Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!mcnc!duke!crm From: crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers,talk.politics.misc Subject: Re: Heinlein's panegyric for the Bomb Message-ID: <8579@duke.duke.UUCP> Date: Tue, 16-Sep-86 22:57:30 EDT Article-I.D.: duke.8579 Posted: Tue Sep 16 22:57:30 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 19-Sep-86 00:55:51 EDT References: <1071@hoptoad.uucp> <776@mtung.UUCP> <977@whuts.UUCP> Reply-To: crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) Organization: Duke University, Durham NC Lines: 136 Xref: linus net.sf-lovers:15352 talk.politics.misc:187 In article <977@whuts.UUCP> orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER) writes: > >I read Farnham's Freehold and it certainly seemed to me to be more of >a paean to "survivalism" than to actions to stop a nuclear war in >the first place. The protoganist is praiseworthy for stocking up >with everything from food to encyclopedias to prepare for the aftermath >of World War Last. His major concern is protecting his survivalist >fiefdom from looting by others who are starving and so forth. >But that's OK, because we know that it should be "every *MAN* for himself" >after any disaster, right? And a fat lot of good it does him, too. > >"Farnham's Freehold" is hardly a realistic view of the effects of >nuclear war whatsoever. For example, because an all-out nuclear war >would destroy the ozone layer, animals and humans without their >eyes shielded would soon be blinded. Then of course there is the >likelihood of the Nuclear Winter effect. Heinlein could be excused >for not mentioning these since both were just discovered in the past decade. Okay, my first reaction was "Good CHRIST, Tim, this was written in 1964" -- but at least RAH "could be excused" for not being prescient or omniscient. >But then another effect should have been well-known to Heinlein which >he never bothered to deal with in his paean to "survivalism". >Namely the certainty than any all-out nuclear war would lead to >massive firestorms, leaving those in shelters like "Farnham's Freehold" >to be either cooked alive like those in Dresden, or else suffocated by >the lack of oxygen consumed by such torrential flames. Just as a young soldier named Vonnegut was suffocated in a cellar in Dresden, then cooked, cutting off a fine writing career before his first publication. Uh, it didn't happen that way in MY universe. >It has been a long time since I read "Farnham's Freehold" but I also >don't recall much discussion of the pernicious effects of radioactivity- >in the region around Chernobyl, a minscule incident compared to the >effects of an all-out nuclear war, they have to strip off the top >inches of thousands of acres of topsoil because it is excessively >radioactive. If you strip off the top inches of fertile topsoil to >avoid radioactivity, the soil left will be practically useless for >growing crops. Nor do I recall Heinlein talking much at all about >radiation sickness, leukemia, cancer, etc. Check the book, Tim. CHECK THE TEXT DON'T BABBLE WITHOUT EVIDENCE. Excuse me, I get excitable at night. Full moon, all that. The nice pleasant land occupied for most of the book was 2000 years -- TWO THOUSAND YEARS -- after the Big War. The war *completely wiped out* Farnham's dominant civilization: culture, religion, the whole balance of the ecology changed. The only records left were some pretty minimal things -- a quote: "There are only two other copies of the *Encyclopedia Britannica in the world today -- and those are not this edition and are in such poor shape that they are curiosities rather than something a scholar can work with...." -- "Ponce" to Hugh Farnham, pg 176 of the Berkeley 1980 printing. There are some extremely pretty gardens in Hiroshima, and it's only been 40 years. >The whole impression I recall from "Farnham's Freehold" was that >nuclear war involved big terrific explosions but if you prepared >your own survivalist holdout for yourself and you alone, that >you could make it. Of course a required part of your survivalist >gear is at least one gun, if not several, so you can shoot the few >surviving humans left and assure your own survival. You really should talk to a therapist about this abnormal obsession with guns. Yes, you can point guns at people -- you can also shoot deer etc with them. The Indians wanted guns not to shoot at the whites with, but because it made hunting so much more efficient. Dramatically, I'm not at all satisfied with the way things went in the first parts of FF -- but having guns in the shelter, given that you are going to try to survive, is the right decision. >.... >I would say that as I recall Heinlein's story in "Farnham's Freehold" >that it more closely resembles Reagan's Undersecretary of Defense, >T.K. Jones statement that >"we can survive nuclear war with enough shovels. Just dig a hole >a few feet thick and jump in it." >than any statement by pacifists or even people like Eisenhower >or Khruschev ('the living will envy the dead') > > tim sevener whuxn!orb I have the book in my hands -- well, on my desk next to me -- and I don't think the text supports that, at least not completely. In any case, FF *does* reflect the state of our understanding in 1964. I was trained as a shelter medic and radiation officer in 1970 and it reflected our understanding of the thing THEN. We've found out about the other stuff (other than firestorms, about which you are simply and provably mistaken) since. So it's not RAH's fault. Look, unless I'm really provoked, I'm not going to reply on this topic again. As it stands, it's pretty clear that I and others have proven by reference to the publications that Heinlein *hates* the idea of atomic war, went to some lengths to get a strong compelling UN Peace Authority instead of the debating society with caviar budgets we have, and then wrote stories and books specifically to point out how awful it might be. (Read "Solution Unsatisfactory" -- in which he points out that a world empire led by the United States would be just as tyrannical, just as evil, as any other. He also points out what the radiation effects on a population would be, come to think of it.) On the other hand, you and the person posting under Tim Maroney's name have used quotes that are BLATANTLY out of context (contradicting the whole meaning of the article from which they are taken, sometimes contradicted by the next *sentence* when the original text is examined) to argue the opposite. You refer to your vague recollections of Farnham's Freehold -- but the vague recollections are not supported by the text. So I want, once more, to repeat what I said a few days ago -- you may not agree with Heinlein, you may want to argue against him -- but it IS NOT FAIR NOR IS IT MORAL to make up things, nor take out of context quotations which do not reflect the author's meaning, nor to use your vague recollections as evidence, especially after others have pointed out using the actual text that you are simply wrong, just to argue that someone is a bad and Evil Person. Joe McCarthy did it, and he was wrong. Adolf Hitler did it, and he was wrong. Jerry Falwell does it all the time, and he is wrong. And as long as you and the other Tim keep doing it, you are equally wrong. -- Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)