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I agree the movie is more interesting than my above comment implies, for the reason you highlight. That said, I dont believe the novel is about authoritarianism

I agree the movie is more interesting than my above comment implies, for the reason you highlight. That said, I dont believe the novel is about authoritarianism; it critiques universal suffrage, suggesting that only members of an in-group who have demonstrated sacrifice of the individual for the collective can be trusted to make decisions for the collective.

WorldMaker 8y ago
Which arguably has been the state of history for longer than universal suffrage has existed. Disenfranchisement, and finding excuses for disenfranchisement, is easy. It's key to how authoritarians take power. Universal suffrage is hard, and under the tenets of democracy a necessary check on democracy. In critiquing universal suffrage, it critiques democracy's core tenets, and in doing that it asks you to think like an authoritarian. The film supposes that there is no question that propaganda and jack boots are the next steps after that. Also, I believe Heinlein was a provocateur bar none and he may have intended those follow up questions in subtext in the book as well. The book goes way out of its way in trying to determine if the war being fought is a Just War, for example, and one reading of it is that there is no such thing as a Just War, the need to keep repeating that discussion a proof that propaganda may be an issue in that setting, and that absolutely the reader should be questioning every facet of the criticism being offered about universal suffrage as well. I'd like to think that the film making that its text is possibly something that would have thrilled/amused Heinlein.
- pdonis 8y ago
  > In critiquing universal suffrage, it critiques democracy's core tenets Why does universal suffrage have to be a "core tenet" of democracy? The United States started out with limited suffrage, even over and above the limitation to white males (the exact qualifications depended on the state but in general you had to own some amount of land). Did that make it not qualify for the "core tenets" of a democracy? Basically Heinlein is saying that suffrage should be earned, by something more than just being at or above a certain age. How is that opposed to the "core tenets" of democracy?
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Democracy the denotative Ideal: rule by the people. In capital-I Ideal form that implies all of the people, otherwise you have some form or another of an oligarchy or theocracy or plutocracy. The US has always been a compromise between the Ideal and what was seen as practical, codenamed "Representative Democracy" or "Democratic Republic", so it is intentionally never been a strong example of the core tenets of (the ideal form of) democracy, and wasn't originally built to be. It can be said that progressivism in the US has had it a long term goal to make the US more of an ideal democracy, including the ever-widening push towards universal suffrage. That struggle continues and the debate goes on, just as Heinlein's book here is a part of that debate and whether or not the US actually wants an ideal democracy / universal suffrage. But yes, earned suffrage systems do not make for an ideal democracy, and do seem to be in history slippery slopes towards oligarchy and plutarchy, if not outright fascism and dictatorship. "Merit-based" suffrage systems have been used by dictators to seize power. It's surprisingly easy to do when you control the tests of who can vote that only the people that want to vote for you can vote at all.
    - pdonis 8y ago
      > Democracy the denotative Ideal: rule by the people. I thought we were talking about the core tenets of democracy, not some "denotative Ideal". The core tenet of democracy, it seems to me, is that the people have the ultimate say: they must consent to the government they live under. That does not mean the only government they could or should consent to is one with universal suffrage.
      - WorldMaker 8y ago
        Even if you want to quibble about theoretic versus practical democracy, this side of the US Civil Rights Movement, this side of the US Women's Rights Movement, from where I sit the practical US version of democracy that works the best, more times than not, is one with universal suffrage. Gerrymandering and the remains of suffrage-denying compromises that have far surpassed their usefulness such as the Electoral college are in very point of fact, antithetical to "modern" views of democracy in the US, in my view. I do see it as a core tenet of modern "practical", even representative, democracy today that the only government that people should consent to is one with universal suffrage because "representation without suffrage" is meaningless in democracy and has historically been shown to be such. (Who did the 3/5ths compromise benefit? The slaveholders, not the slaves, never the slaves. There is more than enough retrospective evidence to indict the US founding fathers on that compromise as a non-democratic mistake.) Yes, I realize mine is not the only viewpoint on the subject, because politics is still debating this, but you aren't going to convince me that a "democracy" without universal suffrage is in any practical fact a "democracy" in name or belief. It does sound like the two of us may have evolved very different definitions of democracy in 2018, and we may not come to an agreement on it, sorry.
notahacker 8y ago
Or alternatively, it suggests only people who have unquestioningly done the state's bidding should have the right to have their say in how the state is run...

WorldMaker 8y ago

Which arguably has been the state of history for longer than universal suffrage has existed. Disenfranchisement, and finding excuses for disenfranchisement, is easy. It's key to how authoritarians take power. Universal suffrage is hard, and under the tenets of democracy a necessary check on democracy. In critiquing universal suffrage, it critiques democracy's core tenets, and in doing that it asks you to think like an authoritarian. The film supposes that there is no question that propaganda and jack boots are the next steps after that. Also, I believe Heinlein was a provocateur bar none and he may have intended those follow up questions in subtext in the book as well. The book goes way out of its way in trying to determine if the war being fought is a Just War, for example, and one reading of it is that there is no such thing as a Just War, the need to keep repeating that discussion a proof that propaganda may be an issue in that setting, and that absolutely the reader should be questioning every facet of the criticism being offered about universal suffrage as well. I'd like to think that the film making that its text is possibly something that would have thrilled/amused Heinlein.

pdonis 8y ago
> In critiquing universal suffrage, it critiques democracy's core tenets Why does universal suffrage have to be a "core tenet" of democracy? The United States started out with limited suffrage, even over and above the limitation to white males (the exact qualifications depended on the state but in general you had to own some amount of land). Did that make it not qualify for the "core tenets" of a democracy? Basically Heinlein is saying that suffrage should be earned, by something more than just being at or above a certain age. How is that opposed to the "core tenets" of democracy?
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  Democracy the denotative Ideal: rule by the people. In capital-I Ideal form that implies all of the people, otherwise you have some form or another of an oligarchy or theocracy or plutocracy. The US has always been a compromise between the Ideal and what was seen as practical, codenamed "Representative Democracy" or "Democratic Republic", so it is intentionally never been a strong example of the core tenets of (the ideal form of) democracy, and wasn't originally built to be. It can be said that progressivism in the US has had it a long term goal to make the US more of an ideal democracy, including the ever-widening push towards universal suffrage. That struggle continues and the debate goes on, just as Heinlein's book here is a part of that debate and whether or not the US actually wants an ideal democracy / universal suffrage. But yes, earned suffrage systems do not make for an ideal democracy, and do seem to be in history slippery slopes towards oligarchy and plutarchy, if not outright fascism and dictatorship. "Merit-based" suffrage systems have been used by dictators to seize power. It's surprisingly easy to do when you control the tests of who can vote that only the people that want to vote for you can vote at all.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > Democracy the denotative Ideal: rule by the people. I thought we were talking about the core tenets of democracy, not some "denotative Ideal". The core tenet of democracy, it seems to me, is that the people have the ultimate say: they must consent to the government they live under. That does not mean the only government they could or should consent to is one with universal suffrage.
    - WorldMaker 8y ago
      Even if you want to quibble about theoretic versus practical democracy, this side of the US Civil Rights Movement, this side of the US Women's Rights Movement, from where I sit the practical US version of democracy that works the best, more times than not, is one with universal suffrage. Gerrymandering and the remains of suffrage-denying compromises that have far surpassed their usefulness such as the Electoral college are in very point of fact, antithetical to "modern" views of democracy in the US, in my view. I do see it as a core tenet of modern "practical", even representative, democracy today that the only government that people should consent to is one with universal suffrage because "representation without suffrage" is meaningless in democracy and has historically been shown to be such. (Who did the 3/5ths compromise benefit? The slaveholders, not the slaves, never the slaves. There is more than enough retrospective evidence to indict the US founding fathers on that compromise as a non-democratic mistake.) Yes, I realize mine is not the only viewpoint on the subject, because politics is still debating this, but you aren't going to convince me that a "democracy" without universal suffrage is in any practical fact a "democracy" in name or belief. It does sound like the two of us may have evolved very different definitions of democracy in 2018, and we may not come to an agreement on it, sorry.

notahacker 8y ago

Or alternatively, it suggests only people who have unquestioningly done the state's bidding should have the right to have their say in how the state is run...