The commentator Aaron Agassi - FoolQuest.com
posts a bold assertion on 3/8/2005 9:25:58 PM
Investment barrier to entry is well understood to promote moribund conservative and complacent groupthink together with self-serving cynicism, indeed, a well observable and chronic problem in countries with universal conscription. And Heinlein actually praises such as Utopian "responsibility!" And as bad as the wide scale conditioning accomplished by universal conscription, the actual disenfranchisement if civilians, the filter of all but the most sycophantically gung-ho, would be even worse. Because it is rare and precious civic courage that ever serves as the proverbial ounce of prevention. Oh, Heinlein may have served in the Second World War, but not long afterwards he pandered shamelessly to the Red scare! Loyalty oaths, anyone? Ask not, indeed! Yes, I am sure that the honest story of the Infantry needs telling, instead of the shameless and "inspiring" Fascist romance. Stop trying to love Moloch, when the truth is that you are angry.
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The commentator Eric Voorhies
posts on 3/8/2005 7:31:16 PM
I just remembered something about Heinlein and his era. Heinlein grew up in a world where most nations, both democracies and otherwise, practiced universal conscription.
This is very important to keep in mind. Heinlein's idea of how a society ought to run were developed based on the experiences of the World Wars (which taught us many lessons, not all of which have been adequately learned). In that era, most major countries drafted all males in the 18-20 age bracket (except those judged unfit to serve) to military training. Then, after a TWO-YEAR term, they were mustered out and placed in the reserve, where they remained for some years. Thus, if a war broke out, the state had a standing army of fit, well-trained soldiers, with a VERY large body of reservists who could be called upon at need.
To Heinlein, I suspect that the idea of universal military service was not disturbing- quite the opposite. He would have known perfectly well, as most modern Americans and Europeans have forgotten, that military service does not equate to ra-ra jingoism (see John F. Kerry for reference). However, he was strongly opposed to any form of conscription, simply because he believed military service, like citizenship itself, should be voluntary. This may explain why he thought reasonably well of a society in which the two were closely associated. Also, it is VITAL to remember that Starship Troopers is not mainly about a 'military government', or political philosophy. It is about the TROOPERS, the story of the infantry. And that is a story which greatly deserves an honest telling, in any era and any society.
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The commentator Aaron Agassi - FoolQuest.com
posts a bold assertion on 3/6/2005 1:15:17 AM
The purported point or intent of anything is often exactly the opposite of the consistent result. Particularly tests. And yes, I certainly do recognize the worst and most Reactionary aspects of real society so shamelessly Panglossed in Heinlein's vivid propaganda appologim. And it's only greater democracy, more open process, that ever even begins to close the ingenuity gap so that more voters will ever take politics more seriously and less cynically.
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The commentator Eric Voorhies
posts a request for sanity on 3/5/2005 10:20:57 PM
Calls for striving and sacrifice have also (as I sometimes wonder if you are even ABLE to remember) been used in defense of the highest virtues. The point of a 'public service' test is not to channelize effort into manipulable foms. It is something comparable to a driver's test. If you want a license FOR DRIVING, you must demonstrate ability TO DRIVE. The fact that you are a perfectly competent, even brilliantly artistic, pogo-stick operator has nothing to do with whether you can get a drivers license. Heinlein, say what you will about him, does not dismiss the people who don't get a vote as 'indolent'. The phrase I remember best is 'producing-consuming economic animal'.
One problem I have with your posts is that you are conflating the worst points of the society Heinlein portrays in Starship Troopers with the worst point of our society. But to continue my devil's advocacy, I would point out the following: the vulnerability of American democracy to vested interests comes from the large supply of easily manipulated 'casual voters'. Casual voters are those who can be counted on to vote for a criminal of the 'correct' party ('He may be a son-of-a-gun, but he's OUR son-of-a-gun!'), or to be fooled into voting against their interests by sloganeering ('He's a flip-flopper!'). I cannot prove it, but I suspect that a society where voting was restricted to those who had demonstrated some degree of deliberative thought and willingness to delay gratification (say, by two years in the Army, or so-and-so many in civil engineering work) might not be so vulnerable to this kind of thing.
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The commentator Aaron Agassi - FoolQuest.com
posts a strong attack on 3/4/2005 5:36:38 PM
Certainly, the investment of striving and sacrifice has always been a standard tool to excite sycophancy and illicit loyalty to an oppressive and self aggrandizing regime, and the willingness to sacrifice to that Moloch, a way to filter for and cultivate entrenched conservatism and loyalty. And the refusal to recognize the strivings and sacrifice of others, in any other context but that sanctioned by the state formally, is another equally obviously and convenient conceit, whilst the Neocons ride on the backs of all they despise as disloyal. Hence glib Monistic dismissal of "the indolent" only smacks of the old jeers of "lazy Nigger!" In truth the unsung heroes are legion. And so, perhaps most egregious of all is the assumption that the impersonal state better provides in the quest for meaning and purpose than the privates sector and ordinary life as may consist in real relationships of every kind and purpose. Consider, for example, where is the more effective not to mention more readily accessible investment of personal effort, say, towards migration into outer space and the deep oceans? -in government bureaucracy or anywhere in the private sector or NGO? And as for the vote, even long before the vote was stolen from us outright in Ohio and New Mexico, the people list control of choice of candidacy to vested interest, not to mention ready input into any real political agenda. That is the real reason why people haven't been voting. Indeed, it is in the grass roots, dissidence and opposition, where commitment, among other qualities, has fallen short. And the remedy will not come in renewed fealty to a government apart from the rest of society, the arrogance and corruption of which as we now endure.
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The commentator Chet
posts on 3/4/2005 3:14:40 PM
It has been my experience that things given to people are not appreciated by the recipients as much as the things that the recipients work (read "sacrifice") for themselves. I think that was the point Heinlein was was striving to make in his treatment of the government in Starship Troopers. You could live in the society without participating in it, enjoying all of the freedoms, with the exception of voting and procreating. It makes since to me that in order to have a say in the government, you have to prove that you are worthy enough to participate by sacrificing something of yourself (time in the service of the government). Therefore, you know the worth of what it takes to participate because you have given of yourself. As the Founding Fathers of the USA set up the government, voting rights were given to all citizens (if they were male, and white, and property holders) with the understanding that when needed, the citizenry would sacrifice if the country was in danger, either with money in the form of taxes, or to physically defend the country with their lives if that was what was required. Heinlein, I think, would have set it up so that only those that saw the worthiness of sacrificing for society would be allowed to have a say in the future direction of the government. If any thing, Heinlein was denigrating those citizens who now have the right to vote, but are too lazy to exercise it.
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