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From: jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Heinlein's panegyric for the Bomb
Message-ID: <1136@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Sep-86 21:33:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: oliveb.1136
Posted: Fri Sep 12 21:33:20 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Sep-86 05:00:38 EDT
References: <1071@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre)
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 41
Xref: mnetor net.sf-lovers:8394 talk.politics.misc:59

In article <1071@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) writes:
>Because you demanded it, pilgrim, herewith the quotes proving Heinlein's
>support for nuclear war.  These are taken from "Ghastly Beyond Belief",
>an anthology of bad and embarrassing science fiction excerpts.
>
.....
>Next, a typically didactic Heinlein monologue from "Farnham's Freehold",
.....
>	stand a far better chance.  Not every case, but on the average,
>	and that will improve the breed.  When it's over, things will be
>	tough, and that will improve the breed still more.  For years the
>	surest way of surviving has been to be utterly worthless and
>	breed a lot of worthless kids.  All that will change."

I can't represent myself as knowing Heinlein's views on nuclear war but
I think it is important here to not identify a character with the
author.  The character may, at the begining, see nuclear war as having
desirable consequences but the book does NOT.  When they finally are
contacted by and taken into the post war society I think you will have
to agree that it is not represented as an improvement on current day
society.  They are slaves in that society and make every effort to
escape.  (Flash! Heinlein promotes slavery in his books :-) In fact
when that same character is sent back to his own time he tries to do
everythink in his power to change that future.  The book doesn't tell
us if he is successful.  This is not exactly the socio-genetic house
cleaning that Farnham predicted.

So, you can either represent Heinlein's views with the statement of one
of the characters or as the overall plot of the book.  Given that this
is a work of fiction it is not reasonable to do either but certainly
the overall plot and ending should be taken as more representitive of
the ideas promoted by the book.  My impression was that the ending
showed the folly of that "survival of the fittest" attitude.

Quotations of quotations has got to be the height of taking quotes out
of context.  Have you read the books you are quoting or just someone
else's pre-digested interpretation of what they mean?  And no, Heinlein
is not one of my favorite authors.

					Jerry Aguirre @ Olivetti ATC
{hplabs|fortune|idi|ihnp4|tolerant|allegra|glacier|olhqma}!oliveb!jerry