Robert Heinlein: Starship Troopers

[Urlik]

Heinlein is a bit of an odd one really
a lot of his views are very anti war and especially anti conscription yet he is also anti pacifist and believes that those who enjoy the benefits of a nation/society should be prepared to lay down their lives to defend it.

in some ways his point of view strikes me as anarchistic, but realistic.
laws are there to let him know what the risks are, and they are followed or broken depending on whether they suit his purpose or not.

there is an almost parallel setting in one of his short stories (can't remember the name but I'm sure it is in The Man Who Sold The Moon) where you can wear a gun and get privaleges or wear a brassard and be a 2nd class citizen.
those with guns have to be extra polite as they can be challenged to a duel to the death if they offend yet those with brassards always have to give precedent to those with guns yet are safe from being challenged.

that simple bit of background is a brilliant illustration of the old dilema; peace or freedom

Heinlein, like the other greats, is a master of giving depth character to alternative societies with very few words so that the story has context yet the social/political issues of today are called into question

[Connavar]

Good post.

Seems like you have read enough to RAH to see what kind of writer he is.

I have only read one of his works so far but by the way you described that short story/novel it sounds to me like a typical RAH story.

[Shell_Kracker]

Not everyone who is anti-subscription and anti-war is a pacifist - most arnt, and believe in defensive war, and defensive voluntary armed forces.

[Urlik]

Originally Posted by Shell_Kracker

Not everyone who is anti-subscription and anti-war is a pacifist - most arnt, and believe in defensive war, and defensive voluntary armed forces.

most sane people are anti war

but with RAH there is the theme that killing is wrong yet it is something you should be prepared to do to protect your freedom.

there is also the theme that in societies where everyone is armed and has the freedom to kill, people tend to be more polite and there is less crime

these themes spawn numerous questions
mainly, at which point does the killing go from retail to wholesale and go from fighting to defend yourself and property on a personal level to fighting a war to defend your society/nation and way of life?

oh what a lovely can of worms RAH has left for us to open

[Shell_Kracker]

I personally find the 'fight to protect freedom' idea juvenile - because even seemingly posetive idealism turns into fanaticism - and one's own idea of what freedom is, is not definitive. No doubt Lenin thought he was protecting freedom (in his own way) for example. The German people were convinced that their freedom was under threat from the 'international Jewry'. No doubt todays terrorists and aggressive nationalists think the same thing.

The ideas presented in Starship Troopers were what I thought as a kid (human nationalism essentially), but I long since recognised that they are as unrealistic as any other fanatic ideal - whether it be racism or Maoism.

[j. d. worthington]

I find it interesting that this novel is still stirring as much controversy as it did when it was first released (there was a very heated radio debate on it at the time; I've come across fragments of that in various histories of sf, or books on Heinlein, over the years).

And I wouldn't take this book as a summation of Heinlein's ideas on any of these topics; not only was this one of those books where he was wanting to gig people into discussing the topic (something which shouldn't be surprising, given the political climate of the time), but it was also the culmination of a development of various themes in his juveniles, so he was tackling a lot of issues there.

It's interesting that, the first time I read the book, I hated the thing. I was vehemently opposed to what it had to say, and reacted with a knee-jerk liberalism (but then, I was also quite young at the time). Since then, it has become one of my favorite books because it fundamentally questions a lot of my own biases, and I think that's always a good thing for helping to periodically reassess one's stance and measure how well it agrees with new facts, and/or how well such a stance has stood the test of experience....

[Connavar]

I wonder how many people like you have hated the book the first reading and loved in second and then it became a favorit.


Will be interesting to read the other juvies and see how his ideas on these topics are. How different they are from one book to another.

[Shell_Kracker]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

I find it interesting that this novel is still stirring as much controversy as it did when it was first released (there was a very heated radio debate on it at the time; I've come across fragments of that in various histories of sf, or books on Heinlein, over the years).

And I wouldn't take this book as a summation of Heinlein's ideas on any of these topics; not only was this one of those books where he was wanting to gig people into discussing the topic (something which shouldn't be surprising, given the political climate of the time), but it was also the culmination of a development of various themes in his juveniles, so he was tackling a lot of issues there.

It's interesting that, the first time I read the book, I hated the thing. I was vehemently opposed to what it had to say, and reacted with a knee-jerk liberalism (but then, I was also quite young at the time). Since then, it has become one of my favorite books because it fundamentally questions a lot of my own biases, and I think that's always a good thing for helping to periodically reassess one's stance and measure how well it agrees with new facts, and/or how well such a stance has stood the test of experience....

The problem I find is that I have already questioned those knee jerk reactions before reading ST - and rejecting it always led to fanatical lack of perspective.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Shell_Kracker

The problem I find is that I have already questioned those knee jerk reactions before reading ST - and rejecting it always led to fanatical lack of perspective.

I think I'm missing something here on the second clause. Are you saying rejecting the novel led to a fanatical lack of perspective toward the novel, toward the issues, or toward RAH overall; and if toward Heinlein or the novel ... to the point where they could see nothing good about it or Heinlein, or the opposite? Sorry, but I'm just a bit uncertain of what you mean there...

[Shell_Kracker]

I mean rejecting reasoned liberalism has always led to bad things, in my experience - no matter how rational the rejection seems at the time.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Shell_Kracker

I mean rejecting reasoned liberalism has always led to bad things, in my experience - no matter how rational the rejection seems at the time.

Thank'ee... and I tend to agree on this; the keyword being "reasoned"....

[Marvolo]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

So I finally got a small amount of freetime before bed and so read Robert Heinlein: Starship Troopers.

The first thing that strikes me is the light-reading aspect of it - most books I'm so engrossed in that I don't notice the world around me, and can be very annoyed when it does intrude mid-chapter.

With Starship Troopers, I could read and happily chat to my girlfriend because the book was so generally uninvolving. It's not really a story - it's a general first person ramble with story elements but no classic plot in terms of having a situation that the protagonist has to face and resolve - he goes places, does stuff, talks about life in the military a lot. Oh - and then after half-way there's mention of a war.

In terms of construction is reminds myself very much of Brave New World, in that the primary purpose is not to tell a story as much as relate philsophical concepts at the expense of the story. Luckily, Heinlein keeps things more traditional in terms of using the novel format, but it still failed to engross in that regard.

With all that in mind, in hindsight, I have to be completely heretical to other Heinlein readers and say that the film seems to have done the book justice to a large degree, not least by protraying something of the world that Heinlein was trying to communicate, in a way that a film would need to. There's really so little story and substance to the novel itself that any film production would necessarily have to create its own sense of identity with the book as a platform from which to work.

There are a couple of chapters assigned to social philosophy which I was pleased to see - one arguing the benefits of corporal punishment, and the other arguing an alternative political system.

However, while the issue that only military-served personal could have elective rights was interesting, he never really explored the potential challenges to it - maybe it is indeed important to instill social responsibility in people, but my impression is that military personel are trained to take orders rather than use free initiative at every step, so what you have is an electorate with different vulnerabilities.

Also, surely such an electoral basis would be as subject to partisan political problems as any other political system? In other words, the problems he raised with political systems was not due to the fallible nature of the electorate as much as due to the limitations of the political system itself - so changing the basis for acceptance into that electorate cannot address the limitations of existing partisan democracies, because the fundamentals of self-interest above the interest of the electorate will surely remain an issue?

Anyway, Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, if anyone's up for discussion.

I think Heinlein hinted at something that many people overlook, the relationship between a military constintuency and the ant-like Bugs.

The Bugs are modeled somewhat after ants. They are broken down into castes much the same way ants are and achieve things through this unbroken sense of unwavering unity.

A military constintuency would operate in a similar fashion. All the constituents take orders and learn the value of discipline and unity during their terms of service. Anyone not willing to make this sacrifice cannot vote and thus cannot waver the course that particular nation is committed to taking. The citizens will vote, presumably, in the best interest and at the best advice of those above them. I think he created this system to mirror the society hinted at with the Bugs.

It's just something I noticed. I might be reading too much into it but then again, Heinlein is usually very apt with plot elements such as these.

Edit: In my own rambling I overlooked the original question.

I think the bi-partisan issues would be less of an issue. I just feel that the level of service demanded at the particular time, alongside the lower numbers of voters and representatives, would definately cull some of the bickering.

[pyan]

Originally Posted by Marvolo

I think Heinlein hinted at something that many people overlook, the relationship between a military constintuency and the ant-like Bugs.

RAH actually compares the Bugs directly with communism:

We were learning, expensively, just how efficient a total communism can be when used by a people actually adapted to it by evolution ....
Perhaps we could have figured this out about the Bugs by noting the grief the Chinese Hegemony gave the Russo-Anglo-Americah Alliance ....

ST: Chapter 11

Interesting that he allied the Russians with the West, considering the book was written in 1959 .....!

[manephelien]

The trouble with the military is that it doesn't teach people to think. Most just follow orders and that's it. People who question authority and don't follow orders will probably end up in the brig or worse.

So no, I don't think having a meritocracy like ST would be any better than universal suffrage. The only problem is that universal suffrage requires an educated and informed populace to work properly.

[Urlik]

in my opinion, although most of RAH's books tend to preach, I think the purpose of them, apart from entertainment, is to cause debate and almost force people to question their beliefs, politics and the motives of those who are in power.

ST is a book that succeeds on both counts