/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14955478]

Was it autism?

[Anonymous No.14955571]

Naw its fun sci fi, the politics are really easy to set aside for some fun bug action, and its length is preculisive to an in depth description of a political reality. And even then the politics That are present are also fun within the fiction, it offers a fine thought experiment for the budding reader.

I'm doing my part!

[Anonymous No.14955582]

>>14955478
That dog analogy was pretty good desu.

[Anonymous No.14955668]

the meme character of the youtuber is question aside, this is an interesting take:

https://youtu.be/kVpYvV0O7uI

[Anonymous No.14955714]

>>14955571
I don't think you read the book because there really isn't a whole lot of politics or even bug killing in the book. This is a book about the day to day life in the military and it's surprisingly authentic for being science fiction. If you did read it then good job being able to set aside that passing mention of military service being required to vote because that's about it in terms of politics.

[Anonymous No.14955980]

The sci-fi story as a whole is a framing device for the authors ideologies. It's a vehicle to convey the ideology to children (That is to say it is at least written on a level accessible to adolescents so as to cast the widest net. Same reason news papers are written on a 6th grade level.) Its longwinded and boring with the promise of some sweet bug action but he blows his load too early and can only manage to poot out a small follow up load at the end. Heinlein took way too long to say this "nationalism is good and desirable under the right circumstances." What those circumstances is left a bit ill defined. You could extrapolate from there never being two characters of the same race side by side that the author believes "nationalism=good, whitenationalism=bad" but for as long as the author drones on yet still doesn't manage to make that last part clear, I'm forced to be live that he left it vague because he believes his views to be self evident. Judging from the books mostly positive reception perhaps those views are self evident just not to me. It begs the question, what utopia is this a military force for? And what real world society dose it represent?

[Anonymous No.14956005]

>>14955980
Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, maybe Heinlein really just wanted to tell us that basic training was hard but he felt it overall to be worth it.

[Anonymous No.14956092]

>>14955582
Fuck that dog analogy.

[Anonymous No.14956132]

>>14956092
You probably fuck dogs lol.

[Anonymous No.14956258]

>>14956132
Herp derp beat your kids like you beat your dog, maybe they'll squander their life like Roger Young.

[Anonymous No.14956290]

If there where any hint of irony in the book then id say Heinlein was a genius.

[Anonymous No.14956296]

>>14956258
If you don't use corporal punishment you do them a greater disfavour.

[Anonymous No.14956342]

>>14955714
The sparse politics have caused a bit of hubbub around it, and it's honestly been a couple years, mid-high school, so a lot of my memory of it is definitely tinged by the movie.

[Anonymous No.14956478]

>>14956342
The people I see talking about politics in Starship Troopers either haven't read it or they don't know what fascism is. People are mindlessly echoing leftists who call everything fascist and it's very stupid.

[Anonymous No.14956524]

>>14956296
People are more nuanced than that, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Never deal in absolutes, that's the flaw in Heinleins vision too, hes to prescriptive to be engaging or believable.

[Anonymous No.14956552]

>>14956524
>Never deal in absolutes
Doesn't that mean we should occasionally deal with absolutes?

[Anonymous No.14956560]

>>14956478
But this is literally a story about space fascism. Srsly fren don't be too knee jerk just because the lefties are right this time.

[Anonymous No.14956566]

>>14956552
No dumbass

[Anonymous No.14956593]

>>14956560
No, it literally isn't. The society in Starship Troopers is democratic which is antithetical to fascist theory. The only thing about it that people often confuse with being fascistic is that the franchise is limited to people who served in the military. Even if we suppose that democracy could exist under fascism it's still a retarded point because that's how things were in the US for a long time. That's how things were for a lot of countries before even WW1.

Just stop with the bullshit.

[Anonymous No.14956617]

>>14956566
But "never" is an absolute.

[Anonymous No.14957317]

>>14956593
Let me try and put this in terms you can understand. You facists have as much nuance as the fags. But from the outside weather gay or les or bi or trans or non binary they all look like fags. That's how I see you bootlickers.

[Anonymous No.14957374]

>>14956296
An overbearing preponderance of evidence suggests otherwise.

[Anonymous No.14957472]

>>14955478
Lefty cuckolds btfo by space drama lmao

[Anonymous No.14957631]

>tfw Jonny is actually Fillipino in the book

[Anonymous No.14957668]

I remember being genuinely surprised to find out that the movie was making fun of fascism.

[Anonymous No.14957722]

>>14955478
It was a pretty good book honestly. The movie adaptation was fucking aids tho

[Anonymous No.14958008]

>>14956478
This is god tier brainletism. Starship troopers is retarded politically. Actually thinking that it's substantive enough that the people shitting on it must not have read it is just taking it beyond the fucking pale.

The portrayed society objectively is authoritarian. Infractions are punished with torture or death at the drop of a hat. This is just logically incorrect to do. We know from real life the societies with the lowest crime rates disproportionately have lighter punishments and put money into good social services and quality of life.

And limiting the franchise in any way is a dumb idea because the problem with politics isn't "unworthy" people voting for bad ideas. This vastly exaggerates the power the voting has in electoral capitalist politics and how the upper classes define the actual limits and broad trajectories of what's going on. No aspect of the system will be improved by restricting the franchise.

But even accepting the premise that it would be desirable to have a more selfless, noble voting base, the system is deeply flawed in providing that. For one thing the advantages of citizenship mean that serving, even if the system is good, is not a selfless, self sacrificial act. It's just a difficult act of selfishness. You're not selecting for selfless, high minded, noble people, just people able to put up with bad shit for personal gain on a temporary basis.

This also precludes any ability of people who disagree with the system, but are correct in their disagreement, from reforming it. An Israeli who refused to serve in the IDF would, under a starship troopers like system, never be able to vote against the things that made them take this principled, selfless, noble stand. Such a person can be sent to prison for a year. They will literally have demonstrated more selfless nobility than the average "citizen", but will be denied the franchise. This ensures that the system will stagnate and never improve, because it selects for people who are complacently supportive of the system enough to kill for it.

All that and people miss that there's a full page of the book that argues genocide is 100 percent good. That because there are limited resources, you should be willing to kill everyone in every other society at the drop of the hat because it's "Darwinian". It's actually a line of reasoning that, if accepted, 100 percent justifies everything the nazis ever did. Everything else is either quixotically dumb or authoritarian, but this central pillar of the books ideology literally is just genocidal fascism and people are 100 percent correct in saying so.

[Anonymous No.14958036]

>>14958008
Fascism is not a synonym for authoritarianism. I'm not reading the rest of your book.

[Anonymous No.14958039]

>>14958036
Retard.

[Anonymous No.14958083]

>>14957317
Your opinion doesn’t matter because you are not a self actual over human being and cleared for elimination. Bye!

[Anonymous No.14958240]

>>14958083
I sometimes can't tell what's performative and what's no on this site. Fuck maybe I'm autistic.

[Anonymous No.14958280]

>>14958083
>Your opinion doesn’t matter because you are not a self actual over human being and cleared for elimination. Bye!

[Anonymous No.14958830]

>>14956290
>irony
I prefer sincerity thank you.