Heinline Morality

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-16 08:05am

Ok, The Morality proposed by Robert Heinline in his Controversal: Stranger in a Strange Land, Farnham's Freehold, and several other of his books.

Thou art God-Micheal Valentine Smith[/u]

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-16 09:46am

Heinlein is fucked up. His viewpoint character in "Stranger in a Strange Land" says, among other things, that all women who are raped secretly want it. If some guy wrote that today, he'd be lynched.

Nova Andromeda · Post by **Nova Andromeda** » 2002-12-16 12:04pm

--Heinlein believes "...all women who are raped secretly want it."
-Sounds like he has confused many women's attraction to a strong leader type character with a desire to be violated or taken advantage of. I wish I could say he was an anomoly, but too many guys get the wrong message from women who seem to prefer men who treat them like shit over others who are mellow and don't have that strong aggessive personality.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2002-12-16 12:09pm

You sure you aren't thinking of Ayn Rand?

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2002-12-16 01:43pm

Try reading:
To Sail Beyond the Sunset

There he is actively giving his endorsement to incest.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-12-16 01:48pm

Faram wrote:Try reading:
To Sail Beyond the Sunset

There he is actively giving his endorsement to incest.

So? Creepily enough Mike has too, provided birth control is used.

I agree that it's fucked up, one of his really, really dumb ideas. Heinlein had some good ideas but also some really retarded ones. I think he thinks too much in generaliztions and not enough in the details.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-16 05:13pm

I didn't catch that from it, I did catch the whole Feel good, massive free love, socialist jumble there....

Oh, well, I have always though of R.H. as something of a Sick Puppy.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2002-12-16 05:25pm

The Yosemite Bear wrote:I didn't catch that from it, I did catch the whole Feel good, massive free love, socialist jumble there....

Oh, well, I have always though of R.H. as something of a Sick Puppy.

Had to hunt it down.

In my edition page 210. At the end of chapter 13.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2002-12-16 05:30pm

Heinlein may have been off his rocker, but he did have some good ideas and he wrote some good SF.

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2002-12-16 05:44pm

Heinlein is a man who seems to have grown a little more eccentric as he got older (a common enough occurence). Like most poeple, I find that some of his ideas I can agree with - like trying to find some way of limited the vote to responsible people, rather than throwing it open to every warm body (well I'm sorry, but if you're too stupid to figure out how your punch card works, then I don't want you deciding who runs the country for the next four years!), and some ideas of his I think are honestly nutty - like the aforementioned, seeming approval of incest - which you may see again in the book "Time Enough for Love", where Lazarus Long travels back in time and falls in love with his own mother. Heinlein was a very intelligent man, and like many intelligent men, he had some good ideas about some things. Also like any man, he was prone to all the common human weaknesses and failings, and they were prone to color his thinking in some ways.

Post by **fgalkin** » 2002-12-16 06:07pm

That is why Verhoven felt that he needed to change the message sent by his Starship Troopers

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2002-12-16 06:15pm

fgalkin wrote:That is why Verhoven felt that he needed to change the message sent by his Starship Troopers

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Verhoeven was an idiot. Is there anybody out there who actually thinks the movie was an improvement on the book?

Post by **fgalkin** » 2002-12-16 06:19pm

Yes, right here. The book was mediocre at best. The movie was very good in the portrayal of Heinlein's vain militarism. One should be able to look beyond the obvious (that is all the pointless action).

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-16 06:20pm

None that I know of, Glory Road was really good.

Now for Part two of Science Fiction and Morality:

ASIMOV

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2002-12-16 06:30pm

fgalkin wrote:Yes, right here. The book was mediocre at best. The movie was very good in the portrayal of Heinlein's vain militarism. One should be able to look beyond the obvious (that is all the pointless action).

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

That would make you the one and only person I have ever met to hold that opinion.

The book was not all pointless action either. If you came away thinking that, then you missed the point by a mile. It was a lot of socio-political commentary; the action merely provided a setting to the real purpose of the story. Whether you agree with Heinlein or not, it was meant to get you thinking about the current state of things and maybe start wondering if there weren't ways it could be better.

Post by **fgalkin** » 2002-12-16 06:35pm

Perinquus wrote:
fgalkin wrote:Yes, right here. The book was mediocre at best. The movie was very good in the portrayal of Heinlein's vain militarism. One should be able to look beyond the obvious (that is all the pointless action).

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
That would make you the one and only person I have ever met to hold that opinion.

The book was not all pointless action either. If you came away thinking that, then you missed the point by a mile. It was a lot of socio-political commentary; the action merely provided a setting to the real purpose of the story. Whether you agree with Heinlein or not, it was meant to get you thinking about the current state of things and maybe start wondering if there weren't ways it could be better.

1.I never said that the book was pointless action. I meant the impression that the movie gives.
2. I agree that the book was meant to get you thinking on the state of things. Verhoven disagreed with Heinlein, hence you have the movie that is drasticly different from the novel.
Is it the best movie ever? No. Is it as bad as people portray it? it's not.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-16 06:36pm

fgalkin wrote:Yes, right here. The book was mediocre at best. The movie was very good in the portrayal of Heinlein's vain militarism. One should be able to look beyond the obvious (that is all the pointless action).

Yes, most of the criticism of Starship Troopers focuses on the brain-dead military tactics and some of the, shall we say, "liberties" taken with science and logic.

However, I thought Voerhoven did the societal satire part very well. The joke is that Heinlein didn't get the satire inherent in his own work; his society was an unworkable, asinine caricature of militaristic jingoism.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2002-12-16 06:56pm

I especially liked how Verhoeven had Doogie Howser come out in full SS regalia at the end of the movie. Excellent touch.

Also, if you view Starship Troopers as what I think it was; a propaganda movie that the government of the Earth would show to potential recruits of the military, the absurdities of the science and logic make more sense.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-17 07:02am

Durran Korr wrote:I especially liked how Verhoeven had Doogie Howser come out in full SS regalia at the end of the movie. Excellent touch.

Not just near the end- at the funeral is where Doogie comes out in the Wehrmacht outfit (I thought SS was inappropriate considering that the style was prevalent throughout the German Army)

I thought it looked cool though. Out of all of WW2, the Germans had the best uniforms- both in terms of combat and dress uniforms.

He also managed to make Doogie look quite gaunt- this was something the Allies remarked on when the Germans were surrendering- these gaunt, tall, scary looking military geniuses surrendering to short men

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2002-12-17 07:49am

Durran Korr wrote:I especially liked how Verhoeven had Doogie Howser come out in full SS regalia at the end of the movie. Excellent touch.

Also, if you view Starship Troopers as what I think it was; a propaganda movie that the government of the Earth would show to potential recruits of the military, the absurdities of the science and logic make more sense.

Yeah, ole Doogie Himmler at the end was a nice touch.

Starship Troopers really is a very good movie disguised as a very bad movie, no matter how much I complain about it.

Graeme Dice · Post by **Graeme Dice** » 2002-12-18 12:59am

Darth Wong wrote:However, I thought Voerhoven did the societal satire part very well. The joke is that Heinlein didn't get the satire inherent in his own work; his society was an unworkable, asinine caricature of militaristic jingoism.

Citizenship through military service worked well enough for the Romans, but that's not really comparable to the extreme Heinlein took it to. The thing about Heinlein's future societies is that they are always taken to the very extremes that you could take them. Beyond This Horizon for example, describes a utopian society based on genetic engineering and complete citizen armament.