). These specific instances are similar to what the IF did to the buggers. The buggers (Germanic tribes, specifically the Illyrians) attacked Earth (Rome), and did not communicate at once or in understood ways, and as a result they were crushed. As a result, the military prowess of these people (the Romans lost three full legions to them before crushing them) as a learnable skill was gone - similar to all the possible gains lost through the destruction of the buggers.
reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_empire

To support my ideas from a different direction, lets look at a similar phenomena that occurred twice, in completely different circumstances. During the American Civil War, brother fought brother over the issue of slavery - or to restate the problem, they could no longer communicate about the issue and one viewpoint had to be destroyed in favor of the other. Many soldiers died fighting in setpiece battles, and due to lack of medical attention or supplies. That said, General Lee eventually surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse - while this was happening, the former enemies, both Union and Confederate soldiers, played baseball together in order to pass the time. This is only one example from that war, but think about the parallels to the buggers - both sides in the Civil War definitely has avenues of communication, but they did not pursue them, and chose to fight instead.
reference: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/aubrecht2004b.shtml

The other example that comes to mind is during the Christmas of 1914. during the Christmas Truce between the German and British soldiers. The common soldiers merely stopped fighting for several days, and exchanged presents and made friends with each other. There was a clear disagreement between the two sides, and they killed each other mercilessly both before and after this Truce, but when they both pursued communication, things improved. Neither side was completely fluent in the other's language, but they still shared a sense of similarity. I feel that the bugger/human conflict has a parallel: when the queen has the model of the giant's corpse built, it is an attempt to talk to a human in a way they understand (the Truce having soldiers exchange gifts and throwing snowballs, areas where they could comprehend each other).
reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

Something to think about, I suppose.

Have a good evening.

-Mike

Ender's Game

Well, I have just completed Monday having spent the whole night attempting to sleep on a 13 hour train trip and I have already made the Wikipage for this. Therefore I am not totally coherent in order to properly comment on the book.

I do remember one of the things that struck me the most was that I have read something very similar to this. I have no idea what the name of the book was, what the names of the characters were, or really any details about it whatsoever, I just know that this book gave me serious deja vu.
Another work I also thought alot about while reading this was the film, I haven't read the book, Starship Troopers. I guess its kind of superficial because in each the humans were fighting the bugs in space.

I also wonder what everybody else thinks about the way they didn't tell Ender that what he was doing was real. I mean, I understand that it would have made him stop but come on. A little kid has just wiped out an entire civilization and nobody bothered to at least give him a hint.

I really thought it was quite moving that the buggers knew that they were going to be defeated and gave their future into the hands of the boy that wiped them out.

Ender's Game: Pre-class Reaction

The big theme that really resonated with me is the idea of failure to communicate. In science fiction the interaction with “the other” is obviously taken to a new level, with the interaction with a completely different alien species. But like all good science fiction, usually one can tie that to the contemporary world. Cultural interaction is about interaction with an “other” they may look like “buggers” but some cultures can seem alien to us too. The twist at the end was alluded to (Ender asks, well what if it’s just a mistake, and the reply he gets is survive first ask questions later), and I am glad the author did it that way; because it shows that the “other” is not monstrous, just misunderstood. The phrase that comes to mind is “to err is human” in the end we find that the aliens are not some malicious monsters bent on galactic domination, but just a society so different from ours that they realized their mistake too late. This theme of understanding and communication can also be seen in other fiction works, in Ursula Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness (I did a wiki on this in case you want to know more about it). There is also an interaction between two alien races, and even though they have the physical means to communicate (something the buggers did not), the two main characters still miscommunicate at first, in large due to bias and not bothering to truly understand. That’s another issue with communication, often one regards his culture (or race) as superior or they believe their way is the right way. Something new or different or unknown is feared, it’s too dangerous to just embrace something like that and people tend to become very cautious and build walls to protect themselves, or fear (which can lead to anger or hatred) consumes them. True communication and understanding is a delicate balance. One can’t simply disregard their own background and nature and embrace the other, but one can’t also completely reject the other. I look forward to seeing what other authors do with the theme of “the other.”

Another issue in the book that I found interesting was the tactics used with the kids, the sheer manipulation for the ultimate goal. And I agree with Jen’s point, one kind of needs to accept the fact that at some parts of the book the characters are about 6 years old, just get used to the fact that they are super children and move on with the story. But how the kids acted is not too farfetched, because games are still what is used to teach them. That’s why they had to keep it as games: if it didn’t have that title it would be completely different. It’s not like the children believe at the time of the games they have an impact on the world, they believe they are just being trained for things later in the future, and in the first school it was indeed just training games. In a way lots of children’s games even in real life are meant to “train” the child for life. It’s just that in the book the children were trained for a different type of life and more intensely. But the human mind is designed to try and solve problems, and games train the mind to think that way. Every game has a goal and the player needs to figure out how to reach it. In the case of Ender and the kids, their goal was to win against the other team. By putting things into such simple terms for them they made it easy for the kids. In the case of games; when their team won, the other team was still ok in the end, not dead. It would be different and would have had a whole different weight if they were taught using battles to the death. That would have produced completely different people. I also found the fact that the adults kept the truth from Ender the only way it would have worked with him. By making him think he is still playing games, the rules of a game still applied, real life holds more consequence, and they let him make real life decisions without having to worry about those consequences (since he didn’t know they existed). In the end his actions still lie heavy on his shoulders, but the situation in which the decisions were made matters.

All in all I found that this book really made me think about a lot of things, and it indeed raises a lot of issues and interesting ideas.