Quote:
Originally Posted by EatingPie
As I said, you cut too much. My assertion at this point was about holding RAH in reverence, and that influencing how we view this particular work/statement. Then testing that assertion by putting his words into someone whose mouth many people don't revere.
So in case you think cultural context is at play here, let my change my quote to more a contemporary of Heinlein.
I personally believe the only reason we discuss this as possibly legitimate is that Heinlein is a well-loved writer, and Stranger in a Strange Land is considered a cultural classic. It's easy to test this theory. Just imagine Richard Nixon or Joseph McCarthy saying the exact same statement from the podium.
So I ask again, how's that quote sound now?
-Pie
PS I'm playing catch-up, so I will read other posts I might have missed or overlooked later (I see Radius made another reply I didn't read).
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<Shrug> The same. I long since learned to disassociate what was said from who said it. Something was not automatically wrong because person x said it, or right because person y said it.
Science fiction has been a literature of ideas, and stretching one's worldview. This has led to many controversial peices of fiction and quotes within it. Here's some other <nasty> books, as bad or worse than Heinlein. You might want to sample them for comparison...
Joanna Russ - The Female Man - The only good male is a dead male...
Norman Spinrad - The Iron Dream - An alternate history story about Adolf Hitler becoming a pulp S/F writer in the US...
H. Beam Piper - story - A Slave Is A Slave - About helping the underdog...
Mack Reynolds - Mercenary From Tomorrow - Note especially Joe Mauser's relationships with fans....
Aldous Huxley - Brave New Worlds - The joys(?) of conformity...
(Please note - I don't consider most of them badly written (even Russ wrote a well-structured book), but the all have or are hot button books. Just different buttons.)