The story did have a plot error in it, too. Supposedly the barrier was completely impassable; birds that flew over it fell to the ground dead, and the water that went under it steamed up. Yet, at one point in the story, an individual does manage to pass the barrier.
Basically, my take on Coventry is that it is a really nice, neat, libertarian idea. You don’t want to live by society’s rules? Go to this place where you can make your own rules. We won’t punish you, but we won’t protect you either.
Now, of course, reality rears its ugly head and you realize what kind of people you will have in such a place, and what sorts of things they will be doing in there. So, says R.A.H., we put in secret spies/police to keep tabs on things and make sure no army is strong enough to break through the check point, make it impossible to leave Coventry (by having a force field - which, btw, the protagonist is able to penetrate), and have it be only an option for people.
All we need to get a program started now is a secret police system that is infallible, a force field large enough to contain 75 square miles, etc.
It could work.
Robert Silverberg treated a similar situation with a different mechanism – in his novel Hawksbill Station criminals (including political criminals, whose crime is lack of commitment to the existing regime) are transported backwards in time to the Paleozoic era, where it’s unlikely they could even cause asn unanted “butterfly effect” because there ain’t no butterflies. Men and women are segregated into camps placed a thousand years apart, which pretty much eliminates children. Nobody has time machines there, so they can’t escape.
For Hollywood’s take on it, see “No Escape”:
There’s an Arthur C Clarke tale that has a political prisoner being sent forwards in time to when the human race is expected to have died out.
Heh–that was kinda the whole point of it.
The story “Coventry” is part of a larger sequence of stories. In the story that came before, the USA had been taken over by a religous dictatorship and following a sucessful revolution, the magical wonderous libertopia in the story"Coventry" happened was created in reaction to the oppressive religous tyranny.
And this utopia lasted for one story. The second…the instant…that the masses found out that there was something they wanted* that they couldn’t get under the libertopia of the Compact (their constitution) and coventry, they immediately scrapped the laws, instituted a police state, started rounding up people for gulags, etc. So Heinlein’s whole point was that it couldn’t survive in the real world…if your utopia completely crumbles at the VERY first challenge, it’s not a ringing endorsement of your political theories.
Heh–and since Heinlein’s only other libertarian-esque society (the one from Moon Is A Harsh Mistress) turned nasty in the (dreadful, but for other reasons) book The Cat Who Walked Through Walls, I think Heinlein realized that there were problems with a true pure libertain society
*Long life. A bunch of people had been “bred” to have a lifespan in the 200 year range. The general population didn’t buy that and figured there was an immortality serum or something. It was somewhere between sad and funny when a bunch of the long lifers were sitting around watching the hysteria as their existance was revealed and saying “Oh golly! No one can do anything bad to US! Our libertopian Compact protects us!”. Heh-and then ending up in interment camps next paragraph.
Fenris: the new constitution was called the Covenant.
I always thought it was interesting that Heinlein, who was, correct me if I’m wrong, a staunch libertarian, portrays all his libertarian societies collapsing into chaos while the one workable/admirable/long-lasting society in his books is a proto-fascist one.
I don’t think that’s correct. Heinlein hated being pigeon-holed, and I think he wouldn’t call himself a Libertarian. There’s an interview of him availanble through a website which I have to get – I understand the interviewer tries to pin him down as a Libertarian, but Heinlein keeps wiggling out, not agreeing with straight Libertarian points at all.
I don’t know wha you’d call him . A Heinleinist, maybe. Doeasn’t surprise me that he’d show libertaruian societies failing. Heinlein loved building all sorts of possible societies and voting methods in his works. It’s not clear if he thought any of them workable, but I’bve always suspected that he liked the ex-veterans society described in Starship Troopers and defended in Expanded Universe.
The interview is by J. Neil Schulman (spelling may be wrong.) I’ve read it: it’s a fascinating interview and Cal’s right: the interviewer was desperately trying to pin Heinlein down as a libertarian (and/or an Ayn Rand objectivist) and Heinlein refused to be pinned. He liked some of their ideas but my take is that he didn’t think they were practical.
What’s interesting to me is how people (myself included) tend to want to pigeonhole Heinlein’s politics based on his writings–but I can’t think of any type of government (other than a handwaved general democracy that didn’t figure into the story) that he dealt with more than twice in any detail. It’s not like ALL his writings are about libertopias or monarchotopias. Off the top of my head, he’s proposed everything from a creepy benign nuclear dictatorship (Space Cadets) to pure anarchy (the middle part of Time Enough For Love) to absolute dictatorships (Glory Road-Star can twiddle her fingers and have planets destroyed–and there’s possible way to impeach her) to rule by people who’ve served their country–and not just militarily–there’s a line in Starship Troopers about how you might be put to work counting the fuzz on a caterpillar by touch, but that would count to get you the vote, to a fairly modern democracy (Double Star) to libertopias (“Coventry”) to libertarian-anarchies (Moon is a Harsh Mistress) to rule by town council and so on. He even tossed out the “Rule by mutant supermen” thing that John W. Campbell loved so much (“Gulf”) and then expressly denounced it (Friday).
The only thing I see in common in most of his governments is that the ones that the narrators seem to approve of tend to be the ones that leave people alone in general. Even the creepy nuclear dictatorship-like thing in Space Cadets only threatens to drop orbital nukes on countries that invade other countries…they don’t worry about the internal stuff or personal stuff. The governments that the narrator seems to disapprove of (Scudder’s theocracy, the society that Lazarus Long and company leave in the middle of Time Enough For Love) tend to be the ones that meddle in the minutae of people’s lives. (Telling Lazarus that he can’t die, etc.)
There’s a passage in “Glory Road” where Heinlein…I mean “Rufo” talks about this. He says that the form of government isn’t the issue, any sort of form could work, as long as there’s enough looseness for people to go about their lives without too much hassle. What’s needed isn’t a particular constitution or set of rules, but rather that most people believe in “live and let live”.
And the Empress in “Glory Road” isn’t supposed to have any sort of formal power, it isn’t presented as a dictatorship. Rather the Emperors just have a pretty good track record of making good decisions, so when an emperor recommends a course of action the interested parties decide to carry it out. Sort of like Judge Judy.
One theme that runs throughout Heinlein’s works is a disdain for the “common man”, and an equal disdain for those who want to run the common man’s affairs for him.
But isn’t there a specific passage where Star (or one of her predecessors), annoyed with endless tedium of a he said/she said debate, points to one of the participants and says “Enough. His side started it. Just blow up his planet and let’s be done with it.”?
I’d quibble that it isn’t the common man that Heinlein has contempt for, it’s the incompetent man. Sheckley, Philip K. Dick, Douglas Adams etc. were fascinated by watching a total loser try to survive in a world to big, complex and hostile for him to really understand. Heinlein, Laumer and several others preferred the reverse: a competent man in a big, hostile, complex world.
I can think of an easy half-dozen “common man” characters that aren’t treated with contempt in Heinlein’s work…but I can’t think of one incompetent character that’s NOT treated with at best pity and at worst contempt (and in most cases they die or run away).
Fenris, I dunno. Heinlein is definitely an elitist; I can hardly think of one of his books where a figure who is mentally and, almost invariably, physcially superior to his fellows does not achieve a glorified or even transcendant state through his superirority. I think that might be why some have idenfitified him as a fascististic figure.
If I recall correctly, the passage was more like: “The problem will be solved if you take that guy…that one, right over there…yes, him…take him out and shoot him.” And it wasn’t the tedium, or who started it, but rather how to handle the problem.
I suppose “disdain” isn’t the right word. But characters in Heinlein novels constantly complain that the uneducated masses shouldn’t be allowed to interfere while their betters are trying to make decisions. Mr. Kiku from “The Star Beast” compared democracy to passengers trying to grab the controls away from an airplane pilot during an emergency. But characters also constantly complain about self appointed “experts” making decisions they have no right to make. I suppose Heinlein isn’t so much elitist as anti-populist. I seem to remember one of the Vegans from “Have Space Suit, Will Travel” saying something like, “Democracy is a very good system for beginners.”
Now, Happy Clam, I’m trying to think of a Heinlein novel where the hero is phsically superior, and the only two that come to mind are “Friday” and “Beyond this Horizon”. Mentally and especially morally superior, sure, but physically?
Heck, Waldo is as far from physically superior as you can get.
Heh–then they’re A) using the term “facist” incorrectly and B) are being very, VERY selective of which characters they look at.
Half dozen non-supermen off the top of my head.
[ol]
[li]Mr Kiku–bureaucrat, works hard, compentent, but not stunningly so. Star Beast[/li][li]Whichever kid went into space in Time For The Stars–normaly physical build and serious emotional/psychological problems[/li][li]John-Thomas from Star Beast, a little dim (certainly at least 4 characters in the book are smarter than him) and only in “normal” shape. [/li][li]Andrew Jackson Libby (“Misfit”). Yeah, he had a super-power (can do complex math in his head) but was a scrawny runt and not very bright otherwise.[/li][li]The Great Lorenzo-started out as a washed up actor and a total jerk…grew into something better but certainly no superman. (Double Star[/li][li]Alexander Whatshisname from Job–a racist, bigoted prick and again, no physical or mental paragon. (Again, the character grew during the novel, but grew from a racist, bigoted prick into a more-or-less normal guy)[/li][li]Manny from Moon Is A Harsh Mistress–brighter than average computer tech…absolutely not a physical specimen of physical strength.[/li][li]Juan Rico from Starship Troopers–average, or normal-level above average intelligence (he kept failing math classes) and the one fistfight we see him in against a competent foe, he gets the crap knocked out of him.*[/li][li]The guy from “Let There Be Light”. He got the snot beaten out of him (IIRC) and while he was good in his specialized field, certainly no polymath.[/li][/ol]
and I could keep going. And note that I only chose (excluding Mr. Kiku) protagonists, I only chose guys and I only chose characters in their 20s-50s. If we expand that range, I can get a lot more.
On the other hand: physical and mental supermen? Not all that many, IMO, and in a few cases, it’s justified/necessary to the plot (James Bond, for example HAD to be a superman to tell James Bond stories)
[ol]
[li]Lazarus Long: Ok, True superman. There’s nothing he can’t do better than anything else from fighting to farming to fu…colonizing a planet. Men want to be him and women want to be with him. [/li][li]The kids in Space Cadet–they’re essentially kids who get to go to the Air Force Academy: the best of the best of the best… And don’t strike me as being all “that” superman-ish, just at the good end of the bell-curve.[/li][li]The characters from Puppet Masters–we’re into James Bond territory here. They’re super-spies, so it’s not suprising that they’re physical and mental paragons. [/li][li]Oscar from Glory Road-paragon, no doubt about it.[/li][li]The guy from Beyond This Horizon and Valentine Michael Smith from Stranger: in both cases the book was about “How does a superman deal with the real world?”[/li][/ol]
There may be more, but that’s an “off the top of my head” list.
*The scene where a couple of college (?) kids try to rough him and his drinking buddies up doesn’t count.
Oops, and as Lemur mentioned, Friday from Friday, but she was so emotionally screwed up that I don’t know if she counts as a paragon. (Her parents, from “Gulf” do, however)
Lazarus Long novels and Stranger in a Strange Land? Okay, “usually” was not necessarily correct (although no matter the physical condition of Heinlein’s heroes, they all seem to have the sexual attractiveness of a supermodel). Since making that post, I have, of course, thought of at least 2 novels which involve an “everyman” figure: Job: A Comedy of Justice and If This Goes On-- the latter of which features a particuarly unspectacular, even flawed (racist, for example) figure as its protagonist.
Fenris, I realise my original point was too broadly made, but I maintain that Heinlein is, for the most part, an elitist- the novels where (IMO), we see the most of his personal views are the ones where a small group of elites are distinguished by their unusual intellectual powers from both the majority of the population and from the (usually) oppressive government. I’m willing to debate the point, obviously, but I think it stands up to criticism.
Was John Lyle racist? I don’t remember anything like that in the story. Conditioned by his up-bringing, certainly. But racist?
The thing that makes most of the women in Heinlein’s works “sexually attractive” is that they love sex, not their looks. Sure, some of them were knock-outs (Deety, Wyoh, Gillian, Dorcas) but others who weren’t got just as much if not more action (Hilda, Tamara).