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Robert Heinlein at 100
http://www.reason.com/news/printer/120766.html ^

Posted on 08/19/2007 6:06:46 AM PDT by tpaine

Heinlein the Libertarian

"Ayn Rand is a bloody socialist compared to me," shows yet another side to the Heinlein paradox.

As a literary influence on the emerging libertarian movement, Heinlein was second only to Rand.

Yet his statement about self-sacrifice and duty to the species seems as un-Randian as you can get. Heinlein, a human chauvinist, always believed freedom and responsibility were linked. But he would never have thought it proper to impose the duty he saw as the highest human aspiration.

Heinlein once told a visitor, "I'm so much a libertarian that I have no use for the whole libertarian movement." Although never in lockstep with every libertarian attitude, Heinlein's fictions seemed derived from libertarianism before the modern movement even fully existed. Before books like Rand's Fountainhead and F.A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom sparked the modern libertarian movement in the mid-'40s, Heinlein had published a novelette, "Coventry," about a world whose government was based on a freely entered covenant that said that "no possible act, nor mode of conduct, was forbidden to you, as long as your action did not damage another."

Heinlein's other contributions to the libertarian zeitgeist include one of the epigrams of the gun rights movement, "an armed society is a polite society" - a line first published in his 1942 serial Beyond This Horizon.

He was also a direct intellectual influence on many important libertarians. David Friedman, author of the anarcho-capitalist classic The Machinery of Freedom, considered Heinlein's 1966 novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress vital to his intellectual evolution. (One of Moon's heroes was a professor advocating "rational anarchy," partially based on Heinlein's one-time neighbor, Robert LeFevre, founder of the libertarian Rampart College.) David Nolan, founder of the Libertarian Party, got his start in political activism in 1960 sporting a self-made "Heinlein for President" button. Another Heinlein devotee was Robert Poole, longtime editor of Reason and founder of the Reason Foundation, one of the first institutions to try to effect libertarian change in the real world in a practical manner. Poole's efforts could be seen as a legacy of Heinlein's interest in the nuts and bolts of how his imagined societies would actually function.

Even though he adopted the Milton Friedmanite phrase "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" as a slogan for his revolutionaries fighting colonial oppression in Moon, Heinlein was not deeply embedded in the economic strain of libertarianism, which stresses the importance of spontaneous order, the failures of central planning, and the efficiency of free markets. As the economist Robert Rogers has argued, Heinlein's fiction seemed to believe that it took Great Men or a single mind (sometimes human, sometimes computer) to make sure economies ran well. In a 1973 interview with the libertarian writer J. Neil Schulman, Heinlein was doubtful when Schulman referred to the greater efficiency of free markets. "I don't think the increase in efficiency on the part of free enterprise is that great," Heinlein said. "The justification for free enterprise is not that it's more efficient, but that it's free."

Heinlein was, then, his own kind of libertarian, one who exemplified the libertarian strains in both the Goldwater right and the bohemian left, and maintained eager fan bases in both camps. A gang of others who managed the same straddle, many of them Heinlein fans, split in 1969 from the leading conservative youth group, Young American for Freedom, in what some mark as the beginnings of a self-conscious libertarian activist movement. In a perfectly Heinleinian touch, the main sticking point between the libertarian and conservative factions was one of Heinlein's bêtes noires: resistance to the draft, which he hated as much as he loved the bravery of the volunteer who would fight for his culture's freedom or survival.

Heinlein the Iconoclast

The prominence of his juvenile novels and his galvanizing effect on so many adolescent fans have led many critics to condemn Heinlein's work as inherently unworthy of serious adult attention. As one scholar, Elizabeth Anne Hull, has written, "In an attempt to account for the extraordinary popularity and influence of the novels of Robert Heinlein, it would be all too easy to assert that the masses are asses and let it go at that. Those of us academics who read Heinlein are likely to admit it with an apology [and consider] our weakness in enjoying his work a minor character defect."

Heinlein is indeed best approached when young, because his work appeals to that eternal youthful question: How should you live as you grow into a culture you did not make?

Heinlein does this best via his defining characteristic, one that bridges the apparent divides in his work. As William Patterson, the author of a forthcoming two-volume biography of Heinlein, told me, the best way to understand Heinlein in toto is as a full-service iconoclast, the unique individual who decides that things do not have to be, and won't continue, as they are.

That iconoclastic vision is at the heart of Heinlein, science fiction, libertarianism, and America.

Heinlein imagined how everything about the human world, from our sexual mores to our religion to our automobiles to our government to our plans for cultural survival, might be flawed, even fatally so.

It isn't a quality amenable to pigeonholing, or to creating a movement around "What would Heinlein do?" As Heinlein himself said of his work, it was "an invitation to think-not to be-lieve." He created a body of writing, and helped forge a modern world, that is fascinating to live in because of, not in spite of, its wide scope and enduring contradictions.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: aynrand; heinlein; libertarian; rah; robertheinlein
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To: Dems_R_Losers
You can find this book here
41 posted on 08/19/2007 7:21:26 AM PDT by KevinDavis (Mitt Romney 08)
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To: bentfeather; Professional Engineer

Pinging you both. I can’t remember which of you is the Heinlein fan. :^)

I credit Heinlein for helping my mush-filled college brain transform into an adult.


42 posted on 08/19/2007 7:25:38 AM PDT by Samwise (Official Fred Head)
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To: iceskater; MrB; brivette; gcruse; wingnutx; Brett66; RightWhale; EsmeraldaA; Paul_Denton; ...

43 posted on 08/19/2007 7:25:43 AM PDT by KevinDavis (Mitt Romney 08)
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To: Pablo64

Heinlein’s one weakness was that he wrote poor endings. His message was in the story more than any author I ever read. How do you bring that to a conclusion?

The more powerful the story the more difficult it was to bring it to a finalizing climax. “And they lived happily ever after.” did not work for his story lines. It was a flaw I was more than willing to accept in his case.


44 posted on 08/19/2007 7:34:17 AM PDT by CMAC51
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To: tpaine
My favorite RH quote is; "A woman who trims, shaves or otherwise depilates her pubic curls has an intense interest in recreational sex."

Beat that.

45 posted on 08/19/2007 7:37:13 AM PDT by paddles
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To: bill1952
That’s not an absurdity.

A doctor who is able to, would, in an emergency situation.

They won’t in non-emergency situations because of the contractual agreement they and their patients have entered into both with the regulatory agencies and with the insurance companies.

This helps to prevent the “dabbler” or “jack of all trades” trying to do something he can’t do as well as a specialist and causing even worse problems.

46 posted on 08/19/2007 7:37:15 AM PDT by Ghost of Philip Marlowe (Liberals are blind. They are the dupes of Leftists who know exactly what they're doing.)
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To: tpaine

Starship Troopers was required reading when I was an infantry officer.

Unlike a lot of other libertarians, Heinlein understood that freedom and responsibility were two sides of the same coin.


47 posted on 08/19/2007 7:41:15 AM PDT by Terabitten (Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets - E-Frat '94. Unity and Pride!)
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To: tpaine
"no possible act, nor mode of conduct, was forbidden to you, as long as your action did not damage another."

These days, of course, no matter what you do, you will find someone to complain that it is damaging them.

48 posted on 08/19/2007 7:43:52 AM PDT by Right Wing Assault ("..this administration is planning a 'Right Wing Assault' on values and ideals.." - John Kerry)
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe

Do you want a surgeon operating on your brain that has never changed his child’s diaper? Or couldn’t make a home-cooked meal? Or perform simple first-aid on someone until an ambulance arrived?

I specialize in the sciences (engineering to be specific) but that doesn’t mean I can forgo other things. For example, I’m a licensed private and glider pilot and glider instructor. I enjoy cooking, construction (and demolition). The point of the quote is that some people get so focused into what they do that they forget the other things and could be useless unless in a specific situation.


49 posted on 08/19/2007 7:48:06 AM PDT by AntiKev ("No damage. The world's still turning isn't it?" - Stereo Goes Stellar - Blow Me A Holloway)
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To: bill1952

he is still alive???


50 posted on 08/19/2007 7:50:42 AM PDT by Freedom4US
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To: Right Wing Assault

“no possible act, nor mode of conduct, was forbidden to you, as long as your action did not damage another.”


Hmmm...an interesting, but deeply flawed statement. I am surprised someone as intelligent as Heinlein did not recognize it as such.

There is short term (immediate) physical harm resulting from one’s actions. But there is also long term, social and cultural harm of one’s actions. The latter is tough to prove and can only be measured over generations. Gay marriage is one example. When gays started to marry in MA, the sun still rose in the morning and things were still the same as yesterday. But the effect of it 20, 50, 100 years hence is still unknown (and I suspect negative). Of course, the current generation may be so twisted, that they refuse to recognize the rot until it is too late.


51 posted on 08/19/2007 7:55:11 AM PDT by rbg81 (DRAIN THE SWAMP!!)
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To: AntiKev
“Do you want a surgeon operating on your brain that has never changed his child’s diaper? Or couldn’t make a home-cooked meal? Or perform simple first-aid on someone until an ambulance arrived?”

I’d rather be operated on by someone who is an expert at brain surgery who may not be able to do these things than someone who can do these things but is not an expert at brain surgery.

My point was that Heinlien’s quote is typical of many maxims and epithets. They sound good at first, but when you analyze them, they usually don’t make complete sense.

I’m glad you’ve made so many accomplishments. I agree with you that we ought to study and excel at all those things we love to do. But we also have to admit that some people are better than others at certain things. Relatively, like it or not, they are experts or specialists, and they are the ones we depend upon in critical situations.

52 posted on 08/19/2007 7:55:48 AM PDT by Ghost of Philip Marlowe (Liberals are blind. They are the dupes of Leftists who know exactly what they're doing.)
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To: AntiKev

Same here - only, I have never flown a glider. I find that when things get that quiet, I break out in sweat, for some reason...


53 posted on 08/19/2007 7:57:07 AM PDT by patton (Congress would lose money running a brothel.)
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe
Any doctor who cannot or is not allowed, to set a fracture of the hand in a non emergency situation is an absurdity.

There is literally no emergency declaration in your hand being broken in three places, it just means you can’t use it, and that is not life threatening, hence contrary to your point, it will not be set period, until you locate such a doctor and get seen.

Of course the fact that your hand will be crippled for life due to loss of function is not an “emergency” either.

Even the fact that you believe that such inaction is okay-fine shows that the system is not only broken, but is the very epitome of absurdity.

54 posted on 08/19/2007 7:59:17 AM PDT by bill1952 ("All that we do is done with an eye towards something else.")
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To: Titan Magroyne

*Heinlein ping*


55 posted on 08/19/2007 8:29:16 AM PDT by Drumbo ("Democracy can withstand anything but democrats." - Jubal Harshaw (Robert A. Heinlein))
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To: Drumbo

Thankya sir.


56 posted on 08/19/2007 8:33:31 AM PDT by Titan Magroyne ("Shorn, dumb and bleating is no way to go through life, son." Yeah, close enough.)
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To: AntiKev
It describes my worldview to a tee.

I'm with you on that count.
57 posted on 08/19/2007 8:34:22 AM PDT by JamesP81 (Keep your friends close; keep your enemies at optimal engagement range)
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To: Samwise; bentfeather; Rose in RoseBear; Peanut Gallery
Ensign Heinlein reports:

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

58 posted on 08/19/2007 8:34:26 AM PDT by Professional Engineer (To Engineer is human.)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

““The justification for free enterprise is not that its more efficient, but that its free.”’

Er, yes. But if it were inefficient, only idiots would cling to it.


59 posted on 08/19/2007 8:36:44 AM PDT by gcruse (Let's strike Iran while it's hot.)
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To: Pablo64

I just reread ‘The Cat That Walked Through Walls’. It is also very disappointing. The thing to remember is that Heinlein wrote for money. If we’re foolish enough to pay him for junk, that’s our problem.


60 posted on 08/19/2007 8:38:34 AM PDT by conejo99
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