Ender's Game -- From Being Term Paper

Total Length: 2003 words ( 7 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 5

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History makes it possible for one to understand how the masses can be persuaded to adopt particular attitudes by being provided with manipulative information. People lose the ability to discover when they are being controlled as they are provided with more and more false information. One's inclination to act similar to a typical human being can thus be destroyed as the respective individual becomes entangled in a greater scheme. This is basically what a dehumanizing process consists of: waves of false information meant to influence people in thinking that it is in their best interest to put across a certain type of behavior.

It is easier for people to abandon their principles when they are presented with a purpose. This is exactly what happens with Ender: his energetic personality is exploited by his superiors as they constantly influence him in displaying his determination in various games that they devise. They refrain from providing him with a great deal of information regarding the circumstances of his training. However, the fact that they are acquainted with Ender's willingness to be the best makes it possible for them to use his qualities for their own advantage. They isolated him and they influenced him in thinking that he was different from the rest in an attempt to have

Ender practically acts as a machine (on and off the battlefield), considering that he is solely interested in victory and that he wants to complete orders without considering the harm that he can cause to his men in the process.
This makes it difficult for him to think about the outside world and he appears to be insensitive to concepts that would make a normal individual scared. In spite of his determination and intellect, he is being used by people who know how to manipulate him. This character experiences a dehumanizing process that is being shown throughout the novel. He grows from a sensitive boy into a dehumanized man who would stop at nothing from achieving success in his endeavor. More and more individuals today come to experience a fate similar to Ender (even with the fact that the circumstances of their manipulation differ from the ones in Card's novel) and it seems that people are predisposed to being dehumanized. The fact that they are determined to achieve certain goals makes it impossible for them to express interest in wanting to see matters from an objective point-of-view.

Works cited:

Card, Orson Scott, Ender's Game, Retrieved March 18, 2012, from the Scribd Website: http://www.scribd.com/doc/34993931/Ender-s-Game-Novella

Dixon, John and Levine, Mark, Beyond Prejudice: Extending the Social Psychology of Conflict, Inequality and Social Change, (Cambridge University Press, 2012)

Fournet, Caroline, the crime of destruction and the law of genocide: their impact on collective memory, (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007)

Kaufmann, Paulus. Humiliation, Degradation, Dehumanization: Human Dignity Violated, (Springer, 2010)

Rogers, James, the Accelerating Pace of Dehumanization,….....

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