What was Heinlein's Political Agenda
Dino V. Germano
(Htn66) wrote:
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein stand in
> the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or comment..SNIP
O.K, I'll give it a go.
>........................................................................Was
> he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the virtues
> of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers
> can be beaten to death,...SNIP...
Hum, in the book floged for being a drunk driver, Yes. Beaten to death
for being homosexual, no. It is not so stated in the book. Heinlein was
not "right wing", read his early "IF THIS GOES ON".
He was a big supporter of duty though. In fact I would think that he
would say that doing what you think is your duty is more important than
what side you pick.
> .......................or the free-thinker liberal who wrote "Stranger in a
> Strange Land," which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
> cannibalistic orgies, or a strange mishmash of both?.
Have you read Swift? (Gulliver's Travels, not Tom) That is what SiaSL
was about, not what the author thought was right for you to do. I think
that "GLORY ROAD" and CITIZEN of the GALAXY" are closer to what he really
thought. (my feelings only)
Htn66
he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the virtues
of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers can
Dan Goodman
Htn66 <ht...@aol.com> wrote:
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein stand in
>the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or comment. Was
>he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the virtues
>of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers can
>be beaten to death,
Could you quote the passages in _Starship Troopers_ in which that was
said?
or the free-thinker liberal
Somewhat inaccurate as a description of the political positions which
could be inferred from "Stranger". Free-thinker, yes; liberal, no.
who wrote "Stranger in a
>Strange Land," which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
>cannibalistic orgies, or a strange mishmash of both?.
Sounds like you've missed Heinlein's early work, which would confuse you a
bit more.
Heinlein's views changed. Some sf readers find it hard (even impossible)
to believe that a writer's views can change over the years; but it does
happen.
His views at any one time probably seemed consistent _to him_ -- but need
not fit into any of the standard frameworks. And maybe they weren't as
consistent as he thought they were.
He grew up in another time. A time when, for example, it was quite common
for a politician to be a liberal and a segregationist.
Oh, yes -- there's _no_ necessary connection between what characters
believe and/or what a book _seems_ to advocate, and the writer's personal
views.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
mike stone
>His views at any one time probably seemed consistent _to him_ -- but need
>not fit into any of the standard frameworks. And maybe they weren't as
>consistent as he thought they were.
>
>
How does it go?
"I contradict myself? Very well then - I contradict myself!
I am large - I contain multitudes."
RAH was *certainly* large
Mike Stone - Peterborough England
Last words of King Edward II.
"I always said that Roger Mortimer was a pain in the - - -A AARGHH!!!
Ian
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein stand in
>the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or comment. Was
>he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the virtues
>of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers can
>be beaten to death, or the free-thinker liberal who wrote "Stranger in a
>Strange Land," which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
>cannibalistic orgies, or a strange mishmash of both?.
Heinlein was quite a varied individual, who didn't fit into popular
stereotypes of "left" and "right". Adding to this is the fact that he
occasionally contradicted or changed his own stated opinions. He has much
in common with the modern movement which is, AFAIK, sometimes referred to
as the "New Right" in the US. Conservative in many issues but not any kind
of old-guard social conservative.
Ian
>Oh, yes -- there's _no_ necessary connection between what characters
>believe and/or what a book _seems_ to advocate, and the writer's personal
>views.
However, I must point out that this isn't something necessary to keep in
mind when reading the books of Robert Heinlein, who was quite unsubtle in
showcasing his beliefs in novels. Not that I disagree with you - what you
say is usually true with most authors - but not usually true for Heinlein.
Derek Peschel
I'm not convinced by your argument about Heilein's lack of subtlety. (I
believe you're probably right, but I'm not _convinced_.) I think examples
would be helpful -- also a way to prove that the examples were Heinlein's
beliefs rather than his characters'.
I have two points, which would be counterarguments except that they are
tangential and weak. Call them observations of irony instead:
- If Heinlein was as unsubtle as you say, why do people seem to
argue about his political beliefs more than those of any other
author (as far as I can tell)? The arguments can be very basic;
people can't necessarily agree on what his beliefs are.
- If what you say is true, it's especially notable that Heinlein
spent so much energy pointing out that the views of the charac-
ters don't need to be the same as the views of the author.
That's good advice, but it looks to me to have the status
practically of a mantra among Heinlein and his fans.
-- Derek
jonathan dale mccall
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein stand in
>the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or comment. Was
>he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the virtues
>of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers can
>be beaten to death,
Since the instances you describe do not, in fact, occur in that book
(or any other), you may want to check your memory. Heinlein's
attitudes toward homosexuality have been endlessy debated, but his
later work displays, at the very least, an attitude of tolerance (see
Jake's description of his homosexual experimentation in <Number of the
Beast>)
or the free-thinker liberal who wrote "Stranger in a
>Strange Land," which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
>cannibalistic orgies, or a strange mishmash of both?.
Heinlein's political views are generally described as libertarian. If
you want a novel of his that (imho) shows the most convergence between
the ideas the characters espouse and his own stated political and
philosphical tendencies, I would recommend <The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress>, with special emphasis on the character of Bernardo de la
Paz.
Assuming this isn't just a troll, of course.
--
Jonathan McCall
Jo Walton
ht...@aol.com "Htn66" writes:
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein stand in
> the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or comment. Was
> he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the virtues
> of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers can
> be beaten to death, or the free-thinker liberal who wrote "Stranger in a
> Strange Land," which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
> cannibalistic orgies, or a strange mishmash of both?.
No. He was a storyteller. People make things up, in fiction. HTH.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Interstichia; Poetry; RASFW FAQ; etc.
Louann Miller
Htn66 wrote in message <19990708020443...@ng-fu1.aol.com>...
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein stand
in
>the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or comment.
Was
>he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the
virtues
>of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers
can
>be beaten to death,
Cite? I don't remember any legal penalties for homosexuality _at all_ in
"Starship Troopers." Come to that, I don't remember any mention of
homosexuality in Starship Troopers, which is not unusual for a book written
in the 1950's.
Drunk driving was punishable by flogging, but I believe it was something on
the order of ten lashes. Not fun, but unlikely to be life-threatening. The
Royal Navy used to hand them out in increments of a dozen, and Tsarist
Russians sometimes got up above a thousand. Bernard Cornwell, who's
generally considered to do his homework, mentions at one point in the Sharpe
series (Napoleanic war, infantry) that two hundred lashes is likely to be
fatal.
>or the free-thinker liberal who wrote "Stranger in a
>Strange Land," which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
>cannibalistic orgies, or a strange mishmash of both?.
My troll-meter's going here, but I stand by my previous paragraph. First
let's get the facts straight, then argue about what they mean.
James Battista
: I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein stand in
: the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or comment. Was
: he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the virtues
: of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers can
: Strange Land," which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
: cannibalistic orgies, or a strange mishmash of both?.
Clearly his plan was to achieve personal world domination before turning
the planet over to his lord and master Cthulhu.
Jim
Kevin J. Maroney
>Clearly his plan was to achieve personal world domination before turning
>the planet over to his lord and master Cthulhu.
Yeah, but that's true of *all* of the Campbell-era writers.
Kevin Maroney | kmar...@crossover.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor
The New York Review of Science Fiction
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html
Richard Harter
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein stand in
>the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or comment. Was
>he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the virtues
>of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers can
>be beaten to death, or the free-thinker liberal who wrote "Stranger in a
>Strange Land," which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
>cannibalistic orgies, or a strange mishmash of both?.
It's a fairly simple matter; the political spectrum that you refer to
is an artificial construct which doesn't match the real world very well.
People who view the world in terms of said spectrum often are confused
by real people.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-978-369-3911
My goals in life are to bring small wisdom to small minds
and to bring everyone a bit closer to the Twilight Zone
Nigel Arnot
Htn66 wrote:
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein stand in
> the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or comment. Was
> he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the virtues
> of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers can
> be beaten to death, or the free-thinker liberal who wrote "Stranger in a
> Strange Land," which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
> cannibalistic orgies, or a strange mishmash of both?.
Did he have a political agenda?
I'd have thought that he was foremost a storyteller. Many authors have commented
that the characters they create often "surprise" their creator by "deciding" to do
things that the author wasn't "expecting". Even if not, a good author will create
multidimensional characters who aren't merely animated dummies with the
author's personal "good" and "bad" labels pinned to them.
That said: there are characters who I think it's fairly clear are mouthing
Heinlein's
own views, at least those he held at the time he penned them. Lazarus Long is one
such, the spymaster in "Friday" another. I suppose that's libertarian with
right-wing
bias, if you really want it summed up in a phrase.
"Friday" is ageing well. It's one of few books whose imagined future seems to
be getting more likely, more threatening, as the distance from our real present
decreases.
Htn66
homosexual persecution in "Starship Troopers" -- somehow I equated its system
with Hitler's fascism, and inadvertently let it slipped it.
I had to ask because most critical appraisals of Heinlein invariably drag
in his political belief (or complaints of his political sermonizing) as a
factor. Seems to me the critics were always reaching -- I've read the majority
of Heinlein's works, with the exception of the latter novels (Friday, etc.),
and never did find his political message (if any) obtrusive or consistent for
him to be so criticized.
willre...@my-deja.com
ht...@aol.com (Htn66) wrote:
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein
stand in the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or
comment. Was he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which
expounds the virtues of a militaristic, conservative society where
homosexuals and drunk drivers can be beaten to death,
Did you ever READ _Starship Troopers_?? The society depicted was not
particularly militaristic. The military was one way to gain the
franchise and the right to hold office. There were non-military avenues
to the franchise but they don't seem too attractive. People who did NOT
choose to earn the franchise could not vote or serve in public office
but retained their other rights. Drunk drivers COULD be beaten to death
but the people who did it would be HANGED if caught and convicted. The
death penalty for drunken driving was not administered by the mob but
by the courts. There is not one mention of homosexuality being illegal
in the book and there is no mention of anyone being hostile to it. I
imagine, since I DID read the book, that the idea of homosexuality
would have been a dry academic issue to Juan Rico, he probably didn't
know any gay people. The absence of gay people or gay issues in a book
originally concieved as a juvenile, although not completed as one, in
the 1950's proves nothing. Beating people to death for whatever reason,
other than self defense, would earn you a trial and a hanging in SsT,
as well it should. In SsT, RAH depicted a society that allowed a great
deal of personal freedom but kept the control of society in the hands
of those who were willing to defend it or otherwise take responsibility
for it.
or the free-thinker liberal who wrote "Stranger in a Strange Land,"
which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
cannibalistic orgies, or a strangemishmash of both?.
Maybe you read _Stranger in a Strange Land_ but I don't think so. He
was a free-thinker but not what moderns think of as a liberal. He has
often been identified with the Jubal Hershaw character whose various
statements in the first part of the book could be characterized as
anarchistic or perhaps libertarian. He did mock established relisgion
but libertarian and conservative don't mean anything like the same
thing and mocking established religion fits in very well with the RAH
who wrote _Starship Troopers_ RAH would likely have depicted more open
sexuality in SsT if its intended audience had been older. There was
only one cannibalistic sequence in SiaSL and its symbolism may have
escaped you. Try READING THE BOOK.
Bill Reich
Shines the name, shines the name of Roger Young
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Samuel Paik
> >Clearly his plan was to achieve personal world domination
> >before turning the planet over to his lord and master Cthulhu.
>
> Yeah, but that's true of *all* of the Campbell-era writers.
And the amazing thing is one of them has managed to do it.
(elronhub--a node off of shub internet) Fortunately the
League of Justice has managed to keep C* from doing too much
damage.
--
Samuel S. Paik | http://www.webnexus.com/users/paik/
3D and multimedia, architecture and implementation
Solyent Green is kitniyot!
Dan Goodman
Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
>James Battista <jim...@duke.edu> wrote:
>
>>Clearly his plan was to achieve personal world domination before turning
>>the planet over to his lord and master Cthulhu.
>
>Yeah, but that's true of *all* of the Campbell-era writers.
Did any of them succeed?
Joseph Major
: Did you ever READ _Starship Troopers_??
<snip of excellent summary and discussion of this and SiaSL>
: Try READING THE BOOK.
Nice try, but it's obvious that these people prefer to get their
opinions pre-digested. I doubt that even Moorcock actually read the book.
Joseph T Major
(Article on _SST_ soon available on my website where the other Heinlein
articles are. Check http://members.iglou.com/jtmajor)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Yrlsqb nx sobshuggum illingoon. Mark my words!"
-- Cyril Q. Kornbluth
--
Charlie Stross
as <willre...@my-deja.com> declared:
>Did you ever READ _Starship Troopers_?? The society depicted was not
>particularly militaristic.
On the contrary. Heinlein has Rico state explicitly that the universe is
not a nice place: if humanity can't prove itself the biggest, baddest,
most evil bunch of head-bangers out there they're doomed. There is a
background of competition between spacefaring species in ST that
mirrors the nationalistic abuse of darwinism prevalent between 1870 and
1945 or thereabouts, the ideology that laid the seeds of two world
wars -- the idea that nations compete, that competition is ruthless,
that only the fittest will survive.
This doesn't mean that the society is militaristic through and through,
but the author _does_ indicate that (in this novel) the only way to
judge a society is by how efficiently it shits on its enemies. And in
that sense, the whole of human civilization is militarized -- that is,
it is geared up to support an active military program of a not strictly
defensive nature.
(As a second consideration, for you: seen from the outside, the USA today
looks pretty militaristic. This doesn't mean that the USA is a military
dictatorship or has conscription or a dress code or something; just that
last month US forces bombed Serbia, and yesterday USAF planes bombed
Iraq, and ... you see a picture emerging here?)
(Caveat: I'm by no means sure Heinlein believed this: it was just that
it was a good hook to hang a war novel on, with a background picture
that is basically WW2 in Europe scrawled across the galaxy.)
>Maybe you read _Stranger in a Strange Land_ but I don't think so. He
>was a free-thinker but not what moderns think of as a liberal. He has
>often been identified with the Jubal Hershaw character whose various
>statements in the first part of the book could be characterized as
>anarchistic or perhaps libertarian. He did mock established relisgion
>but libertarian and conservative don't mean anything like the same
>thing and mocking established religion fits in very well with the RAH
>who wrote _Starship Troopers_ RAH would likely have depicted more open
>sexuality in SsT if its intended audience had been older.
What _I_ get from Heinlein's writing is: individualist. Believes in
common sense. Materialist with a tendency towards scientism, but not a
blind belief in science. Libertarian social tendencies, believes in the
open frontier myth. Somewhat iconoclastic attitude towards orthodoxies of
all kinds -- likes poking fun at them; however, has an eye for the value
of tradition and thinks self-discipline is a good idea. Ran across
the sexual revolution relatively late in life but decided it was a
Good Thing. Not, by any stretch, what you'd characterise as a fanatic:
which is probably why people with axes to grind keep trying to wilfully
misunderstand him or pin him down to one set of beliefs (when, in fact,
his beliefs changed over time and the positions set out in some of his
novels were just that -- intellectual exercises rather than things he
passionately believed in).
-- Charlie
Htn66
><snip of excellent summary and discussion of this and SiaSL>
>: Try READING THE BOOK.
>
.>: Did you ever READ _Starship Troopers_??
><snip of excellent summary and discussion of this and SiaSL>
>: Try READING THE BOOK.
>
> Nice try, but it's obvious that these people prefer to get their
>opinions pre-digested. I doubt that even Moorcock actually read the book.
>
Heh, now MY troll meter is rising.
Calm down, sirs, I did read both of these books, which could reasonably
be inferred if YOU actually read my last post. (Personally, I have my own
doubts about "those people" who advocated the Cthulhu theory.)
Robert Pearlman
>In article <3793d024...@client.ne.news.psi.net>,
>Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
>>James Battista <jim...@duke.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>Clearly his plan was to achieve personal world domination before turning
>>>the planet over to his lord and master Cthulhu.
>>
>>Yeah, but that's true of *all* of the Campbell-era writers.
>
>Did any of them succeed?
How could we tell?
--
Pearlman
Kevin J. Maroney
>Did you ever READ _Starship Troopers_?? The society depicted was not
>particularly militaristic. The military was one way to gain the
>franchise and the right to hold office. There were non-military avenues
>to the franchise but they don't seem too attractive.
Heinlein maintained that what you have said was true, but the actual
text of _Starship Troopers_ does not confirm that. (I recently re-read
the novel with an eye towards just that issue.) There is a suggestion
that members of the Merchant Marine *might* get the franchise, but
otherwise the only route to enfranchisement shown was explicitly
through the military. If you know of a specific reference to the
contrary, please identify it; many other people have failed to do so.
One thing which is explicitly clear is that "military service" is
*not* identical to combat duty. We never get any view of what military
training and service are like for noncombatants, but Rico's friend who
enlists with him ends up at a scientific research post on Pluto.
Kevin J. Maroney
pricer...@my-deja.com
<slrn7oc1dg.avu.SPAM...@charlie.ed.datacash.com>,
charlie @ nospam . antipope . org wrote:
> What _I_ get from Heinlein's writing is: individualist. Believes in
> common sense. Materialist with a tendency towards scientism, but not a
> blind belief in science. Libertarian social tendencies, believes in
the
> open frontier myth. Somewhat iconoclastic attitude towards orthodoxies
of
> all kinds -- likes poking fun at them; however, has an eye for the
value
> of tradition and thinks self-discipline is a good idea. Ran across
> the sexual revolution relatively late in life but decided it was a
> Good Thing. Not, by any stretch, what you'd characterise as a
fanatic:
> which is probably why people with axes to grind keep trying to
wilfully
> misunderstand him or pin him down to one set of beliefs (when, in
fact,
> his beliefs changed over time and the positions set out in some of his
> novels were just that -- intellectual exercises rather than things he
> passionately believed in).
This seems a sensible summary to me. I would add, however, that anyone
seriously interested in trying to understand RAH's political beliefs, as
well as what he was really trying to achieve in writing various books,
should read some of his non-fiction, particularly _Tramp Royale_,
_Expanded Universe_, and _Grumbles from the Grave_... and I say this
despite being aware that, as James Gifford pointed out, RAH himself
occasionally makes mistakes in interpreting his own work (I'm thinking
particularly of Gifford's fairly convincing essay on the meaning of
"veteran" in Starship Troopers. In EH one can read about the "heirs of
Patrick Henry" affair which was the immediate prelude to the writing of
Starship Troopers; in _Grumbles_ there's a long piece near the end,
about the genesis of SIASL, in which Heinlein parenthetically says that,
at least in his mind, ST is primarily and incomplete and
not-completely-satisfactory attempt to explore "why Men fight",a
question which he says is pertinent, since as a matter of observation
they _do_ fight. _Tramp_ persuaded me that (1) Heinlein's direct
personal experiences on that 1954 round-the-world trip, particularly in
Indonesia persuaded him that many of the things he loved and valued were
under attack from the inevitable Malthusian pressures of an illiterate,
resentful mass of humanity ripe for exploitation by nationalist and
Marxist (or quasi-Marxist) demagogues, and (2) that a lot of the
"Libertarianism" or "Randism" in his works comes from Ginny, who seems
to fit the image of the "small-mouthed anarchist" referred to in one of
the Sayings of Lazarus Long in TEFL. And of course we also have the
Forrestal address, reprinted in EH, and the WorldCon guest-of-honor
speechs reprinted in the posthumous tribute volume _Requiem_. Not to
mention RAH's last published writing before his death, the intro to
Sturgeon's _Godbody_, which is more "theological" or "philosophical"
than "polticial"... but how can you hermetically separate those
categories, anyway?
George
willre...@my-deja.com
ht...@aol.com (Htn66) wrote:
> Heh, now MY troll meter is rising.
>
> Calm down, sirs, I did read both of these books, which could
reasonably be inferred if YOU actually read my last post.
(Personally, I have my own doubts about "those people" who advocated
the Cthulhu theory.)<
##Calm mode ON## You're right. When I read your second post, I was
feeling bad about being so harsh. However, your comment about gays
being persecuted in SsT set me off. RAH's personal attitude toward gays
did seem to change from the slighting and somewhat unkind mention of
them in SiaSL to the accepting and loving attitude in his last few
books. It did me good to see that crusty and difficult old dude, who I
loved and love and revere, actually outgrow the bigotry of his youth.
He was too coureous and fairminded to ever be a gay-basher, even in his
early books, but he did have a problem with the concept.
Bill Reich
I expect your names to SHINE
willre...@my-deja.com
<slrn7oc1dg.avu.SPAM...@charlie.ed.datacash.com>,
charlie @ nospam . antipope . org wrote:
> as <willre...@my-deja.com> declared:
I will not bother quoting your excellent analysis of Heinlein's
thinking as the readers can damn well look up your excellent post if
they want to read it; it they can't FIND it, I guess we know where they
belong on the evolutionary scale. :-,)
I will agree with your evaluation that the society in SsT is
militaristic, with the caveats that you include. I am stealing your
"stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe." I used to steal
only tag-lines but I am branching out.
Ian
>This doesn't mean that the society is militaristic through and through,
>but the author _does_ indicate that (in this novel) the only way to
>judge a society is by how efficiently it shits on its enemies. And in
>that sense, the whole of human civilization is militarized -- that is,
>it is geared up to support an active military program of a not strictly
>defensive nature.
>(Caveat: I'm by no means sure Heinlein believed this: it was just that
>it was a good hook to hang a war novel on, with a background picture
>that is basically WW2 in Europe scrawled across the galaxy.)
Well, Heinlein did state that he wrote the book as an explicit reaction to
anti-military/anti-war activism of the time.
William December Starr
charlie @ nospam . antipope . org said:
>> Did you ever READ _Starship Troopers_?? The society depicted was
>> not particularly militaristic. [Will Reich]
>
> On the contrary. Heinlein has Rico state explicitly that the universe
> is not a nice place: if humanity can't prove itself the biggest,
> baddest, most evil bunch of head-bangers out there they're doomed.
Did Rico actually say "most evil" (or equivalent words)? The tenor
of the statement sure changes a _lot_ depending on whether he did...
-- William December Starr <wds...@crl.com>
Mitch Wagner
<slrn7oc1dg.avu.SPAM...@charlie.ed.datacash.com>,
Charlie Stross (cha...@antipope.org) said:
> What _I_ get from Heinlein's writing is: individualist. Believes in
> common sense. Materialist with a tendency towards scientism, but not a
> blind belief in science. Libertarian social tendencies, believes in the
> open frontier myth. Somewhat iconoclastic attitude towards orthodoxies of
> all kinds -- likes poking fun at them; however, has an eye for the value
> of tradition and thinks self-discipline is a good idea. Ran across
> the sexual revolution relatively late in life but decided it was a
> Good Thing. Not, by any stretch, what you'd characterise as a fanatic:
> which is probably why people with axes to grind keep trying to wilfully
> misunderstand him or pin him down to one set of beliefs (when, in fact,
> his beliefs changed over time and the positions set out in some of his
> novels were just that -- intellectual exercises rather than things he
> passionately believed in).
I understood Heinlein's lack of fanaticism when I read "Grumbles From
the Grave," and read the letter where he describes his reaction to being
hailed as a hippie guru for being the author of "Stranger in a Strange
Land." Heinlein, an ex-military officer and Annapolis grad who was
already into middle age when "Stranger" came out, seemed to think
that being hailed as a guru was pretty funny. Hardly the reaction of a
right-wing fanatic.
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
Yon Lew
>>Did you ever READ _Starship Troopers_?? The society depicted was not
>>particularly militaristic. The military was one way to gain the
>>franchise and the right to hold office. There were non-military avenues
>>to the franchise but they don't seem too attractive.
> Heinlein maintained that what you have said was true, but the actual
> text of _Starship Troopers_ does not confirm that. (I recently re-read
> the novel with an eye towards just that issue.) There is a suggestion
> that members of the Merchant Marine *might* get the franchise, but
> otherwise the only route to enfranchisement shown was explicitly
> through the military. If you know of a specific reference to the
> contrary, please identify it; many other people have failed to do so.
> One thing which is explicitly clear is that "military service" is
> *not* identical to combat duty. We never get any view of what military
> training and service are like for noncombatants, but Rico's friend who
> enlists with him ends up at a scientific research post on Pluto.
My reading is that Heinlein just never makes clear one way or the other
whether the only route to citizenship is through the military. He never
explicitly states that civil service won't get you in, he never explicitly
states that it will get you in. There's certainly enough wriggle room in
either direction that he could later on make the statement that civil duty
was enough to qualify a person.
Pete McCutchen
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein stand in
>the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or comment. Was
>he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the virtues
>of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers can
>be beaten to death,
On the off chance that you're not a troll, I'll note that there is
nothing in the book about homosexuals or drunk drivers being beaten to
death. There _is_ an indication that drunk drivers are flogged, but
in the only flogging that we see onstage, the person to be flogged
received a medical examination prior to it, so as to make sure that he
could survive the experience. Immediately after the flogging, he
received medical care. One presumes that the doctor was there during
the flogging itself, so as to provide emergency care if it turned out
to cause serious injury.
There is no indication _at all_ that homosexuality is illegal, or that
homosexuals are flogged.
>or the free-thinker liberal who wrote "Stranger in a
>Strange Land," which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
>cannibalistic orgies, or a strange mishmash of both?.
Neither and both. Heinlein liked to challenge established
orthodoxies. One of those was the notion that everybody with a warm
body should be able to vote. Another was monogomy. Another was
Christianity.
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
>
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein
> stand in the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation
> or comment.
Here's Thomas Disch's take on Heinlein's politics (from "The Dreams our
Stuff is Made of"), which I find interesting:
"...take the case of X, a man who one day would be widely regarded as
the country's greatest SF writer. In 1938, X ran for the Democratic
nomination for the state assembly seat for the Fifty-ninth Assembly
District in the state of California. He ran unopposed by another
Democrat, but even so he did not make it to the general election,
because the incumbent Republican candidate, Charles Lyons, was able to
cross-file in the Democratic primary, and, winning under both tickets,
was returned to office -- thereby terminating X's brief political
career.
"Lyons won, probably, because of his thirty-one-year-old opponent's
close association with EPIC, the quasi-Socialist third party founded by
novelist-activist Upton Sinclair. When Sinclair ran for governor in 1934
as a Democrat, conservatives of both parties were so alarmed that an
all-out effort was made to stop him. President Roosevelt withheld his
endorsement. The movie studios threatened to leave the state. And the
future chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, declared, 'This
is no longer a campaign between the Republican Party and the Democratic
Party in California. It is a crusade of Americans and Californians
against Radicalism and Socialism.' X had been the editor of 'Upton
Sinclair's EPIC News,' a political newsletter with a peak circulation of
two million, and one of six men chosen by Sinclair to write a
constitution for EPIC in 1935 as it set out to become a nationwide
movement. Clearly this young man was no mere fellow traveller and
certainly not 'the moderate Democrat' he would claim to have been when
he once referred to this otherwise deleted section of his curriculum
vitae. No, he was the genuine article, a '30s radical leftist, and his
name was Robert Heinlein.
"Heinlein was scarcely alone in having executed a political about-face
between the Depression and the dawn of the McCarthy era. But Heinlein's
radicalism, in both eras, was of the homespun variety, the politics of
the frontiersman at odds with a federal government it perceived as an
occupying power. The economic theories of EPIC stem more from the
prairie populism of the 1890s than from Marxist ideology, while his
later right-wing preachments were interfused with the libertarianism of
a hedonist who doesn't want any of *his* perks infringed. Had he lived
so long, he might well have been a Perotista. His one book on practical
politics, the rather mild 'Take Back Your Government!' posthumously
published in 1992, even has a blurb from his most faithful disciple,
Jerry Pournelle, declaring, 'I would hope that every Perot supporter
would read this book prior to the fall campaign.'"
-- M. Ruff
John VanSickle
>
> Neither and both. Heinlein liked to challenge established
> orthodoxies. One of those was the notion that everybody with a warm
Insert your favorite joke about Chicago politics here.
--
"A man swears to keep from crying, a woman cries to keep from
swearing."
Don A. Landhill
>##Calm mode ON## You're right. When I read your second post, I was
>feeling bad about being so harsh. However, your comment about gays
>being persecuted in SsT set me off. RAH's personal attitude toward gays
>did seem to change from the slighting and somewhat unkind mention of
>them in SiaSL to the accepting and loving attitude in his last few
>books.
>It did me good to see that crusty and difficult old dude, who I
>loved and love and revere, actually outgrow the bigotry of his youth.
>He was too coureous and fairminded to ever be a gay-basher, even in his
>early books, but he did have a problem with the concept.
The brief mention in "The puppet Masters" (in which failing to respond sexually
to a woman proves that a man is under evil domination) is an unfortunate low
point, but this bookj shows many of RAH's fears, or the fears of the time it
was written, at thier worst.
Don A. Landhill
DALan...@AOL.COM
Robert Pearlman
>Pete McCutchen wrote:
>>
>> Neither and both. Heinlein liked to challenge established
>> orthodoxies. One of those was the notion that everybody with a warm
>> body should be able to vote. <snip>
>
>Insert your favorite joke about Chicago politics here.
Certainly. Chicago politics used to be performed to the lyrics of the
"Garibaldi Hymn":
"The graves burst asunder.
The dead rise to aid us"
--
Pearlman
Justin Bacon
cha...@antipope.org (Charlie Stross) writes:
>On the contrary. Heinlein has Rico state explicitly that the universe is
>not a nice place: if humanity can't prove itself the biggest, baddest,
>most evil bunch of head-bangers out there they're doomed. There is a
>background of competition between spacefaring species in ST that
>mirrors the nationalistic abuse of darwinism prevalent between 1870 and
>1945 or thereabouts, the ideology that laid the seeds of two world
>wars -- the idea that nations compete, that competition is ruthless,
>that only the fittest will survive.
Actually I think this facet of the book (and there are many facets) is summed
up by the "mother cat" quote:
"But all moral problems can be illustrated by one misquotation: ‘Greater love
hath no man than a mother cat dying to defend her kittens.’"
I personally found his ideas of a "moral system" -- instead of our current
method of moral intuitition -- to be fascinating. BID. This quote illuminates
many other things in the book (such as the basis of the society), but it
explains why a man should be willing to die in order to insure the continuation
of the human species.
I don't think the book's premise was that a species should only be judged by
its military prowess, but that if you're being attacked then your survival is
going to be dependent on your ability to defend yourself. The theme is mirrored
in Orson Scott Card's ENDER'S GAME.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Justin Bacon
(Htn66) writes:
> Thanks for your replies, and my apologies for the erroneous inclusion
>of
>homosexual persecution in "Starship Troopers" -- somehow I equated its system
>with Hitler's fascism, and inadvertently let it slipped it.
>
Hardly. For one thing the society depicted in STARSHIP TROOPERS isn't fascist.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Justin Bacon
> I confess to still being unclear on where exactly did Heinlein stand in
>the political spectrum and would appreciate any explanation or comment. Was
>he the conservative who wrote "Starship Troopers", which expounds the virtues
>of a militaristic, conservative society where homosexuals and drunk drivers
>can
>be beaten to death, or the free-thinker liberal who wrote "Stranger in a
>Strange Land," which mocked established religion and revel in free love and
>cannibalistic orgies, or a strange mishmash of both?.
>
I think asking this (based on Heinlein's work) is like asking whether Asimov
was the scientist who believed in positronic robots or the scientist who
believed in pool balls being accelerated to FTL speeds (or was it just light
speed?).
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Ian
>"But all moral problems can be illustrated by one misquotation: ‘Greater love
>hath no man than a mother cat dying to defend her kittens.’"
>
>I personally found his ideas of a "moral system" -- instead of our current
>method of moral intuitition -- to be fascinating.
Um... what?
If you take much in the way of philosophy classes, you learn of vast
numbers of moral philosophies that advocate the use of things other than
"moral intuition". Philosophers are usually well ahead of SF writers
(typically by centuries) when it comes to anything other than the
implications of certain sorts of strange new technology.
Diane Duane
> RAH's personal attitude toward gays
>did seem to change from the slighting and somewhat unkind mention of
>them in SiaSL to the accepting and loving attitude in his last few
>books. It did me good to see that crusty and difficult old dude, who I
>loved and love and revere, actually outgrow the bigotry of his youth.
>He was too coureous and fairminded to ever be a gay-basher, even in his
>early books, but he did have a problem with the concept.
I think he got past it.
I have a letter from him dated 1980 or so in which he says numerous
kindly things about THE DOOR INTO FIRE, and he's pretty unambiguous
about having liked the way the sexuality of the main characters was
handled. (I won't quote him: he hated when people quoted his mail.)
For me, at least, this seems to suggest that whatever issues he might
have had with homosexuality earlier on were settled, or pretty much on
their way to being so.
best! -- Diane
Diane Duane / The Owl Springs Partnership
County Wicklow, Ireland
http://www.ibmpcug.co.uk/~owls/index2.html
Dino V. Germano
> On Fri, 09 Jul 1999 20:19:08 GMT, willre...@my-deja.com wrote:
(I won't quote him: he hated when people quoted his mail.)
Now it would be research, not blabbing on a private letter.
> For me, at least, this seems to suggest that whatever issues he might
> have had with homosexuality earlier on were settled, or pretty much on
> their way to being so.
Too many people think a story is a look into how an author ticks. At
times they are just stories.
> best! -- Diane
--
Dino in Reno
Justin Bacon
iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Ian) writes:
>If you take much in the way of philosophy classes, you learn of vast
>numbers of moral philosophies that advocate the use of things other than
>"moral intuition". Philosophers are usually well ahead of SF writers
>(typically by centuries) when it comes to anything other than the
>implications of certain sorts of strange new technology.
Yes, but they don't work. If there were one that *worked* we'd have saved
ourselves a lot of trouble over the years.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Diane Duane
Germano) wrote:
>In article <3788f99c...@news.iol.ie>, owls...@iol.ie wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 09 Jul 1999 20:19:08 GMT, willre...@my-deja.com wrote:
> (I won't quote him: he hated when people quoted his mail.)
>
> Now it would be research, not blabbing on a private letter.
Mmm...nope.
> Too many people think a story is a look into how an author ticks. At
>times they are just stories.
:) From the other side of the question, as it were, I think I could
safely say that a story is always a look into *some* aspect of how an
author ticks...(if only into how they structure a story)...but not
necessarily the one that the story seems to be about.
YMMV, of course.
Best! -- Diane
Ian
>In article <378b28d2...@news.netcom.ca>,
>iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Ian) writes:
>
>>If you take much in the way of philosophy classes, you learn of vast
>>numbers of moral philosophies that advocate the use of things other than
>>"moral intuition". Philosophers are usually well ahead of SF writers
>>(typically by centuries) when it comes to anything other than the
>>implications of certain sorts of strange new technology.
>
>Yes, but they don't work.
Huh? That's a pretty ridiculous blanket statement.
Pete McCutchen
>
>Clearly his plan was to achieve personal world domination before turning
>the planet over to his lord and master Cthulhu.
Well, it's a better theory than some theories about Heinlein I've seen
articulated in the pages of certain publications. Why there was one
publication -- the Gotham Review of Science Fiction, or something like
that -- which had a downright demented article about Heinlein a while
back.
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>
>I understood Heinlein's lack of fanaticism when I read "Grumbles From
>the Grave," and read the letter where he describes his reaction to being
>hailed as a hippie guru for being the author of "Stranger in a Strange
>Land." Heinlein, an ex-military officer and Annapolis grad who was
>already into middle age when "Stranger" came out, seemed to think
>that being hailed as a guru was pretty funny. Hardly the reaction of a
>right-wing fanatic.
What did you think of his reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor?
Pete McCutchen
Stross) wrote:
>Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
>as <willre...@my-deja.com> declared:
>
>>Did you ever READ _Starship Troopers_?? The society depicted was not
>>particularly militaristic.
>
>On the contrary. Heinlein has Rico state explicitly that the universe is
>not a nice place: if humanity can't prove itself the biggest, baddest,
>most evil bunch of head-bangers out there they're doomed. There is a
Interesting to contrast the implict ideology of _Starship Troopers_
with the ideology of _Double Star_, in which cooperation among
sentient species is advanced as the best course.
It is possible to reconcile the two views, if you believe that trade
and commerce are reserved for species which are willing to cooperate.
>background of competition between spacefaring species in ST that
>mirrors the nationalistic abuse of darwinism prevalent between 1870 and
>1945 or thereabouts, the ideology that laid the seeds of two world
>wars -- the idea that nations compete, that competition is ruthless,
>that only the fittest will survive.
Just as an aside, I honestly doubt that, had Darwin never lived, the
two world wars wouldn't have happened. Yes, misuse of Darwinian
theory has often been part of an ideological stew, but I think that
both world wars can easily be explained in terms of political
motivations.
>
>This doesn't mean that the society is militaristic through and through,
>but the author _does_ indicate that (in this novel) the only way to
>judge a society is by how efficiently it shits on its enemies. And in
>that sense, the whole of human civilization is militarized -- that is,
>it is geared up to support an active military program of a not strictly
>defensive nature.
Well, if a society cannot protect itself from aggression, then it
won't survive, even if it is, in all other respects, a utopia. That
is, "shitting on one's enemies" is a prerequisite to having a society
at all.
Nor is there actually any indication that the military in _ST_ is
anything other than defensive. We don't actually know how the war
started, or who the aggressors really are. We do know that it began
with "contact troubles," but there is no indication as to whether
humans attempted coexistence. We also know that an alliance with the
Skinnies is in the works. It would seem unreasonable for the Skinnies
to ally themselves with humans, if humans are dedicated to the
erradication of all non-human sentient life in the galaxy.
>
>(As a second consideration, for you: seen from the outside, the USA today
>looks pretty militaristic. This doesn't mean that the USA is a military
>dictatorship or has conscription or a dress code or something; just that
>last month US forces bombed Serbia, and yesterday USAF planes bombed
>Iraq, and ... you see a picture emerging here?)
>
>(Caveat: I'm by no means sure Heinlein believed this: it was just that
>it was a good hook to hang a war novel on, with a background picture
>that is basically WW2 in Europe scrawled across the galaxy.)
>
>>Maybe you read _Stranger in a Strange Land_ but I don't think so. He
>>was a free-thinker but not what moderns think of as a liberal. He has
>>often been identified with the Jubal Hershaw character whose various
>>statements in the first part of the book could be characterized as
>>anarchistic or perhaps libertarian. He did mock established relisgion
>>but libertarian and conservative don't mean anything like the same
>>thing and mocking established religion fits in very well with the RAH
>>who wrote _Starship Troopers_ RAH would likely have depicted more open
>>sexuality in SsT if its intended audience had been older.
>
>What _I_ get from Heinlein's writing is: individualist. Believes in
>common sense. Materialist with a tendency towards scientism, but not a
>blind belief in science. Libertarian social tendencies, believes in the
>open frontier myth. Somewhat iconoclastic attitude towards orthodoxies of
>all kinds -- likes poking fun at them; however, has an eye for the value
>of tradition and thinks self-discipline is a good idea. Ran across
>the sexual revolution relatively late in life but decided it was a
>Good Thing. Not, by any stretch, what you'd characterise as a fanatic:
>which is probably why people with axes to grind keep trying to wilfully
>misunderstand him or pin him down to one set of beliefs (when, in fact,
>his beliefs changed over time and the positions set out in some of his
>novels were just that -- intellectual exercises rather than things he
>passionately believed in).
>
>
>
>-- Charlie
>
Coyu
>What did you think of his reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor?
Less extreme than Bull Halsey's.
Odd thought - Heinlein knew his naval history, so surely he was
familiar with the British 'Copenhagen'-ing the Danish fleet in a
sneak attack, leading to the undying enmity between those
two nations.
Kevin J. Maroney
>Well, it's a better theory than some theories about Heinlein I've seen
>articulated in the pages of certain publications. Why there was one
>publication -- the Gotham Review of Science Fiction, or something like
>that -- which had a downright demented article about Heinlein a while
>back.
That would probably be the magazine mentioned in my .sig.
Kevin Maroney | kmar...@crossover.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor
The New York Review of Science Fiction
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html
Nancy Lebovitz
Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>Nor is there actually any indication that the military in _ST_ is
>anything other than defensive. We don't actually know how the war
There's a theoretical defence of an offensive military in the statement
that if a species doesn't keep expanding its population and its need
for territory, then it will soon be conquered by an expanding species.
>started, or who the aggressors really are. We do know that it began
>with "contact troubles," but there is no indication as to whether
>humans attempted coexistence. We also know that an alliance with the
>Skinnies is in the works. It would seem unreasonable for the Skinnies
>to ally themselves with humans, if humans are dedicated to the
>erradication of all non-human sentient life in the galaxy.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com
Calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
Mitch Wagner
(p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net) said:
> On Sat, 10 Jul 1999 01:42:47 GMT, thri...@sff.net (Mitch Wagner)
> wrote:
>
>
> >
> >I understood Heinlein's lack of fanaticism when I read "Grumbles From
> >the Grave," and read the letter where he describes his reaction to being
> >hailed as a hippie guru for being the author of "Stranger in a Strange
> >Land." Heinlein, an ex-military officer and Annapolis grad who was
> >already into middle age when "Stranger" came out, seemed to think
> >that being hailed as a guru was pretty funny. Hardly the reaction of a
> >right-wing fanatic.
>
> What did you think of his reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor?
I sense a trick question. Nonetheless, I will bravely wade in without
scanning for rhetorical land mines.
As I recall, Heinlein mourned the deaths of the U.S. servicemen killed,
many of whom were people he knew personally. He felt ashamed of himself
for not having been there. He was angry at John Campbell over a
political disagreement about the Pearl Harbor attack.
All of this seems perfectly reasonable to me - even the shame seems
wrongheaded, but not irrational.
Am I forgetting something important here?
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>> >I understood Heinlein's lack of fanaticism when I read "Grumbles From
>> >the Grave," and read the letter where he describes his reaction to being
>> >hailed as a hippie guru for being the author of "Stranger in a Strange
>> >Land." Heinlein, an ex-military officer and Annapolis grad who was
>> >already into middle age when "Stranger" came out, seemed to think
>> >that being hailed as a guru was pretty funny. Hardly the reaction of a
>> >right-wing fanatic.
>>
>> What did you think of his reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor?
>
>I sense a trick question. Nonetheless, I will bravely wade in without
>scanning for rhetorical land mines.
No trick question; just curious as to how you would react.
>
>As I recall, Heinlein mourned the deaths of the U.S. servicemen killed,
>many of whom were people he knew personally. He felt ashamed of himself
>for not having been there. He was angry at John Campbell over a
>political disagreement about the Pearl Harbor attack.
I thought the political disagreement came later, and was not
specifically related to Pearl Harbor.
Oh, and he also thought that Japan should be conquered, and have its
soveriegnty taken away from it.
>
>All of this seems perfectly reasonable to me - even the shame seems
>wrongheaded, but not irrational.
>
>Am I forgetting something important here?
>
Except for his punitive reaction, no.
Mitch Wagner
(p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net) said:
> On Tue, 13 Jul 1999 23:29:26 GMT, thri...@sff.net (Mitch Wagner)
> wrote:
> >
> >As I recall, Heinlein mourned the deaths of the U.S. servicemen killed,
> >many of whom were people he knew personally. He felt ashamed of himself
> >for not having been there. He was angry at John Campbell over a
> >political disagreement about the Pearl Harbor attack.
>
> I thought the political disagreement came later, and was not
> specifically related to Pearl Harbor.
>
IIRC, in "Grumbles From the Grave," Heinlein describes his thoughts and
feelings about Pearl Harbor in a letter to John Campbell, wherein he
says he is angry at Campbell because of Campbell's reaction to the
bombing of Pearl Harbor.
I do believe you're right, though - IIRC, Heinlein was angry at Campbell
then, but they didn't have a falling out until later.
> Oh, and he also thought that Japan should be conquered, and have its
> soveriegnty taken away from it.
>
> >
> >All of this seems perfectly reasonable to me - even the shame seems
> >wrongheaded, but not irrational.
> >
> >Am I forgetting something important here?
> >
>
> Except for his punitive reaction, no.
>
Doesn't seem like an unreasonable reaction to me, although not one I
agree with now. I might've felt hte same way at the time - especially if
people I knew and liked were killed in the attack by Japan.
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
mike stone
>> Except for his punitive reaction, no.
>>
>
>
>Doesn't seem like an unreasonable reaction to me, although not one I
>agree with now. I might've felt hte same way at the time - especially if
>people I knew and liked were killed in the attack by Japan.
>
>
And was probably shared - at least to begin with - by about nine Americans out
of ten - including some who were normally quite liberal
Incidentally, that last category might well include RAH himself. Iiirc, his
writing from that early period was not particularly right-wing
Mike Stone - Peterborough England
Q: How do you tell the difference between a Mormon wedding and a Non-Mormon
wedding?
A: At the Mormon wedding, it's the bride's *mother* who is pregnant!
willre...@my-deja.com
owls...@iol.ie wrote:
> On Fri, 09 Jul 1999 20:19:08 GMT, willre...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> >early books, but he did have a problem with the concept.
>
> I think he got past it.
>
> I have a letter from him dated 1980 or so in which he says numerous
> kindly things about THE DOOR INTO FIRE, and he's pretty unambiguous
> about having liked the way the sexuality of the main characters was
> handled. (I won't quote him: he hated when people quoted his mail.)
> For me, at least, this seems to suggest that whatever issues he might
> have had with homosexuality earlier on were settled, or pretty much on
> their way to being so.
>
That is very good to hear. Not only does it confirm my thoughts on
RAH's growth on this subject, it means he and I liked the same book!!
I first picked up DOOR because I thought it an interesting title, kind
of like _the Door into Summer_. I have since read all of your books,
including some we have on the juvenile shelves. Like them all.
Wait!! You wrote _Night with Moon_, didn't you?? I LOVED IT. I would
have read it to my cat but we were having an argument. I may have the
title slighty off but I think that was it. It's very late and I am
senile.
Bill Reich
I have SEEN your name SHINE
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Nancy Lebovitz
Mitch Wagner <thri...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>IIRC, in "Grumbles From the Grave," Heinlein describes his thoughts and
>feelings about Pearl Harbor in a letter to John Campbell, wherein he
>says he is angry at Campbell because of Campbell's reaction to the
>bombing of Pearl Harbor.
>
>I do believe you're right, though - IIRC, Heinlein was angry at Campbell
>then, but they didn't have a falling out until later.
>
Mitch Wagner
(mws...@aol.com) said:
> >From: thri...@sff.net (Mitch Wagner)
>
> >> Except for his punitive reaction, no.
> >>
> >
> >
>
> >Doesn't seem like an unreasonable reaction to me, although not one I
> >agree with now. I might've felt hte same way at the time - especially if
> >people I knew and liked were killed in the attack by Japan.
> >
> >
>
> And was probably shared - at least to begin with - by about nine Americans out
> of ten - including some who were normally quite liberal
It occurrs to me that the outcome we've been discussing here is exactly
what happened--Japan had its sovereignty taken away from it as a penalty
for bombing Pearl Harbor and losing World War II.
I forgot about that for a few hours because of course later on we gave
Japan its sovereignty back. But in the years following World War II,
Japan was an occupied nation with a government imposed upon it by the
United States.
>
> Incidentally, that last category might well include RAH himself. Iiirc, his
> writing from that early period was not particularly right-wing
>
I think it's overly simplistic to categorize is writing as "right-wing"
at ANY time in his life - especially now, when the political right wing
is characterized by religious zealots and people advocating sexual
repression.
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
Mitch Wagner
(na...@unix3.netaxs.com) said:
> In article <MPG.11f582bdaa77c524989a51@localhost>,
> Mitch Wagner <thri...@sff.net> wrote:
> >
> >IIRC, in "Grumbles From the Grave," Heinlein describes his thoughts and
> >feelings about Pearl Harbor in a letter to John Campbell, wherein he
> >says he is angry at Campbell because of Campbell's reaction to the
> >bombing of Pearl Harbor.
> >
> >I do believe you're right, though - IIRC, Heinlein was angry at Campbell
> >then, but they didn't have a falling out until later.
> >
> Does anyone know what Campbell's views were?
Sorry, I'm afraid I can't recall and I don't have my copy of "Grumbles
from the Grave" to hand.
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey
> IIRC, in "Grumbles From the Grave," Heinlein describes his thoughts and
> feelings about Pearl Harbor in a letter to John Campbell, wherein he
> says he is angry at Campbell because of Campbell's reaction to the
> bombing of Pearl Harbor.
He sternly lectures the contrarian Campbell that the Navy's leaders
know more about how to wage a war than Campbell does, and bludgeons
him with Heinlein's own military experience.
To my mind, this passionate letter reads *exactly* like a posting from
a Usenet flame war.
I wish more examples of Heinlein-Campbell correspondence
were published.
--
"I suspect people in non English-speaking | Bill Higgins
countries consider English with the same | Fermilab
fine sense of frustration and dread that | Internet: hig...@fnal.fnal.gov
AFCers think about Microsoft Windows." | Bitnet: Sic transit gloria mundi
--Peter da Silva (pe...@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM)
in alt.folklore.computers
Bud Webster
>I wish more examples of Heinlein-Campbell correspondence
>were published.
Apparently, you can thank - or blame - Virginia Heinlein that they
weren't.
Aniara Books is a wholly-owned subsidiary of absolutely nothing
or nobody but me. If you want, you can mosey over to
http://www.abebooks.com/home/budwebster to see what I've got.
Failing that, I'll send you a catalog just as soon as you
ask me for one. So feel free. Or send me a want list,
either one.
M. Northstar
Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:378a8870...@netnews.worldnet.att.net...
> On 8 Jul 1999 15:45:52 GMT, James Battista <jim...@duke.edu> wrote:
>
>
> >
> >Clearly his plan was to achieve personal world domination before turning
> >the planet over to his lord and master Cthulhu.
>
> articulated in the pages of certain publications. Why there was one
> publication -- the Gotham Review of Science Fiction, or something like
> that -- which had a downright demented article about Heinlein a while
> back.
What'd it say?
--
M. Northstar
"Science starts as speculation. Speculation begins with fantasy."
Otto
Webster) wrote:
>hig...@fnald.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) sez:
>
>>I wish more examples of Heinlein-Campbell correspondence
>>were published.
>
>Apparently, you can thank - or blame - Virginia Heinlein that they
>weren't.
Gosh, she's trying to keep flamewars from persisting. What a bitch!
Commodore Otto
Joseph Major
: In article <MPG.11f582bdaa77c524989a51@localhost>, thri...@sff.net (Mitch Wagner) writes:
: > IIRC, in "Grumbles From the Grave," Heinlein describes his thoughts and
: > feelings about Pearl Harbor in a letter to John Campbell, wherein he
: > says he is angry at Campbell because of Campbell's reaction to the
: > bombing of Pearl Harbor.
: He sternly lectures the contrarian Campbell that the Navy's leaders
: know more about how to wage a war than Campbell does, and bludgeons
: him with Heinlein's own military experience.
: To my mind, this passionate letter reads *exactly* like a posting from
: a Usenet flame war.
: I wish more examples of Heinlein-Campbell correspondence
: were published.
_The John W. Campbell Letters_ has some of them. One, for
example (technically it's to Heinlein's agent), shows what Campbell
_really_ thought about _Starship Troopers_, which is not at all what
Heinlein said it was.
Joseph T Major
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Yrlsqb nx sobshuggum illingoon. Mark my words!"
-- Cyril Q. Kornbluth
--
Captain Button
> In article <7mi4n2$9...@netaxs.com>, Nancy Lebovitz
> (na...@unix3.netaxs.com) said:
>> In article <MPG.11f582bdaa77c524989a51@localhost>,
>> Mitch Wagner <thri...@sff.net> wrote:
[ snip about dispute between Heinlein and Campbell about Pearl Harbor ]
>> >I do believe you're right, though - IIRC, Heinlein was angry at Campbell
>> >then, but they didn't have a falling out until later.
>> >
>> Does anyone know what Campbell's views were?
> Sorry, I'm afraid I can't recall and I don't have my copy of "Grumbles
> from the Grave" to hand.
_GftG_ doesn't say. It only has Heinlein's reply to Campbell, not
Campbell's original letter. Heinlein does not mention specifics
about what Campbell's views were.
Heinlein does use what IMHO is a cheap shot tactic. He quotes some
law about not saying discouraging things to military personnel.
He points out that he (Heinlein) is still a Navy Officer, and that
is trying to get assigned to active duty.
Heinlein's efforts to get on active duty were not successful, BTW.
--
[ but...@io.com ]"DOGBERRY: Marry, sir, they have committed false report;
moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth
and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust
things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves." Shakespeare - _Much Ado.._
Pete McCutchen
<maz...@hem.passagen.se> wrote:
>
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
>news:378a8870...@netnews.worldnet.att.net...
>> On 8 Jul 1999 15:45:52 GMT, James Battista <jim...@duke.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>> >
>> >Clearly his plan was to achieve personal world domination before turning
>> >the planet over to his lord and master Cthulhu.
>>
>> Well, it's a better theory than some theories about Heinlein I've seen
>> articulated in the pages of certain publications. Why there was one
>> publication -- the Gotham Review of Science Fiction, or something like
>> that -- which had a downright demented article about Heinlein a while
>> back.
>
>What'd it say?
>
Uh, check dejanews. There was a thread here about the article when it
came out, and I don't want to revive that thread.
Kevin J. Maroney
>> Well, it's a better theory than some theories about Heinlein I've seen
>> articulated in the pages of certain publications. Why there was one
>> publication -- the Gotham Review of Science Fiction, or something like
>> that -- which had a downright demented article about Heinlein a while
>> back.
>
>What'd it say?
The basic argument was that when Heinlein commentators use the word
"fascist" to describe (some or all) of Heinlein's work, other
commentators characterize that as "name-calling"--that is, as
contentless insult. The article set out a five-part definition of
fascism and found material from Heinlein's work which bolstered each
of the parts of the definition.
The article is significantly flawed; for one thing, it assumes that
Heinlein has *a* political philosophy which extends across all of his
work, which is questionable, at best; also, it excludes
counter-examples.
Also, many people have found fault with the article's definition of
fascism, which, for instance, does not include "government control of
the economy". (One could argue that "The Roads Must Roll" does argue
for central control of key industries, but it's certainly not a theme
which appears again and again in Heinlein's work.)
None the less, I found the article thought-provoking, in the best
senses, and I'm very happy to have published it.
Nancy Lebovitz
Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
>
>Also, many people have found fault with the article's definition of
>fascism, which, for instance, does not include "government control of
>the economy". (One could argue that "The Roads Must Roll" does argue
>for central control of key industries, but it's certainly not a theme
>which appears again and again in Heinlein's work.)
>
>None the less, I found the article thought-provoking, in the best
>senses, and I'm very happy to have published it.
>
part of fascism, and I don't think of Heinlein as romanticizing
leaders. On the other hand, a lot of his fiction is about conspiracies.
(It's possible that I don't fully understand the fuhrherprinzip, and
almost certain that I don't know how to spell it.)
There's _If This Goes On--_, _Friday_, _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_,
_Red Planet_, _Double Star_, "Gulf".....
My first take on this is that the conspiracies reflect Heinlein's
ambivalence about authority--on the one hand, the people in charge
may be dangerously wrong, and on the other, someone has to do *something*.
One way that I'd say Heinlein is *not* a fascist is that he's rather
a pessimist about human societies. Fascists believe that solutions
are possible.
IIRC, the article had a slightly weird notion that distrust of
duly constituted authority is fascist--this is presumably only a
fascist attitude if the fascists are out of power. If they've won,
they're as pro-government as any other ex-revolutionary movement.
Heinlein was ambivalent about duly constituted authority. As nearly
as I can tell, he believed that people (unless they're in small, rather
elite groups) need governments, and need to see those governments as
legitimate. He also believed that duly constituted authority was frequently
wrong in various degrees, and people are morally responsible for opposing
governments to appropriate extents.
Pro-government Heinlein includes (at least) _The Star Beast_, _Magic, Inc._,
_Double Star_.
Again iirc, the only book in which he supports a revolution that *isn't*
a matter of life and death is _If This Goes On--_.
Mitch Wagner
(na...@unix3.netaxs.com) said:
> In article <37a11752...@client.ne.news.psi.net>,
> Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
> >
> >Also, many people have found fault with the article's definition of
> >fascism, which, for instance, does not include "government control of
> >the economy". (One could argue that "The Roads Must Roll" does argue
> >for central control of key industries, but it's certainly not a theme
> >which appears again and again in Heinlein's work.)
> >
> >None the less, I found the article thought-provoking, in the best
> >senses, and I'm very happy to have published it.
> >
> That reminds me--iirc, the article mentioned the fuhrherprinzip as
> part of fascism, and I don't think of Heinlein as romanticizing
> leaders. On the other hand, a lot of his fiction is about conspiracies.
> (It's possible that I don't fully understand the fuhrherprinzip, and
> almost certain that I don't know how to spell it.)
>
> There's _If This Goes On--_, _Friday_, _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_,
> _Red Planet_, _Double Star_, "Gulf".....
>
> My first take on this is that the conspiracies reflect Heinlein's
> ambivalence about authority--on the one hand, the people in charge
> may be dangerously wrong, and on the other, someone has to do *something*.
It's also probably that Heinlein frequently wrote about conspiracies
because conspiracies make for exciting fiction.
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
Clark E Myers
that freedom was incompatible with large governments and that fragmented
government as described in Friday is the only form compatible with freedom
in the foreseeable future. Notice that this statement says nothing about
what Mr. Heinlein did or did not believe in earlier years.
I am inclined to believe on no authority but belief and information that Mr.
Heinlein valued freedom.
Clark
Nancy Lebovitz
Clark E Myers <Clark...@email.msn.com> wrote:
>There is authority for the notion that Mr. Heinlein believed in later years
>that freedom was incompatible with large governments and that fragmented
>government as described in Friday is the only form compatible with freedom
>in the foreseeable future. Notice that this statement says nothing about
>what Mr. Heinlein did or did not believe in earlier years.
I agree that Heinlein favored freedom, but I don't think he thought the
Earth of _Friday_ was any sort of a good place to live. In a good many of
his books, he says that freedom is only possible when the population is
fairly low.
>
>I am inclined to believe on no authority but belief and information that Mr.
>Heinlein valued freedom.
>
Simon Slavin
na...@unix3.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
> Heinlein was ambivalent about duly constituted authority. As nearly
> as I can tell, he believed that people (unless they're in small, rather
> elite groups) need governments, and need to see those governments as
> legitimate. He also believed that duly constituted authority was frequently
> wrong in various degrees, and people are morally responsible for opposing
> governments to appropriate extents.
Heinlein appears to have believed that
1) All groups of people need leadership of some kind.
2) Putting some people in authority over others leads to badness.
Much of his work is about trying to reconcile the two.
> Pro-government Heinlein includes (at least) _The Star Beast_, _Magic, Inc._,
> _Double Star_.
_The Star Beast_ is a study in how different 'levels' of goverment
have different aims and objectives. In this one, 'big' goverment
is the goodie and 'little' goverment is the baddie.
Simon.
--
<http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk> | ... you start off with a typical message,
No junk email please. | let's say a 2.5MB Word document containing
ET may've phoned /us/. | three lines of text and a macro virus ...
Help play the tape: SETI@home. | -- Peter Gutmann
Dorothy J Heydt
Simon Slavin <slavins.at.hearsay.demon.co.uk@localhost> wrote:
>_The Star Beast_ is a study in how different 'levels' of goverment
>have different aims and objectives. In this one, 'big' goverment
>is the goodie and 'little' goverment is the baddie.
I don't know if you can make a size/goodness correlation. The
small-town officials were bad because they were ignorant, and the
solar-system-government officials were better because they knew
more and were more tolerant. V. Kiku and Ftaeml on "he is a
stranger and therefore a barbarian."
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Nancy Lebovitz
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>In article <B3B672079...@0.0.0.0>,
>Simon Slavin <slavins.at.hearsay.demon.co.uk@localhost> wrote:
>
>>_The Star Beast_ is a study in how different 'levels' of goverment
>>have different aims and objectives. In this one, 'big' goverment
>>is the goodie and 'little' goverment is the baddie.
>
>I don't know if you can make a size/goodness correlation. The
>small-town officials were bad because they were ignorant, and the
>solar-system-government officials were better because they knew
>more and were more tolerant. V. Kiku and Ftaeml on "he is a
>stranger and therefore a barbarian."
>
intelligent career bureaucrats had to circumvent? (This doesn't
*quite* qualify the book for the list of Heinlein conspiracies....)
Justin Bacon
writes:
>In article <378b4270...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>
>>Nor is there actually any indication that the military in _ST_ is
>>anything other than defensive. We don't actually know how the war
>
>There's a theoretical defence of an offensive military in the statement
>that if a species doesn't keep expanding its population and its need
>for territory, then it will soon be conquered by an expanding species.
But that's not necessarily expansion of population/territory by *military*
means. If the American continent had actually been devoid of Native Americans
when Europe showed up, the USA would still have had huge benefits from its
expansion. The same benefits that Britain had through its military expansion.
(Which is, of course, a massive simplification and historically implausible.
But i hope you see my point -- it's the population/territory (and
technological) expansion which is important, not the means of accomplishing
it.)
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Justin Bacon
iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Ian) writes:
>tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) wrote:
>
>>In article <378b28d2...@news.netcom.ca>,
>>iadm...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Ian) writes:
>>
>>>If you take much in the way of philosophy classes, you learn of vast
>>>numbers of moral philosophies that advocate the use of things other than
>>>"moral intuition". Philosophers are usually well ahead of SF writers
>>>(typically by centuries) when it comes to anything other than the
>>>implications of certain sorts of strange new technology.
>>
>>Yes, but they don't work.
>
>Huh? That's a pretty ridiculous blanket statement.
Show me one that works. I've never seen one, and I've studied philosophy for
years. If they did work at an objective, provable level the same way science
did (which was what Heinlein was talking about) then -- believe me -- there
would be far fewer moral quandaries lying all over the place.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Nancy Lebovitz
populations keep expanding, there will eventually be competition for
planets or at least for matter, and that competition will eventually
get violent.
Mitch Wagner
>In the universe of _Starship Troopers_, aliens exist. If sentient
>populations keep expanding, there will eventually be competition for
>planets or at least for matter, and that competition will eventually
>get violent.
This is true only for sufficiently large values of "eventually."
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
Jason Bontrager
Yon Lew wrote:
> Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@crossover.com> wrote:
> > willre...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > One thing which is explicitly clear is that "military service" is
> > *not* identical to combat duty. We never get any view of what military
> > training and service are like for noncombatants, but Rico's friend who
> > enlists with him ends up at a scientific research post on Pluto.
>
> My reading is that Heinlein just never makes clear one way or the other
> whether the only route to citizenship is through the military. He never
> explicitly states that civil service won't get you in, he never explicitly
> states that it will get you in. There's certainly enough wriggle room in
> either direction that he could later on make the statement that civil duty
> was enough to qualify a person.
---------------------------------------
Berkeley Medallion Edition, 1968, p. 143
"And you have forgotten that in peacetime most veterans come
from non-combatant auxiliary services and have not been subjected to
the full rigors of military discipline; they have merely been harried,
overworked, and endangered..."
"Auxiliary services" is somewhat ambiguous of course, it could
mean direct military support, or general governmental support,
tunnel diggers, testers of survival gear, terraformers, etc. In fact
all of those are listed as examples of non-military federal service
in the book.
Jason B.
Tony Quirke
> I agree that Heinlein favored freedom, but I don't think he thought the
> Earth of _Friday_ was any sort of a good place to live. In a good many of
> his books, he says that freedom is only possible when the population is
> fairly low.
Which must have sat uneasy with his approval of having babies, I guess.
- Tony Q.
--
FEC records, analyzed by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics,
show that in federal elections, the candidate with the most cash wins over
90% of the time. And in the wide majority of cases, the winning candidate
has over 10 times as much money as the closest competitor. - Bob Harris
Tony Quirke
If I recall correctly, one of the problems was that the Bugs bred
faster than humans. If "eventually" means "sooner or later", it was in the
human's best interests to make it "sooner".
C.f. Moties.
William December Starr
qui...@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz (Tony Quirke) said:
> If I recall correctly, one of the problems was that the Bugs bred
> faster than humans. If "eventually" means "sooner or later", it was
> in the human's best interests to make it "sooner".
That's just a first-pass analysis, though. If the Bugs' rate of
scientific/technological (read: weapons) progress is significantly
slower than humanity's then it may be in humanity's best interest to
wait a while. Clearly more data is required...
-- William December Starr <wds...@crl.com>
Nancy Lebovitz
Tony Quirke <qui...@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote:
>
>> I agree that Heinlein favored freedom, but I don't think he thought the
>> Earth of _Friday_ was any sort of a good place to live. In a good many of
>> his books, he says that freedom is only possible when the population is
>> fairly low.
>
> Which must have sat uneasy with his approval of having babies, I guess.
>
problem is that pioneers settle and populate the frontier, so that where
they've been isn't a frontier anymore.
For a less single-focused look at human society, see _Double Star_.
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
>
> In the universe of _Starship Troopers_, aliens exist. If sentient
> populations keep expanding, there will eventually be competition for
> planets or at least for matter, and that competition will eventually
> get violent.
But who says sentient populations have to keep expanding? Excuse the
pun, but birth control isn't rocket science; it's not that hard to limit
the number of kids you have to the number you can afford to support with
your current resources. And barring FTL travel, I think self-control is
a much more practical (and likely) solution to population pressure than
interstellar colonization, let alone interstellar war.
-- M. Ruff
Nancy Lebovitz
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold <Storyt...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>>
>> In the universe of _Starship Troopers_, aliens exist. If sentient
>> populations keep expanding, there will eventually be competition for
>> planets or at least for matter, and that competition will eventually
>> get violent.
>
>But who says sentient populations have to keep expanding? Excuse the
Heinlein said so, in _Starship Troopers_--or it least it seemed as though
it was one of his more authoritative characters. The idea was that if
your population isn't expanding, you'll lose--quickly--to some group
whose population *is* expanding.
>pun, but birth control isn't rocket science; it's not that hard to limit
>the number of kids you have to the number you can afford to support with
>your current resources. And barring FTL travel, I think self-control is
>a much more practical (and likely) solution to population pressure than
>interstellar colonization, let alone interstellar war.
>
I agree with you.
willre...@my-deja.com
However, they HAD FTL travel. Whatever Heinlein's political intentions,
_Starship Troopers_ depicts the human race under attack by an alien
species with whom we have no useful communications. The "authoratitive
character" may well have been spouting "wisdom" that derived from that
situation, something that might not have had any universal application.
RAH was not much given to the device of the unreliable narrator but it
might be wise not to take everything all his characters, even
authorative ones, at face value. Given the premises of SsT, how was the
human race SUPPOSED to respond? Remember, the option of wiping out the
enemy was available or at leas it seemed to be. There was also the
possibility of pulling back to our planet or at least the Solar System
and having no presence in space. Kind of hard on colonies like Iskander
but it might avoid war. A middle course was chosen. The thing people
seem to miss is that the war was being fought to get the "bugs" to open
negotiation. That does not seem like the interstellar Darwinism that is
often assumed to be the theme of the book. Sargeants and kids talk in
terms of the need for infinite expansion but the high command takes the
casualties and the trouble to try not to exterminate another sapient
species. Of course, a war of xenocide could work both ways but there is
no evidence in the book that the bad guys are pulling any punches or
trying to be reasonable. GIVEN THE PREMISES, the decisions of the high
command and , ultimately, the elected government seem logical, humane
and the opposite of fascistic. One of the weak points of the lamentable
recent film is that it doesn't make clear WHY we aren't just blowing up
the enemy planets or at least their home world.
Bill Reich
I expect your names to SHINE
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Nancy Lebovitz
I thought that FTL travel was somewhat important to this discussion,
but I couldn't remember whether it existed in ST, so I didn't bring
the point up.
FTL is, at best, a temporary solution to the need for living space.
If the whole universe is equally hospitable to the evolution of
intelligent life, then FTL just means that space will get filled
up faster.
If the universe is finite, but only a few galaxies have intelligent
life, then saturation takes longer, but will still happen.
The only optimistic possiblity is that the universe is making new
matter faster than sentients can occupy it.
>_Starship Troopers_ depicts the human race under attack by an alien
>species with whom we have no useful communications. The "authoratitive
>character" may well have been spouting "wisdom" that derived from that
>situation, something that might not have had any universal application.
>RAH was not much given to the device of the unreliable narrator but it
>might be wise not to take everything all his characters, even
>authorative ones, at face value. Given the premises of SsT, how was the
>human race SUPPOSED to respond? Remember, the option of wiping out the
>enemy was available or at leas it seemed to be. There was also the
>possibility of pulling back to our planet or at least the Solar System
>and having no presence in space. Kind of hard on colonies like Iskander
>but it might avoid war. A middle course was chosen. The thing people
>seem to miss is that the war was being fought to get the "bugs" to open
>negotiation. That does not seem like the interstellar Darwinism that is
>often assumed to be the theme of the book. Sargeants and kids talk in
That's a fair point, though what Dubois (?) said might still suggest
that living peacefully together only works for a while.
On the other hand, if the war is only inevitable in the fairly distant
future, maybe something a little more nuanced should be taught in
History and Moral Philosophy class.
>terms of the need for infinite expansion but the high command takes the
>casualties and the trouble to try not to exterminate another sapient
>species. Of course, a war of xenocide could work both ways but there is
>no evidence in the book that the bad guys are pulling any punches or
>trying to be reasonable. GIVEN THE PREMISES, the decisions of the high
>command and , ultimately, the elected government seem logical, humane
>and the opposite of fascistic. One of the weak points of the lamentable
>recent film is that it doesn't make clear WHY we aren't just blowing up
>the enemy planets or at least their home world.
>
mike stone
> "And you have forgotten that in peacetime most veterans come
>from non-combatant auxiliary services and have not been subjected to
>the full rigors of military discipline; they have merely been harried,
>overworked, and endangered..."
>
> "Auxiliary services" is somewhat ambiguous of course, it could
>mean direct military support, or general governmental support,
>tunnel diggers, testers of survival gear, terraformers, etc. In fact
>all of those are listed as examples of non-military federal service
>in the book.
>
My own impression (I put it no stronger than that) was that the SST society did
not distinguish sharply between military and non-military government service -
or, if you prefer, *all* gov't service was quasi-military in character, whether
combatant or not. You volunteered for "Federal Service", and
the authorities then assigned you as *they* thought fit
Mike Stone - Peterborough England
Q: How do you tell the difference between a Mormon wedding and a Non-Mormon
wedding?
A: At the Mormon wedding, it's the bride's *mother* who is pregnant!
Otto
Quirke) wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix3.netaxs.com> wrote:
>
>> I agree that Heinlein favored freedom, but I don't think he thought the
>> Earth of _Friday_ was any sort of a good place to live. In a good many of
>> his books, he says that freedom is only possible when the population is
>> fairly low.
>
> Which must have sat uneasy with his approval of having babies, I guess.
Well, did he approve of having babies, or did he approve of nubile
young women making out with cranky old men? (After all, I seem to
remember reading something about "women would only get pregnant when
they wanted to" in SiaSL.)
Commodore Otto
Nancy Lebovitz
I wouldn't be surprised if _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_ is the
first "women desperately want children" novel.
Matt Hickman
na...@unix3.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
> In article <7n20fb$t1p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <willre...@my-deja.com>
>> The thing people
>>seem to miss is that the war was being fought to get the "bugs" to
open
>>negotiation. That does not seem like the interstellar Darwinism that
is
>>often assumed to be the theme of the book. Sargeants and kids talk in
>
> That's a fair point, though what Dubois (?) said might still suggest
> that living peacefully together only works for a while.
At one point in the novel, it was mentioned that while a science of
morality for Human intra-species interactions was in existence, a
corresponding morality for human - alien interaction was still being
worked on. This is suggestive that the war in _Starship Troopers_
may have resulted from a failure of moral theory to take into
consideration unforseen realities of non-human intelligence.
Note two things: 1. That there is a science of morality being
developed for dealing with non-human intelligences implies
co-existance rather than extermination. 2. Although you seem to be
reading this 'expand and overwhelm' theme into the lectures of
DuBois and Reid, the way the Terran Federation got started is not
a national group expanding and exterminating the rest of humanity,
but rather it resulted from the collapse and failure of a national
group(s) which tried this strategy.
--
Matt Hickman
There is an old, old story about a theologian who was asked to
reconcile the Doctrine of Divine Mercy with the doctrine of
infant damnation. 'The Almighty,' he explained, 'finds it
necessary to do things in His official and public capacity which
in His private and personal capacity He deplores.'
Robert A. Heinlein (1907 - 1988)
_Methuselah's Children_ ASF c.1941
willre...@my-deja.com
Matt Hickman <matth...@my-deja.com> wrote:
Hi, Matt. Don't I "see" you over on the baseball discussions?
By the way, I stole your signature quote. Look for it everywhere.
Bill Reich
This space reserved for a quote stolen from Matt Hickman. Nothing to
see here now; move along
jeff wiel
: In article <MPG.11f582bdaa77c524989a51@localhost>, thri...@sff.net (Mitch Wagner) writes:
: > IIRC, in "Grumbles From the Grave," Heinlein describes his thoughts and
: > feelings about Pearl Harbor in a letter to John Campbell, wherein he
: > says he is angry at Campbell because of Campbell's reaction to the
: > bombing of Pearl Harbor.
: He sternly lectures the contrarian Campbell that the Navy's leaders
: know more about how to wage a war than Campbell does, and bludgeons
: him with Heinlein's own military experience.
: To my mind, this passionate letter reads *exactly* like a posting from
: a Usenet flame war.
The Dean always was ahead of his time.
: I wish more examples of Heinlein-Campbell correspondence
: were published.
: --
: "I suspect people in non English-speaking | Bill Higgins
: countries consider English with the same | Fermilab
: fine sense of frustration and dread that | Internet: hig...@fnal.fnal.gov
: AFCers think about Microsoft Windows." | Bitnet: Sic transit gloria mundi
: --Peter da Silva (pe...@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM)
: in alt.folklore.computers
pricer...@my-deja.com
> But who says sentient populations have to keep expanding? Excuse the
> pun, but birth control isn't rocket science; it's not that hard to
limit
> the number of kids you have to the number you can afford to support
with
> your current resources. And barring FTL travel, I think self-control
is
> a much more practical (and likely) solution to population pressure
than
> interstellar colonization, let alone interstellar war.
Read _Tramp Royale_ for some insight into the (1) real life experience
and (2) train of thought that possibly caused RAH to think self-control
an unlikely scenario. In a similar vein, Paul Theroux comments as
follows (I must here give credit to Doug Dyment, on whose website I
found this quotation!):
"Down the Yangtze the awful prediction has been fulfilled. You expect
this river trip to be an experience of the past — and it is. But it is
also a glimpse of the future. In a hundred years or so,
under a cold uncolonized moon, what we call the civilized world will all
look like China, muddy and senile and old-fangled: no trees, no birds,
and shortages of fuel and metal and meat; but plenty of
pushcarts, cobblestones, ditch-diggers, and wooden inventions. Nine
hundred million farmers splashing through puddles and the rest of the
population growing weak and blind working the crashing
looms in black factories.
Forget rocket-ships, super-technology, moving sidewalks and all the
rubbishy hope in science fiction. No one will ever go to Mars and live.
A religion has evolved from the belief that we have a future in
outer space; but it is a half-baked religion — it is a little like
Mormonism or the Cargo Cult. Our future is this mildly poisoned earth
and its smoky air. We are in for hunger and hard work, the highest
stage of poverty — no starvation, but crudeness everywhere, clumsy art,
simple language, bad books, brutal laws, plain vegetables, and clothes
of one colour. It will be damp and dull, like this. It
will be monochrome and crowded — how could it be different? There will
be no star wars or galactic empires and no more money to waste on the
loony nationalism in space programmes. Our
grandchildren will probably live in a version of China. On the dark
brown banks of the Yangtze the future has already arrived.
Paul Theroux, from "Sailing Through China", 1983 "
Now I'm inclined to agree with you, rather than with this rather
dystopic view... but I certainly understand the visceral experience
behind it.
George
Justin Bacon
writes:
>In the universe of _Starship Troopers_, aliens exist. If sentient
>populations keep expanding, there will eventually be competition for
>planets or at least for matter, and that competition will eventually
>get violent.
Which was Heinlein's point. If others are expanding and you aren't, you're
screwed.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Robert Pearlman
>In article <7mvag9$l...@netaxs.com>, Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
>>In the universe of _Starship Troopers_, aliens exist. If sentient
>>populations keep expanding, there will eventually be competition for
>>planets or at least for matter, and that competition will eventually
>>get violent.
>
>This is true only for sufficiently large values of "eventually."
One of the purposes of sf is to supply sufficiently large values of
"eventually".
--
Pearlman
Robert Pearlman
>In article <379461...@worldnet.att.net>,
>Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold <Storyt...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>>>
>>> In the universe of _Starship Troopers_, aliens exist. If sentient
>>> populations keep expanding, there will eventually be competition for
>>> planets or at least for matter, and that competition will eventually
>>> get violent.
>>
>>But who says sentient populations have to keep expanding? Excuse the
>
>Heinlein said so, in _Starship Troopers_--or it least it seemed as though
>it was one of his more authoritative characters. The idea was that if
>your population isn't expanding, you'll lose--quickly--to some group
>whose population *is* expanding.
>
>>pun, but birth control isn't rocket science; it's not that hard to limit
>>the number of kids you have to the number you can afford to support with
>>your current resources. And barring FTL travel, I think self-control is
>>a much more practical (and likely) solution to population pressure than
>>interstellar colonization, let alone interstellar war.
>>
>I agree with you.
But let's remember that FTL travel was a basic hypothesis of
STroopers.
--
Pearlman
jeff wiel
: >From: thri...@sff.net (Mitch Wagner)
[snips]
: Incidentally, that last category might well include RAH himself. Iiirc, his
: writing from that early period was not particularly right-wing
Heinlein was a New Deal Democrat through 1958. By 1964 he was campaining
for Barry Goldwater.
jeff wiel
: "M. Northstar" <maz...@hem.passagen.se> wrote:
[snip]
: The basic argument was that when Heinlein commentators use the word
: "fascist" to describe (some or all) of Heinlein's work, other
: commentators characterize that as "name-calling"--that is, as
: contentless insult. The article set out a five-part definition of
: fascism and found material from Heinlein's work which bolstered each
: of the parts of the definition.
: The article is significantly flawed; for one thing, it assumes that
: Heinlein has *a* political philosophy which extends across all of his
: work, which is questionable, at best; also, it excludes
: counter-examples.
Heinlein had no one political philosophy over his
career, he went from democrat to republican in the period 1958 to 1964.
Heinlein explored numerous political and economic systems in his work,
It's a mistake to think he endoresed a particular system when he wrote
about it.
: Also, many people have found fault with the article's definition of
: fascism, which, for instance, does not include "government control of
: the economy". (One could argue that "The Roads Must Roll" does argue
: for central control of key industries, but it's certainly not a theme
: which appears again and again in Heinlein's work.)
"Fascist" is an all-purpose political put down from the left aimed at
anything to the right of Bob Dole. There isn't anything right about
fascism, Italian fascism and Nazism were both socialist.
The claim that fascism was a rightwing movement was invented by leftist
historians to decouple Stalin from Hitler and Mussolini.
: None the less, I found the article thought-provoking, in the best
: senses, and I'm very happy to have published it.
: Kevin Maroney | kmar...@crossover.com
: Kitchen Staff Supervisor
: The New York Review of Science Fiction
: http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
>
> Matt Ruff wrote:
>
>> But who says sentient populations have to keep expanding?
>
> though it was one of his more authoritative characters. The idea was
> that if your population isn't expanding, you'll lose--quickly--to
> some group whose population *is* expanding.
Hence the perennial fear that Bangladesh will invade and conquer the
United States.
What Heinlein is missing -- though perhaps it was less obvious when he
wrote ST -- is that societies with lower birth rates are often much
wealthier and more technologically advanced than societies with high
birth rates, and can therefore afford a much more effective national
defense.
-- M. Ruff