Ha I also asked my dad about it maybe 10-15 years ago. He’s a huge scifi fan and I tore through his library of asimov, Heinlein, silverberg, Anderson, etc as a teen 10 years before that. He remains convinced that it’s a satire from a conservative about dangerous conservatism. Which is funny to write as a lefty
Militarist liberal, shaped by his experience in the US Navy during WW2. He’s been accused of thinking of the ideal military officer as a modern warrior-poet.
People who call him an outright fascist are simply wrong, though he meant Starship Troopers seriously. The movie was written and directed as satire, by a director who never finished the very short novel, so don’t consider it as a source of Heinlein’s views.
While he puts military service on a pedestal, the most fascistic element of the work is probably his endorsing of “citizenship through service,” ie you have to earn your vote through a year or whatever of government service. In the movie it’s implied as military only, the book makes it clear you can also do civil service.
That is probably the most common misunderstanding of the novel, even Wikipedia claims it is military only.
I guess it depends what meaning of “liberal” you go by. In the US he would not be a liberal at all (in the sense of a Hubert Humphrey).
He was consistent career-long in hating a few things as far as I can tell : prudery, collectivism, and slavery (although he’d say the last two are redundant).
“Cold warrior libertarian with a frontier fantasy” is I think how I’d try to say it for an American audience.
The book was a commentary on fascism. Not a celebration of it.
I thought that when I read it too, but I asked my folks and they were big scifi fans at the time, and it’s unironic.
wikipedia also says its unironic, for what its worth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers#Criticism_of_militarism
If you read Heinlein’s wikipedia page it also checks out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein#Views
Ha I also asked my dad about it maybe 10-15 years ago. He’s a huge scifi fan and I tore through his library of asimov, Heinlein, silverberg, Anderson, etc as a teen 10 years before that. He remains convinced that it’s a satire from a conservative about dangerous conservatism. Which is funny to write as a lefty
Heinlein also wrote characters who spoke approvingly of their hyperlibertarian society in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
I think his politics aren’t so easy to pin down.
Sure they are.
Militarist liberal, shaped by his experience in the US Navy during WW2. He’s been accused of thinking of the ideal military officer as a modern warrior-poet.
People who call him an outright fascist are simply wrong, though he meant Starship Troopers seriously. The movie was written and directed as satire, by a director who never finished the very short novel, so don’t consider it as a source of Heinlein’s views.
While he puts military service on a pedestal, the most fascistic element of the work is probably his endorsing of “citizenship through service,” ie you have to earn your vote through a year or whatever of government service. In the movie it’s implied as military only, the book makes it clear you can also do civil service.
That is probably the most common misunderstanding of the novel, even Wikipedia claims it is military only.
I guess it depends what meaning of “liberal” you go by. In the US he would not be a liberal at all (in the sense of a Hubert Humphrey).
He was consistent career-long in hating a few things as far as I can tell : prudery, collectivism, and slavery (although he’d say the last two are redundant).
“Cold warrior libertarian with a frontier fantasy” is I think how I’d try to say it for an American audience.
He himself not only ran as a democrat, but described himself as a radical liberal.