One of the most depressing quotes in all literature:
So what is this quote doing in Great Debates, not Café Society?
It has been my theme, almost to one-trick pony status, that the polarization and extreme statements of both Left and Right are destructive of America as an ideal and a goal toward which U.S. society has aspired. The story this is quoted from deals largely with a technically illegal but condoned peonage, ignored by the general public because they do not come in contact with it and refuse to believe that conditions are what they are painted as. It is the last story in the middle collection of “Future History” stories, set at the end of what Heinlein termed “The Crazy Years.” The next story sequentially deals with the mounting of a revolution against the theocracy that had persuaded a majority of Americans to put it in power in place of the existing government.
The “Future History” is fascinating reading. In a series of stories written between 1939-1942 and 1946-1950, Heinlein extrapolates urban sprawl, solar power, inner city decline, fear of atomic power, the achievement and abandonment of space flight, and service conglomerates, among other developments. But one trend overarches the others – with the complexity of technology and the concentration of power, a backlash of irrational behavior and extremism resulting from fear of what is not understood leads to the destruction of the very liberty that gave rise to the progress and growth that is chronicled.
“The Crazy Years” is also the title of the column written by author and fellow Heinlein fan Spider Robinson for the Toronto Globe and Mail. It was his premise that we are in fact living through the period Heinlein predicted.
The premise I propose for debate is that Spider is right, that in essence if not in detail Heinlein’s extrapolations of American social trends were accurate … and that the Religious Right and its influence on the political Right are a threat to American liberty.
Evidence to support my premise can be found in a variety of sources. For example, turn on your TV, and you will find Pat Robertson discussing political events in a manner that suggests that he has significant potential influence. Read an article on any controversial issue, and a quote from a group supportive of “family values” (by which they generally mean a strongly conservative Evangelical Protestant set of religious mores) is nearly always given as “balance” to the liberal or moderate view. Our President appears to an unbiased observer to share some if not all the stances of the Religious Right, and to bring his strong influence to bear in getting the views he shares enacted into law. The Patriot Acts and D.O.M.A. have eroded a hundred-year old movement to guarantee human rights.
To be sure, there are some exceptions to this rule. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts appears to share Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s respect for stare decisis as regards Roe and abortion rights. Vice President Cheney, arguably the most influential vice president in decades, has a stance on gay marriage scarcely distinguishable from that of Howard Dean. Mr. Bush’s principled stance on Islam is hardly that of most of his religious supporters.
But I believe these to be exceptions to a general tendency to greater influence from the Religious Right, and in particular the “Christian Reconstructionist” movement, which unabashedly seeks to impose a theocratic rule on this country. From Heinlein’s 1950 view, this is rank nutjobbery … but today it is reported as a sober, if extreme, view, as worthy of consideration as the legalization of gay marriages.
I would be most grateful if this thread did not deteriorate into a Left vs. Right argument, if intelligent conservatives like Bricker, John Mace and Mr Moto were able to find common ground with the liberals and moderates of the board in discussing whether there are in fact grounds for concern in my premises.
That said, allow me to raise these three questions: (1) Are Heinlein’s extrapolations in fact valid? (2) Granted that, are the social trends he prognosticated in fact actually happening? (3) If this is true, is there in fact cause for concern in the influence of the Religious Right on conservatism and the Republican Party?