Systemic Violence in a Culture as Depicted in Ender's Game Geoffrey Yu Zhang College

While many problems in civilization can be attributed to direct causes, underlying factors manipulate and play a large role towards determining a culture. Psychologists and scholars share a deep curiosity about these factors in order to understand society and its conflict. In his book Ender’s Game, author Orson Scott Card highlights the complications of structural violence, inciting the reader to confront the consequences of hierarchy, discrimination, and stratification. Furthermore, in the article “Structural Violence,” authors Deborah DuNann Winter and Dana C. Leighton examine the various causes of social inequalities and their universal impacts on violence and culture. In both the book and the article, these inequities prevalent in institutions of hierarchy are pervasive concepts that ultimately construct a society of brutality and discrimination.

The idea of structural violence is not new, but researchers, including psychologists Deborah Winter and Dana Leighton, have shown that its effects may be more ubiquitous than previously thought. Structural violence arises “whenever people are disadvantaged by political, legal, economic or cultural traditions,” indicating different forms of oppression (Winter and Leighton 1). Winter...