Heinlein seems to have shared many of Rand's underlying notions -- about "ubermenschen" and how they should be the ruling elite, and about how ordinary morality need not bind such superior beings. These ideas pop up here and there in much of his fiction. Yet, Heinlein, for all his flaws was a far better writer than Rand because his characters seem more interesting... and because his fiction engages fascinating "what if" scenarios -- often about how certain technological changes would affect society. His dialog can by annoyingly chatty and cute, but it's leavened by humor and good cheer. I think he's a good example of how some basically objectionable political stances can be threaded effectively into entertainment or art.

I believe Heinlein was also involved with L. Ron Hubbard in getting Scientology going. But, my understanding is that, for Henlein, at least, it was all a big joke. At least I prefer to see it that way.

I've read that Scientology was a bar bet between Hubbard and Heinlein. Obviously can't prove it though.

Yes, you're right about Heinlein. He never forgot that all this stuff is basically aimed at entertaining adolescents. Ah, those fab 50s. It's comical that Roarke would have done the right thing and blown his brains out had he designed a structure as sloppy as Rand's best. It's sad that Rand was such a weakling that she could not exist without her sycophants. It's weird nobody's mentioned Jean Genet. It's time for me to go check out that Yeats poem.

Heinlein seems to have shared many of Rand's underlying notions -- about "ubermenschen" and how they should be the ruling elite, and about how ordinary morality need not bind such superior beings.

Ayn Rand didn't have those beliefs. Morality applies to all men the same. There is no special morality or special privilege for any people. You are simply left free to live your life and pursue your happiness.

There was no "ruling elite". That ruling elite thing seems to happen under left wing states, such as the Soviet Union.

You leftists are just flat out weird people, who can never seem to shake your pre-conceived notions of the world, and never seem to see the world you yourself endorse is often what you condemn.

As to Heinlein, I never got that sense from him either. He believed in a free society.

Okay, here is the funny part, why do you leftists have such a problem with freedom? Why do you have such vitriol for those who endorse individual rights?

Yeah. Right. Those of us who don't share The Faith are all trampling on your individual rights.

In fact, Heinlein quite directly wrote about a "ruling elite" in Assignment in Eternity, Elsewhen, and Starship Troopers, and strongly suggested it in Stranger in a Strange Land and Tunnel in the Sky All entertaining, engrossing books that I enjoyed very much. I'm not sure Ayn Rand would've approved though.

That you translate any lack of reverence for Rand into a "left/right" conflict suggests something about how you read books and perceive the world. Expressing skepticism about an author you like really does not equate with this "vitriol" thingie you've teased out. It is entirely possible to respect human rights and still not share your ardor for Ayn Rand. To suppose otherwise is just small minded.

EbenCooke:

In fact, Heinlein quite directly wrote about a "ruling elite" in Assignment in Eternity, Elsewhen, and Starship Troopers, and strongly suggested it in Stranger in a Strange Land and Tunnel in the Sky All entertaining, engrossing books that I enjoyed very much. I'm not sure Ayn Rand would've approved though.

Elsewhen is one of the four novellas that comprise Assignment in Eternity, not an independent work.

Nietzsche's philosophical concept is about racial improvement - designing the future, better version of man. It's awfully tough to see how Johnnie Rico or Rod Walker fit into this concept at all. No, not tough. Impossible. They're both complete lunkheads who undergo considerable personal improvement but remain flawed human beings (and, let's face it, lunkheads).

Michael Valentine Smith is certainly 'superhuman' in many respects, but he's essentially a mirror held up to 60s American culture. More importantly, it's made quite clear that his virtues are not the result of actually being superior in any way but the mere accident of being raised by aliens. Indeed, a major theme of the book is that anyone can attain the enlightenment he experiences.

From what I remember about Star Ship Troopers, it's not the way you portray it. There was maximum freedom. In fact, if you joined the military you could quit at any time. I'd have to re-read it to get it down accurately, but I didn't get the sense anyone was forced to do anything. Quite the opposite.

As to trampling on individual rights, that's exactly what leftists do. You guys don't believe in individual rights. A man has the right to His Life, His Liberty, the fruits of HIS labors and the pursuit of HIS happiness. You guys don't believe in property rights or freedom, just look at your desire to control the health care system, the banking system, etc.

Listen, I don't care if you like Rand's work or not. What you are doing is mis-representing it. That's what I object to. If you want to argue a point is wrong on the merits, I'm all for that. I might learn something if you had that perspective. The problem is that in this territory, this Slate article, it's been nothing but a series mis-representations. That is anything but constructive.

EbenCooke:

Yeah. Right. Those of us who don't share The Faith are all trampling on your individual rights.

In fact, Heinlein quite directly wrote about a "ruling elite" in Assignment in Eternity, Elsewhen, and Starship Troopers, and strongly suggested it in Stranger in a Strange Land and Tunnel in the Sky All entertaining, engrossing books that I enjoyed very much. I'm not sure Ayn Rand would've approved though.

That you translate any lack of reverence for Rand into a "left/right" conflict suggests something about how you read books and perceive the world. Expressing skepticism about an author you like really does not equate with this "vitriol" thingie you've teased out. It is entirely possible to respect human rights and still not share your ardor for Ayn Rand. To suppose otherwise is just small minded.

see the post above for stranger, which I can't improve on. On starship troopers, Heinlein's idea was that there should NOT be a fixed elite, but those who volunteered to serve their planet be the ones allowed to vote. Now if you didn't do so, you weren't excluded from any other business venture, etc., but if you wanted the right to do something, you had to demonstrate *personal responsibility* first. This was for each generation, not an inherited right.

He said the opposite of what you suggest. (btw, for those who haven't read the book, this is really children's lit, not a philisophical treatise).

"As to trampling on individual rights, that's exactly what leftists do. You guys don't believe in individual rights. A man has the right to His Life, His Liberty, the fruits of HIS labors and the pursuit of HIS happiness. You guys don't believe in property rights or freedom, just look at your desire to control the health care system, the banking system, etc.

Listen, I don't care if you like Rand's work or not. What you are doing is mis-representing it. That's what I object to."

Hahaha.

Xando:

EbenCooke:

In fact, Heinlein quite directly wrote about a "ruling elite" in Assignment in Eternity, Elsewhen, and Starship Troopers, and strongly suggested it in Stranger in a Strange Land and Tunnel in the Sky All entertaining, engrossing books that I enjoyed very much. I'm not sure Ayn Rand would've approved though.

Elsewhen is one of the four novellas that comprise Assignment in Eternity, not an independent work.

Nietzsche's philosophical concept is about racial improvement - designing the future, better version of man. It's awfully tough to see how Johnnie Rico or Rod Walker fit into this concept at all. No, not tough. Impossible. They're both complete lunkheads who undergo considerable personal improvement but remain flawed human beings (and, let's face it, lunkheads).

Michael Valentine Smith is certainly 'superhuman' in many respects, but he's essentially a mirror held up to 60s American culture. More importantly, it's made quite clear that his virtues are not the result of actually being superior in any way but the mere accident of being raised by aliens. Indeed, a major theme of the book is that anyone can attain the enlightenment he experiences.

Yup, there are various flavors of "superior man" in the various writings. Most of them do not imply Superman in the comic book sense. But Elsewhen certainly does use the term "superior man" to mean a person (man or woman) born with the potential for mental development beyond us poor drudges. And Heinlein specifically states the desirability of keeping the gene pool for superior man distinct from that of the unwashed masses (I believe it was written in the early '40s, before we'd acquired a revulsion to eugenics). He also gives them an impliicit right to assassinate Evil persons. It's all quite good storytelling -- quick moving, quick-witted, and engaging. Starship Troopers does not assume any particular genetic advantages, but it does describe the "citizens" as those who enlist as Troopers and are therefore awarded special privileges in the society. These and other concepts are all arguable.. and, in their way, fun. Which was my original point: that a skilled writer can posit some tenuous moral precepts and still bring us along for the ride.

"Starship Troopers" was WW2 in outer space. Heinlein took the war experience and transposed it to the distant future and made it a model for society where only veterans could vote. This utopia was a state of eternal war and glorified militarism: Without veterans there could be no government, and without wars, no veterans, so war was the normal state of society.

In the United States after WW2, Heinlein's plan would have restricted the franchise to about 10% of the U.S. population, almost all male. Add to this some of Heinlein's other social ideas, such as expanding the death penalty to eliminate genetic undesirables, and returning to flogging and other medieval punishments, and I'm pretty glad to be living in a real democracy, and not in one of his sci-fi utopias.

I think some people make a mistake by assuming that Heinlein was endorsing the quasi-fascistic societies he portrayed in some of his works. I'm of the opinion that most of them were just part of the science fiction genre, which is to say "what would society be like if x happened."

Honestly the more creepy thing about Heinlein to me is (particularly in his later works) his constantly writing not-so-thinly veiled versions of himself into his books in order to have them have sex with underaged girls (some of whom were the character's own offspring). Farnham's Freehold is especially egregious about this. While it might give a 15 year old a boner to read about Farnham banging his son's 17 year old girlfriend (and later his same-aged daughter) because she was overwhelmed by how manly Farnham was, as a 35 year old I was just grossed out. Honestly I made it through the son's girlfriend banging but when it got to the point where his daughter was enthusiastic about screwing him I dropped it in the trash.

LOL! I quit reading Heinlein's books for just that reason, he seemed to transform from an old-style sci fi writer to a dirty old man. His old books like "farmer in the sky", "have space suit will travel", etc. are fun, but he did seem to slip a cog somewhere along the line.

IIRC correctly both of those young female characters were out of college, not 17. I think one was even divorced.

As for incest, obviously a taboo subject, but one which has been a constant fact in actual human and animal existence.

I am no great defender of the merits of Heinlein, I find him overrated, but lets keep the facts straight when accusing him of lusting after under-aged women (I suppose it is possible they were 17 year old college graduates, I read it several years ago).

"Stranger In A Strange Land" shares two things with "Atlas Shrugged". One is the championing of individual rights over a collectivist state -- a noble sentiment. The other is that both were unable to make their point without resorting to fantasy.

SIASL's hero, in the end, proved to be an angel incarnated as a real man. Nice literary touch, but if I'm what I was when I read it -- a young man seeking truth about the world I lived in -- absolutely useless. As the book drew to a close, Heinlein stated Social Darwinism as clearly as could be, when Michael is told that he represents a superior type of human being who will replace ordinary humans. Except we then learn that he's NOT a superior human being, he's not human at all. The whole fucking book has been a fantasy, and there's no way to take it seriously.

AS posits its ideal society in a canyon in Colorado, where the intelligent have retreated from the world and created a perfect society based upon the principle that individual rights ONLY matter. Nice, until you start to THINK a little bit about the perfect world Rand has described in that valley and realize that it could not possibly exist. You cannot build a copper smelter, as Francisco doies, without a large work force to manufacture not only the smelter, but its materials. Rand doesn't talk about them being present -- only a handful of very samrt people plus a few up-and-coming underlings.

Orchards are present in Galt's Gulch but Rand never says how the fruit in them is picked and marketed. The orchards belong to Richard Halley, who is writing music at his day job. We know, from long experience, that large scale farming requires a low-wage work force to be profitable. Halley could not, in between symphonies, pick enough apples to supply such Francisco's copper workers -- there would be too many of them. You cannot have it both ways -- either there are a tiny number of people in Galt's Gulch, in which case the level of industrial production is limited to the craft level, or there are enough people to man an industrial base, in which case the Gulch cannot possibly meet their most basic needs. It's a child's world, where to imagine something is to be able to make it. People who have worked in industrial settings, as I had already when I read AS, can see that it's the fantasy of somebody who has never worked in a real industry.

And it is mostly children -- that is, minds too young to understand the realities of a mass production society -- who believe that Rand's philosophy has any hope of working in the real world.

Rand and Heinlein were both good writers -- that is where I DO disagree with the reviewer. But neither could make a coherent case for their political views without resorting to fantasy.