The writings of Science Fiction writer Robert Heinlein--the acknowledged grand master and nearly single-handed creator of realistic, near-future SF--are not for everybody. [Alexei Panshin has apparently devoted his life to trashing him.] And as much as Libertarians would like to claim him on the basis of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, the Grand Old Man ranged in his life (and in his fiction) from being a near-socialist to a jingoistic militarist.
The older he got, the further to the right most of his fiction got--except (as with Stranger in a Strange Land) he was very far on the left.
His letters and papers--now available online (for pay, but at extremely reasonable prices)--show the man behind the stories, and often read much like his novels. It is exceptionally moving to read Heinlein's correspondence between 1945-1948 as his career is really taking off, his first (actually, second, but that's another story) wife is descending into alcoholism, and he is tentatively creating a new relationship with Ginny, who would become his partner over more than four decades.
Sometimes the stories themselves descend into preaching and moralizing at the expense of plot--Starship Troopers is less a novel than the outline of a particular future society at war.
But at their best, you can find wonderful--often Libertarian--nuggets in Heinlein's work.
His brief essay This I Believe should be required reading for all American citizens. While a period piece (in the same sense as the Gettysburg Address) it is one of the fundamental statements of what America actually means. A very small sampling (but DO go read the whole piece):
I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest, decent, kindly men. It if were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not got on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land.
I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest, decent, kindly men. It if were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not got on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land.
Most often quoted are pithy sayings from Heinlein's Journals of Lazarus Long, but they aren't my favorites.
I like digging through his novels--especially the 1947-1953 juveniles--for buried treasure, like these:
From Have Space Suit, Will Travel:
Dad didn't bother with banks--just the money basket and one next to it marked "UNCLE SAM," the contents of which he bundled up and mailed to the government once a year. This caused the Internal Revenue Service considerable headache and once they sent a man to remonstrate with him.
First the man demanded, then he pleaded. "But Dr. Russell, we know your background. You've no excuse for not keeping proper records."
"But I do," Dad told him. "Up here." He tapped his forehead.
"The law requires written records."
"Look again," Dad advised him. "The law can't even require a man to read and write. More coffee?"
The man tried to get Dad to pay by check or money order. Dad read him the fine print on a dollar bill, the part about "legal tender for all debts, public and private."
In a despairing effort to get something out of the trip he asked Dad please not to fill in the space marked "occupation" with "Spy."
"Why not?"
"What? Why, because you aren't--and it upsets people."
"Have you checked with the FBI?"
"Eh, no."
"They probably wouldn't answer. But you've been very polite. I'll mark it 'Unemployed Spy.' Okay?"
The tax man almost forgot his brief case. Nothing fazed Dad, he meant what he said, he wouldn't argue and he never gave in.
From Red Planet (the uncut version--parts of this were censored in the original):
"But, look, Daddy--Jim's going away and that means that Ollie can't ever go outside unless you or mother have time to take him. If I had a gun, I could help out."
Mr. Marlowe wrinkled his brow. "You've got a point. You've passed all your tests, haven't you?"
"You know I have!"
"What do you think, my dear? Shall we take Phyllis down to city hall and see if they will license her?"
Before Mrs. Marlow could answer Doctor MacRae muttered something into his plate. The remark was forceful and probably not polite.
"Eh? What did you say, Doctor?"
"I said," answered MacRae, "that I was going to move to another planet. At least that's what I meant."
"Why? What's wrong with this one? In another twenty years we'll have it fixed up good as new. You'll be able to walk outside without a mask."
"Sir, it is not the natural limitations of this globe that I object to; it is the pantywaist nincompoops who rule it--These ridiculous regulations offend me. That a free citizen should have to go before a committee, hat in hand, and pray for permission to bear arms--fantastic! Arm your daughter, sir, and pay no attention to petty bureaucrats."
Jim's father stirred his coffee. "I'm tempted to. I really don't know why the Company set up such rules in the first place."
"Pure copy-cattism. The swarming beehives back on Earth have similar childish rules; the fat clerks that decide these things cannot imagine any other conditions. This is a frontier community; it should be free of such."
"Mmmm . . . probably you're right, Doctor. Can't say that I disagree with you, but I'm so busy trying to get on with my job that I really don't have time to worry about politics. It's easier to comply that to fight a test case."
Heinlein became an uncompromising believer in individual liberty, mediated through willing teamwork, and guided by the human spirit. He is sometimes the subject of ridicule; one flagrantly idiotic ant-Libertarian site describes Libertarian thought as
The philosophy of a snotty teen, someone who's read too much Heinlein, absorbed the sordid notion that an intellectual elite should rule the subhuman masses, and convinced himself that reading a few bad novels qualifies him as a member of the elite.
The argument would have more validity if Heinlein had ever said that or advocated that. Heinlein was admittedly the creator of the Competent Man as a protagonist in Science Fiction, but most of his characters are solidly grounded middle-class-type individuals who are willing to take responsibility for their own actions.
Damn, what a dangerous concept.
Comments
Thanks for reminding me of this piece ...