Ender's Game

Why do we go to war? In Ender’s Game, I think Orson Scott Card tries to answer this question by suggesting that it is a lack of or an unwillingness to communicate that causes people to wage war. In the book we see two different races, buggers and humans, at war. The humans think that the buggers are evil creatures dedicated to warfare while the buggers only killed humans because they didn’t understand that they were sentient creatures.

Communication is the key to beginning to understand another race of people. When two parties are unable to or do not want to communicate is when conflict between peoples arise. Perhaps it is not the only reason, because the Colonies could certainly communicate with England before the American Revolution, they just didn’t like what they were hearing. However, after reading this book, I realize how important it is for different groups of people to peacefully communicate. I completely sympathize with Ender in that I don’t understand how intelligent life forms could be unwilling to have a rational discussion.

The fact that the buggers communicated instantaneously through their thoughts must have been frightening and nerve-racking for humans, and it certainly must have made communication nearly impossible. However, Ender could easily have killed the queen pupa without any thought, but instead he chose to listen to her and he learned that the buggers were not war-crazed creatures bent on destroying all races but their own.

This is a lesson that we could learn in society today. We need to be willing to communicate and willing to understand people who are different from us. We might learn things that could change our outlook on certain issues. Communication might not always be an easy solution to every conflict or problem, but it should always be an option.