I don’t know a lot about futurism, but given the author clearly doesn’t seem to know how to fact check I’m going to assume the time I spent getting to this part was wasted.
Thiel actually has said the thing that you quote [0] (though perhaps I'm misunderstanding you).
[0] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio... "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."
You know, I've heard many people make that claim over the years, but I've never seen any evidence for it (there are anecdotal cases where someone who was extremely anti-gay was later outed as gay, yes, sure, but I've seen no evidence that this is always, or even often, the case).
People can be racists without being "secretly black", and misogynist without being "secretly women", right?
Or, you know, someone that is just anti-gay (e.g. for religious reasons, conservative tendencies, or whatever).
For one, lumping people who make anti-gay statements as "repressed homosexuals" makes it like there's something wrong with their lives/mental state (as opposed to just with their ideas). There might be, but not for that reason. It deprives them of real agency.
Second, it makes it like it's specifically gay people who are fascists when they are repressed. Why would repressing their desires (something that straight people do as well) make them have a specific trait such as that?
Some people who repressed their desires (sexual straight or gay, career ambitions, love interests, etc) did good (became missionaries helping people, sacrificed themselves to save others, etc), and actual fascists (like, real Nazis, in actual 1933-1945) repressed few of their desires. If anything, they over-indulged in them.
My read is that Card (like a few other Mormon SF writers I can think of) is:
1) seriously invested in religion, especially but not exclusively his own religion, and absolutely unwilling to simply dismiss it 2) genuinely interested in social justice 3) struggling to resolve this conflict
This comes out strongly in questions about the tension between collective action and individualist conscience. And it's also pretty tightly-wound in the tension between churchly homophobia on the one hand, and on the other, compassion and empathy and respect for the sovereignty of the individual whenever possible.
I suspect that when one says that Card "is [clearly] a far-right reactionary", you're likely to be oversimplifying to the point of uselessness. Indeed, I suspect that in general, that description is unlikely to tidily fit very many people in the world. But on the other hand, I believe it's useful and accurate to say "some of Card's beliefs seem consonant with a deep connection to a reactionary ideology".
The Ender's Game series collectively are constantly looking at fascistic themes. And these are invariably brought up for the purpose of looking at the drawbacks of that worldview. (Although they're occasionally sympathetic to the virtues of that worldview, too.)
The main way that Card is demonstrably "right-wing" or "reactionary" is that he has an abiding sympathy for the social mores of the religious right -- but even there, he does a lot of second-guessing himself too.
But far-right or fascistic? Hah.
Is it though?
EG as anti-fascist text: Buggers represent a perceived existential threat. Humanity gets together and forms a single government which lives on past the threat. The first criticism of the new world order is in the very beginning, in which you learn that Ender is the son of parents of a persecuted religious minority sect that wants to have more than the allotted number of children (I read this as a libertarian viewpoint). The biggest anti-fascist gut punch comes when you see things from the Queen's perspective: "'The humans did not forgive us,' she thought. 'We will surely die.'" It turns out that the entire coordinated militaristic response was premised on misunderstanding and inability to communicate. Had only the humans had empathetic, loving leaders like Ender, they would have understood the Buggers, and vice versa, and no war; I read the book as being about tragic misunderstanding, and how reasonable responses to those misunderstandings can lead to Xenocide. But I do not think this functions as an argument for a stronger state.
I also don't want to defend Card's out-of-book positions or much of the Shadow series. I just think Ender's Game itself holds up really well as a stand-alone piece of fiction.
My 2 cents, the books are symbolically rich and I appreciate that there are pieces of evidence I've ignored or forgotten about that would put it in a very different light.
I'm attempting to write obliquely to limit spoiler effect.
But yeah, of course #2/#3 is the reason Ender's Game is so massively popular. But also notice that's not what the author thought he'd written (ha ha, so much for genius).
I mean, notice that Card thinks that SftD and Xenocide are the natural sequels to the important themes of Ender's Game, but 99% of his commercial audience (including me at the age when I first read SftD) thought they were unrelated and unrelatable, and preferred the Shadow sequence. But Card took over a decade to go for it and write the first Shadow book, Ender's Shadow (1999, 13 years after SftD, which only took a year after Ender's Game).
Ender's Game is pro-facist the way Robocop is pro-police-state. (And yeah, when I saw Robocop in my teens, I thought it was pro-police-state. sigh.)
There was a time that "fighting a war" meant that nearly everybody was involved. The US government rationed food during WWII to make sure there was enough for the troops. They rationed other things as well, such as cloth and metals that were needed for uniforms and supplies.
If the world were facing destruction on a larger scale, I have no doubt the military would get whatever people and materials it wanted as quickly as possible, regardless of any official legal limitations. But that doesn't mean I want to live in that world. And, if course, nearly every civilian in "Ender's Game" does seem to resent the military in some way.
> Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
Thiel add's an update addressing this point:
> It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better.
I frankly have no idea about what he is trying to say.
Reread the passage several times and have to conclude it sounds like lawyer-speak: words generally make sense but are broad enough to encompass anything and open to judicial interpretation.
Would you be similarly confused by the difference between "doesn't believe that eating peanut butter cups will cure bubonic plague" and "wants to ban peanut butter cups, or take away people's right to eat them"?
While Thiel could have been more clear here, I don't see any inconsistency in his statements.
It may be more confusing if you're one of those people who thinks that government intervention is the One True Solution to every single problem that troubles the human race.
> the extension of the franchise to women .... have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."
On the other hand, in the update, he seems to suggest that voting doesn't matter. I find that confusing. Why even establish causality in the original essay if there is no such causality as seemingly described in the edit?
> It may be more confusing if you're one of those people who thinks that government intervention is the One True Solution to every single problem that troubles the human race.
It might be helpful to not assume too many things from one sentence :)
He suggests that voting doesn't matter for the issues that concern him.
Do you actually believe that every single problem can be solved by voting? I feel sure that you don't. So what's the issue here?
I am not sure why you keep assuming my own personal opinions about voting, democracy, etc when I have not bothered to share any. I have merely pointed out that his update to the essay seems to muddle the point made in the original essay -- and that I am having trouble parsing it.
You parse the update to his essay as "voting doesn't matter for the issues that concern him". I agree -- that is what he seems to be saying in the edit.
How do you parse his original statement: "extension of franchise to women has rendered the notion of capitalist democracy into an oxymoron". Assuming he cares about capitalist democracy (based on the content of the essay), that statement certainly seems to imply that voting did matter -- so much so, that extending franchise to new demographics harmed capitalist democracy (the thing he cared about).
With that context, his update seems more like an attempt to recover from bad PR than anything else.
Because your (mis)interpretation of Thiel's words isn't consistent with any other interpretation. So what are you saying, then? Anything?
> How do you parse his original statement: "extension of franchise to women has rendered the notion of capitalist democracy into an oxymoron".
That he does not think that his goals can be best served by resorting to democratic governmental means.
Which is not the same thing as him being opposed to democracy.
> so much so, that extending franchise to new demographics harmed capitalist democracy
No, he's not saying that at all. When you say something is an "oxymoron" you're saying that it's a contradiction, not that it's "been harmed".
Also, I don't think Peter Thiel gives two shits about "bad PR".
Here's the Thiel quote[1]:
Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
and his clarification:
It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better. (published at the bottom of that article)
So how do I read that and not read something essentially the same as "capitalism is undermined by women being allowed to vote"? Is it merely that he thinks that the right shouldn't be withdrawn?
[1] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...