Quote 10
“Our genes won't let us decide any other way. Nature can't evolve a species that hasn't a will to survive.” (13.286)
Here’s Graff giving a slightly more clarified explanation of the first quote in this section. Or is it? In that other quote, Graff told Ender (and us) that individuals aren’t free because of pressure the species puts on us. Here, Graff locates that pressure in our genes. On one hand, there’s definitely some overlap there – genes do get passed down by the species, after all. On the other hand, aren’t genes (in some ways) what make us individuals? We could connect this with Graff’s later comment on about how his body deals with stress in different ways (over-eating, under-eating). Which brings us back to that issue: if we could get free of everything social that was confining us, might we still be confined by our selves?