When I was a kid I read a lot of Robert A. Heinlein’s stories, recently I reread one and I had to overlook some things in order to enjoy the actual story. The thing that I found distasteful in his writing was that in one respect we have a very conservative ideology espoused by many of he’s characters, which often are older men such as I would imagine Heinlein was when he wrote those stories. That was not a problem, the issue I had with some of his stories was he’s attitude to sexuality which is somehow connected with the 60’s free love ideology, but the only effect this ideology had in he’s books was as a means to allow old men to screw younger attractive women. Now I’m not a prude and even I can accept that some old but not over the hill dude’s might enjoy having sex with young but not underage women. But I find it hard to get into myself into a book that makes statements like: “A beautiful woman is more likely to attract males and is biologically superior to an unattractive woman.” That’s not an exact quote because I’m doing it from memory. Somehow that doesn’t ring true to me and it’s a sample of an attitude that a lot of he’s work of the 1960s – 70s and 80s has. In he’s science fiction stories he’s said things like democracy is doomed to fail and you would have to be a fool to believe in it anyway, benevolent dictatorship is the only way to got and it’s okay to root anything on legs as long as its attractive. Or at lest that’s how it came across to me. Now “Starship Troopers”, was a really good book and the movie version was just mad, the insane Fascism that Paul Verhoeven sends up so well in the movie is also seen in the book although in the book I can’t be too sure if Heinlein is really seriously saying that a world Military Government is good? It would be kind of like saying Burma but with Nukes, Spaceships and Ray Guns is the ideal form of world government. Remember “Starship Troopers”, was originally written for kids! Substitute “Starship” for “Storm” maybe? Don’t get me wrong I liked many of he’s books its just that he’s particular peccadillo’s keep coming up and I don’t find them very believable. :shrug:
O come on! Even if some people haven’t read Heinlein most people must have seen Starship Troopers. I know the fascist ideology in the movie was a send up, what I’m saying is that in the book its hard to tell if the authors being serious or not. I know its fiction but then its targeted at kids and they might on be so objective regarding this sort of ideology. I can’t believe not one on this forum has any opinion on this, tell me my reasoning is wrong I can take it!
Doesn't being beautiful pretty much mean by definition that you're more likely to attract males? Also, I suspect that by "biologically superior" he meant within the context of natural selection. Who made the statement, and what was the context? I have never really understood why people think that the government in "starship troopers" was a dictatorship, fascist, etc. So far as I remember, they live in a democracy where you have to do public service (which can be military, but doesn't have to be) to get a vote. The rights of non-voters seem to be protected and respected (they just don't get to vote or run for office). Also, Hienlien featured many different kinds of government in his books. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was a total libertarian anarchy, which is about as far from a dictatorship as you can get.
In number of the beast, the mature woman was the one reveared as I remember. She was the true leader of the group. But, hey, older men wanting to bang younger hot women. That's pretty much all of us older men. So, there is some fantasy in his sci-fi. Is there anything really wrong with that.
History and Moral Philosophy? I seem to remember he mentioned that something in effect to beautiful women being biologically superior in three books from his latter period of writing. It was mentioned in “I will fear no evil” (not he’s best work), “Time enough for love” and “Number of the Beast.” Theses were all rather thick tomes so I’m not going to dig out the exact quotes. This statement was made by alpha male characters to younger female characters and explained biologically, maybe its true but I doubt it. A female friend who read this book after me was very offended my this statement. She also found the ‘swinger’ type promiscuity in this story uncomfortable, not because she was especially puritanical but because she didn’t think the author really understood how real women thought. I recall her comment was “Heinlein’s got the mind of a 14 year of wanking machine.” Now I want to clarify there’s a lot about his writing that quite like and I know its just fiction writing, my real question is that does his pushing certain sexual peccadillo’s make his writing less believable. As for Heinlein’s Starship Troopers being fascist, I didn’t say it was or that it was his personal belief. Only that Starship Troopers the movie unashamedly implies it (sends it up), and the book says that military or civil service as the only way of gaining the right to vote. This is a quote from Starship Troopers the book, can you see any holes in the reasoning regarding this fictional system of government from Chapter 12. “"Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal -- else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy. The unlimited democracies were unstable because their citizens were not responsible for the fashion in which they exerted their sovereign authority ...other than through the tragic logic of history. The unique 'poll tax' that we must pay was unheard of. No attempt was made to determine whether, a voter was socially responsible to the extent of his literally unlimited authority. If he voted the impossible, the disastrous possible happened instead --and responsibility was, then forced on him willy-nilly and destroyed both him and his foundationless temple. "Superficially, our system is only slightly different; we have democracy unlimited by race, color, creed, birth wealth, sex, or conviction, and anyone may win sovereign power by a usually short and not too arduous term of service -- nothing more than a light workout to our cave-man ancestors. But that slight difference is one between a system that works, since it is constructed in match the facts, and one that is inherently unstable. Since sovereign franchise is the ultimate in human authority, we insure that all who wield it accept the ultimate in social responsibility -- we require each person who wishes to exert control over the state to wager his own life -- and lose it, if need be -- to save the life of the state. The maximum responsibility a human can thus accept is thus equated to the ultimate authority a human can exert. Yin and yang, perfect and equal. The Major added. "Can anyone define why there has never been a revolution against our system? Despite the fact that every government in history has had such? Despite the notorious fact that complaints are loud and unceasing?" One of the older cadets took a crack at it "Sir, revolution is impossible." "Yes. But why?" "Because revolution -- armed uprising--requires not only dissatisfaction but aggressiveness. A revolutionist has to be willing to fight and die -- or he is just a parlor pink. If you separate out the aggressive ones and make them the sheep dogs, the sheep will never give you trouble.” So, what do you think?
I dont know what to say except call it as you see it... and I see some self-righteous wanna be politically correct BS that is best left to worlds that are still able to support it. Nice as this was in theory, I'd prefer the powers that be kept it real. I respect that the author kept it real... if thats what he believes, thats what he should write , no matter how controversial.
I always found Heinlein's choice to explore the variety of possible future political systems and argue for them severally to be one of the factors that set him in the higher echelons of s/f writers. I also always found the arguments in Starship Troopers particularly attractive. You express concern over how a child might interpret the story. I suggest a child would probably not be that interested in the distribution of voting franchises in society, but if he took any grand idea away from the book it would be that he should endeavour to do something for others rather than just asking to be looked after.
Yes I agree with you on that one, other writers might have been stylistically superior to Robert Heinlein, be he did but a lot of sociological depth into his stories. Reading them now you tend to forget how original some of these concepts were when he first wrote them. When I was 14 I was really into the Dirty Harry Movies, Death wish and so on. Kids find the idea of authoritarianism and punitive justice highly attractive if they are not on the receiving end of it. Remember the Hitler Youth? A child reading SST would be attracted to the idea of military service, so its working as a recruiting poster and by virtue of that acceptance conclude that the military or in the books case that it would be good if the ex-military controlled the government. You can talk semantics about how Heinlein says that any form of public service can get you the right to vote, a child would not differentiate that much.
I'm a huge Heinlein fan, and Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie) isn't nearly as fascist as some people seem to think it is. Aside from military service being a requirement for citizenship - a policy that makes a certain amount of sense, even though I don't agree with it - the population seems to enjoy the same freedoms as people living in civilized nations today. The non-citizens in the book apparently had all the rights and privileges enjoyed by citizens other than the right to vote. Overall, though, the book touched on a few social/domestic issues, but it was mostly an explanation of how and why a military should work. I think that some people may be confusing being pro-military (which Heinlein is) with being pro-big government (which Heinlein certainly did not seem to be, judging by his entire body of work).
He wasn't pro-military per se. He seemed to hold the view that to be a part of the shaping of government policy (i.e. to vote) you couldn't just be an apathetic - but had to demonstrate your willingness to do something for your society - be it military service, civil service etc. A case of "put up or shut up" really. The military side shown in Starship Troopers is just one job that you could do to earn the privilege of voting, but there were others. And while he was "pro-military" (i.e. felt that the military had their place), it is clear that he does not think much of the way that the military are used by governments - throughout most of his work the military are merely pawns to the whims of incompetents. He was, however, very much one for pushing the boundaries of acceptability - writing about what we consider to be taboo as though it was normal. Incestuous relationships, of which he wrote about, were not necessarily what he promoted or condoned (he being of this time) but that, technically, once the genetic weakness that could arise of such a mating was removed as a possibility - it is ultimately all merely about love - on different levels - be it platonic or sexual - and that there really is no need for such relationships to be taboo, assuming that parties enter the relationships when understanding them on an intellectual level. i.e. he does not write about such relationships unless between parties that are fully cognisant and intelligent enough to know what they are doing. Likewise with polygamous relationships - multiple husbands/wives etc... on an intellectual level, as long as noone is hurt by the relationship and accept it intellectually... why is it taboo - other than for some religious texts written thousands of years ago? He makes you think about such topics and writes them in a way, so casually, that many might misinterpret as being his own personal views as being acceptable on a practical level in todays society. Intellectually they might be his view, but from the way he lived his life, monogamously for example, it is difficult to say that it went any further than that. He is not the best writer I have read, but he is thought provoking, and many of his stories are entertaining at the same time.
If you want to look at a sci-fi writer that pushed the boundaries in these regards then none better then Philip Wylie. Nobody escaped his wrath when it came to the failings of the individual and his honest view of the world as a decent man but a man nonetheless.
I can't find it online at the moment, but a long time ago I recall reading an interview with Heinlein where he said he wished he had made a bigger deal out of the types of non-military service that a person could do to gain citizenship when he wrote ST, because he thought people often got the wrong idea about it. It's also interesting to note how Heinlein went out of his way to show a non-racist world. His main protagonist, Rico, is Filipino, and the various other characters are from all over the world. Given that the book was written in 1959, that was pretty progressive for the time. Finally, about the movie: Although they certainly went out of their way to give it a fascist/authoritarian vibe with some of the costumes etc., I can't recall anything in the movie that actually showed they were very fascist or authoritarian. We don't see people being particularly oppressed. No one is forced to fight, and "non-citizens" seem to lead very comfortable lives. Rico's family in the movie (as in the book) is quite rich and successful, to the point where his father thinks that the whole notion of joining the military and becoming a citizen is pointless and idiotic.
I don’t know? Some of the propaganda was pretty over the top, but it was mostly based on US WW2 propaganda. I still like that movie it’s a shame the sequels were so crappy.
I'd say that he was legitimately pro-military, but not to the point of being nutty about it. He showed an obvious respect for the loyalty and necessity of the military to any free society, but you're right that he didn't portray non-military members as worthless leeches or anything.
