Orson Scott Card Has Always Been an Asshat (26)

1 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-06-26 20:22 ID:Heaven

An essay claiming that Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is actually Hitler apologia:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/28/22428/7034

Now, which is more amusing, the original premise of the essay (without having read it or the referred article, I can't really say much about the validity of the claim, except that crypto-fascism isn't exactly uncommon in science fiction writing), or the ensuing flamewar (of nearly epic proportions), where two science fiction authors start arguing about who said what at party 15 years ago?

2 Name: Random Anonymous 2005-06-26 20:33 ID:etbTwTYm

Oh boy, I am so clueless here!

3 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E 2005-06-27 00:23 ID:Heaven

localroger is hilarious, and writes some interesting short fiction. I really don't get the Hitler apologia angle though.

The series wasn't that great, particularly books two and three. Book three is probably supposed to be competition for Scientology or something.

4 Name: bubu 2005-06-27 01:34 ID:Heaven

Yet most baffling remains the fact that people care enough about a science fiction writer to write 8'599 words (no problem, folks!) strong articles about said writer and his alleged views on Titler.

5 Name: Random Anonymous 2005-06-27 05:36 ID:Heaven

This is hilarious. Apparently good drama is recyclable!

6 Name: Random Anonymous 2005-06-27 08:53 ID:u2H0y43a

I am in awe. I read half of that essay and he pulled shit out of his ass at every possible moment.

Jesus Christ that was a laugh.

7 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-06-27 12:56 ID:FKXTdCxl

What about this "controversial belief" of the Mormons that Hitler could be forgiven by god?

Is this really controversial?

8 Name: Random Anonymous 2005-06-27 13:53 ID:Fob9aGh2

> Is this really controversial?

Are you drunk?

9 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-06-27 14:53 ID:FKXTdCxl

No, really, most Lutheran priests I know might be uncomfortable with it, but would probably have to agree with that statement.

10 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-06-27 14:56 ID:FKXTdCxl

Also, linked from that first article is this second, even longer one.

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm

This one is much more sober and just questions the moral message of Ender's Game. Did anyone here manage to read both the book and that article? Having read it, I'm even less interested in reading Ender's Game than I was before, but I wonder how well-deserved its criticisms are.

11 Name: Random Anonymous 2005-06-27 14:59 ID:Fob9aGh2

>>9

Well, Christians are full of shit anyway. See: Witchhunts, The Inquisition, support of peasants' suppression in the Middle Ages, the genocide in Latin & North America as well as in any other European coloy, collaboration in World War I & II with the nazis, etc.

12 Name: Random Anonymous 2005-06-27 15:00 ID:Fob9aGh2

> collaboration in World War I & II with the nazis

Clarification: Collaboration with the nazis before during and after WW2. But they consecrated enough artillery during WW1, too.

13 Name: Alexander!DxY0NCwFJg!!muklVGqN 2005-06-27 16:04 ID:Heaven

>Clarification: Collaboration with the nazis before during and after WW2. But they consecrated enough artillery during WW1, too.

I bet many of your best friends are Christians, but.....

14 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E 2005-06-28 03:17 ID:0fhIsiOb

>>10
Kessel is just as nuts as localroger, he just sounds more sober.

Regarding Ender's Game, let me put it this way: I never read it twice. Simple plot, simple characters, poor descriptions, etc. It's a typical sci-fi book for teens, in a similar vein to Heinlein.

All this Hitler apologia wankery is just giving a mediocre book more attention than it deserves. Why Ender's Game is so popular is a mystery to me.

15 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-06-28 12:33 ID:FKXTdCxl

>>14

Funny you should bring up Heinlein, the other sci-fi author people like to call a fascist.

Part of the reason I liked the Starship Troopers movie a lot (and, I suspect, part of the reason so many Heinlein fans hated it), was for its mocking portrayal of an essentially fascist society.

I noticed a lot of people didn't pick up on that, though. Some people I know didn't like it because they saw the subtext as propaganda for the US. I find this even more hilarious.

16 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E 2005-06-28 14:13 ID:XzoBVI1M

The book felt very much like one of the early Heinlein novels. It's been a while, but if someone told me Ender's Game was by Heinlein, I would have believed it. A bit darker than normal, but not much else.

I wonder how well Heinlein's vision in Starship Troopers, of a future where the only citizens are retired soldiers, would work. I probably wouldn't want to find out, even if the novel itself was enjoyable.

17 Name: 11-12 2005-06-28 16:14 ID:Heaven

>>13

There's always exceptions. There are now, there were then.
But in general, yes, Christianity has failed the morality test of modern times and is thus to be suspected to be generally incapable of coming to ethically acceptable conclusions when times get rough (which they very well might become again).

Also, Christianity isn't something natural which you are more or less born with and then more or less have to live with all of your life as is the case with nationality or ethnic heritage (as I think your comment there was supposed to jab at an assumed analogy to this) - it is an ideology which demands that you avow yourself to it. And insofar as this is an affirmation of the mind and we assume the mind to act freely it's a free decision.

18 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E 2005-06-29 00:54 ID:Heaven

> Christianity has failed the morality test of modern times and is thus to be suspected to be generally incapable of coming to ethically acceptable conclusions when times get rough

Correction, people have failed the morality test.

I find it hard to blame a dogma for failing except in meaning. It's a set of words and beliefs. It can't make decisions.

Besides, I can point out examples of priests who helped those at risk of life and limb in WWII. There sure were a lot of them dying in concentration camps too. So what?

19 Name: Random Anonymous 2005-06-29 05:14 ID:Heaven

> Correction, people have failed the morality test.
> I find it hard to blame a dogma for failing except in meaning.

National Socialism was a dogma, too. As were Communism and Judaism. Of the latter two, collaboration was the exception and not the norm, though (although it could be argued that Judaism has failed to be radical enough in its resistance). There is a correlation between ideologies and the masses that avow themselves to them and the actions then acted out by individuals within those masses.

Also, to say that only people have failed the morality test is the same as saying that there is no bigger perspective and economical, philosophical as well as psychological issues that have lead to the failure can only be explained from the perspective of the individual. This seems like a flawed reduction to me, for several reasons. Genocide not being the same as mass murder could be seen as one of them.

> There sure were a lot of them dying in concentration camps too.

Exceptions.

20 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-06-29 11:19 ID:FKXTdCxl

Not that this discussion isn't fascinating in its own right, but I had been hoping for more of a chance to harp on sci-fi writers, or else to talk about Narutaru.

21 Name: Random Anonymous 2005-06-29 13:55 ID:Heaven

Narutaru is cool. I like Narutaru.

22 Name: Alexander!DxY0NCwFJg!!muklVGqN 2005-06-29 19:48 ID:Heaven

Can't you use Occam's razor on >>19 instead WAHa? I think he needs it. That, or some more sound metodology.

23 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-06-29 21:43 ID:KsLZ951I

I was thinking that Narutaru seems to cover a lot of the same themes that John Kessel reads into Ender's Game in >>10, except I find the treatment in Narutaru a lot more honest. Both seem to be, to some degree, meditations on the ethics of power and violence, but Narutaru never takes the easy way out of absolving anyone of guilt for using violence, and never dismisses the consequences of it. Neither does it paint people as simply good or evil.

Reading it, I found it challenging my own moral values - the experience it is a little like looking into a mirror that shows you your own darker sides, when you find a character whose actions you find reprehensible saying things and giving justifications you know you've thought to yourself at some point.

24 Name: Random Anonymous 2005-06-30 16:05 ID:Heaven

That's nothing new! As Nietzsche said: "One always asks why this or that person has committed this or that horrible crime! It would be more honest to ask: 'Why haven't I committed this crime already?'"

25 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-06-30 17:58 ID:KsLZ951I

Quite the easily misinterpreted quote, that.

But no, it is new, when you first encounter it in a form that manages to get through to you. For me, it was Narutaru, but I assume it doesn't have the same effect on anywhere near all of the people who read it.

However, everyone should try to find at least one work of fiction that his this effect on them, I think. It's good for you.

26 Name: Random Anonymous 2005-06-30 20:51 ID:Heaven

> Quite the easily misinterpreted quote, that.

I paraphrased that one. I believe it's from "Beyond Good and Evil".

This thread has been closed. You cannot post in this thread any longer.