# Ask the guy who's rereading all of Heinlein **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 27, 2006, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311 "2006-07-27T19:13:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/41 "2006-08-01T06:40:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And I seem to be the only person on the planet to think so, but I think _Space Cadet_ was the best of his juveniles. I liked watching Matt training to become a member of the Corps, and I liked the idea of society as a whole making such a concerted effort to make sure that their guardians were civilized and just. It also has one of the best examples of contrast between the Boy Scout and the Spoiled Brat in Heinlein’s work, and showed that the Boy Scout really does win in the end. But, that points up another of Heinlein’s moral blind spots. In real life, sometimes the spoiled brat wins. What’s more, in real life, sometimes the spoiled brat **deserves** to win, or at least thrive. And Heinlein was fundamentally incapable of seeing that. His moral sensibility has been described (I forget where) as “wolfish,” and that description holds true despite all the points at where his deep compassion bubbles (anomylously) to the surface. Almost nothing in SF has ever struck me as more sour and waspish and ill-natured and disgusting than Heinlein’s treatment of Clyde Leamer, the self-important but impractical “educated” colonist on New Beginnings in _Time Enough for Love_ --unless it was his treatment of the young man in _The Cat Who Walks through Walls,_ who is described as having “the socialist disease in its worst form; he thinks the worlds owes him a living!” (when the young man’s worst sin in that regard is approval of universal health care); or the wife/passenger in _Farmer In the Sky_ who kept demanding her husband Joseph talk to the captain to arrange things for her better comfort. (At the end of that scene, husband and wife have disembarked from the spaceship prior to takeoff, with the clear implication that both of them will die of starvation while the Ganymede colonists are surviving.) Heinlein had a certain kind of military man’s impatience with, even contempt for, civilians, and a shockingly callous acceptance that what Nietzsche called “the botched and the bungled” inevitably will and should be brutally culled from the gene pool. Consider this passage from _Friday_ (Friday has been assigned by her Boss to evaluate the credibility of conspiracy theories WRT historical outbreaks of the bubonic plague, but only with a view to tilting her mind towards evaluating the timing and location of future outbreaks): > [@](#): > > “Are we going to try to stop it?” (People have been fighting rats and fleas throughout history. So far, the rats and fleas are ahead.) > > “Heavens, no! In the second place, the contract would be too big for this organization. But in the first place I do not accept contracts that I cannot fulfill; this is one such. In the third place, from the strictest humanitarian viewpoint, any attempt to stop the processes by which overcrowded cities purge themselves is not a kindness. Plague is a nasty death but a quick one. Starvation also is a nasty death . . . but a very slow one.” Almost as morally blind (but in the opposite direction) as that monstrous non-saint [Mother Theresa.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=379852) Heinlein, as a literary figure, points up all that is very good **and** all that is utterly and unforgivably bad about libertarianism. (Unlike Ayn Rand and L. Neil Smith, who serve to point up only what is bad about it.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/42 "2006-08-01T06:41:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And I seem to be the only person on the planet to think so, but I think _Space Cadet_ was the best of his juveniles. I liked watching Matt training to become a member of the Corps, and I liked the idea of society as a whole making such a concerted effort to make sure that their guardians were civilized and just. It also has one of the best examples of contrast between the Boy Scout and the Spoiled Brat in Heinlein’s work, and showed that the Boy Scout really does win in the end. But, that points up another of Heinlein’s moral blind spots. In real life, sometimes the spoiled brat wins. What’s more, in real life, sometimes the spoiled brat **deserves** to win, or at least thrive. And Heinlein was fundamentally incapable of seeing that. His moral sensibility has been described (I forget where) as “wolfish,” and that description holds true despite all the points at where his deep compassion bubbles (sometimes anomylously) to the surface. Almost nothing in SF has ever struck me as more sour and waspish and ill-natured and disgusting than Heinlein’s treatment of Clyde Leamer, the self-important but impractical “educated” colonist on New Beginnings in _Time Enough for Love_ --unless it was his treatment of the young man in _The Cat Who Walks through Walls,_ who is described as having “the socialist disease in its worst form; he thinks the worlds owes him a living!” (when the young man’s very worst sin in that regard is approval of universal health care!); or the wife/passenger in _Farmer In the Sky_ who kept demanding her husband Joseph talk to the captain to arrange things for her better comfort. (At the end of that scene, husband and wife have disembarked from the spaceship prior to takeoff, with the clear implication that both of them will die of starvation while the Ganymede colonists are surviving.) Heinlein had a certain kind of military man’s impatience with, even contempt for, civilians, and a shockingly callous acceptance that what Nietzsche called “the botched and the bungled” inevitably will and should be brutally culled from the gene pool. Consider this passage from _Friday_ (Friday has been assigned by her Boss to evaluate the credibility of conspiracy theories WRT historical outbreaks of the bubonic plague, but only with a view to tilting her mind towards evaluating the timing and location of future outbreaks): > [@](#): > > “Are we going to try to stop it?” (People have been fighting rats and fleas throughout history. So far, the rats and fleas are ahead.) > > “Heavens, no! In the second place, the contract would be too big for this organization. But in the first place I do not accept contracts that I cannot fulfill; this is one such. In the third place, from the strictest humanitarian viewpoint, any attempt to stop the processes by which overcrowded cities purge themselves is not a kindness. Plague is a nasty death but a quick one. Starvation also is a nasty death . . . but a very slow one.” Almost as morally blind (but in the opposite direction) as that monstrous non-saint [Mother Theresa.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=379852) Heinlein, as a literary figure, points up all that is very good **and** all that is utterly and unforgivably bad about libertarianism. (Unlike Ayn Rand and L. Neil Smith, who serve to point up only what is bad about it.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/43 "2006-08-01T06:48:41Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > …and besides, how can you be a “libertarian” militarist? Seriously, that’s a contradiction in terms. Maybe you and I can see the contradiction there, but Heinlein couldn’t. And neither can a lot of contemporary Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/44 "2006-08-01T19:58:38Z")
> [@](#): > > But, that points up another of Heinlein’s moral blind spots. In real life, sometimes the spoiled brat wins. In real life, perhaps, but I prefer my literature a bit more idealized. In the short term, the brats might get ahead, but in the long term, they oughtn’t. And I prefer literature where things happen as they ought to: If I wanted reality, I’d get a window, not a book. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/45 "2006-08-01T20:31:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > In real life, perhaps, but I prefer my literature a bit more idealized. In the short term, the brats might get ahead, but in the long term, they oughtn’t. And I prefer literature where things happen as they ought to: If I wanted reality, I’d get a window, not a book. Well said. I agree. My favorite Heinlein books: _Starship Troopers, Time for the Stars, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Star Beast, Double Star, Space Cadet, Have Spacesuit - Will Travel, Double Star, The Puppet Masters_. I’m soon going to introduce my son, age 9, to Heinlein - probably start out with _Have Spacesuit - Will Travel_. I have a feeling he’s gonna like it. I have to admit, I actually liked _Sixth Column_ - a guilty pleasure, despite its underlying racism and Cold War paranoia. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/46 "2006-08-01T23:12:35Z")
Eh, I don’t think \*Sixth Column \* is racist, although the original maunuscript Campbell gave to Heinlein certainly was. Sure, some of the characters express racist attitudes, but Heinlein doesn’t endorse them, he carefully included an asian good guy, and so forth. And paranoia maybe, but it wasn’t Cold War paranoia, because the novel was originally serialized in 1941, before the US even entered WWII. Sixth Column has the US staying out of WWII, Europe destroying itself, and PanAsia taking over everything else. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/47 "2006-08-02T05:22:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > In the short term, the brats might get ahead, but in the long term, they oughtn’t. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George\_w.\_bush]I hope would so, but . . . ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/48 "2009-02-27T19:40:29Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Early in life, Heinlein was a believer in [Social Credit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit), and it’s really Social Credit theory he’s describing in the book. It’s also nonsense, and thank goodness Heinlein came to his senses later. > > Alberta had probably the most successful Social Credit government in the world, lasting 36 years. But it abandoned all resemblance to actual social credit theory fairly early on. For which Albertans should be grateful. As they used to say in Alberta: “Is nothing SoCred any more?” Heinlein had a number of crackpot obsessions, including Social Credit (the very early Heinlein), General Semantics, and the Bridey Murphy reincarnation case. You sort of have to roll your eyes, mutter “There he goes again”, and move on. I agree that his later works - more or less from “Number of the Beast” on, were total messes from a plot point of view. You don’t read those for the story, you read them for the Heinlein flavor. ---
**Author:** ![Chef\_Troy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/49 "2009-02-27T20:01:45Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > [snip]Group marriage might work for some people…but every book advocating group marriage? And not presenting the problems group marriage and communal living have? In “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” group marriage worked as a plot point…because of the gender imbalance of the lunar penal colony. But group marriage (except for patriarchal style polygyny) is vanishingly rare in the real world. Yeah, the sexual mores of turn of the century Missouri don’t make much sense…but neither do the opposite. I seem to recall one of the characters in _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_ explaining the plural marriage thing by saying something like, “All our customs are Earth customs because that’s where we’re from, but Terra is so big that custom from, say, Micronesia might seem exotic to someone from North America.” (I’m paraphrasing.) In other words, they took an idea that’s rare most places because it’s unnecessary and made it work in a place where it IS necessary. (In another spot, Prof says something about plural marriage being an excellent method of conserving family capital and ensuring the welfare of children in a society where there is NO official provision for either.) ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/50 "2009-02-27T21:02:00Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] You could put it that way. I think it’s clearer, though, if you point out that an accelerated observer doesn’t have a reference frame; he has at least two. If you change instantaneously from the outbound reference frame to the returning one, such that you don’t have to worry about the details of the acceleration, then the traveller has two different reference frames. Either one of them is just as good as the Earth reference frame, but you can’t say “the traveller’s frame”… Which one do you mean? Note that this is only an issue if the traveller returns to Earth: If he just keeps on going, then you don’t need to change reference frames, and nobody therefore needs to accelerate, so the symmetry still holds. [/QUOTE] But in Heinlein’s story, the outbound twin is not traveling at constant speed. They are traveling at constant _acceleration_. That is why the telepathic link is getting severed - it is not physical distance that is the problem. To your way of thinking, the outbound twin does not have one reference frame or two reference frames, but an infinite number of reference frames that are slightly different, as he accelerates. Or you can say he is in a non-inertial reference frame, and that is why he is the preferred twin. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/51 "2009-02-27T22:27:37Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Well, I completed “To Sail Beyond the Sunset”, Heinlein’s last book before his death. What a slog. What’s up with all the incest, incest, incest? Seriously, what’s up with that? I just don’t get it. …and what’s makes it even more slimy is when one of Heinlein’s Sage Old Men are present spouting philosophy while the little girls swoon. I don’t bother trying to keep his books after Moon Is A Harsh Mistress separate in my mind. The last one I slogged through had two barely pubescent twin girls who just loved flirting with a Sage Old Man, who I couldn;t help but view as a Heinlein stand in. I think a lot of his later books were written mostly to keep himself sexually aroused. There’s not much there for the reader except to the extent he shares Bob’s obsessions. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/52 "2009-02-28T02:47:38Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > …and what’s makes it even more slimy is when one of Heinlein’s Sage Old Men are present spouting philosophy while the little girls swoon. > > I don’t bother trying to keep his books after Moon Is A Harsh Mistress separate in my mind. The last one I slogged through had two barely pubescent twin girls who just loved flirting with a Sage Old Man, who I couldn;t help but view as a Heinlein stand in. > > I think a lot of his later books were written mostly to keep himself sexually aroused. There’s not much there for the reader except to the extent he shares Bob’s obsessions. IIRC, the barely-pubescent twin girls are the Sage Old Man’s daughters, as well. Ick. I like the books anyway, I just can’t let myself think too deeply about them. For several years, I searched libraries for a copy of Farnham’s Freehold. When I finally read it, it was awful, the absolute worst Heinlein I had read to date. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/53 "2009-02-28T22:31:39Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > But in Heinlein’s story, the outbound twin is not traveling at constant speed. They are traveling at constant _acceleration_. Since I’ve only read the one Heinlein book (SIASL), this twin discussion has become more interesting to me and I’ve [started it’s own thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=508636). ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/54 "2009-03-01T00:57:46Z")
> [@Chef\_Troy](#): > > I seem to recall one of the characters in _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_ explaining the plural marriage thing by saying something like, “All our customs are Earth customs because that’s where we’re from, but Terra is so big that custom from, say, Micronesia might seem exotic to someone from North America.” (I’m paraphrasing.) In other words, they took an idea that’s rare most places because it’s unnecessary and made it work in a place where it IS necessary. (In another spot, Prof says something about plural marriage being an excellent method of conserving family capital and ensuring the welfare of children in a society where there is NO official provision for either.) Yes, but I don’t think there has ever been any society that practiced plural marriage of the various sorts described in TMIAHM aside from polygyny and very rarely polyandry. If it was really a workable solution then we’d expect to see it crop up every now and then when conditions favored it. But it doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/55 "2009-03-01T20:39:06Z")
> [@](#): > > IIRC, the barely-pubescent twin girls are the Sage Old Man’s daughters, as well. Ick. Not precisely. They’re clones of his, with the Y chromosone removed and the X doubled. While they’re seducing him, they make the argument that because they’re his clones, sex with them is masturbation, not incest. Please don’t ask me how I remember that… I’m wondering myself. And what prompted the 2+ years resurrection of this thread, incidentally? ---
**Author:** ![Khampelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/56 "2009-03-02T02:52:26Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Let’s see, what do I still have to read…wow, more than I thought. I’ve still got ahead of me: > > The Puppet Masters (1951) > Double Star (1956) > The Door into Summer (1957) > Methuselah’s Children (1958) > Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) > Podkayne of Mars (1963) > Farnham’s Freehold (1965) > The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966) > I Will Fear No Evil (1970) > Time Enough for Love (1973) > Friday (1982) > Tramp Royale > > So the only incest novel I’ve gotta slog through is “Time Enough for Love”. Not bad. Well, kind of, Lemur. ‘TDIS’ has a main character with an unhealthy attachment to a young girl. More ebophilia than incest, but still, as a family friend and uncle figure… At the end he admits all his time travel hi-jinks are just so they can be together. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/57 "2009-03-02T02:58:50Z")
Oh, that wasn’t my reading list. That was my RE-reading list. I’d already read those books at least twice before. ---
**Author:** ![Aankh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@Aankh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aankh)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/58 "2009-03-02T10:14:34Z")
I’ve recently picked up _Stranger in a Strange Land_. This is my very first Heinlein novel and I’m about halfway or so through it. So far, I’m conflicted. On one hand, I can clearly see that he was a groundbreaker in academic scifi. Yet, I find myself unimpressed with his…should I call it ‘writing style’ or ‘storytelling skills’? Both, I suppose. I find the book dry and two dimensional. For a story that is entirely about human interactions and cultural discovery, there seems to be a definite lack of feeling and depth. In my opinion, anyway. So I’m conflicted about him as a writer. I’ll probably complete this and try one more of his works (…Recommendations, anyone?) before I really make up my mind. In the meantime, I’m curious how you guys feel about him. I would appreciate different perspectives in this thread, not just about _Stranger in a Strange Land_, but about his general body of work. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/59 "2009-03-02T12:20:31Z")
> [@Aankh](#): > > I’ve recently picked up _Stranger in a Strange Land_. This is my very first Heinlein novel and I’m about halfway or so through it. So far, I’m conflicted. > > On one hand, I can clearly see that he was a groundbreaker in academic scifi. Yet, I find myself unimpressed with his…should I call it ‘writing style’ or ‘storytelling skills’? Both, I suppose. I find the book dry and two dimensional. For a story that is entirely about human interactions and cultural discovery, there seems to be a definite lack of feeling and depth. In my opinion, anyway. > > So I’m conflicted about him as a writer. I’ll probably complete this and try one more of his works (…Recommendations, anyone?) before I really make up my mind. > > In the meantime, I’m curious how you guys feel about him. I would appreciate different perspectives in this thread, not just about _Stranger in a Strange Land_, but about his general body of work. Bad one to start with, sorry to say. Depends, many people would tell you to start with one of his juveniles - perhaps farmer in the sky, though my absolute personal favorite is Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Dont bother with Friday, Job … pretty much his last few books. The problem with Heinlein is he was VERY much a product of WW2 and the Cold War, and its overall outlook. Some of his novels are very gloomy and nihilistic. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311/60 "2009-03-02T17:42:00Z")
Try _Space Cadet_ or _The Rolling Stones_. Those aren’t nihilistic at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-whos-rereading-all-of-heinlein/366311.md?page=4)