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Obligatory complaint about the mis-representation of Heinlein. This is an author who also wrote a (glowing) book about anarcho-syndicalists liberating their pr

Obligatory complaint about the mis-representation of Heinlein. This is an author who also wrote a (glowing) book about anarcho-syndicalists liberating their prison colony from corporatists colonialists (that'd be MiaHM). Does it get more anti-facist than that? This is also the author who wrote a book about how free-love hippies are so much more correct than Mrs Grundy that physics itself obliges the hippies (I'm thinking of SiaSL). But even Starship Troopers is a book not about facism, but about the virtues of service to the collective. (Again, other books talk, extensively, about the problems with service to a collective.) Of course service to a collective is part of a facist state, but it's also part of a democratic state. Well, a healthy one, anyway. Heinlein's politics were diverse and complicated (and sometimes thoughtful, and sometimes wrongheaded), and attempting to summarize them based on a shallow reading of one of his novels is a mistake no legitimate journalist should make.

Turing_Machine 9y ago
Pournelle and Card weren't fascists either. The author is clearly one of those who uses "fascist" as a synonym for "a person who isn't a communist", and can thus be safely ignored.
- fleitz 9y ago
  It’s amazing how popular starving to death is
  - sctb 9y ago
    Could you please try to start following the guidelines? We ban accounts that won't. > Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mordae 9y ago
  Yeah, Ender was actually devastated by the outcome of his involvement and he works hard to undo his crime in the Speaker For The Dead book.
coldtea 9y ago
>Of course service to a collective is part of a facist state, but it's also part of a democratic state. Well, a healthy one, anyway. In fact "service to the collective" is also part of the first, and the most complete [1] democracy, the ancient Athenian one. [1] complete in its depth of participation to decision making by those it included, not by it's breath, as it didn't include many categories of people. Then again, poor white males didn't vote in the US until 1820s, blacks until 1869 (and/or more depending on state), and women until 1920. So we can excuse Ancient Greeks for not letting slaves and women vote -- they did let the poor.
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  "In fact "service to the collective" is also part of the first, and the most complete [1] democracy, the ancient Athenian one." I'm reminded of the current vogue for claiming that (e.g.) public roads are "socialism", and that if you support public roads you must support socialism. Yeah, sure. Genghis Khan and Ivan the Terrible were "socialists". You betcha.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    A lot of people in the US today call socialism anything that is not "cutthroat corporatism" for the elites. JFK's "ask what you can do for your country" would also sound socialist to these people.
antelan 9y ago
Heinlein's "I Will Fear No Evil" is a mind-bending read on transgenderism. The quality of this article is just terrible, is the author not aware that Nazi super scientist's new employers after the war weren't corporations but the US government?
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
>> But even Starship Troopers is a book not about facism, but about the virtues of service to the collective. Can we please not over-read politics into Starship Troopers' imagined society? It's first and foremost a book about space marines in power armour making war to giant bug-like aliens. There is some political subtext but it mainly serves the purpose of painting a convincing portrait of a future society, with mores that seem weird to uss (public floggings, voting only for the military etc). Or in any case, the desire to add some convincing fluff in an already interesting interstellar action romp, should suffice to explain all the weirdness of the imagined society. Full disclosure: I've been called a fascist for declaring Starship Troopers one of my favourite Sci-Fi works ever; called that by a guy who played Warhammer 40K like crazy, I might add (you know, the game where a psychic vampire rules a humanity sinking into barbarism and sends forth his genengineered supersoldiers to subjugate the xenos, etc). My other favourite books tend to be Iain M. Banks ones, so not quite the fascist dystopias. Rather.
- jholman 9y ago
  Sure, I won't over-read into it, I'll just actually read it. For example, I won't make the mistake you made, of claiming that voting is only for the military. It might be one of your favourite works ever, but you might not have read it very carefully. Exactly zero members of the military get to vote. The franchise is granted to citizens who have finished a term of service, whether in the military or in another branch of public service. But even the militarism and war-making is absolutely about "service to the collective". It goes on and on about that. And on top of that, the context of this comment thread is the politics of science fiction. In that context, it's the powered armour and the bugs that are the "convincing fluff in an already interesting" speculative portrait of an alternative to universal-franchise democracy.
  - King-Aaron 9y ago
    Remind me to never watch movies with you guys.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
    >> Exactly zero members of the military get to vote. Fine, fine, bad turn of phrase- it's like you say, the vote is for the citizens who've finished their service (which is voluntary... except you don't get to vote without it, I think). Really, I don't see why you need to doubt that Starship Troopers is one of my favourite Sci-Fi works ever or that I read it "carefully". I haven't read it in ten years, at least. Does that sound so uncommon to you? I also haven't read Consider Phlebas in at least that long, so I hardly remember the finer details of it (I seem to remember Horza was hit by a train he derailed...?) and it sure blurs in my mind with other Iain M. Banks stuff- but I do remember very well the effect those books had on me when I read them. And there's few works I remember enjoying that much. Sheesh. Happy now? What happened to "Assume good faith"? Or not insinuating people haven't read the (article)? >> In that context, it's the powered armour and the bugs that are the "convincing fluff in an already interesting" speculative portrait of an alternative to universal-franchise democracy. OK no. Because the book goes all the way off-world, where the war with the bugs takes place and gets down to detailed descriptions of fighting. If the war was not the focus and its purpose was just to create an ambience, it would only be alluded to, never directly described- it would be a McGuffin, a ploy to allow Heinlein to talk about his future society. Instead, the descriptions of the fighting, and the ships and the power(ed) armour and the bugs are detailed and engrossing -and have influenced much SciFi imagery after them because of that (like, hey, Warhammer40K space marines in power armour). If the war with the bugs was only alluded to, or otherwise did not take center stage, then yeah, I'd agree it was fluff, used to paint a portrait of a (grim) dark future etc. But when it's the main content of most of the book, no. I don't see it your way. No objection of course to the fact that Heinlein would never just write a pure action romp, without any attempt at painting a fuller picture of the future.

Turing_Machine 9y ago

Pournelle and Card weren't fascists either. The author is clearly one of those who uses "fascist" as a synonym for "a person who isn't a communist", and can thus be safely ignored.

fleitz 9y ago
It’s amazing how popular starving to death is
- sctb 9y ago
  Could you please try to start following the guidelines? We ban accounts that won't. > Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mordae 9y ago
Yeah, Ender was actually devastated by the outcome of his involvement and he works hard to undo his crime in the Speaker For The Dead book.

coldtea 9y ago

>Of course service to a collective is part of a facist state, but it's also part of a democratic state. Well, a healthy one, anyway. In fact "service to the collective" is also part of the first, and the most complete [1] democracy, the ancient Athenian one. [1] complete in its depth of participation to decision making by those it included, not by it's breath, as it didn't include many categories of people. Then again, poor white males didn't vote in the US until 1820s, blacks until 1869 (and/or more depending on state), and women until 1920. So we can excuse Ancient Greeks for not letting slaves and women vote -- they did let the poor.

Turing_Machine 9y ago
"In fact "service to the collective" is also part of the first, and the most complete [1] democracy, the ancient Athenian one." I'm reminded of the current vogue for claiming that (e.g.) public roads are "socialism", and that if you support public roads you must support socialism. Yeah, sure. Genghis Khan and Ivan the Terrible were "socialists". You betcha.
- coldtea 9y ago
  A lot of people in the US today call socialism anything that is not "cutthroat corporatism" for the elites. JFK's "ask what you can do for your country" would also sound socialist to these people.

antelan 9y ago

Heinlein's "I Will Fear No Evil" is a mind-bending read on transgenderism. The quality of this article is just terrible, is the author not aware that Nazi super scientist's new employers after the war weren't corporations but the US government?

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

>> But even Starship Troopers is a book not about facism, but about the virtues of service to the collective. Can we please not over-read politics into Starship Troopers' imagined society? It's first and foremost a book about space marines in power armour making war to giant bug-like aliens. There is some political subtext but it mainly serves the purpose of painting a convincing portrait of a future society, with mores that seem weird to uss (public floggings, voting only for the military etc). Or in any case, the desire to add some convincing fluff in an already interesting interstellar action romp, should suffice to explain all the weirdness of the imagined society. Full disclosure: I've been called a fascist for declaring Starship Troopers one of my favourite Sci-Fi works ever; called that by a guy who played Warhammer 40K like crazy, I might add (you know, the game where a psychic vampire rules a humanity sinking into barbarism and sends forth his genengineered supersoldiers to subjugate the xenos, etc). My other favourite books tend to be Iain M. Banks ones, so not quite the fascist dystopias. Rather.

jholman 9y ago
Sure, I won't over-read into it, I'll just actually read it. For example, I won't make the mistake you made, of claiming that voting is only for the military. It might be one of your favourite works ever, but you might not have read it very carefully. Exactly zero members of the military get to vote. The franchise is granted to citizens who have finished a term of service, whether in the military or in another branch of public service. But even the militarism and war-making is absolutely about "service to the collective". It goes on and on about that. And on top of that, the context of this comment thread is the politics of science fiction. In that context, it's the powered armour and the bugs that are the "convincing fluff in an already interesting" speculative portrait of an alternative to universal-franchise democracy.
- King-Aaron 9y ago
  Remind me to never watch movies with you guys.
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
  >> Exactly zero members of the military get to vote. Fine, fine, bad turn of phrase- it's like you say, the vote is for the citizens who've finished their service (which is voluntary... except you don't get to vote without it, I think). Really, I don't see why you need to doubt that Starship Troopers is one of my favourite Sci-Fi works ever or that I read it "carefully". I haven't read it in ten years, at least. Does that sound so uncommon to you? I also haven't read Consider Phlebas in at least that long, so I hardly remember the finer details of it (I seem to remember Horza was hit by a train he derailed...?) and it sure blurs in my mind with other Iain M. Banks stuff- but I do remember very well the effect those books had on me when I read them. And there's few works I remember enjoying that much. Sheesh. Happy now? What happened to "Assume good faith"? Or not insinuating people haven't read the (article)? >> In that context, it's the powered armour and the bugs that are the "convincing fluff in an already interesting" speculative portrait of an alternative to universal-franchise democracy. OK no. Because the book goes all the way off-world, where the war with the bugs takes place and gets down to detailed descriptions of fighting. If the war was not the focus and its purpose was just to create an ambience, it would only be alluded to, never directly described- it would be a McGuffin, a ploy to allow Heinlein to talk about his future society. Instead, the descriptions of the fighting, and the ships and the power(ed) armour and the bugs are detailed and engrossing -and have influenced much SciFi imagery after them because of that (like, hey, Warhammer40K space marines in power armour). If the war with the bugs was only alluded to, or otherwise did not take center stage, then yeah, I'd agree it was fluff, used to paint a portrait of a (grim) dark future etc. But when it's the main content of most of the book, no. I don't see it your way. No objection of course to the fact that Heinlein would never just write a pure action romp, without any attempt at painting a fuller picture of the future.