/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21449263]

>People who have monopoly on violence can tell others how to behave and because they are the strongest therefore they are right
>People can obtain citizenship in different ways as long as they benefit the state (whether one does work mining on some shithole or has a comfy research job) and they are both knowledgable and smart enough to use their voting powers properly
>Having to work for citizenship means that you are worthy of voting and have good character even if you are an opportinistic worm who will do whatever it takes to gain power
>People will definitely not become corrupt and put their nepotism to put family and friends into easy jobs while the rest of the applicants are put to grueling work
This book is retarded

[Anonymous No.21449274]

>>21449263
Isn't the entire point of the book how fascist ideology is retarded?

[Anonymous No.21449289]

I like Heinlein because he writes speculative fiction about alternative societies both on libertarian (Moon is a Harsh Mistress) and "fascist" (Starship Troopers) premises and considers them both with optimism and openness, I think it's missing the point to simply counter with the standard pessimistic response "Well your libertarian moon society would never work because (same old arguments against anarchism/libertarianism)" / "Well your fascist society would never work because (standard leftist criticisms of hierarchical societies)"

It's the fact that he doesn't stop every three paragraphs to show he's aware of common critiques of the ideal typical societies he's portraying that makes the book so interesting to think with, you get to really "live with" such a society for a good while and see its virtues, as they appear in the mind of someone for whom that society is the dream and the ideal. What is amazing to me is that Heinlein can do that for two diametrically opposed ideal types, the hierarchical and the anarchic.

[Anonymous No.21449330]

>>21449274
the opposite

[Anonymous No.21449354]

>>21449289

I find it so frustrating to engage with modern "book people" discussions on this topic because they accuse Heinlein of basically being a crypto fascist and Starship Troopers a straightforward thesis on what he personally believes.

No matter how hard I try to argue the point you've made, the way smearing works now, it always comes back to "Well I think this is what he really secretly believes and it's impossible to prove me wrong therefore the book is problematic"

I fucking hate these kids

[Anonymous No.21449446]

>>21449354
There's no separation from the author and their work for modern NPC readers. Their brains have been rewired by the internet to take everything at face value, so a book by an author reads, unconsciously, to them the same as a tweet.

[Anonymous No.21449469]

>ohmahgawd, you can't write about how a military' government is okay to live under
>No!
>No!

[Anonymous No.21449477]

>>21449274
Your mom is retarded

[Anonymous No.21449486]

>>21449446
>take everything at face value,
It's not just that, it's that they have never engaged with anything and tangibly experienced what it's like to realize something other than "basic/ordinary" consciousness exists, that moment when you realize that your own perception of the world is limited, that there is a less limited one beyond it, that you can assimilate this less limited perception and grow, and critically, that this must also be possible in other cases too, that you can't know what you don't know until you know it, so you have to go seek out other "otherness" of perception in order to grow to encompass it too.

Everything has been flattened and assimilated to a uniform "basic" outlook, with a core set of simplified principles comprehensible by a preteen: being nice is good, the bad guys are bad because they don't "accept" people for "who they are," throughout history there have been bad guys who (for no possibly valid reason) "repress" people from "expressing" themselves.

From these core childish principles, a very basic worldview is constructed in which most historical events and most facets of culture can be fitted: for example the purpose of art is self-expression; repressing self-expression is bad. The purpose of life, happiness, morality, is self-expression; repressing anyone in any way is bad. Across all entertainment media, the culturally stabilized symbol of "the good guys" is something like "plucky underdogs but also the smart sassy girl who mocks her oppressors even as they oppress her; tragically oppressed but also destined to win and have a big party afterwards."

It goes deeper than "people are so lazy these days," it's more like the rationale behind newspeak in 1984 but applied to the whole worldview, symbols, art, history, and not just words and concepts. Zoomers have never experienced self-doubt and self-overcoming, except in a superficial way like being gay and then heroically overcoming resistance to them being gay (which didn't exist but they'll invent some). Likewise they have never experienced being challenged by a work and finding their own categories of thought impoverished and in need of deconstruction or supplementation, they have only experienced subordinating everything they read/watch/hear instantly to "who is the oppressed self-expresser and who is the CRINGE oppressor?"

They also mediate everything through personalities because they grew up saturated with media in which there's always a screen with a persuasively and algorithmically shaped talking head telling them what to think in, essentially, adult babytalk. That's why they coordinate all their thoughts and cultural points of reference by means of which streamer or cultural figure they prefer as a friend simulator every night.

[Anonymous No.21451473]

>>21449263
This is why the movie is superior because it was written by someone who had to live through the sort of society Heinlein envisioned in ST and so packed it with just as much blatant propaganda that it was obvious how artificial and screwed said society was.

[Anonymous No.21451610]

>it is trillion years later
>retard number #123123123 got filtered by heinlein
love it
the book about anti nepotism and anti corruption (via military service), and the op takes nepotism and corruption as its main message

in unrelated news, i found myself once in the company of basically 1%ers one time
it was a one time thing for me, im definitely not a regular there nor will i ever will be lol
anyway these people, and im serious these are the richest types my country has, they were discussing shit hitting the fan scenarios, what would they do in the prepper/survivalism world, mainly how to preserve and maintain their wealth
it was all light hearted, but i was a bit shocked to hear it, this is what these people talk about among themselves on their day off?
they quickly got to conclusion that if money is no good, arms and weapons is what becomes the new money in society
so the discussion mainly shifted into how does one get himself control over armed organizations in the country, especially professional military
and they talked about everything from explosive collars to having a purposeful flaw in these people you can exploit, such as some kind of a disease they are immune to but no one else is
and to think that these people would stereotypically write laws in my country or at least have a big say through the lobbying and whatnot

reminded me a bit of starship troopers

[Anonymous No.21453122]

>>21449274
Yeah, pretty much.