Robert Heinlein: Starship Troopers

[j. d. worthington]

It will be interesting to hear your thoughts on this... By the way, you might try checking out Heinlein's juveniles, as they develop certain themes with increasing complexity through the series from first to last (I include Starship Troopers as the last, as he intended it as such).

http://members.iglou.com/jtmajor/HeinJuvs.htm

[eanbardsley]

Thanks for the reading list, I really don't know where to start with Heinlein, he is prolific, with Asimov it is easy, the foundation I would consider his milestone, it is afterall the Hugo award winner for best all time science fiction book, or is that series. Anyway with that I would start in the order that events unfold in galaxy, with the trilogy, though prelude and forward written after take place before. I will share my thoughts. Also by Asimov that I haven't seen any mention of was a great word, The God's Themselves, though I should search the archives.

[j. d. worthington]

Been a while since I've read that... actually, quite a while. I had it set aside for a reread recently, but the way things have gone with my reading.....

Yes, picking where to begin with Heinlein isn't an easy task, but I would advise holding off on his later novels until a later point, as he shifts into a much more didactic form at that point, and some find that very annoying....

[cape_royds]

Starship Troopers is a quite sophisticated book, and probably Heinlein's "tightest," best-constructed, work.

Heinlein adopts a classical narrative sequence. Like an ancient epic, the novel begins in the middle of the story, and finishes before the end of the story. The story doesn't end with the end of the war, since we are told early in the book that the war continues even after the Fall of Klendathu. We don't even find out what happens to Rico.

The story is told in the first person, but the narrator's voice is not necessarily the author's voice: Juan Rico is not necessarily Robert A. Heinlein. RAH uses Rico as a narrator to give us a close-up view of a future society. Rico is so immersed in his world and in his times that he can make us take those circumstances as much for granted as he does.

RAH did espouse some of the political doctrines taught to Rico in his "History and Moral Philosophy" classes. But when you consider Glory Road and Stranger in a Strange Land were both written within a fairly short time after ST, it's obvious that Heinlein is not merely posing as Colonel Dubois! RAH had a lot of different political and social notions, many of which clash with the ideals exhibited in ST.

The didactic sections of ST also use a classical story construction: that of the Socratic Dialogue. My first exposure to philosophy and political science came when I first read Starship Troopers at the age of 12. (A couple of years later, I got my first inadvertent taste of cultural anthropology in Citizen of the Galaxy). In Rico's classrooms readers are educated in the values of his society.

ST is meanwhile a coming-of-age story. Rico progresses from being an "aimless youth" from an affluent family, at odds with his father, to being a man and a leader of men, largely indifferent to material considerations, working alongside his father. Heinlein was very good, and very practiced, at writing such coming-of-age stories, and ST is perhaps his best.

ST is in addition a "soldier's story" in which along with Rico, we learn about comradeship which, despite hellish experiences, gives soldiers their most cherished memories. Like with the coming-of-age story, Heinlein is making brilliant use of a narrative convention.

But like the epic sequencing and the Socratic teachings, the coming-of-age and soldier's stories serve to immerse us in a future world, in which Earth has become a social-Darwinistic empire governed by a military elite, bent on an endless quest for galactic Lebensraum.

If Rico has few qualms, and those easily dispelled by several stages of philosophical indoctrination, that's because Rico doesn't live in the world of Heinlein's readership. Instead, we visit Rico's times, and for Rico, it's all normal--indeed, a world with which he is perfectly satisfied, the best of all possible worlds.

Is Starship Troopers a true satire? It's too ambiguous to be classified with Brave New World. Unlike in BNW, we don't really have a John Savage or Bernard Marx to serve as foils for the future reality that is presented to us.

Is ST a true dystopia? Again, our protagonist and narrator, unlike Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, comes to embrace, rather than reject, the values of his society. Seeing only what Rico looks at, we don't know whether the Terran Federation is a dystopia or not.

ST is a sophisticated and ambiguous work. Despite the often didactic tone of the novel, Heinlein isn't telling us what to think. Sometimes I think Heinlein is exploring the ideas himself, grokking them, as it were.

Heinlein loves to poke his reader's soft spots and exploit any contradictions in their thinking. Sometimes he does this blatantly, like in Farnham's Freehold, where he reverses the roles of blacks and whites.

In Starship Troopers Heinlein is more sophisticated: he presents us with a future world free of racism or sexism, with an almost completely meritocratic government. However, the meritocracy is based solely on a warrior class, while violence and greed are directed outward at other sapient species!

It's almost like he's asking any good-spirited person, "Would you accept that deal? Are you tempted? Could you rationalize it to yourself?"

Heinlein himself isn't sure. He groks the dilemma. And that's why Starship Troopers is not only a great work of science fiction, it's also a pretty formidable work of American literature.

[Tobytwo]

I must say that I disliked Starship Troopers very much, but I can appreciate the arguments being made for it.

With regard to the politics, the whole thing to me has the tone of an old colonel spouting off about "young people these days". "What they need is a spell in the damned army, the layabouts!" I don't think ST is racist, as is sometimes claimed, but it is (I hate this term) culturally imperialist. The culture of the Federation is not the culture of, say, India, Germany or even Britain, yet all of these places seem to be part of it. (Culturally, it seems to be a vast 1950s US army base, but much more vicious - like a sadistic version of Bilko). I don't know if this is what Heinlein actually wanted the world to be like, but I think that this is how the Federation is portrayed.

I would also take issue with the idea that ST is accurate in its depiction of future warfare. It is a good extrapolation of modern warfare, in that each soldier is effectively a high-tech walking tank. This is fair enough, but as soon as someone invents a powered-armour suit, some other clever fellow will work out how to stop it. ST is a credible view of how such a war could be fought, but I don't see that war will be like that. Of course, Heinlein isn't saying that it will, but the "rightness" of ST's predictions about future war are sometimes wheeled out as a sign of his skill (although he himself might have disagreed).

I felt that Rico, although a bit dim, was a reasonable narrative voice. We don't learn much about him, but I'm not sure that matters terribly. The story, however, doesn't really progress very well: it is simply a set of events in which the Infantry is proved right. The more Rico subordinates himself to the will of the powers that be the better he does. It seems pretty unsophisticated to me.

However, the thing I deeply dislike about ST is its tone: rampant cynicism in the guise of tough realism. None of the characters ever credits mankind with any sort of likeable trait, unless you count obedience, fighting hard and possibly cunning. Time and again we are told that mankind is just a sort of big clever rat, and anything else is just dewy-eyed sentimentality. (I wonder what wishy-washy liberals like Cromwell or Churchill would have made of this.) Yet for a book that claims to be stripping away the soppy rubbish, the attitude to war in it strikes me as far less feasible than (inevitable comparison!) that in The Forever War (or, say, The Cruel Sea). It is this aspect that leaves an unpleasant taste for me: otherwise I would say that it was an interesting, if flawed, novel.

[cape_royds]

ST is indeed a cynical novel. And the future it portrays is dark, at least to our eyes--a Social-Darwinistic universe of constant struggle between sapient species, each battling for lebensraum.

But by having the narrative told in the first person by a naif--Juan Rico--Heinlein makes sure that there is no omniscient place for the reader to get a firm footing and an objective measure.

And unlike Voltaire's Candide, who is also a naif narrator, Heinlein's Juan Rico mostly enjoys success in his world, rather than a series of misfortunes. Unlike Bernard Marx, unlike Winston Smith, unlike Candide, Juan Rico takes us into a potential dystopia from the narrative standpoint of someone who learns to fit in.

For example, we are treated to how Rico is taught history. But those history lessons only tell us how kids in Rico's time are taught history. That version of history itself is the one told by the prevailing regime--a regime under which only those who prove their obedience may ever become enfranchised.

But even from Rico's naif story of coming of age as a veteran soldier, we get a few glimpses of a more complex world.

With the Hendrik story we get a glimpse of what happens to those who try to become citizens with an agenda for change. They don't make it through; they get weeded out. The training system itself is designed to make sure that no one like Hendrik could ever become a citizen. There's no personal malice involved on the part of Zim or Frankel--none is necessary. Everyone just does their job and the system keeps moving along.

We get another glimpse from Rico's H&MP course during officer school. One of the students explains that by "by taking the wolves and making them the sheepdogs, the sheep will never give trouble." The wolfpack seated there all nod with approval!

As for the soon-to-be-enfranchised Rico, he doesn't care if he ever votes. From his perspective, every battle he fights is a "vote." For Rico, the only vote can be a voiceless Yes.

So one ought to find ST a troubling book. But it's so easy to read it at face value, because there is much in Rico's world that would gratify many readers, both in 1959 and today. Besides, it's a very good sci-fi action story.

[Connavar]

I thought it was a fresh breath that Rico wasnt the main guy wasnt the 1000th SF character who finds his world so bad that he must change it on his own. Revolution or something.

It was surprising that Rico enjoyed his world thanks to his success to me because of that. His straight forward thinking showed his age and how his world brought him up.

It was cynical and troubling world but it showed to how selfish people are, Rico didnt care how messed up his world was as long as he didnt have a problem with his career.

If it wasnt such a good SF good story you would find many things unblievable in that world.

[Tobytwo]

I think these are good points. I've never considered Rico as selfish before... interesting. I guess he is. You're right that he learns to fit in: he is a dimwit, though, and hence well placed to do so. Personally, the Federation is so one-culture, and so in love with its own brutality (they would call it "common sense" or "realism") that it would be a very unpleasant place for many people. The system forces the underdogs to obey the military and hope to hell that the military don't decide to beat them up for a laugh. Rico (and maybe RAH) doesn't seem to understand the obvious danger in "taking the wolves and making them the sheepdogs, the sheep will never give trouble." Someone like Orwell would argue that the sheep should turn themselves into sheepdogs, to defeat the wolves (I think!).

With regard to cynicism, I think it is easy to mistake cynicism for wisdom (although I don't think anyone in this thead has done). To me, ST reads like a book by someone despairing of the way the world is going. It seems to be written almost out of disgust.

I do think that it's not possible to escape criticising the book by saying "Heinlein is not supporting the Federation, just putting it forward for debate". The tone of the book strongly suggests that RAH approves of the Federation and thinks it would succeed, and do its citizens good, just as the tone of Brave New World suggests that its society is not perfect by a long way.

[pyan]

Originally Posted by Tobytwo

Personally, the Federation is so one-culture, and so in love with its own brutality (they would call it "common sense" or "realism") that it would be a very unpleasant place for many people. The system forces the underdogs to obey the military and hope to hell that the military don't decide to beat them up for a laugh.

Hmm..I'd be interested to know which parts of the book lead you to this conclusion, Tobytwo.

[Tobytwo]

Well, okay. Deep breath...

with regard to the brutal outlook of the ST world, I'd refer to the various flashback lesson scenes, as well as the one where Rico undergoes officer training. In all of them, as far as I recall, the message is hammered home that the old world (ie ours) got soft and weak and hence a revolution was needed (which started with a wave of lynchings). There is a long speech about training a puppy, which has a strong element of "spare the rod, spoil the child" to it. This may be just my own take on this, but I felt that the ST lecturers were rather pleased with themselves about this. I can't help but feel that anyone who dismisses modern democracy, communism and several other world-shaking ideas not just as wrong but as self-evident stupidity is getting a bit above themself. Perhaps Rico just got rather arrogant lecturers.

The whole "rub the puppy's nose in it" - fine for dogs - mentality is applied to humans, and on top of that there is the willingness of the state to beat its citizens in public. I would call that brutal, no matter how wise or logical it may be in policy terms.

As regards my last sentence, about the underdogs, I ought to have clarified what I meant. The ST society is shaped so that it divides people into two groups: voter/veterans and non-voters. So, if the only people who can vote are veterans, only veterans can change society through peaceful means. Surely this means that non-veterans have to hope that the veterans don't start to think of themselves as better and vote in a two-tier society in which civilian non-voters are treated worse than veterans. Were this to happen the civilians would have no protection.

I suspect that the voters would sooner or later start to see the civilian non-voters as cowards without the guts to stand up for themselves, and hence less deserving of protection. In this way the ST world over-values military service - or perhaps over-rewards it. Given that the book is otherwise quite cynical about human motives, I am surprised that this isn't taken into account.

Phew, my brain hurts. RAH can certainly get you thinking.

[Connavar]

Originally Posted by Tobytwo

Well, okay. Deep breath...

with regard to the brutal outlook of the ST world, I'd refer to the various flashback lesson scenes, as well as the one where Rico undergoes officer training. In all of them, as far as I recall, the message is hammered home that the old world (ie ours) got soft and weak and hence a revolution was needed (which started with a wave of lynchings). There is a long speech about training a puppy, which has a strong element of "spare the rod, spoil the child" to it. This may be just my own take on this, but I felt that the ST lecturers were rather pleased with themselves about this. I can't help but feel that anyone who dismisses modern democracy, communism and several other world-shaking ideas not just as wrong but as self-evident stupidity is getting a bit above themself. Perhaps Rico just got rather arrogant lecturers.

The whole "rub the puppy's nose in it" - fine for dogs - mentality is applied to humans, and on top of that there is the willingness of the state to beat its citizens in public. I would call that brutal, no matter how wise or logical it may be in policy terms.

As regards my last sentence, about the underdogs, I ought to have clarified what I meant. The ST society is shaped so that it divides people into two groups: voter/veterans and non-voters. So, if the only people who can vote are veterans, only veterans can change society through peaceful means. Surely this means that non-veterans have to hope that the veterans don't start to think of themselves as better and vote in a two-tier society in which civilian non-voters are treated worse than veterans. Were this to happen the civilians would have no protection.

I suspect that the voters would sooner or later start to see the civilian non-voters as cowards without the guts to stand up for themselves, and hence less deserving of protection. In this way the ST world over-values military service - or perhaps over-rewards it. Given that the book is otherwise quite cynical about human motives, I am surprised that this isn't taken into account.

Phew, my brain hurts. RAH can certainly get you thinking.

Thats why he is my favorit SF writer. Sure you dont agree every view of his specially political ideas but while i was reading his books my brain was in overdrive thinking about the interesting ideas he has.

When i want a social or a Hard SF that will make you think i go for one of his books.

In Starship Troopers for example when they were talking about the juvies problem with the gangs etc i was thinking about how current that topic was seeing as that is still a problem. Specially over here where the law is too nice to teens unlike in US for example.

[Tobytwo]

I completely agree. SF is all about ideas, and he has them. I don't warm to the book, and I don't think it's brilliantly written, but if it's made to make people think then it succeeds.

For all that's bad or arguably bad about ST, I'm certainly not one of those people who simply yell "fascist!" at Heinlein. The comparison was made earlier with 1984 - even if you don't like Orwell himself and don't approve of Socialism, it's full of interesting ideas and prompts you to think. Ok, I think 1984 is a better-written book, but both succeed in using SF to make you reconsider the real world.

[Urlik]

Originally Posted by Tobytwo

For all that's bad or arguably bad about ST, I'm certainly not one of those people who simply yell "fascist!" at Heinlein. The comparison was made earlier with 1984 - even if you don't like Orwell himself and don't approve of Socialism, it's full of interesting ideas and prompts you to think. Ok, I think 1984 is a better-written book, but both succeed in using SF to make you reconsider the real world.

but isn't that the mark of the great SF writers?

[Tobytwo]

To a large extent yes. I don't think it's that well written, but it contains a heck of a lot of ideas.

[BeerClark]

Originally Posted by Tobytwo

To a large extent yes. I don't think it's that well written, but it contains a heck of a lot of ideas.

Can you explain why you think it was poorly written? Is it because of the simplicity?

I'm not sure if I disagree or not, but as I said before, I think that this book reads very much like military autobiographies I've read. (All from WWII through Vietnam). To me, its very dry, simple, and to the point. And this seems to match the mindset of Rico, especially as he grows into his career. And it is everything about the Troopers (sorry, I can't remember what they call his branch!). They go in, guns blazing, hit hard, and leave. There's no deep thought or planning. They have a simple mission that they are trainned to perform almost to perfection. Even the Government like thing 'expedient'. You commit a crime? Your found guilty.. no appeals.. you get whipped... and everyone moves on!

Its entirely possible Heinlein had no intentional tie-in like that. It could simply be that he had the basic concepts in his head and just 'dumped' them into a story. I can't argue that it has very little depth in characters and environment. But I just didn't find it out of place for that book.