Schmitt vs The Bugs

The Buggers in Ender's Game and the Bugs in Starship Troopers seem to be, at least on the surface, the most extreme possible interpretation of what Carl Schmitt refers to in "The Concept of the Political" when he talks about "something different and alien." While he didn't mean this to necessarily refer an actual extra-terrestrial, both species are so different from us, so incomprehensible in both culture and form, that they could serve as the textbook definition of "alien" in the sense of otherness.

The military in both works, and along with them the civilian population, follow in Schmitt's line of thinking that the Bugs are so different from us, that their existence is a threat to our way of life. It is perceived that there can be no similarity between us and the Bugs. In Starship Troopers an analyst even goes so far as to call the idea of an intelligent Bug "offensive." And since the Bugs in both works commit aggressive acts against planet Earth, the humans, using Schmitt's logic, are justified in beleiving that the aliens pose a threat and must be "repulsed or fought in order to preserve [their] own form of existence."

The thing is, both works seem to reject this logic in the end, at least to some degree. In Ender's Game it becomes apparent that the Bugger's had never meant us harm, and had not even realized they were killing us. This entire race is wiped out needlessly because of the reasoning in "The Concept of the Political." The rejection is more subtle in Starship Troopers. While on the surface it seems to come out in favor of the destruction of the Bugs, it is important to remember that the movie is a satire of propaganda films. It is implied that a fair telling of the films events might be much more sympathetic to the Bugs. The attack on Earth was actually provoked by humans violating the Bugs territory, so it was really the humans who started the war. And at the end the brain bug is clearly terrified, and the humans rejoice in its plight. Both works show what can happen when you decide that anyone sufficiently different from yourself poses a threat to you way of life.