Politics and Science Fiction: Service Guarantees Citizenship

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Ethics_Gradient: May 5, 2015; Common misconception that; that fun is relaxing. If it is, you're not doing it right.

My submission would be Iain M Bank's "Culture" books - a post scarcity, transhumanist society which is sorta governed by superintelligent AI's. I wouldn't say politics or ethics usually takes top billing (the stories tend to be more character driven) but you can definitely find some themes there. He writes well, many of the weirder aliens like the Affront, and the AI minds are particularly fun.

Dick Trauma posted:

I was never much of a political person until our country's most recent decent into madness, so I rarely considered the political perspective of the media I consumed. There was a lot of Heinlein talk in the USPOL thread so I was surprised that no one mentioned "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" which I enjoyed as a kid but apparently is some sort of revolting Libertarian fever dream.

I expect that much of the 1960s and 1970s sci fi I read in my younger years probably had a laughable/repulsive political undertone that I didn't notice because I was reading for enjoyment, not enlightenment.

EDIT: I should also mention that shows like The Twilight Zone and the original Star Trek gave my young mind the impression that human beings should avoid thinking that they can solve every problem with technology, or that modern human beings have moved beyond the ignorance and flaws of earlier times. I was not interested in "perfect" sci fi heroes. The cynicism and dystopia of the 1970s and 1980s definitely made sure I was not going to engage in America's usual hero worship bullshit.

Moon is a Harsh Mistress is definitely libertarian - I went back and listened to an audiobook at a boring desk job in college though and it was magical because the reader did the main character's narration with a Russian accent. I remember enjoying the narrative, but again, that was a very long time ago now.

TBH the incest stuff that took front seat after his stroke is probably worse than his politics.

Lawman 0 posted:

Science fiction that dosen't engage with politics is basically just fantasy for engineers

I am definitely going to steal this quote.

Aruan posted:

I, like many a goon, love reading science fiction, and for obvious reasons science fiction is a perfect playground for every halfbit political theorist to theorycraft a utopian (or dystopian) future political system. I thought it'd be a fun discussion to explore some of the more interesting theoretical futures and reflect on how many of them are quite fascist.

I'll get us started with a few examples!

Robert Heinlein - Starship Troopers

Heinlein is the proto-fascist origin story of a lot of contemporary military science fiction (coincidentally almost all published by Baen Books) which imagines a future in which the dominant political system is a quasi-libertarian/fascist state where military/public service is required to "earn" citizenship attendant privileges beyond a basic level of human rights.

Here's a quick Wikipedia summary:

So, pretty fascist, although Heinlein would probably refer to it as libertarian.

Definitely fascist, but what part is libertarian? It's been half a lifetime since I last read Troopers, which was one of my favourite books growing up (not because of the politics - liked the narration style and way you could see Rico mature over the course of the novel), but I don't remember hearing much if anything about the economic system in the book. If anything it came off as "government controls everything". Now that I think about it, is fascism even compatible with libertarianism? I'm not saying either is good, mind you.

Heinlein was in the Navy as a young man but was discharged due to medical reasons. I think some of the commentary I've read on Troopers suggests that it's partly him working through that, but also the bugs are a racist stand-in for the Communist hoardes.

My relationship with Heinlein is complicated - never read him for the politics (or sex stuff) but he'll probably always have a place in my heart as one of the first authors I discovered as a kid and tried to read everything of. I actually didn't mind the politics of Troopers when I read it as "here's a scifi thought experiement" rather than "full facism now" - I actually do still think it's more the former than the latter just on the basis of how solidly libertarian the rest of his work is, but the fact it only shows the upside of it is rather damning.

Lester Shy posted:

I'll take any opportunity I can to recommend Kim Stanley Robinson. I'd grown entirely disenchanted with SF/F until I picked up his Mars trilogy. Along with Le Guin, he's one of the few authors that makes me feel some of the awe and wonder and hopefulness I did as a kid. His stuff gets derisively written off as "hard" sci-fi, which it is, but there's also a lot of heart and imagination in his stories. If you have any interest in SF/F and leftism, I can't recommend him enough.

https://communemag.com/dystopias-now/

I haven't read them since high school and should go back - I remember the politics but not very clearly, the hard SF stuff I found very interesting at the time though. Red Mars was written very early in the 90s IIRC so it's got a bit of a retro-future thing with the Russians being a big player. (You can argue that they still sorta are, but if he was writing today I'm sure KSR would have swapped them with the Chinese to give the latter a more prominent role).

Ethics_Gradient fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Feb 11, 2021

# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 20:35

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 22:34

Ethics_Gradient: May 5, 2015; Common misconception that; that fun is relaxing. If it is, you're not doing it right.

The Oldest Man posted:

Heinlein's writing is all political. Either he's writing about political systems explicitly or he's writing apologia for why a political system shouldn't exist that infringes the things he wants to be able to do.

The short answer about Starship Troopers is that he's writing a world in which a libertarian-magnates-of-industry economy (ie the non-service-non-voting-citizen world) is explictly compatible with a fascist government. Rico comes from a rich merchant/business family, and they don't want him to enlist (and try to bribe him out of it) by telling him he can be a ~master of his destiny!~ if he'll just take over the family business. Rico chooses to join the military but it was clear that this is only a prerequisite for getting into the government, not for being John Galt, and that he was kind of a dipshit as a rich kid for choosing what he did - but that it was correct that it was his choice. Heinlein is imagineering a world in which we can have our individualist libertopian paradise and our war economy fascist oorah nuke the reds militarized society at the same time. Note that his fascist full military society actually lacks universal male conscription which is one of the most common features of militarized societies in real life because to include it would cut against his libertarian dream world ideal. The rest of the non-military society is all off-screen in favor of more sick democracy nukes turning Asiatic commie bugs into chunky salsa, but you get the gist. The reason why it appears to be a thought experiment is because you're probably like "what the gently caress, no way could anyone seriously want that" but at the time those were two things he wanted that he was trying to reconcile with each other. Later on he focused more on the stuff that was truly important to him: imagining a future society in which he would be free to gently caress his kids without judgment.

That's an interesting take - it makes sense and squares with what I know about him, but because he wrote very little about the non-military part of his society it's hard to really say too definitively. I'd say it's probably the best theory I've heard though.

The Oldest Man posted:

I think Heinlein's politics were fundamentally unthought out and unserious and "choosy libertarians choose fascism" is how he squared his libertarianism with his bloodthirsty militarism even if it makes no sense.

E: I mean libertarianism as a whole is fundamentally unthought out and unserious and "I value individual economic freedom above everything but also you should be allowed to sell yourself into slavery" is not an uncommon idea among hardcore ancaps so

This 100% - aside from the running undercurrent of "stand out of the way of the Great Man" Heinlein always seemed happy to take whatever passing thought he had and work it into a book.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2021 09:07

Ethics_Gradient: May 5, 2015; Common misconception that; that fun is relaxing. If it is, you're not doing it right.

Epic High Five posted:

The Culture novels are so good, such a strange and unique premise to it all and like a good socialist the whole series is just an experiment in exploring the society's contradictions and hypocrisies and the ambiguous calculations of harm reduction and necessity

Of course as soon as I got to book 4, Audible removed books 4-7 from their library without any explanation

Banks dying is really the only "celebrity" death that's actually bummed me out and I wish I could have met him. I really loved the Culture books and pretty much all the other stuff of his I read - his imagination and wry sense of humour just really clicked for me and it sucks knowing that voice is gone forever :smith:

I've still got Matter, Hydrogen Sonoto, and Inversions (if that counts) to read, kinda don't want to because then there won't be any new stuff to look forward to. Interested to see what Amazon does with the series.

Off topic for this thread, but Raw Spirit of his is a bit of a guilty pleasure - it got somewhat lacklustre reviews for being self-indulgent (it's basically a travelogue of Banks driving around Scotland and talking about his cars/motorbikes, scotch, and British SF) but his hobbies and mine overlap pretty nicely so it was right up my alley. One of my rainy day projects is to go back and re-read it, and take notes on his routes so I can use it as a base for a future road trip.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2021 20:58

Ethics_Gradient: May 5, 2015; Common misconception that; that fun is relaxing. If it is, you're not doing it right.

Dick Trauma posted:

Pushing myself to get through the first Culture book. It reminds me of Larry Niven's books, but bogs down with some inexplicably detailed and long-winded passages, including a mind-bending cannibalism scene described with such enthusiasm that it makes me think that the author should not be allowed outside without adult supervision.

It reads like it's caught between old and new science fiction styles, and not in a good way.

EDIT: VVV You're not my Dad!

Well, the good news is you don't have to worry about Banks getting loose since he died of cancer in 2013 :smith:

Consider Phlebas is a pretty straightforward action movie (IIRC it's going to be developed into an Amazon miniseries or something?). I thought it was a good ride but I don't remember it being super deep. It was also written in the late 80s, so there's that.

Use of Weapons is my favourite Culture book from a storytelling perspective, Excession probably does the most interesting stuff with the Minds and is worth the read for that alone, but TBH I found the central plot device rather tired. I also have a real soft spot for The Algebraest (a non-Culture SF novel) - the antagonist is pretty over the top but the Dwellers are a lot of fun.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2021 00:43

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