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.
Starship Troopers is decent... but I am forever unable to consider myself a Heinlein fan after having read the godawful, brain-numbing "Number of the Beast".
And you have to wonder how many people became liberals after reading "Stranger in a Strange Land" too.
Qwinn
Uh, NO!!! She's getting ones suited to her. :-) Starship Troopers is one. That's why I just "happened" to have it sitting here. :-)
My brother didn't question me giving her Citizen of the Galaxy though he'd never read it. BUT, he would not allow me to give his kids Tolkien's books. He's never read them, only seen the movies but he thinks they are demonic. *sigh* I tried to 'splain!! I bought him Fellowship to let him read and see... but he's not a reader and after almost 2 yearas he hasn't finished it yet. ~shaking head~
Anyway, this young niece was complaining because she thought reading material assigned in school was dumb. She thought she might like to read if she found stories that interested her. Turns out, she does!
No but I saw it going for pretty cheap on ebay a few weeks ago while looking for the book. Is it worth picking up?
I tell you three times: Read the book!
There is a Heinlein site which dicusses this, and has an interview with RAH which refers to the subject.
"Expanded Universes" by RAH talks about his ideas on franchise.
In "Starship Troopers", the ideas are discussed by Du Bois(Rico's teacher), and later in the chapters dealing with Rico at Officer's School.
I dunno, but I know some other Heinlein fans to ping!
Heinlein ping. . .
The book is required reading for all Marines,by the order of Commandant. [ranks E1-E5,Pvt through Sgt.]
Hmmm, does your brother consider Catholics demonic too?
If not, then you might want to point out to him that Tolkien was a deeply faithful Catholic, and his faith comes out in several places in the trilogy. Quite a few articles came out about it in the weeks after Return of the King debuted.
Qwinn
Try "Have Spacesuit Will Travel"
"Pokadyn of Mars"
"The Rolling Stones"
"The Star Beast"
"Stranger in a Strange Land" may be a bit too early for someone that young as are much of his later works
I've got it, as a hand-me-down from a friend, but never found time to play it. Had tons of hex-grid wargames as a kid, played them a lot. AH and SPI. Had an SPI subscription back in the early 70s.
I think "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" works, in that category.
I looked it up, it's when he's gone career and is at
officers school. Starts pg 142 or so.
Excellent work on that. Kudos.
So now we're supposed to do people's homework too?
Slightly off topic, but if you want to read an outstanding SF novel pick up Hyperion and it's sequel, by Dan Simmons. I just finished reading it, and it's one the best SF novels I've ever read.
Trust me, I have debated this point with him till I'm blue in the face. We have never been close, he never read and he doesn't trust me much. He didn't realize FOTR would scare his younger children and saw Nazgul as demons, wizardry and scorcery etc. He just needs to read the books in order to understand.... if he ever would.
Already read Hyperion and it's sequel :) You're right, absolutely excellent sci-fi (though some of the politics and prejudices were annoying). There are in fact two more sequels, Endymion and Rise of Endymion, I believe they're called (could be a bit off on that, it's been a while)
Qwinn
"Mr. Salomon, can you give me a reason - not historical, nor theoretical but practical - why the franchise is today limited to discharged veterans?"
"Uh, because they are picked men, sir. Smarter."
"Preposterous!"
"Sir?"
"Is the word too long for you? I said it was a silly notion. Service men are not brighter than civilians. In many cases civilians are much more intelligent. That was the sliver of justification underlying the attempted coup d' etat just before the Treaty of New Delhi, the so-called 'Revolt of the Scientists': let the intelligent elite run things and you'll have utopia. It fell flat on its foolish face of course. Because the pursuit of science, despite its social benefits, is itself not a social virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered as to be lacking in social responsibility. I've given you a hint, Mister; can you pick it up?"
Sally answered, "Uh, service men are disciplined, sir."
Major Reid was gentle with him. "Sorry. An appealing theory not backed up by facts. You and I are not permitted to vote as long as we remain in the Service, nor is it verifiable that military discipline makes a man self-disciplined once he is out; the crime rate of veterans is much like that of civilians. And you have forgotten that in peacetime most have not been subject to the full rigors of military discipline; they have merely been harried, overworked, and endangered - yet their votes count."
Major Reid smiled. "Mr. Salomon, I handed you a trick question. The practical reason for continuing our system is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything: It works satisfactorily.
"Nevertheless, it is instructive to observe the details. Throughout history men have labored to place the sovereign franchise in hands that would guard it well and use it wisely, for the benefit of all. An early attempt was absolute monarchy, passionately defended as the 'divine right of Kings.'
"Sometimes attempts were made to select a wise monarch, rather than leave it up to God, as when the Swedes picked a Frenchman, General Bernadotte, to rule them. The objection to this is that the supply of Bernadottes is limited.
"Historic examples ranged from absolute monarch to utter anarch; mankind has tried thousands of ways and many more have been proposed, some weird in the extreme such as the antlike communism urged by Plato under the misleading title The Republic. But the intent has always been moralistic; to provide stable and benevolent government.
"All systems seek to achieve this by limiting franchise to those who are believed to have the wisdom to use it justly. I repeat 'all systems'; even the so-called 'unlimited' democracies' excluded from franchise not less than one quarter of their populations by age, birth, poll tax, criminal record, or other.'
Major Reid smiled cynically. "I have never been able to see how a thirty-year old moron can vote more wisely than a fifteen-year old genius ... but that was the age of the 'divine right of the common man.' Never mind, they paid for their folly.
"The sovereign franchise has been bestowed by all sorts of rules - place of birth, family of birth, race, sex, property, education, age, religion, et cetera. All these systems worked and none of them well. All were regarded as tyrannical by many, all eventually collapsed or were overthrown.
...
"Under our system, every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage. And that is the one practical difference. He may fail in wisdom, he may lapse in civic virtue. But his average performance is enormously better than that of any other class of rulers in history."
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