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Originally Posted by EatingPie
Eternal thanks to bill_mchale, Xenophon (nice tux!) and Elfwreck (nice... er... hat!) for adding summations of Starship Troopers. You saved me from having to read that piece of crap again!!!  |
And thanks you you, EatingPie, because I decided to re-read Starship Troopers because of our discussion and I discovered that I have three copies of the book!
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Also, what you are including here would be a part of what I'm calling "military theory." The emphasis in the book was on the military, how the military should be structured, and how society should be structured when considering the necessity of a military. It's "social theory" at the end of the day, but I am using the term "military theory" to key in on what I saw as Heinlein's emphasis. How the military should be structured, and how society should be built around that.
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I tried hard to understand how you could see any "military theory" in the book, but it still eludes me. There is some explanation about how the regiment is structured, but that is meant to address why-we-fight, and not to advocate a particular composition for the *actual* American armed forces, which, you must remember, do not have powered armour to fight in.
Then there are some comments about how the government is run (which I remembered incorrectly, it is not all civil service which makes you eligible to vote, it is that the military have taken over all civil service) but I, and others, have addressed that many times in this thread already (and I don't think you read my previous post, to be honest
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Looking at Heinlein's work as a whole, I don't remember any other society which comes close to being run by the military or veterans. The only other story which I find similar in tone is Space Cadet (also a bildungsroman about a young man who joins the military), where a worldwide military organisation exists. However, in this book, Matt, the protagonist, joins the Space Patrol which is contrasted with the Marines. The Marines are very much like the cap troopers from Starship Troopers who believe there is no higher duty than to die for ones' country, but the Space Patrol are characterized as "professors". The Marines are looked at by the Space Patrol almost as regrettably necessary cannon fodder.
So the only two novels where the main characters join the military show a different viewpoint of military ideals, and no other novels push this kind of agenda. This doesn't sound to me like someone advocating for a change in government or military structure.
If I remember correctly, in my copy of Haldeman's Forever War, he tells a story about being nervous the first time he met RAH, because it could be seen as a sort of rebuttal to Starship Troopers, but Heinlein put him at ease instead. Where is the polemicism you detected?
You don't have to like the book, but I feel you misunderstood it (and maybe disagree with the central message) and it definitely doesn't warrant an "Avoid at all costs!" label for Heinlein based on that alone.