Xenophobia

Demosthenes' Hierarchy of Foreigness has a great deal of relevance for contemporary conflicts here on Earth. According to the hierarchy, there is only one class of alien species with whom humans must inevitably go to war: the varelse, who must be destroyed in order to avoid their destruction of humanity. Other alien species are raman, who may be understood and who are capable of understanding humans, thereby providing a basis for peaceful co-existence between humans and aliens. Looked at in these terms, it is difficult to imagine why humans must necessarily war with one another, when clearly we should be capable of understanding one another to a greater degree than we are likely to understand alien species.

Card's novel suggests the Hierarchy may work well in theory but can be hard to implement in practice with the way he has Valentine, the actual creator of the hierarchy, respond...