Why so little action?

[Christopher]

Thank you all for the continued comments on this thread. It's two years later but I am still checking up on the new thoughts presented here.

I suppose my initial post was fueled by the difference in what I expected and what I found when I read Starship Troopers. This is not actually a failing in itself of ST. I had a similar reaction to the film Grizzly Man which my rant against on IMDb turned into 30 pages of discussion and private messages to me from some of the production team.

If you expect Meat and get fed Sawdust, you have every right to complain, was my position. Where fault lies depends... was it a production company that sold you sawdust and advertised it as a juicy steak?

So I'm happy to give ST some slack as it is what it is, and my expectations weren't driven by the author, but by the discussion of the author as being inspirational for lots of Sci Fi elements that are used not to give political commentary but to provide action entertainment and interesting fluff. Space Marines!

But let me comment further on more the book qua book, and why I think it's still problematic. I'll continue in separate comments as not to present such a wall-of-text.

[Christopher]

Starship Troopers as political commentary or even utopian or metaphorical analysis of what-ifs regarding rights....

I find it lacking. The book does not make a strong case for the oft cited argument that voting be tied to military service. So on this level, I think the book fails for me.

You might compare this to the works of Ayn Rand. Others, perhaps out of their distaste for her philosophy or perhaps not, argue that as literature the works are sub par.

My addition to this line of thought would be that while I find her philosophy very compelling, one major aspect of that is quick wit and lucid prose with which she describes her "objective" morality. The power is in its brevity. Regardless of the literature merit of her fiction, you must admit the page counts are astronomical in comparison to the philosophical pamphlets which state her case.

Bringing this back to Heinlein and ST, I would argue the same... that the word count needed to make the enfranchisement argument is few and yet the book is long. And it's not even compelling as persuasive rhetoric.

Rather, and I think my noticing of the pattern here, the grand appeal is red meat for real world military members. The boring aspects offer nostalgia to them and the philosophy has some appeal to them because it validates their service and speaks to their biases and ego.

But even that is not impressive. Steal from Peter to Pay Paul and you get Paul's vote... well, if you write a philosophy which grants enfranchisement to only one group, of course it's going to appeal to that group regardless of the quality of the prose or the argumentation.

On a practical level, the work should rather be appealing to the disenfranchised and making THEM agree that losing their voting rights is worth it to honor those being put forth as superior of that right. ST fails grandly in that.

You get to vote because you have daddy issues and mundane bureaucratic nonsense for most of the book? Those elements are off putting, not compelling. Would it not be far more appealing to have a more interesting and sympathetic character deserving of the vote and even one would would entice others to join the military to be like that protagonist and do what they do and reap the rewards?

I find little intellectual appeal to the military = vote argument. Frankly it's appalling. And stepping back even further, I'd argue that it's even irrelevant. Democracy is over-rated as it is.

Think for a moment about all the aspects of America or any other country that you can compare their theory of government, practice of politics, and quality of life for. How many elements, how many freedoms or rights or opportunities or great things about those nations are due to VOTING.

I contend very few. Voting is the rule of the mob. What I think makes modern nations great is not voting at all, but philosophically advanced Constitutions. Those are rather the opposite of voting and opinion and mob rule and whim and fashion.

We often use "Democracy" to be a filler word for modern free nations. But democracy has actually little to do with them. War and constitutions are the real bread and butter. War, as the maximal extension of politics, and constitutions as the real moral arguments writ clear.

I would argue that all the fantasies we might have about choosing BETTER people to vote are entirely subordinated by the Constitution and that means of thinking... namely the establishment of rights, what they are and what they mean.

It matters less who you vote for if their ability to rule your life are limited, no? It matters less who you vote for office if those offices are not given powers to control you.

Similarly, the tit-for-tat element of voting rights for military only is logically baseless as much as it appeals to rah-rah-the-troops. What level of service is worthy of a vote? Being a desk clerk in the military? That job certainly has none of the "giving your life" sentimentality. Why would a secretary in the military bureaucracy be worthy but one outside of it not?

And while combat positions do come with the risk of life, what is our theory of voting then? That those people would make _better_ decisions? It is trivial to make the counter arguments against this broad view. Namely that combat positions can easily select people who make poor decisions, whose options are limited to being a trigger puller taking orders blindly and expendable rather than a romantic view of heroic sacrifice and protective prowess.

Heinlein doesn't seem to make any distinction between an idealized patriot defender hero and some schlub whose only use to society is to be a pulse with a pulse rifle or cannon fodder.

We love a good story about when the military represents the best in society, but it can often just as easily represent the worst. So enlistment doesn't necessarily provide a meritorious benchmark for voting rights (even if, like me, you think that voting is a shell game and the real best parts of governing philosophy are above mob sentiment).

I can understand why so many Veterans like the book and the message, but does it really make a good case? I don't think it does at all. Not as literature and not as philosophy. Nostalgia and dog-whistles for Vets aren't really enough to form the basis of an interesting book or compelling argument outside of that limited audience.

That, and my continued observation that while Heinlein might have mentioned space marines first, the pulpy action fun stuff has really taken off in other places, its birth in ST is almost abortive vs. foundational.

To make the philosophical political voting argument stronger, there's a dozens things he could have done that would have made more sense and been more appealing and persuasive.