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TROOPERS
June 25, 2017
December 7, 2017
(All pieced together from
Robert Heinlein's comments at crookedtimber)
"Starship Troopers" (1960)
HEINLEIN
This is a book about which no
one seems to be able to form an FORECAST
even-handed opinion. I think
I've been arguing with people
about it off and on for a good It isn't just "pro-military",
thirty years, and I note with it talks about restricting the
some surprise how little I've democratic franchise-- that
recorded of all that here. immediately raises nightmares
of literacy tests and jim crow.
"Starship Troopers" is a book
that's out of control. Despite
it's complexity, it was written
fast in a fit of anger at
contemporary politics and
attitudes and in many different Complexity:
ways it doesn't really add up.
o Speculative military
The citizen-soldiers are supposed hardware: "mobile infantry"
to be self-selected for public wear powered armor, and are
spirit, but what we actually see on dropped from orbit, shedding
stage is the main character drifts re-entry shells as they go
into the military almost randomly, in hopes it will act as
signing up without thinking about distracting chaff, drawing
it very much because he knows enemy fire as they descend.
someone else who did. In the first
few pages of the book he compares o An alternative democratic
himself to a racehorse or a bullet system: voting rights are
fired from a gun-- there seems to awarded only to veterans
be some self-awareness that perhaps of government service--
he's not so self-aware... largely military service,
going by what we're shown
I think Heinlein's imagination ran in on stage.
realistic directions, and he wasn't
quite capable of just faking things the o A political philosophy
way someone like Ayn Rand might. On the about the inevitability
surface "Starship Troopers" is a book of war: "All wars are the
intended to depict war as inevitable and result of population
glorious but man does it make you wish pressure."
for something better.
There's roughtly three
As political propaganda goes-- times the material here a
admittedly not usually all that far-- normal SF novel might try
it's remarkably unconvincing. to deal with... and
there's still more on top
In fact, a lot of us were inclined to of this, including some
wonder how serious Heinlein was about unusual features
"Troopers". Might there be some involving race and gender
intentional double-reverse built issues.
into the story?
But later commentary ("Expanded Universe",
again) indicates he was indeed out to There's a fan-response letter
"glorify the infantry"-- in those days he quoted in "Grumbles From the
expected imminent war with the Soviets. Grave" where Heinlein calls
"Troopers" a book of questions.
His later take was he hadn't anticipated
the "three-way standoff" with China-- The older, grumpier Heinlein
myself I think he was having trouble of 1985 makes it sound more
grasping that the threat of both Russia like a book of answers.
and China had been exaggerated, though it
could be he was on his way there. But on the other hand, that
same write-up presents
An oddity of "Expanded Universe" multiple fanciful
is an account of a trip to Moscow alternatives to our present
where Heinlein observes that the place form of democracy... he
doesn't seem to be anywhere near doesn't present a manifesto
as big as the Soviets claimed... for government-by-veterans
The dispute about whether there's
any thing besides miltary service
that counts as public service in The novel talks about only military
this book is, as far as I can service, but in 1985 he wrote an essay
tell, the result of a screw-up on claiming it was obvious from the novel
Heinlein's part: he thought he'd that conscientious objectors could be put
made this clearer than he did-- a to work doing something else to earn their
symptom, I think, of how quickly vote. James Gifford documented this
it was dashed off. discrepancy in the mid-90s...
The James Gifford piece,
"The Nature of "Federal
Service" in Robert A. Heinlein's
Starship Troopers":
http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ftp/fedrlsvc.pdf
"Starship Troopers" was submitted
to Scribners as one of Heinlein's
juveniles (a category lately
rebranded as "young adult"
novels), which is yet another
thing that makes it seem out of
control. Though it could be that He was constantly at odds with his
he really didn't expect them to editor at Scribners, a woman who,
take it and it was effectively a for example, objected to the idea
resignation letter. that teenagers in a frontier society
might carry sidearms.
I don't remember how the
Scribners deal was structured, She once complained that no one wrote
but back when he was publishing adventure novels about young women,
in Astounding, he required which is where "Podkayne" came from.
Campbell to accept all his
submissions or he would start
submitting elsewhere: he really
did think a lot about incentive POOR_BEAST
structures.
Part of the idea for the political system in
"Troopers" was that it would select from
people with some sense of civic virtue and One of the alternate
altruism. democracy ideas
floated in "Expanded
There are confirmed civilians who don't Universe" was
miss their vote. They regard the people government restricted
who sign-up as suckers. to mothers, on the
theory that on
Heinlein's concept-- right or wrong-- average they'd care
is that only someone with a wider sense more about the future
of identification with the society at of humanity.
large would want to run the dangerous
guantlet of military service. TROOPERS_AGAINST_SEXISM
Another angle: one of the breakdown
modes for democracy is military
coup. Heinlein claims the
"Troopers" system is more stable
*because* the foxes are in
charge of the henhouse by design.
TROOPERS_AGAINST_SEXISM
TROOPERS_AGAINST_RACISM
EPISTOCRACY
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