Well that’s all well and good. But I don’t think the criticism, of Heinlein’s views or this specific work, is that it might slip into authoritarianism.
Its a utopian work. And that complaint can be made about any Utopian fiction. Which sort of how we developed distopian fiction. Take the creepy implications of utopian works to their full conclusion as a work of criticism. That’s very much what Verhoeven did, play out Heinlein’s Utopia to its full Distopian implications.
Noone expects practical social proposals, or workable, sustainable models out of these. They’re hyperbolic, allegorical expressions of the benefits or shortcomings of socio-political ideologies.
The nut on Starship Troopers is about the particular ideologies and social ideas its set out to endorse. And that Heinlein seems to have genuinely bought into. The embrace and elevation of an overclass. Restriction of the franchise to a particular social class. The military as the moral center of society. Violence and war as the driver of social progress. A view of society as a zero sum struggle to survive/succeed. Both for cultures and individuals. The directly connected idea that individual actions are soley responsible for one’s “success” or social position.
Those ideas are deeply at odds with base concepts of liberalism, and have only grown more so. And many of them are at the very least fascist adjacent. You could say that what Heinlein did was present a non-authoritarian version of Fascism. In the same way that not all forms of socialism and communism are by necessity authoritarian.
Heinlein’s work was pretty key in the formation of modern right wing, capital L Libertarianism. And I pointed specifically to the Silicon Valley driven, technolibertarian strain because there are real similarities there. A superficially progressive position on social issues, racism shouldn’t be enforced and embedded in regulation as an example. Coupled with a denial of social factors and embedded biases. So without specific racist policies the position of minorities is only the result of their own failings and inadequacies. That ultimately reads as an after the fact justification for privileged social positions. A bit of circular logic that’s inexorably drawn from that individualist, Horatio Alger take on society.
And its not for nothing that we’ve just watched. Over the last decade or two. That exact strain of the right feed into, and morph into what are essentially openly fascist movements.
But like I said. Couldn’t finish the book. Think I threw my roomate’s copy at his head in college. So take that for what its worth.
To one extent or another he seems to have advocated for the base ideas and positions (if not specific practices) in his private life as well. Strikes me that the confusion comes from the fact that his politics don’t appear to have been entirely internally consistent to begin with. But he underwent a significant ideological shift. Having been some form of liberal earlier in life. With his earlier fiction work generally focusing on things where his politics were roughly consistent with progressive politics like race and gender roles. Before disavowing the left, and moving his writing more in directions where his ideas weren’t consistent with progressivism.
So its a confusion caused by fans who were attracted to that earlier writing because of its more progressive bent. Those areas that were roughly consistent with progressivism later. And Heinlein’s legit contributions to pushing a more inclusive approach to media. Attempting to reconcile that with his later politics and the aspects they find disturbing.
Picking up as in adopting? Or picking up as in not noticing?
Picking apart and identifying the agenda/biases in these things is half the point of reading them. And often times one of the more interesting angles on criticism. Sort of the frustrating thing about the Lovecraft debate. By refusing to acknowledge how fundamentally racist the man and his writing is you effectively ignore a fair bit of how it functions and where it comes from. As well as missing some bits here and there that may show HP struggling with his own bias (or at least using to fuel clever twists).
As for how you might miss the agenda entirely? A position of privilege often means you get to not notice negative effects and implications. Basically if negative effects are indirect or mild enough you can safely not even notice.
Its a fair bit of where the conservative denial of any form of racism that isn’t explicit or codified comes from. And the right wing social libertarian position that while explicitly racist policies, and racism are wrong. Absent that the social effects on minorities are simply the result of their own actions. Which has its root in part in early libertarian thinkers, including Heinlein, at around this time.
And I would have read your link and answered my own question. But that might have prevented me from tying this all up in a neat bow. That aborted film theory paper on utopia vs distopia in exploitation and B cinema, by way of Verhoeven/Heinlein and adaptation finally has a use!
