Prompted by thoughts about Robert A Heinlein’s novel Starship Troopers. The most-discussed aspect of said work seems to be, its being set in a basically democratic society, one of whose rules is that nobody may vote, or hold public office, unless they have successfully served a term of military service, or the equivalent (great lengths are gone to, to accommodate aspiring volunteers who are in one way or another “non-abled” for the tougher ends of said service).
There are all sorts of ways to run societies – one can see ways in which the above-described, could make sense. It somewhat irritates me, though, that this idea of Heinlein’s in his novel, seems to have been latched onto on the message boards, by basically conservative, gung-ho folk who passionately agree with Robert on this: viz. everyone should participate here, everyone should wish to be a participating citizen, so should rush to enlist for what the author calls “Federal Service” – sometimes patting themselves on the back for their own real-world volunteering for a spell in the armed forces, so that they may consider themselves real-world entitled to vote.
My “take” re these people, is – if this is how you feel, re yourself – fine, go for it. However – I resent your sometimes delivered implication, that anyone who does not enthusiastically feel this way and accordingly gallops to the nearest recruiting office – not only should not be allowed to vote; but is a worthless wretch who has forfeited the right to be acknowledged as properly human, and deservedly belongs in an at best “hewers of wood and drawers of water”, underclass. Perhaps I exaggerate here, and wrong these folk; but it’s the drift that I sometimes get from them.
I pick up from my reading of ST, that Heinlein – not overall big on tolerance of wimps – was not implying the above-mentioned. I understand his meaning being, that Federal Service was about people’s being ready to serve a term of doing stuff which would probably not be what they wished to be doing, but was for the benefit of the polity – rewards being, voting / public office eligibility (if they survived). The society about which he was writing, understood that it wasn’t for everybody. IIRC, Federal Service aspirants were actively discouraged from applying – were put through an interview with a hideously maimed and mutilated veteran, who asked them, “do you really want to risk ending up like me?”.
This would suggest that there was no great shame attached to refraining from serving. If you didn’t serve – OK, you couldn’t vote or hold public office, but there’d be a million other ways in which you could find fulfilment / contribute to society – trying to list them, would be wearisome. Most Federal Service veterans / voters and potential public-office-holders, would be happy to interact with you; and veterans / non-servers friendships, would come about. In any place where there are humans, there are a few (on whichever side) up-themselves bigots / exclusivists, but I persist in thinking that people are in the main, more sensible / decent, than that. In real life, I have mercifully never had to do military service – I’d have hated same, and would have been beyond-useless at it: in Heinlein’s ST universe, I would for sure have opted to be a non-serving thus non-voting and non-public-office-holding “helot”, and taken one of the numerous other life-paths.
By the way, I live in a democratic, universal-suffrage country; am so made that I take very little interest in politics / current affairs: so, I don’t exercise my right to vote, on the basis that I feel that at the very least, those who vote should have some interest in / understanding of, national and world affairs. In this, I kind-of subscribe to Heinlein’s basic idea, if not to his exact suggested way of bringing it to be.
