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From: dwight@timeinc.UUCP (Dwight Ernest)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Starship Troopers
Message-ID: <172@timeinc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-May-85 23:21:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: timeinc.172
Posted: Fri May 10 23:21:13 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 12-May-85 04:37:44 EDT
References: <147@yetti.UUCP> <1331@reed.UUCP> <168@hyper.UUCP> <701@ncoast.UUCP>
Reply-To: dwight@timeinc.UUCP (Dwight Ernest)
Organization: Time, Inc. - New York
Lines: 40
Summary: 

In article <701@ncoast.UUCP> bsa@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes:
>
>Quoted from <168@hyper.UUCP> ["Re: NofTheBeast - True STINKER"], by brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust)...
>+---------------
>| > reader.  I have read just about everything he has written.  Some of
>| > his books have offended me (Starship Troopers, Farnham's Freehold)
>| > 						Bill Baker
>| Yes.  To paraphrase one notable SF writer (Pamela Dean), "Starship
>| Troopers is infuriating and you can't stay away from it."  This
>| 				-- SKZB
>What is it everyone sees wrong with STARSHIP TROOPERS?
>--bsa

	Well, how about fascism as glorified politics?
	How about blind military allegiance?
	How about violence==glory?
	Fortunately, it's difficult not to have a great deal
of sympathy and identity with the bad "guys" in RAH's
STARSHIP TROOPERS. Kind of like the way most Americans and
British and Russians feel about what their country did in WW II.
But even WW II had its many agonizing moments of vast grey areas
(take just one example--Allied ignorance of the 300+ Nazi
death camps). In RAH's world, there seem to be no grey areas,
so we like the book (I really did enjoy it). But in real life
there's grey everywhere.
	And that's why blind allegiance, unquestioning military
service, and the equating of violence with glory are SO DAMNABLY
DANGEROUS.
	One would hope Homo Sapiens will soon outgrow this kind
of behavior--and literature--which leads down the path to the
kind of dangerous "true belief" that Eric Hoffer warned us
against. And which Hitler made such successful use of.
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		--Dwight Ernest	KA2CNN	\ Usenet:...vax135!timeinc!dwight
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