For Sci-Fi fans: Was Robert Heinlein a Fascist?

Great Debates
61

Textbook knowledge. Did you live then? Time travel to that time? Channel someone from that time and mind meld with them? No? Textbook knowledge. No shame, it’s the same knowledge that I have too. I don’t besmirch your date of birth, but you casually assume that because you are a “history buff” you know these things. You know what people write today, and what people wrote then and the inheirent flaw is multiple. First of all, you cannot possibly have read everything pertaining to the timefram and secondly the people who wrote that stuff were by and large exceptional people. Average citizens do not typically end up in quotation marks in history books. Again, your interest in history is admirable but don’t think it justifies an assumption that you actually know what people thought then. We only know that about the past which those who lived in the past wanted us to know for the most part.

As for Mr.Clemens, he was not a racist and I did not state that he was. People who live to misquote others are self realized idiots. Clemens wrote about noble people, living in common suroundings. Those people were black and white, and he wrote about them all impartially. My statement referrs to his style of writing and how one might view it today in comparison to our moder tastes. You could hardly have a charachter lovingly referred to as Nigger Jim without a few raised eyebrows among the masses. Anyone who reads the book with an opened mind can clearly see that for both boys Jim is the only real positive male role model for them. I compare Clemens and Heinlein because they wrote in the vernacular of their day and their influence show and often lead those people with more prurient minds to convict either of them of being racist.

waterj2: thanx. You get it. :slight_smile:

tclouie: that patronizing header should land you with a flame but you seem to be begging too much for it. As for refusing to read any more of RAH’s works, you are simply declaring your own masochism. We would have accepted flaggelation as a suitable punishment for your imposition and ludicrous assertation.

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zen101: I didn’t misquote you. You called Clemens a bigot by today’s standards. I’m not so sure he was, even by today’s standards. In fact, Clemens comes off kind of forward-thinking and advanced in some respects. He was way ahead of his time on religion, for instance. (“Letters from the Earth”)

You seem to be arguing that no one can possibly know what people in a prior era were thinking, without having been there themselves. If that’s so, then what’s the purpose of historical research? I hope you’re not suggesting that the study of history is useless. Historians certainly do try to figure out what the average person was thinking during critical periods, for instance, during the Civil War. Are all their efforts for naught?

For that matter, how can you possibly know what people are thinking NOW? Why, through the mass media of course: newspapers, opinion polls, radio, TV, internet. All of those things, except the Internet, were available back in 1964, and are still available to historians. And people expressed themselves back then as freely as they do now.

Watch it with the “idiot” stuff, or I’ll report you to the moderator.

63

I’m 42, I’ve only had 8 years’ start on you. Yes, I started reading it when I was 8.

I really, REALLY think you should re-read what others said about Farnham’s Freehold. To recap, Heinlein was using racist arguments and putting them on the other foot, to show how ridiculous they are. He was not, by any means, saying that one race is inferior or superior to another. You might not like hard science fiction, that’s your privilege. But Heinlein wasn’t a racist by any means.

Incidentally, Heinlein used, at least once, the phrase “grass widow”. Does anyone know what it means?

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zen101 - Excellent post :slight_smile: .

tclouie: - You said that ( referencing RAH ) “What I’ve read in this thread has made me hate him even more.” Was that a bit of hyperbole? Or were you serious? If so, why? What is it that you hate about Heinlein and what revelations here have intensified that feeling? I’m not trying to be snotty or intrusive, I’m honestly curious. It seems like such an out of proportion reaction to me ( and I hope that doesn’t come off as condescending ).

I’ll reiterate what I said earlier. RAH had a very large output of work. Some of it was clearly inferior. I personally believe that the two you have read were among his weaker pieces ( some will certainly disagree with me here, but that’s MHO ). I think you are depriving yourself of an honest pleasure ( even if it is a quaint and old-fashioned one :smiley: ), by not giving him another try. Why not take a stab at just one of the recommendations that have been floated your way and see if you change your mind? Citizen of the Galaxy would be a fine place to start. Sort of an Horatio Alger story and a quick read. Just trying to be helpful :slight_smile: .

  • Tamerlane
65

tclouie, you said:

I’m afraid I didn’t find a partial retraction; I found a quid pro quo, trying to set the terms of the debate unilaterally:

Some of the posters are not willing to agree that Heinlein was a racist, and therefore do not accept your conditional concession.

If you now are saying that you are unconditionally dropping the fascism accusation, convinced by our arguments, fine, we’ll stop debating it.

66

How about Heinlein’s attitude towards Jews?

I have to admit, his depiction of God (New York Jew) verses Satan (Good Ole’ Boy) in Job has always bothered me a bit, considering who the “good guy” turned out to be. Are there any other Jewish characters in his novels? I can’t seem to recall any, but I’ve only read about 10 of them.

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I think you’re misremembering:
In Job, The Trinity (Father/Son/Holy Ghost) was the New York Jew (which, as a Jew, I found funny)
Satan was, as you said, a good ol’ country boy. So was St. Peter.
God, however (Jesus and Satan’s boss) was Mr (sp) Koneichi. The character was a tribute to a character from James Branch Cabell. In any case, the name struck me as being Japanese (I don’t know if it is or not) but the only real description we get of the character from Heinlein is after he takes human form, Alex describes him as having the kindly demeanor of an old, country vetrinarian.

Fenris

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Fenris - you’re right. I got the details wrong, but still, it bothered me a bit. I tend to be paranoid about that kind of thing.

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I don’t have a problem with you a) not having read all of Heinlein’s works or b) deciding that you don’t enjoy Heinlein’s works on the basis of two novels that you hated. Everyone has different tastes. (as an aside, I’ve read about 4 of Sawyer’s novels and they struck me as extremely competent, except for a sight tendency towards weak endings that just sort of dribble off… I thought The Terminal Experiment is probably his best)

However:
Branding an author with the horribly offensive, derogatory terms “racist”, “sexist”, “Nazi”, or “fascist” on the basis of having read two novels (out of something like 40 novels and 60 short stories) and one movie (that shares a title and little else with the book it’s ‘based’ on) is irresponsible and weakens your argument to non-existance. If you’re presuming to judge the man based on recurring themes in his work, you have to read the bulk (if not all of) his work for your opinion to have any weight or meaning.

Fenris

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From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.

NOUN : 1. A woman who is divorced or separated from her husband. 2. A woman whose husband is temporarily absent. 3. An abandoned mistress. 4. The mother of a child born out of wedlock.

ETYMOLOGY: Perhaps in allusion to a bed of grass or hay.

WORD HISTORY: The term grass widow cries out for explanation of what grass means and how grass widow came to have its varied though related senses. Grass probably refers to a bed of grass or hay as opposed to a real bed. This association would help explain the earliest recorded sense of the word (1528), “an unmarried woman who has lived with one or more men,” as well as the related senses “an abandoned mistress” and “the mother of an illegitimate child.” Later on, after the sense of grass had been obscured, people may have interpreted grass as equivalent to the figurative use of pasture, as in out to pasture. Hence grass widow could have developed the senses “a divorced or separated wife” or “a wife whose husband is temporarily absent.”

Hope this helps.

For me, early Heinlein (well, the 1st 30 years) was always great fun, but by the 70’s I found him basically unreadable: wordy, preachy, solipsistic. But his classic stuff remains as good as it gets.

I never thought Heinlein was a fascist or a racist. Those words are too often thrown around IMO, esp if the object of the slur is politically conservative. Heinlein intended to be a career naval officer after all, so it’s not surprising he honored duty and discipline.

BTW, anyone wishing to read ‘more’ Heinlein should investigate the work of John Varley. He writes great hard-science adventures, he’s 40 times better at characterization, esp of women, and he’s sexy as hell to boot. It always bugged me that when Heinlein tried to be sexy, he came across as leering.

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I can’t believe the PC crowd is ready to burn the RAH books. Talk about missing the point people…

And a slight factual correction…

Many of the top Nazi’s were homosexuals. I think it would be a gross distortion to say that homosexuality was not tolerated under the Nazi’s.

They were complete power animals. Whoever was in a position of power got to discriminate and abuse their power in whatever ways pleased them. Besides persecuting the Jews and blacks, most of their cruelity seems very random to me.

Of course…many of their leaders were also straight, I’m not trying to blame homosexuality for Nazism, just correcting the claim that it was persecuted by them.

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an author has to create a plot that is interesting enough to read. undoubtedly something of his personality will go into it, but i’m not sure that anyone who doesn’t know him personally can figure out what that would be. Fahrnam’s Freehold shows that whites can be psychologically conditioned to be subservient to blacks. could Heinlein have been creating a mirror for people to look at themselves and people are missing the whole point.

one novel i found interesting was CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY. but to me the point of the story is that every child is born into a society that is already a going concern. that society may be totally indifferent to the child and each of us is stuck figuting out what is going on and how to react to it. many time i think authors glorify the rich and powerful but they may make more interesting and varied characters.

besides libertarians are schizoid fascists. talk about scientific objectivism when anyone that is scientific and objective has to know planned obsolescence is going on. LOL!

Dal Timgar

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Least shocking I’ve seen all day: dal_timgar whining about planned obsolescence in a thread that has nothing to do with it.

Freedom2, while there may have been homosexuals in the Nazi heirarchy, homosexuals were certainly persecuted. The pink triangle emblem as a symbol of homosexuality started as the symbol that the Nazis required homosexuals to wear. This is all fairly common knowledge.

74

I have read Stranger probably dozens of times. For a while, I was at the point where someone could read me to consecutive lines, and I could tell the context they were in, storywise. I love it. Changed my life, and when I die I will be creamated and served mixed with tea to a very close circle of friends.

I love RAH, and have liked everything of his that I’ve managed to lay hands on… which is almost everything he had published.

zen101, you are my hero.

To those that are convinced of RAH’s Fascist/Sexist/Racist tendencies… keep reading. Hopefully, you will figure it out. Until then, I pity you.

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Tamerlane, here’s your answer.

** Reason #1 for hating Heinlein even more now. **

Judging from the posts, many Heinlein supporters seem to support a Libertarian or possibly Ayn Rand-ish philosophy, and believe that Heinlein would also support it. I do not support that philosophy, and would prefer not to read about it in science fiction. Thanks for the warning, guys!
(Comix fans: I did enjoy Frank Miller’s “Martha Washington” series, which is also kind of AynRand-y, but then I’m a sucker for good art and a good story.)

** Reason #2 for hating Heinlein even more now. **

Several people have backed me up on Heinlein’s dirty-old-man treatment of his female characters, so what I already knew has been confirmed.

“Stranger In A Strange Land.” One of old Jubal Harshaw’s “fronts” goes and has sex with him, on Michael’s instructions. Not very fatherly, eh, zen101? “He said that if you refuse, I am to cry,” says the sexy android with no will of her own. Heinlein never identifies which front.

“Farnham’s Freehold.” The balding middle-aged protagonist gets to have sex with his wimpy son’s college girlfriend. At least he doesn’t have sex with Kitten.

“The Number of the Beast.” (I did read it partly, but couldn’t stand to finish.) The young female character marries a guy she just met. “Nice view. No foam rubber.” Then her dad marries an older female on the same night. Then they all honeymoon at dad’s scientific retreat, which conveniently happens to be sweltering, so the two females walk around naked. “I am a militant women’s rights gal.” “I like to be naked and usually am at Daddy’s house.”

Honestly. Is there anything here that doesn’t sound like the fantasy of a middle-aged man trapped in adolescence?

So far Heinlein is 3 for 3 with the sexism, and other posters have confirmed that it’s in the other books as well.

** Reason #3 for hating Heinlein even more now. **

I refuse to buy that Farnham’s Freehold was, somehow, an anti-racist novel or an allegory of white racism. The “shoe on the other foot/turnabout is fair play” aspect is intriguing, but I don’t think it applies here. If it did, the black-dominated society would more closely resemble 20th-century white-dominated society–but it doesn’t, not in any way.

This is clearly the blacks who are enslaving and eating whites and genetically turning them into dim-witted dwarves. They are not stand-ins or allegories for white racists. (The Klan wasn’t eating people.) The cannibalism makes it especially clear. Black + Cannibal= one of the oldest Western stereotypes about blacks. Heinlein had to have known that. Releasing a story about black cannibals in 1964 was irresponsibly bad taste at the very least.

Joseph’s defection to the new society is also disturbing, because he’s from the 20th century. It’s like Heinlein is telling us, in the midst of the Civil Rights years, “See, the blacks will turn the tables if they get the chance–and revert to savage ways, to boot.” As if civil rights will result in not an equal society, not a colorblind society, but an even worse society.

There is no way this is an anti-racist novel. The cannibalism just ruins everything. For a better treatment of the “shoe on the other foot” theme, rent the John Travolta movie “White Man’s Burden,” or read Griffin’s “Black Like Me.”

Lynn Bodoni: I most certainly do like hard science fiction–which is not synonymous with Heinlein. Love hard sci-fi, love it! That’s why I like Sawyer. Lots of science, well-researched, and believable because his scenarios take place in the present day or the very near future. No mucking about with alternate worlds or alternate societies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s so prevalent nowadays that Sawyer was like a breath of fresh air.

Oh, you haven’t read Sawyer? You’re really missing something, your education is incomplete, you can’t claim to be a real SF fan, blah blah blah. NOT.

Lynn, please don’t try to define my canon for me, and especially don’t try to define me. Nobody elected you the supreme arbiter of what makes a science fiction fan. I’m a fan 'cause I say I am, and more importantly, I’ve found something I like. Liking something is what being a fan is all about. So it’s not what you like, big deal.

If someone said they didn’t like Sawyer, or J.R.R. Tolkien, or J. K. Rowling, I wouldn’t jump all over them or say they are somehow incomplete. Kinda reminds me of the mid-70’s: some people liked Star Wars so much, they would actually ostracize the few poor saps who said they didn’t like Star Wars. (I did like Star Wars.)

** New unconditional concessions! Yes, you lovely people have convinced me!

Heinlein wasn’t fascist! End of argument!

Heinlein was, probably, not consciously racist–but only he will ever know that for sure. End of argument!

Heinlein WAS sexist, had bad taste and was just plain awful. Let the argument continue!!! **

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tclouie:

De Gustibus Non Disputandum Est.

If you don’t like Heinlein, you don’t like him. Ain’t nothing I’m gonna say that will change your mind. I DO think you were romng to call him racist and fascist. I don’t think a lot of your other assertions are correct either.

I do like him myself. He is a compelling writer, a thought-provoking one, and a highly original one. I don’t believe in all the ideas he suggests in his stories, but, then again, neither did he. As I’ve noted (and so have other above) he proposed several different societies, with different rules. Don’t mistake the lead chaacter for the author.

“Farnham’s Freehold” isn’t his best book, but it’ not the sinkhole you make it out to be. It certainly IS a “turnabout” novel – which DOESN’T require that you make everything mirror image (God, but you are literal!). If nothing else, such a novel wouldn’t be nearly as interesting as the one he wrote. The point is that the overlords in that novel didnt believe themselves baqd people – they belevde they were cmpassionate, forgiving and fair-handed masters. As did the slave-holding aristocracy in the antebellum South. Read the last chapter in “THe Battle for Christmas” to see the truth behind that.

77

::Sigh::
He was a product of his times. #1 He was born around 1908 or so and grew up with far different mores. #2 He worked under constraints that are nearly unimaginable to modern authors (there’re horror stories told by Heinlein, Asmimov, Kuttner etc about Campbell’s assistant (who’s name escapes me) and her probing searches for the barest hint of “filth”), but within those constraints, he was far less sexist than many writers of his era, and the reason that he gets discussed for sexism and Asimov and other contemporary writers don’t, is that Heinlein tried his best to show strong female characters while Asimov (excluding Susan Calvin) and others simply either ignored female characters, made them victims or love interests or, like Susan Calvin, made them sexless. Heinlein was one of the first SF writers to try to allow women to have sexual feelings rather than making them virginal china dolls to be rescued. Whether his attempt succeeded or not, he must be given credit for the effort.

Off the top of my head:

Delilah and the the Space Riggers (not Heinlein’s title, I belive) is one of the very first (if the THE first) portrayals of a woman as an equal to a man in SF. The title character had to use her initals rather than her first name to get a job in space, once there she was able to do her job as well as the men, but had to put up with near constant harrassment until she resolved the situation. The whole point of the story is sexism. But you haven’t read it…so you wouldn’t know.

In “Let there be Light”, one of the two main characters is a woman, she and the male lead are co-equal scientists who together invent a free power source…but you haven’t read that one either.

In “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag”, the female lead is every bit the detective her husband is. But you haven’t read it, so we can’t discuss it.

In “Gulf” one of the all time great SF villians is a woman. Cool, rutheless and evil to the core. But again…same story.

“Tunnel in the Sky”, the toughest, smartest character on the survival test is a black woman. Witty, strong and competent, she’s one of the best drawn characters in the book. But we can’t talk about that one either since you won’t read it.

I could go on and on but I think my point’s been made.

What’s your problem anyway? It’s ok to not like Heinlein’s writing without demonizing the man. Even Lefty-types like Joe Haldeman, Sam Delany and Harlan Ellison all have had good things to say about Heinlein the man and his works even if they didn’t agree with his politics.

Again, I don’t care if you like his stuff or not, but judging the man’s character and trying to demonize him having only read something like 2% of his total output is pathetic.

Fenris, waiting for the next accusation to be flung (I can see it now: “Ok, he wasn’t a racist, sexist or a fascist. But he was a SATANIST!” :rolleyes: )

78

You might enjoy Heinlein’s juveniles, then. Quite likely you’ll enjoy Varley, too, and possibly Forward. Forward’s not a good writer, but he IS a good scientist.

He’s not one of the Big Three, is he? Sure, I’ll look him up, and I might very well enjoy him. Right now, I’m economizing on my book purchases, and due to ill health I find it hard to get out as much as I like. So I rely on my daughter to bring books home from the used bookstore where she works for me to read.

Again, Heinlein is one of the Big Three. I’m not defining the canon, the SF readership at large has done so. It’s sort of like saying “I like TV or movie SF, and I’m familiar with the genre”, and then admitting to only having seen half an episode of Star Trek, or half an hour of Star Wars/Phantom Menace. Sure, you might LIKE the genre, but you are not well-read or well-versed in it. I don’t dispute that you like some SF writers. I DO dispute that you are well-read in the field of SF.

79

All of you types that are saying I have to read every freakin’ thing Heinlein wrote before I can say one word about him. Like, I have a life. It would take me a whole year to read a prolific author’s entire output, if I didn’t read anything else during that time. And without enjoying it, to boot. I think I’m allowed to have an opinion before that point.

Lemme ask you something. When they take polls, do they ask every single voter in the United States who they want for president? No, they take a sampling.

Do you have an opinion about Bill Clinton? Have you reviewed every single decision he made during his presidency? Probably not. You probably only know about a fraction of them. Hey, that’s not fair to Bill!

Do you have an opinion about Thomas Jefferson? Have you read every single word HE wrote? Even a very educated person probably hasn’t.

Do you have an opinion about Leo Tolstoy? Have you read every single word he wrote?

How about the Marquis de Sade? Lots of people definitely have an opinion about him. Have they read all his novels?

I took a sampling of Heinlein, and I formed a pretty strong opinion about his work. Enough for me to not want to read any more. He didn’t pass the “yuck” test. (His work, Fenris. Not him. I don’t know or care about his family life.)

My sampling included some of his better-known titles. I read them BECAUSE they were better-known. Two of them were written in the early Sixties, and the other about a score of years later, give or take. That’s a pretty good span of time, and apparently he learned nothing about women in that time.

I will not be backing down on the sexism. Other posters in this thread have agreed with me on that, so you can call them pathetic too if you want.

You know what’s really pathetic? Obsessing about your favorite writer so much that you can’t stand for anyone to criticize him.

80

Standards are always changing. Canons change. In a previous era, the Big Three may have been Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs. How many of you have read everything THEY wrote?

The generation of SF fans that is still clinging to power defines their Big Three as Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke and Bradbury. (Whoops, that’s four!)

The Big Three WILL change, like it or not. In the near future the Big Three may include…oh, I don’t know…Sawyer…Robinson…Turtledove…Resnick (hack that he is, but an entertaining hack)…even freakin’ L. Ron Hubbard…just throwin’ out names…

Can we put Philip Dick in the Canon? Huh? Can the Big Three have Dick? Pleeeeease, somebody let Dick into their Big Three!

Meantime, I’ll choose my own big three, thank you very much.