Simon_Jester wrote: Heinlein's hypothetical state is much more strongly descended from the West than from the communist 'East'. In a sense, it's a reimagined West-as-garrison-state, what the US of the 1950s might have evolved into if it had been pushed in a militaristic direction, where the need to emphasize service to the state had trumped the growing trend towards civil libertarianism that we saw in the 1960s and on.
Huh? Heinlein despised the US Military of the '50s, at least in the way that it employed conscripts. He also didn't care much for the idea of "war of destruction", which, again, is the US Military in the era of Eisenhower. While it would be ideal for every young man and woman to serve the state, one should never be forced into it.
I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."
Questor wrote:While I'll agree that Starship Troopers had anti-communist lines, claiming it as propaganda for western democracies just makes me think you haven't read it.
The western democracies fell just like the the communist countries. Hell, in it the political guy made fun of the Declaration of Independence, hardly something I would expect from western propaganda.
I don't subscribe to the idea that all mass media is consciously controlled by the Trilateral Commission, but instead that propaganda against communism influenced Heinlein to compare his dehumanized, literally inhuman enemies to communists. It would be evenhanded, or at least aware of its militarist tendencies, if he had added a "perfect democracy" for his future civilization to destroy.
Invited by the new age, the elegant Sailor Neptune!
I mean, how often am I to enter a game of riddles with the author, where they challenge me with some strange and confusing and distracting device, and I'm supposed to unravel it and go "I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE" and take great personal satisfaction and pride in our mutual cleverness?
Questor wrote:While I'll agree that Starship Troopers had anti-communist lines, claiming it as propaganda for western democracies just makes me think you haven't read it.
The western democracies fell just like the the communist countries. Hell, in it the political guy made fun of the Declaration of Independence, hardly something I would expect from western propaganda.
I don't subscribe to the idea that all mass media is consciously controlled by the Trilateral Commission,
Really? Because your comment sure reads like you do.
but instead that propaganda against communism influenced Heinlein to compare his dehumanized, literally inhuman enemies to communists.
Care to provide a quote for that? Even if they are an allegory for the chinese horde, as Simon_Jester argues (I think he's reading something that's not there into the narrative, you could say that the Borg are an allegory for the chinese just as easily using what I recall from the novel.) you are implying that he directly compared them - IN THE NOVEL.
Seriously, have you read the book?
It would be evenhanded, or at least aware of its militarist tendencies, if he had added a "perfect democracy" for his future civilization to destroy.
What does this even mean?
Jesus Christ, you're reminding me of those people who look at a book and try to see meaning in everything. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
To get this back on track; in 1999 or 2000 this was the epitome of PLA(N) Amphibious vehicles:
I give you the Type 63C! With bolted on flotation pods and outboard motor!
Also, the ChiComs have nicely been working on advanced technologies:
Control Panel from the ZTZ-99 MBT (Type 99). Not sure of specific version. But note very very M1A2-like CITV and IVIS display.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Simon_Jester wrote: Heinlein's hypothetical state is much more strongly descended from the West than from the communist 'East'. In a sense, it's a reimagined West-as-garrison-state, what the US of the 1950s might have evolved into if it had been pushed in a militaristic direction, where the need to emphasize service to the state had trumped the growing trend towards civil libertarianism that we saw in the 1960s and on.
Huh? Heinlein despised the US Military of the '50s, at least in the way that it employed conscripts. He also didn't care much for the idea of "war of destruction", which, again, is the US Military in the era of Eisenhower. While it would be ideal for every young man and woman to serve the state, one should never be forced into it.
He despised conscription specifically.
Disliking US military policy of the 1950s is not the same as being anti-military in general, or refusing to explore some recognizable form of a "militarized West..." just a militarized West without conscription.
The reason the society of the novel looks so unrecognizable to some of us is that we've been travelling in a different direction from that fictional world for fifty years. Instead of fighting major wars that demanded the full mobilization of our resources (to fight them, as with World War Two, or to rebuild from them, as from a nuclear war), we've fought only minor wars. The government hasn't been forced to make decisions like "impose this unpopular policy and get people to tolerate it or we're all going to die."
In a militarized state, the government has to keep military manpower up somehow. Instead of using conscription and demanding that all citizens serve in the military, Heinlein's Federation does it the other way round by attaching the privileges of full citizenship to military service.* Either way, this kind of tie between citizenship and military service is the act of a state with urgent military problems on its hands that force the government to extreme measures for survival's sake- something that has not described the US in the 1960-2010 period, but did describe the government that evolved into the Terran Federation.
*I know that Heinlein himself later said that being in the civil service was an acceptable substitute, that the service in question was not purely military. I've tried to find that in the book itself without much luck; I have a sneaking suspicion that Heinlein's memory of what he put in the novel may have shifted a bit over the next ten or twenty years. The closest I can find to a reference to obtaining full citizenship in the Federation by non-military service would be serving in hazardous conditions in government research labs, which could be a military or civilian post.
Questor wrote:
but instead that propaganda against communism influenced Heinlein to compare his dehumanized, literally inhuman enemies to communists.
Care to provide a quote for that? Even if they are an allegory for the chinese horde, as Simon_Jester argues (I think he's reading something that's not there into the narrative, you could say that the Borg are an allegory for the chinese just as easily using what I recall from the novel.) ...
Fair point. I think given what I know about the spirit of the times in the late 1950s, and what I've seen of Heinlein's own published material on the subject of communism from the same period, that what I'm saying is reasonable- that the ideas influenced him, that there's commonality on the level of "the few free men entrusted with great power against the enslaved masses," something that also shows up in much of his other work, in different ways.
I think that while Starship Troopers isn't communist propaganda, it's influenced heavily by the kind of war people in the 1950s expected to fight... and they expected to fight against communism, with their perception of communism being heavily influenced by rhetoric and posturing.
Disliking US military policy of the 1950s is not the same as being anti-military in general, or refusing to explore some recognizable form of a "militarized West..." just a militarized West without conscription.
(1)I didn't say he was anti-military in General.
(2)He has stated outloud outside of SST that even in wars of survival he is against Conscription(note the quote I had). As it was there was a peacetime draft when he wrote SST.
(3)Since we've(apparently) decided to use SST as his model of how he thinks the military should be run, I'd point out that he has a derisive view of wars of destruction. That is, against the same kinda of "obliterate the enemy in one go" war that SAC of the late '50s was designed around. So that's the second major thing he despised about the '50s Military. I'd say that both of those aspects are pretty significant aspects of the military in the '50s.
(4)And of course it's mentioned in SST that "even non-citizens have rights", the extent of citizen benefits appear to not go past "vote, run for office, hold law enforcement positions". Everything else (right down to free speech and universal education) appears to be the same across the board. While state service is important, it's hard to argue that Heinelin was anti-civil liberties in the novel, which you seem to be implying.
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."
Disliking US military policy of the 1950s is not the same as being anti-military in general, or refusing to explore some recognizable form of a "militarized West..." just a militarized West without conscription.
(1)I didn't say he was anti-military in General.
(2)He has stated outloud outside of SST that even in wars of survival he is against Conscription(note the quote I had). As it was there was a peacetime draft when he wrote SST.
(3)Since we've(apparently) decided to use SST as his model of how he thinks the military should be run, I'd point out that he has a derisive view of wars of destruction. That is, against the same kinda of "obliterate the enemy in one go" war that SAC of the late '50s was designed around. So that's the second major thing he despised about the '50s Military. I'd say that both of those aspects are pretty significant aspects of the military in the '50s.
(4)And of course it's mentioned in SST that "even non-citizens have rights", the extent of citizen benefits appear to not go past "vote, run for office, hold law enforcement positions". Everything else (right down to free speech and universal education) appears to be the same across the board. While state service is important, it's hard to argue that Heinelin was anti-civil liberties in the novel, which you seem to be implying.
(1) Didn't say you did. Just said he wasn't anti-military.
(2) Didn't say otherwise.
(3) A fair point, but it would be more relevant if I were talking about the organization of the military. I'm not. The Federation military is not a direct linear evolution of the SAC/conscript US military of the '50s. That is not my claim. My claim is that the Federation is recognizable as a militarized democracy, which seems odd to many modern Americans because our culture is in many respects demilitarized: there is a military, but it winds up being a subculture whose activities and mindset don't penetrate very deeply into the society as a whole. Martial virtue isn't high on most American civilians' list of priorities, and the government doesn't try to change this, because it doesn't need to ask for sacrifices from the population to prosecute the relatively small wars it gets involved in.
Not surprisingly given when it was written, the evolution of the Federation in Starship Troopers can be looked at as an alternate-historical path splitting off around 1960. One where instead of fighting low-intensity, low-damage (for us!) wars in Vietnam and the Middle East, the US and the West in general wound up fighting high-intensity, high-damage wars against the main Communist bloc powers. What came out of that was a society much more aware of the necessities of self-defense, one much less wealthy and comfortable than the one that emerged in real life.
Thus the linkage between military service and full citizenship. The idea promoted by the Federation (and we see this in the classroom sections; it is openly avowed by the Federation) is that to be a full participant in a democracy, one has to be willing to go and fight for it. We don't see that in the modern US, and we don't see that in most other historic democracies, though it becomes more common as we head back through medieval and classical times with their more restrictive definitions of "citizen."
(4) You are misreading my point. My point is this:
The West has gone through round after round of egalitarianism, with civil liberties and nondiscrimination for minorities being the watchword, since the end of the Second World War. This trend has already gone farther than almost anyone alive in the mid-20th century would have believed possible; witness arguments over gay rights that would have been unthinkable two generations ago.
In the society of Starship Troopers, that trend hit a limiting point, or was diverted, because of the outbreak of World War Three. The idea that only people who have served in the military would get to vote is inconsistent with the form of democracy we have today; this does not mean that the Terran Federation is not a democratic society. It is; it's just a different form of democracy, because it evolved in a direction different from what actually happened. The proto-Federation was forced to strengthen the link between "citizen" and "soldier" in order to have an adequate force of citizen-soldiers on hand to maintain order, at the expense of making non-soldiers less than full citizens.
In contrast, in real life we've been pushing the bounds of "full citizenship" outward more and more, to include economic and social freedoms that did not exist fifty years ago, and to include people who were oppressed minorities fifty years ago.
I don't say Heinlein would have disapproved of this trend. But in Starship Troopers he portrayed something different, something that it can be hard for people today to recognize as what it is- it gets misread as a military dictatorship because people today have difficulty imagining any other kind of militarized society... as Heinlein and others who lived through the WWII mobilization would not.
Simon_Jester wrote:
In contrast, in real life we've been pushing the bounds of "full citizenship" outward more and more, to include economic and social freedoms that did not exist fifty years ago, and to include people who were oppressed minorities fifty years ago.
I don't say Heinlein would have disapproved of this trend. But in Starship Troopers he portrayed something different, something that it can be hard for people today to recognize as what it is- it gets misread as a military dictatorship because people today have difficulty imagining any other kind of militarized society... as Heinlein and others who lived through the WWII mobilization would not.
I don't think it's actually stated that the trend of egalitarianism stops because of WW3(I think that Heinlein was not as brave about the social evolution in SST as he was with Stranger in a Strange Land).
I will say that the Terran Federation, in theory at least, has extended full citizenship across the social-economic spectrum to those who want it. Most of the non-voting rights are extended to non-citizens as well; I find it significant that the "Richer than God" Rico family has their children going to the same school as the Carl. The TF has made a decision to not only extend citizenship to all who want it, but to provide the means(public schools) for everyone to be prepared to work for it.
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."
Lonestar wrote:I don't think it's actually stated that the trend of egalitarianism stops because of WW3.
It's not stated outright, but that's a fairly simple summary of what is stated about the history of the setting- the trauma of the war and its aftermath forcing society to concentrate on a more survival and security-oriented form of government. There's no conscious reaction against egalitarianism in the "back to Jim Crow!" sense, but if there were any real egalitarian movement in the society, it's not going to be found among the voter base.
Egalitarian societies don't demand a military term of service as the price for the vote.
I will say that the Terran Federation, in theory at least, has extended full citizenship across the social-economic spectrum to those who want it. Most of the non-voting rights are extended to non-citizens as well; I find it significant that the "Richer than God" Rico family has their children going to the same school as the Carl. The TF has made a decision to not only extend citizenship to all who want it, but to provide the means(public schools) for everyone to be prepared to work for it.
I believe that this criterion, "to those who want it," needs a significant caveat: "to those who want it enough to undergo serious hardship or risk to obtain it, and who accept a certain amount of indoctrination to receive it."
I am not going to comment on whether this is a good or bad social model here. I have no interest in doing that. My point is that it takes the concept of democracy off in a very different direction from the one that the West went historically, so much so that it's not hard to understand why some people today have difficulty even recognizing it as a democracy.
Simon_Jester wrote:My point is that it takes the concept of democracy off in a very different direction from the one that the West went historically, so much so that it's not hard to understand why some people today have difficulty even recognizing it as a democracy.
There's a reason for that, namely the fact that a system where the vote is a privilege rather than a right is not a democracy, but an oligarchy. What kind of oligarchy is a matter for opinion, of course, as is whether it's necessarily a bad thing.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin
Questor wrote:While I'll agree that Starship Troopers had anti-communist lines, claiming it as propaganda for western democracies just makes me think you haven't read it.
The western democracies fell just like the the communist countries. Hell, in it the political guy made fun of the Declaration of Independence, hardly something I would expect from western propaganda.
I don't subscribe to the idea that all mass media is consciously controlled by the Trilateral Commission,
Really? Because your comment sure reads like you do.
but instead that propaganda against communism influenced Heinlein to compare his dehumanized, literally inhuman enemies to communists.
Care to provide a quote for that? Even if they are an allegory for the chinese horde, as Simon_Jester argues (I think he's reading something that's not there into the narrative, you could say that the Borg are an allegory for the chinese just as easily using what I recall from the novel.) you are implying that he directly compared them - IN THE NOVEL.
Seriously, have you read the book?
It would be evenhanded, or at least aware of its militarist tendencies, if he had added a "perfect democracy" for his future civilization to destroy.
What does this even mean?
Jesus Christ, you're reminding me of those people who look at a book and try to see meaning in everything. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Thank you ever so much for going the extra mile and reducing my post to sentence fragments rather than sentences. I'm laughing right now, because I could just as well ask you if you've read the novel. At one point early on, the bugs are explicitly defined as a "perfect communism", I believe during Boot Camp or shortly after. If you want quotes, then I can dig up the novel, but it will take a little while. I'm not arguing for a allegory, but continuing this discussion seems to be pointless, since you are, frankly, either a literary ignoramus or so unwilling to bear criticism of the novel as to abandon what knowledge of literature you do have.
But you claimed that it criticized the liberal democracies as much as it does communism. It compares its inhuman, faceless, monstrous antagonists to communists, but offers no caricatures or analogues of democrats for Johnny Rico to slaughter. That's not an even treatment unless you subscribe to the idea that making communists out to be monstrous is truthful. Making it evenhanded would require either providing a cartoonish democracy for Raczak's Roughnecks to irradiate, and thus acknowledging the fascist tendencies of the novel as written and running with them, or avoiding analogies to modern political systems in your monstrous antagonists.
Lonestar wrote:
I don't think it's actually stated that the trend of egalitarianism stops because of WW3(I think that Heinlein was not as brave about the social evolution in SST as he was with Stranger in a Strange Land).
I will say that the Terran Federation, in theory at least, has extended full citizenship across the social-economic spectrum to those who want it. Most of the non-voting rights are extended to non-citizens as well; I find it significant that the "Richer than God" Rico family has their children going to the same school as the Carl. The TF has made a decision to not only extend citizenship to all who want it, but to provide the means(public schools) for everyone to be prepared to work for it.
I'm not sure that you can really say that the system in Starship Troopers makes any sense. It should essentially devolve into a militaristic oligarchy or outright fascism as written, but does not. The attitude of Rico Sr. to voting suggests that citizenship is discouraged in some unusually effective way, seeing as he's a member of the upper class but is completely apathetic to political power, and Johnny doesn't really consider gaining the vote to be a primary reason for joining the military. This should cause the citizenry to become essentially fixed in nature, yet the Merchant Marine hates the military because they don't get citizenship for serving (which seems to contradict Heinlein's later letters about the civil service serving as well as the military for citizenship) which suggests a desire for political power in the lower and middle classes, which in turn suggests that Heinlein wrote the novel in about six months after getting mad about commies. I have no problems with acknowledging that, except for all the people that feel it should be the model for citizenship or think that the Terran Federation is worthy of emulation.
Invited by the new age, the elegant Sailor Neptune!
I mean, how often am I to enter a game of riddles with the author, where they challenge me with some strange and confusing and distracting device, and I'm supposed to unravel it and go "I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE" and take great personal satisfaction and pride in our mutual cleverness?
Proving that Heinlein was a batshit crazy anticommunist and russophobe doesn't take much. He was absolutely disrespectful to Russian customs (even inventing fake ones) and ridiculed them at every point in his memoirs. The fucktard dared to say that "the most pompous Soviet architecture was built at a time when Americans were dying to bring lend-lease convoys to Murmansk" - disregarding the hideous contempt Heinlein has for the millions of Russians who died in the war while a scant few "Uh-mericans" did, he is actually wrong on all counts because during the war all the largest construction projects like the Stalin skyscrapers in Moscow came to a full halt, and the palace of the Soviets was dismantled to use its steel in the defense of Moscow itself. He also boldly claimed that Moscow didn't have six million people, but only 750 thousand, and the Russians are lying because he can't correctly estimate the population of a city. Heinlein is a prime example of a boorish American idiot.
Starship Troopers is his militaristic wank-fantasy. It has direct anti-communist and, surprisingly, anti-democratic claims, like that:
"Value" has no meaning other than in relationship to living beings. The value of a thing is always relative to a particular person, is completely personal and different in quantity for each living human—"market value" is a fiction, merely a rough guess at the average of personal values, all of which must be quantitatively different or trade would be impossible. [...] This very personal relationship, "value", has two factors for a human being: first, what he can do with a thing, its use to him… and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts that "the best things in life are free". Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted… and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears."
Heinlein's characters show utter contempt for democracy in his novel (he spends a huge number of paragraphs to specifically ridicule Marx and cry about the "decadence" of Western democracy at the same time). At the time he was a supporter of the military, whatever his views on conscription were.
He actually used "ant-like communism" in Starship Troopers while attacking Plato's "Republic":
Historic examples range from absolute monarch to utter anarch; mankind has tried thousands of ways and many more have been proposed, some weird in the extreme such as the antlike communism urged by Plato under the misleading title The Republic.
If anyone wants to dispute that Heinlein used Starship Troopers as a vessel for his anti-communist views, or that the bugs were, among other things, a metaphor for communism, he's welcome to do so. In the light of the quotes from the novel I can't see how this could be done.
Lì ci sono chiese, macerie, moschee e questure, lì frontiere, prezzi inaccessibile e freddure
Lì paludi, minacce, cecchini coi fucili, documenti, file notturne e clandestini
Qui incontri, lotte, passi sincronizzati, colori, capannelli non autorizzati,
Uccelli migratori, reti, informazioni, piazze di Tutti i like pazze di passioni...
...La tranquillità è importante ma la libertà è tutto!
Simon_Jester wrote:My point is that it takes the concept of democracy off in a very different direction from the one that the West went historically, so much so that it's not hard to understand why some people today have difficulty even recognizing it as a democracy.
There's a reason for that, namely the fact that a system where the vote is a privilege rather than a right is not a democracy, but an oligarchy. What kind of oligarchy is a matter for opinion, of course, as is whether it's necessarily a bad thing.
This is questionable. When anyone can become an oligarch, and when everyone within the oligarch class is formally equal, and when the oligarch class makes up a significant fraction of the general population... hard to call it an oligarchy, I'd say.
After all, even modern democracies still restrict the franchise from children, and there are many people who would support other restrictions on individuals who are so unable to take care of themselves or perceive reality that they are guaranteed to make poor political judgement.
So I don't think we can say "ANY restriction on the franchise makes it not-a-democracy!"
Some democracies are better (or worse) than others. I am not promoting the Terran Federation model; like Bakustra I think it really ought to be unstable- if nothing else, the rights of the 'noncitizen' class of non-veterans should decay away over time because there's no political incentive to respect those rights.
Stas Bush wrote:Proving that Heinlein was a batshit crazy anticommunist and russophobe doesn't take much. He was absolutely disrespectful to Russian customs (even inventing fake ones) and ridiculed them at every point in his memoirs. The fucktard dared to say that "the most pompous Soviet architecture was built at a time when Americans were dying to bring lend-lease convoys to Murmansk" - disregarding the hideous contempt Heinlein has for the millions of Russians who died in the war while a scant few "Uh-mericans" did, he is actually wrong on all counts because during the war all the largest construction projects like the Stalin skyscrapers in Moscow came to a full halt, and the palace of the Soviets was dismantled to use its steel in the defense of Moscow itself. He also boldly claimed that Moscow didn't have six million people, but only 750 thousand, and the Russians are lying because he can't correctly estimate the population of a city. Heinlein is a prime example of a boorish American idiot.
There is a movement to get one of the Zumwalt DDGs named after Mr. Heinlein. In light of his personal characteristics, it somehow seems fitting, even if the Congress critters are most likely going to act sensibly and kill any such proposal.
Turns out that a five way cross over between It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Ali G Show, Fargo, Idiocracy and Veep is a lot less funny when you're actually living in it.
Bakustra, if you have a problem with that kind of reply, I really think you're in the wrong place. Thanks, Stas, I was remembering the former type of quote while forgetting the latter.
Anyone that thinks Heinlein is anything other than an idiot needs their head examined, but reading too much into a novel is also distinctly possible - and since I am struck by the surprising (for someone with such well known anti-communist views) anti-democratic sentiment of Starship Troopers every time I read it, someone calling it democratic propaganda struck me as incredibly odd.
Also, the idea of naming anything after Heinlein is sickening. Are we really that short of names of naval officers (recent practice for destroyers) that we need to plumb batshit insane authors?. If we're going to do that, surely there are better non-military figures (and authors) to draw on.
Just a bit of gallows humor. Since the Zumwalt class is such an atrocious piece of naval design, it seems fitting that a wannabe jackbout Neo Spartan be linked to one of the worst USN designs yet. (Should have attached a smiley to emphasize the sarcasm).
Anyways, back to topic, it should be interesting to see what China will be willing to export in five years. Apparently the Serbs are looking at the J-10 and the Moroccans bought the VT-A1 main battle tank already.
Turns out that a five way cross over between It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Ali G Show, Fargo, Idiocracy and Veep is a lot less funny when you're actually living in it.
Shep, the WS-10A turbofan isn't that big a deal. Wow, they have an AL-31F equivalent engine ... 30 years after the AL-31F came out. Ummm, yay? As of April last year, there were quality control problems with the engine and they were still having to order AL-31Fs to make up the difference, IIRC.
I really don't think one can assume they'll be going from quality control problems with an AL-31F class engine (i.e. distinctly fourth generation) to a fifth generation engine for their fighter anytime soon. It'll be years yet.
Anyway, my thoughts:-
Also, the J-20 prototype may have taxiied -- there goes the rationale for PAK-FA on the world export market.
Ummm ... why? Not only does the J-20 not have a hope of being ready before the PAK FA is (unless the Chinese pull fifth generation engines out of their ass with some sort of magic spell in the next year or so, or buy them from elsewhere, the only place being Russia), but the PAK FA already has a customer, being India. Who's going to be lining up for the J-20 (and can afford to pay?) Those bottom feeders in Pakistan, after scrounging together a few bucks for their quaint little JF-17s?
Another thing - those JF-17s are equipped with RD-93 engines from Russia. And where's their strategic bombers - oh that's right they've got no engines for such a thing either ... hmmm. It seems that partying about the WS-10A being the most orgasmic piece of "we have the technology" hardware like its 1980 (almost literally) doesn't mean China has solved its problem with engines, does it?
Il-476 transports and Il-478 tankers? Why? The Russians had severe production problems just fulfilling the Chinese order for 30 Il-76 transports and 4 Il-78 tankers several years ago.
So why would the Chinese go to them again, when they are about to produce indigenously a large airliner -- the C-919, which can then be given a refuelling boom to fill the tanker role?
Probably because the C-919 is a paper plane that won't even fly until 2014 - as a commercial airliner. There ain't no transport / tanker version of this coming out of the pipeline - or even anywhere on the horizon - anytime in the foreseeable future. Il-476/Il-478 is already being built.
Why do they need to import S-400s? They already have the HQ-9 rolling off like hotcakes
Probably because the HQ-9 sucks balls in comparison. And do we know they're rolling off like hotcakes? China's still been buying S-300PM series the entire time the HQ-9 has been in existence, its a fairy tale to think the HQ-9 is some sort of S-400 replacement.
Rumor is that the Crapyrag will finally launch or whatever around June 2011, and that the PLA(N) will have an indigenous CV in the water by 2015. So in about ten years, the PLA(N) will be a much more credible force.
Unlikely. Take their new AEGIS-type DDGs and so forth ... they've got how many of them? Oh, two. Awesome. Seriously, how many more DDGs do you think they'll have in the water by 2020, at this rate? Have they even laid down a new DDG since the last ones? Not so far as I know. I mean, sure, its possible they'll lay down and launch 10 AEGIS ships in the next 10 years. But is it likely? Not really, no. Will it make them a threat to the USN? Not really, no.
In 2000, the Chinese Marine Corps basically used modified BMP-1s with outboard motors attached along with flotation pontoons for their amphibious landing duties.
Now?
They have the ZBD-2000 Amphibious family of both light support tanks and IFVs
So what? China tries very hard to maintain a high-tech veneer of oooh scary look how tough and modern and awesome we are - but how much of this stuff do they actually have? Do you even know? Does anybody? Do you know if their ZBD-2000s etc are even any good? Should anyone really care that they made an amphibious tank, which is hardly a big deal? And did they build them without help? Unlikely, given their latest IFV design has a (less sophisticated) almost straight copy of KBP Tula's Bakhcha-U turret on them, yes?
How about their awesome-sauce Type 99 Main Battle Tank (which is actually a piece of overrated rubbish, which is what you'd expect when you kitbash a T-72 hull with no experience*, but anyway)? How many of them have they built in 10 years? Oh, about 200, can't afford to build more, unit price too high, build the simpler Type 96s instead. Yeah, not exactly the armored horde of the USSR there.
The Chinese like to pretend they're ready to go it alone, but its not borne out by the facts. Much of it is pure showmanship - in reality their much touted weapons modernisation is a total hodge-podge. Some things they can do on their own, some things they have no fucking idea and its embarrassing, and some things they need help with. It depends.
I really have no idea why people think China is some sort of scary growing juggernaut. You scratch the surface, I'm sorry, its just not credible. Yet. And weirdly, it seems like people actually enjoy promoting this idea. Its especially weird coming from you Shep. You sound like some Chinese internet flag waver
* Specifically, due to poor design, the thickness of the armor at the 30-35 degrees angle is a mere 350mm - the figure for the latest Soviet/Russian tanks is about 600mm from all angles. Roof armor at the front is also weak, and the tank has inherited the weakness of the porthole and hatch areas from the old Soviet designs. The dimensions of the Type 99 turret make any substantial improvements in its built-in protection system all but impossible. The use of the powerful - yet massive - MTU diesel (from Germany) made the Chinese add an extra meter to the tank’s length, bringing its weight to 54 metric tons, despite having shitty armor - and the imported engines is another reason why so few of this overpriced piece of shit have been built so far. So compared to say, a T-90A, the Type 99's a heavier tank with weaker armor, that's been kneecapped by shit engineering. That's apparently what you get when you copy individual design elements from different sources when they don't fit together very well and aren't part of a coherent vehicle design philosophy based on experience. But hey, its got what looks like a CITV knock-off, so it must be kickass, right?
Yo, Shep. This "we need to focus on China as our enemy" is more than a little fucked it. You're attempting to create an orderly description of China, and of Chinese policy, which is absurd. You're trying to reduce China down to something that can be clinically observed and changed, which entrenches a dichotomy that makes actual critical reflection impossible, and legitimates the most violent form of US Imperialism against China.
[quote="Chengxin Pan "The China Threat in American Self-imagination: The Discursive Construction of Other as Power Politics""]While U.S. China scholars argue fiercely over “what China precisely is,” their debates have been underpinned by some common ground, especially in terms of a positivist epistemology. Firstly, they believe that China is ultimately a knowable object, whose reality can be, and ought to be, empirically revealed by scientific means. For example, after expressing his dissatisfaction with often conflicting Western perceptions of China, David M. Lampton, former president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, suggests that “it is time to step back and look at where China is today, where it might be going, and what consequences that direction will hold for the rest of the world.” (2) Like many other China scholars, Lampton views his object of study as essentially “something we can stand back from and observe with clinical detachment.” (3)
Secondly, associated with the first assumption, it is commonly believed that China scholars merely serve as “disinterested observers” and that their studies of China are neutral, passive descriptions of reality.
And thirdly, in pondering whether China poses a threat or offers an opportunity to the United States, they rarely raise the question of “what the United States is.” That is, the meaning of the United States is believed to be certain and beyond doubt.
I do not dismiss altogether the conventional ways of debating China. It is not the purpose of this article to venture my own “observation” of “where China is today,” nor to join the “containment” versus “engagement” debate per se. Rather, I want to contribute to a novel dimension of the China debate by questioning the seemingly unproblematic assumptions shared by most China scholars in the mainstream IR community in the United States. To perform this task, I will focus attention on a particularly significant component of the China debate; namely, the “China threat” literature.
More specifically, I want to argue that U.S. conceptions of China as a threatening other are always intrinsically linked to how U.S. policymakers/mainstream China specialists see themselves (as representatives of the indispensable, security-conscious nation, for example). As such, they are not value-free, objective descriptions of an independent, preexisting Chinese reality out there, but are better understood as a kind of normative, meaning-giving practice that often legitimates power politics in U.S.-China relations and helps transform the “China threat” into social reality. In other words, it is self-fulfilling in practice, and is always part of the “China threat” problem it purports merely to describe. In doing so, I seek to bring to the fore two interconnected themes of self/other constructions and of theory as practice inherent in the “China threat” literature—themes that have been overridden and rendered largely invisible by those common positivist assumptions.
These themes are of course nothing new nor peculiar to the “China threat” literature. They have been identified elsewhere by critics of some conventional fields of study such as ethnography, anthropology, oriental studies, political science, and international relations. (4) Yet, so far, the China field in the West in general and the U.S. “China threat” literature in particular have shown remarkable resistance to systematic critical reflection on both their normative status as discursive practice and their enormous practical implications for international politics. (5) It is in this context that this article seeks to make a contribution.
[/quote]
The only way to prevent an inevitable arms race, and nuclear war, (something you claim to want to avoid) is to rethink the way we conceive of China, and reject this fantasy of "knowing" China.
[quote="Chengxin Pan "The China Threat in American Self-imagination: The Discursive Construction of Other as Power Politics""]I have argued above that the "China threat" argument in mainstream U.S. IR literature is derived, primarily, from a discursive construction of otherness. This construction is predicated on a particular narcissistic understanding of the U.S. self and on a positivist-based realism, concerned with absolute certainty and security, a concern central to the dominant U.S. self-imaginary. Within these frameworks, it seems imperative that China be treated as a threatening, absolute other since it is unable to fit neatly into the U.S.-led evolutionary scheme or guarantee absolute security for the United States, so that U.S. power preponderance in the post-Cold War world can still be legitimated.
Not only does this reductionist representation come at the expense of understanding China as a dynamic, multifaceted country but it leads inevitably to a policy of containment that, in turn, tends to enhance the influence of realpolitik thinking, nationalist extremism, and hard-line stance in today's China. Even a small dose of the containment strategy is likely to have a highly dramatic impact on U.S.-China relations, as the 1995-1996 missile crisis and the 2001 spy-plane incident have vividly attested. In this respect, Chalmers Johnson is right when he suggests that "a policy of containment toward China implies the possibility of war, just as it did during the Cold War vis-a-vis the former Soviet Union. The balance of terror prevented war between the United States and the Soviet Union, but this may not work in the case of China." (93)
For instance, as the United States presses ahead with a missile-defence shield to "guarantee" its invulnerability from rather unlikely sources of missile attacks, it would be almost certain to intensify China's sense of vulnerability and compel it to expand its current small nuclear arsenal so as to maintain the efficiency of its limited deterrence. In consequence, it is not impossible that the two countries, and possibly the whole region, might be dragged into an escalating arms race that would eventually make war more likely.
Neither the United States nor China is likely to be keen on fighting the other. But as has been demonstrated, the "China threat" argument, for all its alleged desire for peace and security, tends to make war preparedness the most "realistic" option for both sides. At this juncture, worthy of note is an interesting comment made by Charlie Neuhauser, a leading CIA China specialist, on the Vietnam War, a war fought by the United States to contain the then-Communist "other." Neuhauser says, "Nobody wants it. We don't want it, Ho Chi Minh doesn't want it; it's simply a question of annoying the other side." (94) And, as we know, in an unwanted war some fifty-eight thousand young people from the United States and an estimated two million Vietnamese men, women, and children lost their lives.
Therefore, to call for a halt to the vicious circle of theory as practice associated with the "China threat" literature, tinkering with the current positivist-dominated U.S. IR scholarship on China is no longer adequate. Rather, what is needed is to question this un-self-reflective scholarship itself, particularly its connections with the dominant way in which the United States and the West in general represent themselves and others via their positivist epistemology, so that alternative, more nuanced, and less dangerous ways of interpreting and debating China might become possible.[/quote]
Moreover, this entire obsession over technology, and attempting to maintain a technological lead over China, necessitates a strategy of high and low countries, those who "can" handle high-tech weapons and those who "shouldn't" handle them. This drives us to wars that are, in essence, nothing more than demonstrations and re-entrenchments of our technological superiority.
[quote="John Broughton, Genocide, War and Human Survival "US Over Iraq: High Technology and Low Culture in the Gulf Conflict" P 181-182"]However, if the current regime is to be maintained, the apotheosis of that which is technical—not to mention the formal, instrumental cognition that is its psychological foundation—must be accompanied by a systematic strategy for keeping "high" and "low" states distinct and separate. There must be a prevention of technological advance in alien lands, especially those of "the enemy," to match the encouragement of such advance in allied nations. What is lauded as the beneficent transfer of scientific progress between democracies must be distinguished sharply from the malignant "proliferation" of know-how among irresponsible nations and their immoral dictators.32
The exaggerated differences "necessitated" by technological advance are accompanied by an escalated ideology of entitlement. The nations of the world, who are purportedly in the process of becoming "united,"" are polarized ever more extremely into "high societies," privy to the new techniques of mastery, and "low societies," who are to be deprived of them.34 Of course, from time to time, the latter may be-come the object upon which these techniques are exercised, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of the techniques and increasing their desirability to precisely those who do not have them (at least, those who are still alive). In this sense, the Gulf War was a fitting festival for celebrating the new heights achieved in the spiral of technology.
[/quote]
This sort of thought is going to necessitate and normalize a western dominated global hierarchy, which requires an endless and ongoing extermination of anyone who would challenge it. Making war and death both ubiquitous and invisible.
[quote="Eduardo Mendieta "To Make live and to let die' -Foucault on Racism"]This is where racism intervenes, not from without, exogenously, but from within, constitutively. For the emergence of biopower as the form of a new form of political rationality, entails the inscription within the very logic of the modern state the logic of racism. For racism grants, and here I am quoting: “the conditions for the acceptability of putting to death in a society of normalization. Where there is a society of normalization, where there is a power that is, in all of its surface and in first instance, and first line, a bio-power, racism is indispensable as a condition to be able to put to death someone, in order to be able to put to death others. The homicidal [meurtrière] function of the state, to the degree that the state functions on the modality of bio-power, can only be assured by racism “(Foucault 1997, 227) To use the formulations from his 1982 lecture “The Political Technology of Individuals” –which incidentally, echo his 1979 Tanner Lectures –the power of the state after the 18th century, a power which is enacted through the police, and is enacted over the population, is a power over living beings, and as such it is a biopolitics. And, to quote more directly, “since the population is nothing more than what the state takes care of for its own sake, of course, the state is entitled to slaughter it, if necessary. So the reverse of biopolitics is thanatopolitics.” (Foucault 2000, 416). Racism, is the thanatopolitics of the biopolitics of the total state. They are two sides of one same 8 political technology, one same political rationality: the management of life, the life of a population, the tending to the continuum of life of a people. And with the inscription of racism within the state of biopower, the long history of war that Foucault has been telling in these dazzling lectures has made a new turn: the war of peoples, a war against invaders, imperials colonizers, which turned into a war of races, to then turn into a war of classes, has now turned into the war of a race, a biological unit, against its polluters and threats. Racism is the means by which bourgeois political power, biopower, re-kindles the fires of war within civil society. Racism normalizes and medicalizes war. Racism makes war the permanent condition of society, while at the same time masking its weapons of death and torture. As I wrote somewhere else, racism banalizes genocide by making quotidian the lynching of suspect threats to the health of the social body. Racism makes the killing of the other, of others, an everyday occurrence by internalizing and normalizing the war of society against its enemies. To protect society entails we be ready to kill its threats, its foes, and if we understand society as a unity of life, as a continuum of the living, then these threat and foes are biological in nature. [/quote]
And these representations of China, and the rest of the world, are ultimately more important than the actual policies themselves, because we can only understand the policies by understanding the milieu from which they spring and in which they will be enforced. Understanding the policy alone is like understanding the tip of the iceberg, while the 90% lies underneath changing everything.
[quote="Roxanne Lyn Doty, "Foreign Policy as Social Construction: A Post-Positivist Analysis of US Counterinsurgency Policy in the Philippines" "]This kind of approach addresses the how-question discussed earlier because it does not presuppose that particular subjects are already in place. It thus does not look to individual or collective subjects as the loci of meaning. Regarding language practices themselves as relatively autonomous admits the question of a kind of power that constitutes subjects, modes of subjectivity, and "reality." In contrast to the Social Performance Approach in which signifiers (words, images) ultimately refer back to signifieds (shared templates), in the Discursive Practices Approach signifiers refer only to other signifiers, hence the notion of intertextuality, i.e., a complex and infinitely expanding web of possible meanings. That meaning does often appear to be fixed and decideable rather than an infinite play of signifiers is indicative of the workings of power. This presents us with a radically new conception of power which is inherent in the linguistic practices by which agents are constructed and become articulated within particular discourses.
This approach, like any approach, has its analytic form. The form of this approach is a "discursive practice." A discursive practice is not traceable to a fixed and stable center, e.g., individual consciousness or a social collective. Discursive practices that constitute subjects and modes of subjectivity are dispersed, scattered throughout various locales. This is why the notion of intertextuality is important. Texts always refer back to other texts which themselves refer to still other texts. The power that is inherent in language is thus not something that is centralized, emanating from a pre-given subject. Rather, like the discursive practices in which it inheres, power is dispersed and, most important, is productive of subjects and their worlds.
A discourse, i.e., a system of statements in which each individual statement makes sense, produces interpretive possibilities by making it virtually impossible to think outside of it. A discourse provides discursive spaces, i.e., concepts, categories, metaphors, models, and analogies by which meanings are created. The production of discourses and of subjectivity and sociality is indissoluble (Henriques et al., 1984:106). This is because discourses create various kinds of subjects and simultaneously position these subjects vis-a-vis one another. For example, a traditional discourse on the family would contain spaces for a subject with traits conventionally defined as "male" and another kind of subject with traits conventionally defined as "female." These subjects would be positioned vis-à-vis one another in a particular way, e.g., female subservient to male. Within the traditional discourse on the family it is impossible to think outside of these categories except in terms of deviance or abnormality. Within this discourse, there is no discursive space for the single mother by choice or the gay or lesbian couple with children except as departures from the "normal" family or as deviants. Subjects, then, can be thought of as positions within particular discourses, intelligible only with reference to a specific set of categories, concepts, and practices.
Policy makers also function within a discursive space that imposes meanings on their world and thus creates reality (Shapiro, 1988:100, 116). An approach that focuses on discursive practices as a unit of analysis can get at how this "reality" is produced and maintained and how it makes various practices possible. The analytic question addressed is not why particular decisions are made; the policy decision in itself becomes a secondary concern. What is central is the discourse(s) which construct a particular "reality." An analysis of discourses can reveal the necessary but not sufficient conditions of various practices. Applying this approach to the study of foreign policy, not only do we broaden our conception of what foreign policy is, the sites of foreign policy, i.e., where foreign policy takes place, also become much more extensive. This approach suggests that what foreign policy is need not be limited to the actual making of specific decisions nor the analysis of temporally and spatially hounded "events." Similarly, "foreign policy makers" need not be limited to prominent decision makers, but could also include those rather anonymous members of the various bureaucracies who write the numerous memorandums, intelligence reports, and research papers that circulate within policy circles. The discourse(s) instantiated in these various documents produce meanings and in doing so actively construct the "reality" upon which foreign policy is based. Moreover, foreign policy making can also extend beyond the realm of official government institutions. The reception as meaningful of statements revolving around policy situations depends on how well they fit into the general system of representation in a given society. Even speeches and press conference statements produced for specific purposes, in order to be taken seriously, must make sense and fit with what the general public takes as "reality." Thus, the analysis of statements can entail the examination of what was said and written within broad policy-making contexts as well as statements made in society more generally 8[/quote]
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tl;dr: You should think about the greater implication of what you're saying and what you're justifying before you start spouting off about how we must needs have an enemy to hold ourselves against.
Also, you should think twice before saying that we wont miss the Middle East when it's gone, because it just ends up making you sound like a racist fuckwit.
Questor wrote:Bakustra, if you have a problem with that kind of reply, I really think you're in the wrong place. Thanks, Stas, I was remembering the former type of quote while forgetting the latter. Anyone that thinks Heinlein is anything other than an idiot needs their head examined...
Politically, he was an idiot practically his whole life long- from his utopian Depression-era socialist schemes through his reactionary anti-communism and on into his deep passion for rugged-individualism-at-all-costs.
In most other respects by which a human being can be judged, I don't think he was an idiot. It's unfortunate that his political views played such a major role in his work, and in the way he was viewed by posterity. His politics are the worst feature of an otherwise decent and fairly interesting writer, in my opinion.
...but reading too much into a novel is also distinctly possible - and since I am struck by the surprising (for someone with such well known anti-communist views) anti-democratic sentiment of Starship Troopers every time I read it, someone calling it democratic propaganda struck me as incredibly odd.
Anti-communist propaganda, more likely. Pro-democratic only in the general sense that it promoted the "rugged individualist Free Man" against the "communalized enslaved Mass Man." Whether that's really pro-democracy is an open question, but Heinlein would likely have said it was, because he truly loved his rugged individualism.
Also, the idea of naming anything after Heinlein is sickening. Are we really that short of names of naval officers (recent practice for destroyers) that we need to plumb batshit insane authors?. If we're going to do that, surely there are better non-military figures (and authors) to draw on.
Heinlein did serve in the Navy for some time, in peacetime before a medical discharge; he's probably a considerably better known naval officer than many of the people who do get destroyers named after them. The catch is that he's famous for something that has virtually nothing to do with his military service.
And, yes, the whole "somewhat to the right of the John Birch society on communism" thing does make it very questionable.
Also, the idea of naming anything after Heinlein is sickening. Are we really that short of names of naval officers (recent practice for destroyers) that we need to plumb batshit insane authors?. If we're going to do that, surely there are better non-military figures (and authors) to draw on.
Heinlein did serve in the Navy for some time, in peacetime before a medical discharge; he's probably a considerably better known naval officer than many of the people who do get destroyers named after them. The catch is that he's famous for something that has virtually nothing to do with his military service.[/quote]
"USS Jimmy Carter"
"preemptive killing of cops might not be such a bad idea from a personal saftey[sic] standpoint..." --Keevan Colton
"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan
I seriously considered pointing out that we named a hundred thousand ton aircraft carrier after George H.W. Bush, yes.
Honestly, I think the US custom of naming warships after people has gotten out of hand; it's so politicized that they can find a justification for naming the ships after any random lieutenant, so long as that lieutenant went on to be president.
Simon_Jester wrote:Politically, he was an idiot practically his whole life long- from his utopian Depression-era socialist schemes through his reactionary anti-communism and on into his deep passion for rugged-individualism-at-all-costs.
In most other respects by which a human being can be judged, I don't think he was an idiot. It's unfortunate that his political views played such a major role in his work, and in the way he was viewed by posterity. His politics are the worst feature of an otherwise decent and fairly interesting writer, in my opinion.
I actually have a really hard time getting into most of his novels, but yes, I was referring to politically.
Also, the idea of naming anything after Heinlein is sickening. Are we really that short of names of naval officers (recent practice for destroyers) that we need to plumb batshit insane authors?. If we're going to do that, surely there are better non-military figures (and authors) to draw on.
Heinlein did serve in the Navy for some time, in peacetime before a medical discharge; he's probably a considerably better known naval officer than many of the people who do get destroyers named after them. The catch is that he's famous for something that has virtually nothing to do with his military service.
I didn't actually know that. I still think naming anything after him would be a bad idea, though.
Your points about naming warships after people is well taken. I generally bitch about it more on the bigger ships, especially when traditional names are available, as I really don't have a problem with the idea of naming destroyers or frigates after - say - Medal of Honor winners. Politicians, writers, admirals - those I consider a lot less appropriate - especially when it seems like such a political bargaining chip.
Simon_Jester wrote:Politically, he was an idiot practically his whole life long- from his utopian Depression-era socialist schemes through his reactionary anti-communism and on into his deep passion for rugged-individualism-at-all-costs.
In most other respects by which a human being can be judged, I don't think he was an idiot. It's unfortunate that his political views played such a major role in his work, and in the way he was viewed by posterity. His politics are the worst feature of an otherwise decent and fairly interesting writer, in my opinion.
I actually have a really hard time getting into most of his novels, but yes, I was referring to politically.
Fair enough.
As a writer, he was quite capable. As a man, from every account I've heard, he was a fine human being. As a political theorist, he left very much to be desired.
Also, the idea of naming anything after Heinlein is sickening. Are we really that short of names of naval officers (recent practice for destroyers) that we need to plumb batshit insane authors?. If we're going to do that, surely there are better non-military figures (and authors) to draw on.
Heinlein did serve in the Navy for some time, in peacetime before a medical discharge; he's probably a considerably better known naval officer than many of the people who do get destroyers named after them. The catch is that he's famous for something that has virtually nothing to do with his military service.
I didn't actually know that. I still think naming anything after him would be a bad idea, though.[/quote]I think naming things after him would be appropriate only if we wished to acknowledge the contribution of people in his category- science fiction writers.
You occasionally see "Heinlein Base" on the Moon in works of science fiction; while that's unrealistic it might be justified. But just naming a warship after him... no, I don't think that would be right. I don't think he would have approved, either.
Questor wrote:Bakustra, if you have a problem with that kind of reply, I really think you're in the wrong place. Thanks, Stas, I was remembering the former type of quote while forgetting the latter.
Anyone that thinks Heinlein is anything other than an idiot needs their head examined, but reading too much into a novel is also distinctly possible - and since I am struck by the surprising (for someone with such well known anti-communist views) anti-democratic sentiment of Starship Troopers every time I read it, someone calling it democratic propaganda struck me as incredibly odd.
Also, the idea of naming anything after Heinlein is sickening. Are we really that short of names of naval officers (recent practice for destroyers) that we need to plumb batshit insane authors?. If we're going to do that, surely there are better non-military figures (and authors) to draw on.
Yes, I'm probably on the wrong board to be discussing literature when so many people express their contempt for art- wait, I think you're talking about how your reply was combative. I don't really have a problem with that, but rather with the idea that you're overanalyzing if you dare to suggest that a work of the Second Red Scare was influenced by propaganda, or that ideas can be transmitted through art. This is worrying not only because it's ignorant of many important definitions of art, but also because propaganda is merely a form of advertisement, and denying the effects of advertisement is frankly harmful to you and to your ability to think critically. So it vexes me a little.
Invited by the new age, the elegant Sailor Neptune!
I mean, how often am I to enter a game of riddles with the author, where they challenge me with some strange and confusing and distracting device, and I'm supposed to unravel it and go "I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE" and take great personal satisfaction and pride in our mutual cleverness?
Bakustra wrote:Yes, I'm probably on the wrong board to be discussing literature when so many people express their contempt for art- wait, I think you're talking about how your reply was combative. I don't really have a problem with that, but rather with the idea that you're overanalyzing if you dare to suggest that a work of the Second Red Scare was influenced by propaganda, or that ideas can be transmitted through art. This is worrying not only because it's ignorant of many important definitions of art, but also because propaganda is merely a form of advertisement, and denying the effects of advertisement is frankly harmful to you and to your ability to think critically. So it vexes me a little.
Right, my disagreement with your characterization of Starship Troopers as Pro-America propaganda means that I don't know what propaganda is. It couldn't possibly be a legitimate disagreement with you. There's certainly not ANY better examples of pro-american propaganda during the entire red scare. Certainly nothing that doesn't have the decidedly mixed messages of Starship Troopers, where what leaps of the page are anti-communist messages, rather than a condemnation of just about every political concept in of the 20th century from communism to democracy.
So, since I am so obviously inferior to your outstanding intellect, I suppose I should admit defeat and cower in front of the mighty Bakustra - who wants to protect naive little me from the effects of advertising?
