In Which I Review A Reviewer
In general, I tend to steer away from reviewers of pretty well any fiction, books movies or music. At times, a really good, knowledgeable reviewer may have an interesting insight into a particular movie or book or song, but all too often all they are doing is projecting their own personal views on whatever subject onto someone else's creation. This is not so much commentary as it is an assault on someone else's creativity. An imposition of someone's ideas and prejudices onto another, mostly, as I see it, to pump up the reviewer's own feeling of importance. That said, there are some reviewers I generally like and some I wouldn't read on a bet. I'll let the reader decide where on that scale I fall in this case, since I am actually undertaking to review a review here.
David Itzkoff, writing in the New York Times, takes aim at a book by John Scalzi. I have not read that book, or indeed, any of Scalzi's books. That is not what I am writing this post about. What I am addressing here is Itzkoff's lengthy preface to his actual review of Scalzi. That preface is an attack on Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers.
When an emerging science-fiction writer’s work earns him comparisons to Robert A. Heinlein, should he take them as a compliment? Don’t misunderstand me: I have no reason to doubt that the old master’s classic novels “Stranger in a Strange Land” and “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls” are still as good as I remember them (and if they aren’t, please don’t tell me). But Heinlein’s military sci-fi, particularly the book that practically invented the genre, “Starship Troopers,” has not aged well, to put it mildly.
First published in 1959, when America’s misadventure in Korea was over and its intervention in Vietnam was hardly a twinkle in John F. Kennedy’s eye, “Starship Troopers” tells of the education of a naïve young man who enlists in a futuristic infantry unit. Raised by his father to believe that the practice of war is obsolete, the immature soldier — and, by extension, the reader — is instructed through a series of deep space combat missions that war is not only unavoidable, it is vital and even noble. While peace, Heinlein writes, is merely “a condition in which no civilian pays any attention to military casualties,” war is what wins man his so-called unalienable rights and secures his liberty. The practice of war is as natural as voting; both are fundamental applications of force, “naked and raw, the Power of the Rods and the Ax.”
From here the book starts to get a little scary. Frame it as a cautionary tale if it helps you sleep better, but to a contemporary reader it is almost impossible to interpret the novel as anything other than an endorsement of fascism, from an era when the f-word wasn’t just a pejorative suffix to be attached to any philosophy you disagreed with. Taken literally — and there is no indication that Heinlein meant otherwise — “Starship Troopers” might be the least enticing recruitment tool since “Billy Budd.”
In those paragraphs, I can detect , I think, a common thread. Mr. Itzkoff is not really familiar with the military and has a rather imprecise understanding of what fascism actually is. If you do not really understand the difference between duty and honor and equate them with fascism, you are kind of missing the entire point of Heinlein's work. Itzkoff also appears to miss the point that there is a very strong, logical consistency running through all (or almost all, there are a very few that are somewhat different in some ways) of Heinlein's works that essentially restates the author's belief in duty and honor. That would, ironically, include the two books Itzkoff cites as masterworks. There have been a number of attempts recently to redefine fascism to mean all things Republican, but I think the dictionary definition is appropriate here:
fas·cism [fash-iz-uhm] noun
1. (sometimes initial capital letter) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
What Heinlein does, I think, in Starship Troopers, is to explore how the individual comes to understand that it is sometimes more important to put others – society as a whole, if you will – ahead of personal selfishness. In other words, duty and honor.
Well, there, I've now projected my own personal views on another's work. The reader can decide how I did.
UPDATE: Well, I just noticed from the server logs that this post has been linked by John Scalzi from his blog, thank you very much. I did buy a copy of Old Man's War today when I did a bit of last minute shopping, so I will finally get around to reading that.
Because I Felt Like It, Media | Gaius December 23, 2006
By Quilly Mammoth, December 23, 2006 @ 11:23 pm
Holy Jumping Jazuzz. Yet another complete moron weighing in on Starship Troopers. Mr. Itzkoff doesn’t have the first foggiest idea about what the Socio-Economic system RAH proposed actually meant.
In Starship Troopers” the only way you could be a member of the voting class was by serving (shades of Chickehawks). The entire thing was first and foremost a response to a John Campbell “If this goes on…” scenario.
If the general population cares so little for the future of the society that they must be _forced_ to serve what does that mean? If they don’t care why shouldn’t they give the reigns of poeer over to the military?
Today we have the best troops ever…smart and motivated…what should ther reward be for a populace that doesn’t care?
By Bleepless, December 24, 2006 @ 12:58 am
Itzkoff cannot or will not read. What is fascist about an organization which can be joined by anyone — ANYONE — who can understand the oath?
By John, December 26, 2006 @ 6:43 pm
I’m always irritated by people who equate Heilein and fascism.
Sadly, for some that particular meme has become totally entrenched. Easier to recite it then it is to read the book and think about the subject matter.