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: <8566@duke.duke.UUCP> Date: Fri, 12-Sep-86 11:39:47 EDT Article-I.D.: duke.8566 Posted: Fri Sep 12 11:39:47 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 13-Sep-86 07:08:12 EDT References: <1071@hoptoad.uucp> <15602@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <974@whuts.UUCP> Organization: Duke University CS Dept.; Durham, NC Lines: 145 Xref: linus net.sf-lovers:15202 talk.politics.misc:54 Summary: Another bigot refuting a straw man exposed. Oh, come on, guys, let's try to use reality as a basis for the flames, okay? This is replying to Tim Sevener, not directly to Tim Maroney -- lost the attribution line somehow. > tim sevener whuxn!orb > >> 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. >> >> >Michael Moorcock [,who] wrote in the critical/political essay "Starship >> >Stormtroopers", "It's not such a big step ... from *Farnham's Freehold* >> to Hitler's *Lebensraum*." >> >> This seems a far greater overstatement of the truth than anything >> Heinlein might have said. Can we say the same for histories of the >> Third Reich, if they describe the increase in economic growth and >> stability in the late 1930s? >> >> -- David desJardins > >I remember back in the 60's that Ramparts magazine had a number of >excerpts from Heinlein's remarks in support of Vietnam, nukes, >and a number of odious positions. These particular quotes are not >the only ones in which Heinlein advocates unsavory views. Good evidence here -- "unsavory views." Ghod forbid someone should have unsavory views. >I recall one of his stories in which he treats very sympathetically the >carrying of lethal weapons, a more advanced type of gun, and conducting >regular shootouts with them. Heinlein treated such vigilantism as if >it promoted some sense of "honor". Yep, he sure did write about people carrying weapons. It's called *Beyond This Horizon*, and in it he also promotes such unsavory views as living together without benefit of marriage, women who refuse to adapt their professional life to a husband's, governmental control of the economy, and men wearing mauve nail-polish. But let's think for a minute -- my handy desk dictionary does not define "vigilantism" per se, but it does define a vigilante as a member of a vigilance committee, and further defines a vigilance committee as "...an informal council exercising police power for the capture, speedy trial, and summary punishment of criminal offenders...." In BTH, the bearing of personal weapons is not part of some commmittee, and further there are clearly formal methods by which the law is enforced. Near the end of the book, citizens are gathered to fight an armed insurrection, but they are gathered by the government -- thus they are a militia, not "vigilantes." And RAH did *not* treat weapon-carrying as promoting a sense of honor -- there were plenty of dishonorable people carrying guns. What he *did* treat it as promoting was *courtesy*, which is a wholly different thing. > >Then there is, of course, Heinlein's series on the "Methuselah Complex" >in which a secret group of "genetically superior" people who have >secretly crossbred to attain incredible lifespans are persecuted >and envied by the mass of the "genetically inferior". > I guess the quotation marks are supposed to tell us that you don't accept the Howards as genetically superior; but the fact is that they *are* superior in the special sense that they have long lifespans. No other sense, but RAH makes the point more than once in *Methuselah's Children* that the Howards are *not* superior in any other sense, vide for example the time when Lazarus Long says something to the effect of "Bub, you are a perfect demonstration of why the Foundation shoulda bred for brains instead of long life." If you insist on finding a special meaning for this business of the Howards, how about as an allegory for the treatment of the Jews by most of Western Civilization -- a closed group which is envied for their "superiority" (financial, this time) and driven out by their more powerful "inferiors." Hell, RAH even *calls* this "the Diaspora." But of course, no "right-winger" would ever write something that treated a minority group sympathetically, so that can't be it. Can it? >The only of Heinlein's works which contradicts the usual right-wing >stands of some of his novels is "Stranger in a Strange Land" which >seemed to me at the time to approach positively the whole counterculture >of the hippies of the 60's. Son of a gun. This right-wing fascist wrote a novel in favor of free love and group sex and communal living and swimming naked. How do you explain that? First of all, check your dates: Stranger was written in the late 50's and published in 1961 -- he beat the hippies to the punch by 5 years at least. So he wasn't just *reacting* to the counter-culture, he was *proposing* a counter-culture. In fact, he was proposing one that came close to the late-sixties hippie mode, which I take it from your posting you approve of. So, what are these terrible odious views we've seen discussed? 1) A sovreign world-government with the power to stop wars started by *any* country (non-fiction: "Pie from the Sky"; fiction: *Space Cadet*, *Rocketship Galileo*, etc.) 2) Government control of the economy: *Beyond This Horizon*. 3) NO Government control of the economy -- in fact, no government at all: *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress*, others. 4) Violent overthrow of an oppressor: *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress*, *Between Planets*, the short story "Free Men," and many others. 5) Professional (wages, promotion, etc) equality of the sexes: *The Rolling Stones*, *"The Number of the Beast"*, etc.... 6) the evil of racial predjudice, and the idea that owning slaves is inherently corrupting: *Friday*, *Farnham's Freehold*, *Methuselah's Children*, and others. 7) Free love: the right to love and have sex with whomever is willing and with whom you care to, not withstanding marital situation, race, or gender: *Stranger*, *The Moon is a...*, *Friday*, the last two Lazarus Long books, etc. 8) Incest: Lazarus Long books. (I want a button that says "Lazarus Long is a motherf---er", [adroitly edited for the children reading this...].) Not to mention some trivial things: the essential evil of organized religion, the foolishness of Fundamentalist Christianity, men wearing makeup, prostitution as an honorable calling, dressing sexily because it's nice, and sleeping with your professors. Okay, I'm tired of this now. The point is made already, I think: RAH is one strange kind of right-winger. So if you all don't like his views, that's fine -- but let's not make things up, nor edit RAH's real views, so that he is properly Politically Incorrect so he can be reviled. It's not fair, it's not nice, and it make the refutation too easy -- who likes to shoot at sitting ducks? -- Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)