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bulletsponge13 posted:It's not discipline- it's sacrifice. That is his entire point. Franchise is earned through service so that it has value to the person and society practicing. It demonstrates that the individual was willing to risk themselves to play a role in the body politic, in theory making them more engaged. That by forfeiting years of their life, they get the authority and responsibility to vote. It shows the individual places the group above themselves. ... and to build off of this, this is also (one reason) why the book is fundamentally flawed - leaving aside the veteran issue, the basic idea that it's appropriate to have bar to clear in order to participate fully in democracy or community governance is ignorant and abhorrent. It suggests that it's okay for some set of people to be subject to the power of the state without recourse to changing that because they didn't "earn" the right. Leaving aside the political theory debate around why that's inappropriate, practically that's the creation of a second class of citizen that will inevitably result in violent exploitation.
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Feb 10, 2023 20:38
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A.o.D. posted:I'm no scholar, but I have read enough Heinlein to know that he wasn't a dogmatic idealogue, yet critiques of his work seem to make that assumption way too often. He seems like one of the most popular authors to strawman. Partially it’s the old issue about how there’s no such thing as an anti-war movie - even really blatant piss takes on fascism like the older 40k stuff gets seen from the pov of “wow, cool explosions!” Given the rest of Heinlein’s work, I’m not personally convinced it’s quite as anti-fascist as things like the movie version is, but I think that he did approach the idea with some nuance. It just doesn’t matter when a 15 year old proto-libertarian reads it, they’ll miss all the critique in it. So the net result is that the book is effectively pro-fascist in its impact.
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Feb 11, 2023 16:32
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