Posted on 11/13/2004 12:26:56 PM PST by WillRain
Calling for assistance from my fellow Heinlein fans here.
I'm an education student (and a Social Science major) who has an assignment which is related to using literature to teach Social Studies.
I'd like to use, for this project, an excerpt from Starship Troopers in which the political philosophy of earning the franchise through a term of service is most concisely described.
Do any of you know of an on-line source that makes reference to these ideas?
In the absence of that, can you specify for me the place in the novel which has the clearest and most concise reference to the ideas (I'm thinking of a passage in which Rico remembers a class in which his instructor described the reasoning behind the service for franchise system). I've read the book a dozen times but I'm having trouble finding the exact passage i want. I'm asking because it strikes me as the sort of think that might have been excerpted on some blog or other somewhere on the net.
Anyone have a suggestion? I'm on a deadline and the project must be completed this weekend.
Thanks in advance.
<listening attentively>
And I don't care for Job: A Comedy of Justice ... thought it very bland.
And I never finished To Sail Beyond The Sunset ... what does that say about me???
I loved The Number Of The Beast .. how could i resist four Heinleins crammed into a tiny car with the personality of a fifth Heinlein?
<laughing> I read Time Enough For Love while a junior in high school. I was enthralled by the "Notebooks of Lazarus Long," to the point where I would sneak into my English classroom before class and write selected ones on the blackboard ... no one ever even noticed they were there (which tells you a lot about that English class).
Star Beast is also great ... loved Lummox!
And, WN, I think your niece would like Have Spacesuit ... PeeWee and Mother Thing always make my day! And wouldn't you love to have a man like Kip around the house? That's a man worth having!
I think it's important for girls to read Heinlein, to see what kind of men are worth associating with.
Funklin' on ...
Ringworld's not the best book to start with with Niven, I agree. It was pretty slow in parts (though I did very much enjoy the Kzin and Puppeteer characters). Niven is very much "hard" sci-fi, and that book in particular was more interested with setting out -how- the Ringworld could actually function then in telling a story. It's sequels are actually a bit better, IMO, cause he gets past that somewhat.
Another thing about Ringworld is that it's pretty much the culmination of the entire Known Space series, which I think is in total now almost 20 novels and short story collections. Ringworld comes at the end of his "future history", and there's a lot of good little nuances that you miss out if you haven't read the backdrop.
The way I would start with Niven's solo works would basically be to start going chronologically into the Known Space Universe. Try starting with World of Ptaavs, Protector, A Gift From Earth, and almost any of the short stories surrounding Gil "The Arm" Hamilton. That way, you get a better idea of how we got -there- (Ringworld) from -here- (Protector, in particular, is key for understanding what went on in Ringworld). The short story collection "Tales of Known Space" intersperses stories from throughout the entire 1000+ year future history, and thus gives a very very good general overview.
Qwinn
Check out the policy of mandatory service, and in fact the overall military philosophy, of Switzerland. A fascinating approach to civic responsibility, and the overwhelming majority of Swiss are on board with it.
As an aside, Switzerland is probably the scariest place for an army to try to invade, with the possible exception of the US.
I can think of four instances right off the top of my head, and it's what keeps Heinlein from being my favourite author of all time. It seriously creeps me out. I don't care if you're a thousand years older than the lady- dude, she's still your mom.
I really enjoyed that one and would like to see more like it from Varley.
Regards,
Yes! Forgot about "Menace From Earth."
That's definitely one for your niece, no question about it.
Regards,
Laz Long bump!
Would that have anything to do with the (excellent) fully-automatic assault rifle hung over every boy and girl's fireplace, and the 600-round can of ammo in the closet?
Once saw a National Geographic article on Switzerland from the 1940's or 1950's. One interior photo of a Swiss home showed three generations of military rifles, from an elderly Schmidt-Rubin to the latest model, hanging over the mantle. Each one belonged to a certain family member of a different generation.
Of course, Charlie Schumer and his playmates from the Violence Policy Center would have a cow over the numbers of guns in Switzerland and the utterly irresponsible way in which they were kept right out in the open, in the living room no less!
Is that the one in which Niven introduces us to thrintun and whitefood?
What was the name of that scientifically adept people who developed the whitefood to be resistant to the psychomanipulative abilities of the thrintun?
I'll probably think of it before you reply.
However, it was his breezy, post-50's take on sexuality that got him to the bigs with Stranger in a Strange Land -- in which, if you'll recall, the U.S., at the end of the century (this was set in the 1990's more or less, IIRC), was trying to hold off, with defensive diplomacy, a bunch of lowlife international thug-leaders and murderers-in-uniform who constituted the U.N. Anyone remember that one?
Wow, if he only knew.
In 'Time Enough....' go back to the part where he meets his mother...... also, in the same book when Laz was on the prairie and he speaks of young girls (his daughter) growing up and etc. etc..... his later books definitely bordering on that topic in some fashion or another...it's why I got turned off to them in the end.
Exactly. That and the fact that the Alps are full of great sniper perches, which the locals all know about...
I, too, don't care, Tribbles is one of my favorite episodes!
By the way I am not impressed by the "brilliance" of the author's somehow unique view that an individual should sacrifice for the public good. I think the armed forces and all patriots had that one figured out a long time ago. Also, isn't it cheating to ask Freepers to do your homework?
Isn't that the book which he never actually finished himself? I have been long under the impression that a surrogate completed that work. I have only read 5 or so Heinlein book's so I am not certain about "evil" which I did read.
There were similar problems with Stanley Kubrick's last film. I wouldn't even consider reading another Dune book once Herbert died. Somehow to me it is like watching new commercials with people like John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Martin L. King, or Steve McQueen et al. It seems bizarre and disrespectful to me.
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