Not Prince Hamlet

You're absolutely right, Dangin. In the future, I'll try to restrict myself to more mature statements like:

and

[ June 14, 2002: Message edited by: Not Prince Hamlet ]</p>

elwoodblues

Rimstalker:

I know you weren't alleging that Heinlein was fascist. I probably shouldn't have thrown your quote in this thread; my mistake.

And, yes, Heinlein did have a more 'favorable' view of the military. Considering their respective backrounds in the military, I think that's understandable.

ohwilleke

Fascist is derrogatory and not quite accurate, but it is certainly true that:

(1) Heinlein intentionally raised political issues in his writing, and
(2) Heinlein's political agenda intentionally ignores many of the sensibilities shared by most science fiction writers.

For example, Star Ship troopers has as one central theme a heavy, government propaganda driven campaign to dehumanize and villify the enemy on emotional rather than rational grounds (and it is not coincidence that it is the space age football star who signs up). This open, government supported hate of outsiders gives the story an important part of its feel (a feel that was easy to recall in 1959, the age of the Red Scare, Korea, and before that WWII). This kind of demogougery was part of facism, and lots of other nationalist movements. Its group think is terrifying because you never know where it will turn next. He gets away with it, because the bugs are not, of course, human. But, they are intelligent, and his approach is in stark contrast to that taken by Orson Scott Card in Ender's Game, in which the attacking bugs were far more sympathetic sentients, and the only way that protangist Ender, whose empathy was important to his success, was utilized to kill them was by being tricked into thinking that he was just playing a game. While the use to which to demogaugic approach was used in ST was arguably morally legitimate, he basically lets this distasteful tactic pass as O.K., rather than leading to something bad as almost any other science fiction writer would be prone to do.

Also, Heinlein glosses over the huge cultural differences that people on Earth have, and instead portrays his soliders as a huge mass of homogeneous small town surburbanites united against the bugs.

Starship troopers also make a point of portraying the grunt troopers as acting out of hype (impulsive enlistments, for example), peer pressure (the tattoo scene, and the "everybody fights, nobody quits" line) and blood lust (all sorts of small talk about the coming battles; "remember Rio" kinds of comments); without overtly criticizing it. The hypocritical pretense that nice war is fought out of a sense of civic duty by people who are just doing what they have to do is removed. Instead, Heinlein acknowledges that anti-social behavior and embracing emotional hate is encouraged, perhaps necessary, and certainly the norm, among rank and file soldiers. Their use of corporal punishment in boot camp is an example of the raw, almost barbaric level of discipline that its necessary to go to (remember that the lashing was for a mere careless mistake) that it takes to keep these emotional, demogaugically driven kids in line.

Heinlein's willingness to put the idea that "might makes right", through the teacher-soldier, as a legitimate political idea, is also pretty radical for the mainstream of political discussion -- and I would dispute that the military service to vote thing was simply a matter of screening out the lazy asses from making decisions. It was an express link between militarism and having a voice in the state. It was a bit like "death qualifying" a jury by excluding anyone who wasn't willing to impose a death penalty from it, but for the whole electorate. It, by design, gives the state a conservative bent that comes from military service.

I think it is significant that Starship Troopers is one of Heinlein's first big books and was written in 1959. He is responding in part to the spirit of the age, just as his books written in the 1960s, Stranger in a Strange Land, for instance, respond to the spirit of that age. He stays outside the P.C. mainstream in all of his books, but I think he evolves a lot over the years in response to the cultural changes in the United States.

[ June 14, 2002: Message edited by: ohwilleke ]</p>

Corwin

Dude, you are seriously confusing the book and the movie here.

I don't see the 'hate of outsiders' that you do, other than the bugs, who they're currently at war with in the book. Racism among humans appears to have been largely or completely eliminated, (Rico? Is Filipino...) and they encounter one or two non-human alien species briefly in the book... no particular racism against them. As far as the bugs are concerned there's a justifiable amount of xenephobia against them. These creatures intentionally used what amounts to orbital bombardment against a heavily populated civilian city... ('Remember Rio' is a reference to the bugs dropping an asteroid on Rio de Janero... no declaration of war, no warning, no real prior attacks except on a few minor outlying colonies... nothing. Out of the blue this species obliterates a city full of people.)

The dehumanization aspect deserves some attention too. You ALWAYS find this in a military organization to some extent. It goes with the territory. It's part of what creates unit cohesiveness and allows people to work together in high stress situations... two points should be brought up here... for one thing, according to Heinlein himself the MI is about .05% of the population. Broad sweeping statements about this society simply don't apply... for another, the MI is a pure military group. One statement that has been made about such groups, and bears repeating, is that these are NOT civilian societies. You join up, you accept the rules, and these rules are terribly stringent compared to civilian life. This isn't an accident. Most, (not all, but most) of the laws a military unit operates under have been hammered out over millennia of soldiering... their main goal is to take a group of trained killers and allow them to live and work together under extreme situations without killing each other. This is what works. I know, in our society we've divorced ourselves from that aspect of the military. 'Join the Army... see the world... get an education...' No mention of shooting people and ESPECIALLY no mention of the possibility of getting killed. Is there some dehumanization in the MI? Yes... some. You think this is a terrible thing? Talk to the Marines. They're even worse than what Heinlein describes... and the MI is the Starship Troopers equivalent to the Marine Corps. (They actually fill the role that the Marines do in real life.)

While I disagree with corporal punishment in general, in this area I can't say it bothers me too much... let's remember, the 'careless mistake' in question got one of the other recruits sent home from boot camp. In a box. Rico never forgot the punishment and would NEVER make the same mistake again... and neither would anyone who saw it. Reread over that section again, through the eyes of an adult. (I'll assume you were fairly young when you read ST... perspectives change.)

And while I do see SOME evidence of 'might makes right' stated in the book, I don't so much see him as claiming this is really such a GOOD thing, as a realistic thing. The teachers statement to the student who's mother always said 'violence never solves anything' is an apt one. 'Tell that to the city fathers of Carthage. Violence solved their destinies pretty completely didn't it?' In the war described in the book, this is taken to an even greater level... in an interspecies conflict you're dealing with evolutionary drives to spread out. It's very Darwinian in a sense that Darwin believed we as humans had grown out of.... and with regards to human societies I'd agree with him. The bugs, on the other hand, are represented as being more or less mindless. (Except for the upper 'castes' of the species.) The drive to spread out, to find more resources, to become dominant, is inherent in any successful lifeform. (If it isn't there, that lifeform doesn't become dominant.) I also can't say that I disagree with his pretense: War should be fought to protect your society from invasion. A society that isn't willing to defend itself is crushed by those that would destroy it.

Some people think pacifism is a noble ideal... myself I think it's pretty damned useless. (I have to respect the courage of someone who will take a beating because of his ideals.... but I don't respect the ideals much.)

Beelzebub

SST and a few other very early books aside, I always took Heinlien as a raging libertarian. The man wrote so many books, there are bound to be a few clunkers.

Corwin

He clearly was, with a lower case 'L.' I don't think he had much patience for Randians... but the basic concept of civil libertarianism holds true in a lot of his work. (Let me rephrase... he probably would have had more patience with Libertarians than I do... but probably not a whole lot...)

ohwilleke

This is preceisely the hate I'm talking about. Heinlein sanitizes it, by making it about aliens who Earth is at war with, but it is still the unbridled, irrationally, not even trying to empathize hate of war. The notion that it could be justifable (even desirable) to blindly hate under any circumstance, something most rights reject, is what make Heinlein exceptional and far more conservative than many science fiction writers.

Same thing. Yes, it happens, but most military organizations are pretty fightening, close to being facist organizations anyway. Most writers try to put a gloss of respectability over this reality. Heinlein doesn't and doesn't even express concern about the group think dehumanization that so many other writers do. He is willing to take the quite conservative stance of saying, this is what the Marines are about and that's a good thing.

Yet, as an adult looking at this, I think, what a bunch of thugs these guys are, their leaders are convinced that they only way they'll ever get a point is to see a big, physical, bloody spectacle. Apparently these guys aren't capable of using their brains and thinking, everything has to be feeling, which is pretty dangerous to real thought.

Most mainstream political theoriests see might makes right as the basest sort of horror to be avoided, as what leads to war, as a horrible waste. Social darwinism is among the most conservative social ideas that ever hit the planet and was an important idea behind the Eugenics of the Third Reich. Heinlein's character's embrace of the idea, rather than distaste for it is what make Heinlein an exceptionally conservative writer (compare Star Trek, where even Klingons can be good guys).

When you consider that the bugs are really, to a great extent a stand in for foreign nations like Japan and Germany, the implications of this sink in.

Corwin

Calling the bugs an analog for Germany or Japan is back-seat authoring. It's like trying to say that the Lord of the Rings was a retelling of WWII. Commonly speculated, but on investigation it largely falls apart.

I think the basic problem here is one of perception, (as in the india/pakistan thread in PD..) In ST Heinlein describes a society that's gotten largely fed up with idealism. Are some of these things barbaric? Sure. Are they realistic? You bet. They've had years of suffering to develop a society that's largely pragmatic, or at least the section of the society we see has. (The rest of society is represented as being more or less like our own.)

And 'social darwinism' doesn't really apply here. The error of social darwinism is applying it to human societies.... groups of thinking, reasoning, rational people. (In theory anyway.) The society in ST is faced with... let's be blunt, mindless animals. (Go high enough up the food chain and they're directed by an intelligent lifeform... but the intelligent forms are about as small of a percentage as the MI is among humans.) Darwinian concepts actually do apply when dealing with this situation. Or do you just let any bug, rodent, or predator live in your house? If a cougar took up residence in your neighborhood and started preying on neighborhood pets what would you do? (Myself, it would involve a 30-06 and some patience.) What he's describing here, first of all is not all of human society, second of all is not a typical war against a human enemy.... they actually are mindless animals. How do you apply kindness and understanding to an animal who considers all other mobile life forms to be either prey or enemies?

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan,

You'll start to pick up on the satire in the movie sometime after you hit puberty, so give it a few years.

Jeff

Yes, I am sure I'll understand the movie as soon as I am able to confuse anti-Americanism with wit.

No, I didn't take kids stepping on bugs and other stuff as satire. The reason is that the movie is entitled "Starship Troopers" as though the director is intending that it bear some relationship to the book. If the director did not intend that it somehow reflect on, elaborate, retell or comment on the book, why did he borrow the title? It's as if he bought the rights to Dune, made Waterworld under that title, and then declared the whole thing a satire. "Hey, I get a free pass on making a really bad movie and trashing a great book because it is satire." &lt;wink&gt; Maybe Spielberg should take that approach with the more cliched, formulaic elements of Saving Private Ryan or Jurassic Park III. A good directorial out, that. "It's not a bad movie, it's satire."

I took it for a crappy straight movie because (1) Verhoeven has made crap before (see Showgirls) and (2) it stays rigidly within Hollywood convention right down to the boy-meets-girl story and (3) lacks even the most basic elements of realism that would give ironic and satirical social commentary some force. It looks like perfectly acceptable straight movie excess to me, like the kind someone with neither love for, nor understanding of, science fiction would make. Further, the excess is in the direction that critics of Heinlein have gone -- in other words, the movie is perfectably understandable as a complete misunderstanding of Heinlein. Like Not Prince Hamlet's misunderstanding of Heinlein.

Just looking at it, if you didn't know that the director claimed it was satire, how would you be able to demonstrate that indeed it was satire? If you look at satirical moments in other movies -- like Blade Runner, where, in the opening, the announcer is telling people to go to the offworld colonies, a land of golden opportunity, and the picture on the floating ship is of Los Angeles seen at night from the mountains above it -- it's clear that the intent is satirical. But Starship Troopers is so badly done it is literally impossible to tell that it is not simply a bad straight movie. If the director wanted to make a satire, why borrow the title of a famous book?

As for the book, it is clearly not "facist." Heinlein sentamentalizes, not glorifies, military life. On numerous occasions characters belittle the military. Neither speech, movement nor economic life is regulated by the state, unlike in most facist states. I think people confuse Heinlein's libertarianism with facism too easily. RH's views on sexuality, for example, entirely lack the control that characterizes facist thinking.

Collective entities that stamp out individuality are common enemies in American SF -- ST, Ender's Game, The Forever War, the Blight from A Fire Upon the Deep, I could name a dozen others, even the more antlike behaviors of the Triffids is collective....I suspect this reflects Cold War, rather than WWII, fears.

Vorkosigan

[ June 14, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Heinlein's willingness to put the idea that "might makes right", through the teacher-soldier, as a legitimate political idea, is also pretty radical for the mainstream of political discussion -- and I would dispute that the military service to vote thing was simply a matter of screening out the lazy asses from making decisions. It was an express link between militarism and having a voice in the state. It was a bit like "death qualifying" a jury by excluding anyone who wasn't willing to impose a death penalty from it, but for the whole electorate. It, by design, gives the state a conservative bent that comes from military service.

I take this for a complete misreading of Heinlein's position. Heinlein is not saying "might makes right." He is arguing against a particular claim of that girl -- saying, like it or not, many questions are settled by violence, and society has to be prepared to accept that. Further, Heinlein's position in the book is that people have full citizenship because they showed a willingness to lay their lives down for the State. This is an interesting and provocative position, but it is arguable whether Heinlein believed it (compare political participation in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or Double Star for two other views). Obviously Heinlein viewed his novels as vehicles for experimentation and proposal of ideas. One need only look at the participatory democracy of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to see how complex and thoughtful a writer he actually was. I don't think it is fair to hack on RH for ST, and not give him points for Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Vorkosiga