Robert A Heinlein

No, Heinlein very much was a socialist in his early adult life, and was open about it. The reason he started writing stories was to pay off debts incurred during a failed election run for a California political office, on the EPIC (End Poverty In California) platform created by Upton Sinclair (hardly a raging fanatic for "private industry rules supreme" ).

I think I must be a little confused about what socialism means—granted I'm still finishing up my political science class, and am living in America where "Socialism is Evil" (That's a joke/sarcasm moment, ya'll). In my definition (and this is probably where I'm wrong)Socialism is government aid for those who need it. But I'm confused because I know that Heinlein created Tanstaafl, and in his book Cat who Walks Through Walls, there seems to be a good argument against socialism that leads to the protagonist getting shot because his mentee strongly disagreed with him (simplification of one of the plot points but I'm trying to avoid spoiler tags here). So, what's that all about? Also, as I understood it Tanstaafl is purely about non-socialism. There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch encompasses many forms of thought and is basically the motto of Luna. Part of Tanstaafl is that the government gives no hand outs, not even free air. Luna is Heinlein's magnum opus, is it not? So what's that all about? (PS: I heart Parentheses)

edited 6th Jul '10 10:21:10 AM by Amarys

We're talking about the difference in the political points of view expressed in Heinlein's works across his lifetime.

Well then, was he socialist in early works? Is that what the point is? In that case, what a drastic change! I've only read his later works, except for Stranger In A Strange Land.

Very basically (and I do mean very), socialism at its heart is based on collective control of resources for the purpose distribution and use that's supposed to be more fair than capitalism. While not all flavors of socialism (like just about any other human theory/philosophy/faith/etc, there's more than one kind) make the government the controlling entity, those that do are more generally what get referred to as socialism as a negative label.

The devil, of course, is in the details, but since this isn't strictly a political thread, I'll just point to the article in The Other Wiki. In general, I'm not particularly trusting of Wikipedia as a source, but it does provide a passable starting point. Web searches are, of course, another option, if you feel like spending many, many, many hours trying to sort out what's reasonably useful and what's crap. Definitions of "reasonably useful" and "crap" are left as an exercise for the reader.

edited 6th Jul '10 1:21:47 PM by Nohbody

Changing the subject just a bit here: Does anyone know what happened in the end of the Cat Who Walks Through Walls? If so, could you explain it to me? I really don't get it, other than finding Lazarus Long kind of annoying.

^^

I forget where specifically, but somewhere in the Expanded Universe (no, not that one) collection, he specifically mentions that he was, at the time of the statement, a socialist. Unfortunately, all I have is a dead tree version, so there's no convenient ctrl-f to find the passage.

In any case, considering he's quite unavailable for comment, nowadays, and he certainly was not socialist later in his writing career, it's ultimately not that great an issue. YMMV, of course.

edited 6th Jul '10 3:03:46 PM by Nohbody

^^ Short version: They pulled off a Time Travel gambit to rescue Mike Mycroft, got attacked by the bad guys (the evil time travelling group(s)), then were Left Hanging, with the unanswered question of whether they would be rescued or not.

If you read To Sail Beyond The Sunset, you know that they were, in fact, rescued. Evidently the bad guys were done with them once it was clear they couldn't accomplish their goal.

edited 6th Jul '10 3:03:09 PM by Fighteer

The only Heinlein I've read is Job: A Comedy of Justice, and parts of Friday and The Number of the Beast. Looking on Wikipedia, it seems these were all released in a row.

So I thought I'd ask, are his other books as Author Tractish as those, or should I try something from a different point in his career?

Besides Job I've read Starship Troopers and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, both of which seemed about as tracty.

As far as I can tell, they are all tracty. It's part of Heinlein's *ahem*charm*hemhem*. In fact, AFAIK Friday was the least essayish of all of them (and had one of the better little in-universe plot-twists). Thanks for explaining Cat Who Walks Through Walls. I'll find "Into the Sunset", cause I haven't read that one yet and yeah, I was heartbroken at the end of "Cat". not that richard was my favorite character ever (I love Valentine Michael Smith and Hazel and Friday best), but I felt awful for Pixel and Gretchen. (side note: for a seriously flawed heroine, check out Friday; she's got low self estem out the wazoo.) Another subject on Heinlein: what do you guys think about the bits of incest he threw in? i'm thinking specifically about the time traveling incest he seems to toy with. That, and why is every protagonist naked at some point? Thoughts?

We've got some stuff about socialism on Economics.

edited 6th Jul '10 4:29:58 PM by Deboss

I don't think I remember any filibusters in I Shall Fear No Evil. A little Values Dissonance on what's masculine and feminine, perhaps, and one weird ending, but no filibusters.

A tract doesn't have to have filibusters.

About incest? Heinlein was firmly convinced of the values of a Free-Love Future. His opinion seemed to be that a rational, healthy human would not balk at loving any number of other rational, healthy humans, regardless of imposed cultural mores and often regardless of gender. Sexuality is a fundamental human trait and should be celebrated, not made taboo.

Ergo, the only rational reason incest can be considered harmful is from a biological point of view, that being the risk of conceiving defective children. From a social point of view, mentally healthy, consenting adults who happen to be related to one another can go at it like rabbits as long as there isn't a genetic risk. Being related is merely a datum, not a proscription.

Lazarus Long, probably Heinlein's second most famous male lead, happily (and more or less shamelessly) has sex with his mother, his sister(s), and his twin opposite-sex clones. Although in all the above cases he requires some convincing that it's okay from the females in question, being admittedly subject to the imposed cultural mores of his upbringing.

Valentine Michael Smith, once he got the idea of sex, founded an entire religion on a Free-Love Future, from the same basic principle — specifically, that sex is at once the most basic and the highest form of human relationships and to make it taboo is to pervert the fundamental nature of humanity.

As for nudity, that's another basic outgrowth of his view on cultural taboos; namely that a rational person will feel free to discard any morals that don't suit him, and the only reason to wear clothes is for protection from the elements and personal taste. Heinlein and his wife were apparently practicing nudists.

Edit: Eternal Sexual Freedom doesn't mean what I Thought It Meant...

edited 8th Jul '10 7:29:46 AM by Fighteer

Don't forget the wonderful wonderful pockets.

Back again. I've been thinking more about Heinlein and the accusations of him being a chauvinist. I was reading Spider Robinson's excellent article (linked above) and came to a conclusion. Heinlein was terribly ironic. This is most likely a Captain Obvious moment for me, but it's something important to realize for every newish (and even some older) Heinlein readers/fans. A lot of the dialogue can be misconstrued if one reads them in an unironic way. I'm gonna find some dialogue examples and come back to this, but I gotta go take a walk with my husband. Brb. (Is unironic a word? sure. I claim Cromulency.) EDIT: So here's what I'm saying. You take a passage from, oh, Cat Who Walks Through Walls, for example (that's the one I'm reading right now, for the third or fourth time) Here we are: ->Richard (who is crippled): "I carry the duffel bag and the tree. I'll strap my cane to the bag." ->Gewn: "Please don't be macho Richard." [after Richard's retort, including a bit about spanking] "yes dear, me Jane, you Tarzan. Now pick up the little tree."

In the end Gwen wins (with some more huffing from Richard, but it was token huffing). A clear case of sarcasm being hard to read in literature, I think. There are other, better examples, but I have to read carefully to find them (I'm starting in on The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, so never fear). One of the most egregious is Richard's threatening almost constantly to spank Gretchen. This is quite chauvinistic, as it belittles a grown woman, but then, Heinlein makes it pretty clear that Gretchen actually likes it, and in fact brought in the whole Spank me idea in the first place. There are also similar sequences in Stranger in a Strange land. I think it can't be argued that Heinlein was completely devoid of chauvinistic speech, and he seemed to like his women both capable of work and able to keep house (and to actually enjoy serving their husbands.) But then again, there are also loads of instances where the men serve the wives, and there's even a quadruplet family where the husbands are under slave contracts to the wives, and wouldn't have it any other way. Kinky, no? Definitely not chauvinistic. (Plus, I like serving my husband too. Am I chauvinist?) The chauvinistic tendencies of Heinlein's are minimal, easy to spot, and come, in part, from the time period he was writing in. Not that the latter excuses him completely, but it is a good explanation. It's for this same reason that we still respect Jefferson's writings even though he owned slaves. Not to say that Heinlein was quite as important as Jefferson, but give him 50 more years, and then, who knows? My point is, (and this has been my point all along, from my first post here, paratexting aside) Heinlein's flaws are one-apart actually flawed writing, and one-part part of his charm, and the third part is his personal style. Obviously, if you don't like it don't read it, but respect the dude for the leaps and bounds he made in making Science fiction an explorable genre. I realize I'm probably preaching to the choir here, and it is also past my bed time. I'll come back tomorrow and change everything, most likely.

edited 8th Jul '10 12:48:44 AM by Amarys

I'm interested to see what you post, but I have heard that before, in respect to Stranger In A Strange Land- but it's a Poe's Law case for me- I can't tell 1950s chauvinism from Heinlein's (supposed) parody of 1950s chauvinism.

^^I get the above exactly, and I have to keep reminding myself that there are people for whom it isn't obvious, who actually take those things at face value.

edited 8th Jul '10 9:04:47 AM by Fighteer

Are you applying to Amarys? I see they edited their post after I had originally posted.

I pretty much agree with that analysis. My problem is that I think Heinlein has something close to a cult of personality- note that while it got edited out, on his page here, someone originally characterized him as one of the "best writers ever". As a result, you have people claiming that he was satirizing sexism rather than just being a product of his time.

Not sure how to best phrase it, but Heinlein kind of had this thing where he would say he loved women and would think of them as sort of having the real power in the relationship due to their wiles- he wasn't misogynistic, but I'd certainly peg him as kind of a chauvinist.

I was indeed, and I edited my post to reflect that.

My take on the "chauvinist" issue is that Heinlein had a very un-politically correct opinion: men and women are different from each other, and vive la difference! In short, we shouldn't be trying to treat the sexes as equal, because they clearly are not; we should be celebrating each for what it brings to the table.

He also was not reticent in describing masculine flaws, including the macho stereotypes that get men killed in stupid ways. He similarly depicted some negative homosexual stereotypes, which apparently offends people who fail to realize that said stereotypes actually exist, and that Heinlein wrote about healthy gay relationships as well.

Heinlein's writing is such that critics, in denouncing him for whatever their particular bugaboo may be, are actually doing more to reveal their own flaws than his. A prime example being all the people who interpret Starship Troopers as being a fascist apology. Or his attitude about sexual inequality being misogynistic.

Then there are the opinions he clearly held that for some inexplicable reason have escaped modern criticism, such as his absolute disdain for religion. It strikes me as absurd that a would be Moral Guardian might get more exercised about his depiction of "free love" than his bald assertion that Christianity is a scam and most modern moral systems are bankrupt remnants of ancient tradition. Evidently those issues are too big and abstract for them to handle, or they assume Viewers Are Morons and miss them entirely.

edited 8th Jul '10 9:20:23 AM by Fighteer

I think you described his views well. Did Heinlein ever portray male homosexual relationships as positive?- because in Stranger In A Strange Land, while he seemed positive toward lesbians, he came across as negative toward male homosexuals- which made me think it was a case of Girl on Girl Is Hot.

Actually, in Stranger, he seems to use the character of Duke as an Audience Surrogate for a "normal", mildly homophobic male. In the chapter when Duke reports back to Jubal on what's going on inside Smith's "cult", it's the cavalier attitude towards male homosexuality, including being propositioned for the same, that really sets him off and causes him to decide the place is dangerous. After Jubal sets him straight (no pun intended), he heads back and the next time we see him, he's a happy member of their polyamory. While Smith did modify himself to become slightly less attractive to other men, it was largely to fend off advances from people who had internalized the negative homosexual stereotypes. Smith said of himself at one point that he was literally incapable of peforming the sex act with someone who was not as happily free as himself, male or female, and it's strongly implied that he had sex with the male members of his Nakama.

Also, not all Girl on Girl Is Hot; in Friday, the titular heroine, while happily and lustily heterosexual, is very uncomfortable about lesbian relationships; this is implied to be more a result of her self-esteem issues than anything unnatural. The one exception she is willing to make, Janet, is a healthy bisexual who is not coincidentally involved in a healthy group marriage. His notional Author Avatar in the story, "Boss", tells Friday, "All humans have soi-disant 'mixed-up genes'. There are two types of people: those who know this and those who do not."

Again, the point seems to be that healthy, consenting adults should feel free to have any sexual relationships they desire, and a symptom of an unhealthy adult is the inability to emotionally handle homosexual relationships, either by happily participating or non-hurtfully rejecting them.

My personal opinion in the matter is that Heinlein was reflecting the values of his own upbringing and the tolerances of the time he was writing in, in which the majority of heterosexual men are uncomfortable about gay relationships. I find it hard to believe that he escaped this; in fact his Author Avatar, Lazarus Long (to whom Heinlein gave an upbringing virtually identical to his own) even states this concept outright at more than one point. Paraphrased: "Intellectually I realize that it's fine and normal, but emotionally I'm handicapped by having grown up in the Bible Belt and absorbing some of these antiquated attitudes." The most notable times this occurs are when he's propositioned for sex by his twin clones and when he's propositioned by male members of his group marriage.

It's possible that Heinlein himself was uncomfortable about gay sex and chose to handle it discretely rather than explicitly. Then again, his writing is very PG overall; I can't think of any actual sex scenes, gay or straight, mainly Sexy Discretion Shots.

What I like most about Heinlein's writing is the underlying intellectual honesty. If he's prejudiced about a topic, or his characters are, he comes right out and says it. Intellectual dishonesty is one of the great evils that his protagonists almost universally combat.

edited 8th Jul '10 11:07:04 AM by Fighteer

Edit:

"It's possible that Heinlein himself was uncomfortable about gay sex and chose to handle it discretely rather than explicitly."

I loved your post, it summed up my own somewhat incoherent thoughts exactly. I just wanted to state his 'PG' writing had more to do with censorship and the audience of the time. There are actually some pretty lurid scenes in Number of the Beast, if you can slog through the mathematics to get at them. That said, Heinlein's version of "graphic sex scene" is still gauzy pink curtains, flickering candles and rose petals compared to what we get today. I would also agree that I got a definitely "uncomfortable" vibe about homosexual relationships from Heinlein. I think he himself wanted to handle it gently, and still was an advocate of free love, but was not interested in men that way, and didn't know quite how to reconcile that. Moar Edit!

Then there are the opinions he clearly held that for some inexplicable reason have escaped modern criticism, such as his absolute disdain for religion. It strikes me as absurd that a would be Moral Guardian might get more exercised about his depiction of "free love" than his bald assertion that Christianity is a scam and most modern moral systems are bankrupt remnants of ancient tradition. Evidently those issues are too big and abstract for them to handle, or they assume Viewers Are Morons and miss them entirely.

This has always bugged me about criticisms of Heinlein's work, but I think I can understand it. Heinlein's disdain for religious institutions, especially Christianity, is something that was so blatant that it gets wrapped up in all the other criticism of his political views and tracty writing. Personally, it's the part of his writing that bothers me most, since I'm a Christian and his writing clearly shows that he rarely spent time talking to loving Christian people. At least, that's what I assume. (Phew! I'm still learning all the tags for forum stuff)

edited 8th Jul '10 11:27:13 AM by Amarys