This is a close up of the stuff on the printer. I put it away not long after Christmas of 1999.
The following are excerpts from an alt.fan.heinlein newsgroup thread about Take Back Your Government. I put them up here because I think they show a lot about what a community I see myself as part of thinks the political system is.
Tian
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Topic: Robert A. Heinlein's _"Take Back Your Government!"_ aka "How To Be A Politician: A Practical Handbook for the Private Citizen Who Wants Democracy to Work" (Baen, ©1992, by Mrs. Virginia Heinlein, ISBN 0-671-72157-7).
From James Gifford's RAH:ARC, the following description:
"This outstanding and unusual work is a detailed guidebook for grassroots political activity written shortly after the [second world] war and based on Heinlein's political experiences in the late 1930s. Twenty years ahead of its time it failed to find a contemporaneous publisher, and remained wholly unknown to readers ... until its appearance in 1992 with a foreward and incomplete notes by Jerry Pournelle. * * * * [i]t provides substantial insight into Heinlein's political thinking, although there are conflicts with some later opinions. Many echoes of the practical advice here reappear in Heinlein's own fiction including _Double Star_, _The Star Beast_ and _'A Bathroon of Her Own_.'"
In 1916, courses in politcal science and history used to teach, Charles Evan Hughes ran against Woodrow Wilson for President of the United States. Hughes lost the electoral votes of the State of California by less than one vote per precinct and, thus, the election.
That couldn't happen again in this 'modern' age, could it? ROFL!
--
David M. Silver
AGplusone@aol.com
"I expect your names to shine!"
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I am ashamed to say I have never read this book. (So much for shooting my mouth off about Heinlein's political views!) Still, I would suggest Heinlein's fiction alone provides adequate insight into Heinlein's thinking. In additon to the list supplised by David Silver, I would suggest reading "Our Fair City" and "Magic Inc." for a taste of Heinlein's opinion of (bad) politicians. "Podkayne of Mars" also contains some of his insights, specifically that no matter what we think of politics, it is better than the alternative.
--
William B. Dennis II
http://www.ournet.md/~libertarian/heinlein.html
(going to Barnes & Noble tomorrow)
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There has been much talk in other places about how Heinlein picks the names of his characters. This book explains some of ways that he thinks of names. For example, the contest is between Jonathan Upright and (forgot this part) Swivelchair.
There is a chapter where he describes what people will be reading for in your endorser list, part of saying that it is an important part of your campaign. He even suggests picking your people with important positions in ways that give the paperwork "balance." (My personal feeling is that the idea is interesting, but the "things to look for" are dated.)
It is hard for me to think about that book without branching into my own feelings about how the present reality had drifted from the one he saw in the 50 years or so since the book was written, and I doubt people are interesting in those. However, one point does bear mentioning well. In the book he talks a lot about grass roots campaigning, which is the only kind that makes sense for a political outsider with no money to speak of. Today's big ticket campaigns are almost exclusively based on media based strategies. I often think that voters are disenfranchised by the fact that politicians are not forced by their campaigns to be aware of what peoples real state is. Grass roots campaigns like the one Heinlein describes guarantee that the politician knows the district well by the election.
A very eye opening part of the book for me was Heinlein's definition of a politician. It didn't really have anything to do with holding office. He defines a politician as someone who is politically active, and gives an example of a guy that lived in a tiny apartment with no money to speak of that steered California politics for a long time. That was his ideal politician.
I am hampered in discussing the book by having just mailed my copy to Kansas. In its place on my bookshelf is now Johnson's Dictionary. My attention had been focused on the election thread.
Tian Harter
http://members.aol.com/tnharter
I saw my first Virginia quarter late on 11/13/00.
Voter turnout top five: MN, ME, WI, VT, NH.
Voter turnout bottom five: AZ, HI, NM, TX, GA.
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Tian Harter wrote, among other good points:
>A very eye opening part of the book for me was
>Heinlein's definition of a politician. It didn't really
>have anything to do with holding office. He defines
>a politician as someone who is politically active,
>and gives an example of a guy that lived in a tiny
>apartment with no money to speak of that steered
>California politics for a long time. That was his
>ideal politician.
Concerning the pending election, a politician who is put forth as elder stateman observed:
"The media has everyone stirred up. I think that's great. We won't have any of these boobs running around anymore saying, 'My vote don't count.'"
--Alan Simpson, retired U.S. Senator (Republican)
from Utah, on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer [PBS]
Tuesday, November 14, 2000
I think Heinlein might not have agreed having boobs no longer running around shooting off their mouths is such a great thing. He might have retorted: "So what. Close votes have happened before," citing 1916 when Hughes lost California to Wilson by less than one vote per precinct and, thus, lost the entire election; and he'd predict "Voting percentages will continue to decline unless a condition far more important improves."
That condition is contained, he might assert, in "Take Back Your Government!"
The book is an unabashed effort to convince private citizens to become "politicians," not necessarily to run for political office, but directly to become themselves involved in political affairs. That's an unappealing subject for most of us. The first thing that comes to my mind is the common retort Heinlein himself says is heard, "I would like to but I am just so tarnation busy making a living for my wife and kids that I can't spare the time, the money, or the energy."
I'd submit Heinlein would still today [see Note 1] say that resort is basically an deceptive excuse covering a multitude of misconceptions about politics.
The title of Chapter One is illustrative of his approach:
"Why touch the dirty business?"
Let me try to provoke some of you a little by dragging in more than a little of the topical heat here present.
Looked at one way, judging from some of this morning's news reports, the answer to Heinlein's first question is: If you're an attractive but ageing millionaire heiress, divorced by your husband from whom you extracted alimony despite your own wealth, and never have done much other than lead a dance exercise class in real life, you can use your money to get yourself elected to a seemingly minor state office and try to parlay that, and your activities as state co-chairman for the election of your party's nominee for President, into an appointment as Ambassador to whatever small country in which the new President you elect assumes you'll do the least damage to the United States. All you have to do is follow party orders and pretend to exercise your reasoned discretion in a crucial moment, mouthing the rationalizations prepared for you by his lawyers, thereby denying any prospective correction of the tallies of ballots in your state, and issue your certification of the results.
The only thing holding off Mrs. Ambassador's welcome to the champaign circuit, assuming the present unlikely event that her nomination isn't filibustered next spring, is the Florida Supreme Court's injunction that issued this afternoon against her certifying those results that will appear present when the absentee ballots are counted this weekend.
Do you think Heinlein would have agreed either with this viewpoint or what some would perceive as "Mrs. Ambassador's" desired result?
When in 1946, fresh from his civilian service to the Navy in World War II, Heinlein wrote nine articles intended to shed light on dangers confronting society in the Post Hiroshima age. Only one was contemporaneously published. He referred to it as a period "[w]hile I was failing at World-Saving."
Heinlein wrote these unpublished articles and stories because he felt anything less than exercising the "full heritage of a free citizen" by "carrying your share of adult responsibility for the future" of a society forward was childish. What he doesn't mention in the interstitial material in Extended Universe is that before he 'gave up' and turned to those other avenues of writing he also wrote what he called "a practical handbook for a private citizen who wants democracy to work."
Heinlein based his arguments on his own experience in politics during the period from 1935 to 1939 after he was medically retired because of tuberculosis from the Navy and before he wrote "Life-Line." He cited that experience as including precinct worker--punching doorbells, organizing political clubs, managing campaigns, running for office himself, serving as county committeeman, state committeeman, attending state and national conventions, and publishing a political newsletter.
He observes that during the four-year period of involvement, the volunteer organization "with which I became affiliated" recalled a mayor, kicked out a district attorney, replaced the state governor with one of our own choice, and completely changed the political complexion of one of our larger states. By this I assume he refers to Frank Shaw as the mayor who was kicked out, one of the most corrupt mayors in the history of Los Angeles, and Upton Sinclair as the governor elected. I don't remember the name of the DA who wound up in jail but, more important perhaps, while they were at it they also replaced the police chief with William Parker, who, say what you will about his politics and the lingering effects of other aspects of policing philosophy most emphatically cleaned up a historically dishonest and corrupt LAPD.
Parenthetically, I'm not certain, however, that Heinlein intends to solely refer to EPIC as the organization 'with which I became affiliated' as it was not solely responsible for these things, particularly in Los Angeles, as other individuals and groups who were not necessarily affiliated with EPIC did play a large part in Shaw's removal.
Let's look at some of what he argues as reason to become personally involved in politics:
1. Most people [note: he says nothing about 'most politicians'] are basically honest, kind and decent,
2. American people are wise enough to run their own affairs [without] ... any ... sort of dictator,
3. [American people share] ... a compatible community of ambitions ... "
4. Democracy is not an automatic condition resulting from laws and constitutions. It is a living dynamic process which must be worked at by you yourself--or it ceases to be democracy, even if the shell and form remain.
5. One way or another, any government which remains in power is a representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine, then it is because you prefer it that way--prefer it to the effort of running your own affairs. Hitler's government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the efforts of _thinking_ and _doing_ for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.
6. Democracy is the most efficient form of government ever invented by the human race. On the record, it has worked better ... than ... any other ... .
7. A single citizen, with no political connections or money, can be extremely effective in politics.
And then Heinlein goes on to give as an example, among others, the individual Tian's post mentions.
This is just the beginning of RAH's arguments.
Do you buy the arguments Heinlein makes?
Or do you, whether or not you've read the work, as Jerry Pournelle's forward and notes assert, that RAH's postulates are dated and examples are no longer applicable?
Do you find the statements I've quoted as contradicted by others made in other works by Heinlein?
What explanation, if you do, do you have for these seeming contradictions?
Do you think Heinlein actually believed the above-quoted rationale for becoming personally involved in politics? PPOR whatever position you take, please.
Note 1: Jerry Pournelle's forward and notes, which only deal specifically with the first sixty pages, contend much of what Heinlein wrote is inapplicable because it is dated, because political organization and campaigns have changed since 1946.
Is Pournelle correct in your view? How correct?
--
David M. Silver
AGplusone@aol.com
"I expect your names to shine!"
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How has voter turn out changed since Heinlein wrote TBYG? Up or down? I'd assume down as apathy is one of the most worrying malaises of modern society; we have become so coddled that we assume "someone" will fix every problem for us and therefore rarely make much of a personal effort.
Jane
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>Concerning the pending election, a politician who is put forth as elder
>stateman observed:
>
>"The media has everyone stirred up. I think that's great. We won't have any
>of
>these boobs running around anymore saying, 'My vote don't count.'"
>
> --Alan Simpson, retired U.S. Senator
(Republican)
> from Utah, on The News
Hour with Jim Lehrer [PBS]
> Tuesday, November 14,
2000
........oops
As a resident of the Great State of Wyoming for most of my life, I must correct the above. Alan Simpson, of WYOMING, is the most honorable man (or woman) to have served in the US Senate since Everett Dirkson.
cheers
oz
....and you REALLY don't like the FL SoS, do you?
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Ooops. You are of course correct. My problem was that whenever I heard him speak on an issue I heard Orin Hatch say essentially the same thing within hours--and vice-versa; and from that I thought they lived next door to each other. I think I agree about the *honorable* part too, Oz.
--
David M. Silver
AGplusone@aol.com
"I expect your names to shine!"
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>Or do you, whether or not you've read the work, as Jerry Pournelle's forward
>and notes assert, that RAH's postulates are dated and examples are no longer
>applicable?
<snip>
>Note 1: Jerry Pournelle's forward and notes, which only deal specifically with
>the first sixty pages, contend much of what Heinlein wrote is inapplicable
>because it is dated, because political organization and campaigns have changed
>since 1946.
>Is Pournelle correct in your view? How correct? David M. Silver<
I generally admire Dr. Pournelle but being human he is not infallible. IMHO this is one of those times he is fallible.
Beginning in the 1992 in partial response to reading TAKE BACK YOUR GOVERNMENT I worked a campaign for State Representative in the State of Illinois.
Accepting RAH's advice I made sure to maintain my independance as a non-compensated volunteer.
I have worked one campaign since then and came to a couple of tentative conclusions:
1. There is a definite place for the pure volunteer in today's political campaigns. I believe they are very effective and if there are enough we can control the election.
2. As a pure volunteer you represent something the politicians don't seem to understand at all; an honest person working for their country and good government who owes neither fear nor favor to anyone. But they do accept your help because they can never afford as much help as they need.
However there is a fantastic payback. The people that really influence elections IMO is the volunteer going door to door, licking stamps or what ever grunt work needs doing. The pundits and the raging cajuns may think they elect politicians but it is the volunteers that really get it done. But you know something; there are only maybe a million of these people nationwide in both parties? As a volunteer that makes each of us a member of a powerful and select group.
So, I think in the end RAH's attitude makes more down and dirty sense than Dr. Pournelle's.
Ron h.
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AGplusone wrote: Please, all of you
> consider strongly picking up a copy of Take Back. It's quite worthwhile; and it
> will heighten the worth of our chat discussion if more than just a few of us
> actually have read the thing. I certainly am not in any way suggesting that
> asking questions about this work, without having read it, is improper or
> indicates any form of laziness. The book (it exists only in paperback) is
> certainly worth the six bucks or so it costs.
>
I have owned it for over 6 years but I don't think I've ever really read it _all_......I get a little baffled by the political bits whilst enjoying ( some) of Heinlein's views on People and How To Get On With Them. Maybe an American would view it differently but I think for those readers not too familiar with the US system (let alone how it was half a century ago), it might be more of a chore to read than most of Heinlein's books.
I value it partly because I'm a completist and relish having it on my shelves <g> and partly because it feels like Heinlein himself talking. I can assume that he means most of what he says rather than having to keep reminding myself that just because Lazarus/Jubal/Mannie etc. says it doesn't mean Heinlein believes it.
I have to say that I would have liked to see Heinlein himself provide notes on this book, as he did with his predictions in EU; commenting on how things have changed and maybe revising some of his strictures on women voters and politicians....sadly, this wasn't possible given the posthumous publication but I think an older Heinlein may have had a different and interesting change of perspective. Or maybe not.
Jane
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In article <20001118234219.07545.00000784@ng-cs1.aol.com>,
agplusone@aol.com (AGplusone) wrote:
>
> But most definitely, there's this. Unless it's in an essay or non-
>fiction argument as this one is, FWIW I believe IMNVHO there is
>no particular proof (other than consistency and the limited fitness of
>statement to development of theme) that RAH ever 'meant' what he
>wrote in the words of his characters or narrators.
> --
> David M. Silver
> AGplusone@aol.com
> "I expect your names to shine!"
Dave, that won't wash. You're insisting on a smoking gun after having spent a full professional career making due with the thin, circumstantial permissable inference upon permissable inference. Besides, it's a lot more than merely circumstantial here. "Double Star" and "The Moon, She Sure is One Harsh Ole Mistress, You Bet," (North Dakota version) are the fictional embodiments of the preachings in TBYG. Hell, just look at footnote 3 in TBYG that mentions Hugh's -- I mean Bob's -- fallout shelter. It's a tough argument to make that the guy was so well practiced in giving voice to positions that he didn't hold he could do it over the span of his entire work output.
This looks like plausible deniability to me and I decline to purchase. Without articulating any specific things I'd like someone to come around later and deny on my behalf after I'd written them, published a couple of million copies, taken the money and spent it, there's that touchy topic I keep bringing up. You know.
I suggest this argument: if many a truth is spoken in jest and fiction is the "jest" of literature, it's not unsupportable to contend that a writer's fictional premises may be more indicative of his personal viewpoints than his treatises and essays especially when the fiction's his bread and butter.
LNC
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reillocnl@my-deja.com wrote:
I wrote:
::But most definitely, there's this. Unless it's in an essay or non-fiction
::argument as this one is, FWIW I believe IMNVHO there is no particular
::proof (other than consistency and the limited fitness of statement to
::development of theme) that RAH ever 'meant' what he wrote in the
::words of his characters or narrators.
reillocnl replies:
>Dave, that won't wash. You're insisting on a smoking gun after having
>spent a full professional career making due with the thin,
>circumstantial permissable inference upon permissable inference.
But I'm using the term "proof" in a far more restrictive sense than you are, not as synonymous for mere pieces of evidence each tending in the aggregate to establish an ultimate fact in issue but as establishment of the ultimate fact itself, perhaps because the way I read this body of work may be different. The reason for that is the satirical form--whether itÕs Menippean or Cabellian, as Heinlein told his agent, or something else, it doesn't matter--that I see so often present as the structure of what we call his adult "novels," which, by the way, most really aren't strictly speaking.
Weave both spent professional careers presenting inferential fact after inferential fact to a finder of ultimate fact (a jury or judge) in hope that it would decide ultimate factual issues in our favor because we've been hired to present the factual viewpoint our clients would have found true in a legal context. E.g., did someone tortuously or criminally engage in conduct for which act damages or punitive (criminal) penalties are warranted? Or, did a party to labor negotiations fail to bargain in good faith and intending to embody any agreement ultimately reached in a signed written contract (if you really want a civil law example of a case involving almost pure state of mind in which you pile inference upon inference upon inference ad naseum to prove it, all for the sake of a mere order to go back and bargain some more)? So we both should be pretty decent at it.
That's why I've enjoyed reading your posts doing exactly that--and a few other things intended to distract and burden those who would argue with you from making effective responses--in the Women In Heinlein and earlier threads.
But establishing ultimate facts in real life by arguing in a courtroom that adverse inferences from actions and statements should necessarily be drawn assumes that no one commits antisocial acts or makes antisocial statements unless he or she has an antisocial (or illegal) motive.
That's a little bit different onus to be drawn than from the statements that may be, frequently are, made in the literary form called satire. "Satire deals less with people as such than with mental attitudes," saith Frye. "Pendants, bigots, cranks, parvenues, virtuosi, enthusiasts, rapacious and incompetent professional men of all kinds are handled in terms of their occupational approach to life as distinct from their social behavoir." Frye goes on to assert that satire differs from the novel in its characterization. Where the novel is naturalistic, the satire is stylized, and presents people as mouthpieces of the ideas they represent. Lines can be blurred in a given work. Both sorts of characters can be present. Frye observes that Squire Western from Joseph Fielding's Tom Jones might easily fit into a Jane Austin novel, but Twackum and Square have "Menippean blood in them."
In Heinlein's case, it's pretty plain that certainly by Stranger in a Strange Land in 1961 he was admittedly and deliberately writing satire--but it goes further back I'd assert: to at least 1947 when he wrote "Gulf" containing the arguments mouthed by Kettle Belly Baldwin about a necessary evolution into "Homo Novis," and where he plainly began to turn away from the Mindzenty brainwashing techniques he seemingly argued appropriate in the magazine version of Ò"If This Goes On ..."Ó and the only version of "Coventry." Compare, the rewrite of ITGO with its Twain-esque politician making his swan song against that technique; and also, if I ever find a copy of the original story to compare, I suspect I'll find similar, perhaps less striking changes between the original and the rewrite of "Methuselah's Children." Look again at the inscription on the monument erected for Joe and Gail. To those who missed that point and suggested the author had espoused some form of social Darwinism in "Gulf," only two years after photographs of the ovens were published, he addressed Friday in 1982.
Heinlein was greatly surprised, actually shocked in the late 1960s when some tried to put Michael Valentine Smith's words into being: they'd missed his point by failing to appreciate what satire is.
So, when a character even as prominent a one as Lazarus Long adopts incest and proposes what appears to be pedophilia to some who do not read as closely as they should, I'm less than willing to accept the face value of such acts and statements. Far moreso less than willing when today's supposed values of "political correctness" are applied. Frye called that sort of criticism a matter of taste, and condemned it as transient and worthless; for reasons that I believe no less consign it to perdition than the ones that damn Mindzenty mind controls.
reillocnl continued to reply:
>Besides, it's a lot more than merely circumstantial here. "Double Star"
>and "The Moon, She Sure is One Harsh Ole Mistress, You Bet," (North
>Dakota version) are the fictional embodiments of the preachings in
>TBYG. Hell, just look at footnote 3 in TBYG that mentions Hugh's--I
>mean Bob's--fallout shelter. It's a tough argument to make that the guy
>was so well practiced in giving voice to positions that he didn't hold
>he could do it over the span of his entire work output.
I must have an earlier version of "The Moon, She Sure is One Harsh Ole Mistress, You Bet--By Jiminey!" perhaps one printed in Minnesota.
I don't quite see a mere fictional embodiment of Take Back in "Moon," because there's quite a lot more in there: I once wrote a final paper for an upper division political science Early Modern Political Theory course in which I took the trouble to pick out thoughts from Hobbes and Grotius through Locke and Burke in "Moon." I never got that paper back because the professor simply left the graded and annotated exams outside his door and the frat rats snatched up mine for their crib barrel. To hint at my conclusions in that paper: I compared the result to a dicey effort to round off a misshaped pearl--I used to know what jewelers call those out-of-round beauties that are so easily spoiled when filed into a shape that some consider the only appropriate one. To the oyster it never matters. The lumps are kinder than points.
I think you're a bit closer when you consider ÒDouble StarÓ an embodiment as to the practical aspects; but in both cases I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on exactly how.
Jerry Pournelle's notes in "Take Back," [Jerry's title, not Robert's] each time I read them, both annoy and intrigue me. First, I'd love to be the proverbial fly on the wall when Jerry arrives at whatever circle in whatever afterworld created for JurgenÕs grandmother Robert occupies to hear Robert's always patient and polite (I'm told) rejoinder; and second I'm amazed at how hard Pournelle worked to peddle his Perot brand of third-party politics in those notes--notwithstanding the strong although not wholesale repudiation of third-party politics in general contained in several passages spread through the later chapters of Robert's "Practical Handbook." Jerry's labeling in his last note (46) of everything after the beginning of Chapter 4, "The Practical Art of Politics" as outdated has the advantage of not requiring that he face and refute those criticisms.
But I'm not sure I understand your point with regard to footnote 3. Jerry Pournelle observes that Heinlein considered the facts set forth in the Smyth report dealing with the danger of atomic weapons a crucial reason for involvement in politics by every mature individual. This was 1946-7. In fact, Smyth's report was optimistic. By noting that Robert, like his character Hugh Farnham, built a bomb shelter, and suggesting--if that is your suggestion--that the acts of his fictional characters necessarily or even probably mirror his own, possibly misses my point. Farnham's Freehold was written in 1964. Eighteen years earlier Heinlein wrote those nine save the world nonfiction pieces. In one of those, "How To Be a Survivor" (subtitled "The Art of Staying Alive in the Atomic Age") he writes about selecting and stocking an "emergency home" far enough away from a target to survive which preshadows what Farnham does, but which Farnham does in detail following the prescription set forth in that essay. Like Farnham's earpiece during the bridge game, he suggests learning to spot the signs of war quick enough to jump, that "you may get away with living on the spot with the X mark." Farnham's second jump for survival, the ad hoc one into the abandoned silver mine, follows this alternative. I also think there's something in the letters or editorial comments in ÒGrumblesÓ about how Robert, still following the prescriptions of How To Be a Survivor, selected Colorado Springs as his home following his marriage to Virginia, then was dismayed when NORAD put its headquarters in Cheyenne Mountain. Faced, after he built the home (it was featured in a 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics) and its concealed bomb shelter, with NORAD, I'd bet his fallback was the same: an abandoned silver mine that he could drive to in one hour. Do you recall where the silver mine was that he was involved in developing when his backer was machine gunned down? Betcha it was within an hour's drive of Springs. Betcha it was stocked, too. [Appropro of nothing much, Robert McCammon wrote a novel using this alternative that I've always wondered whether he was inspired to write by a combination of HeinleinÕs writings and Pat Frank's Alas Babylon!]
I still think the verification by essay theory works better than citing the similarities of Robert's act with those of Hugh Farnham.
reillocnl continued to reply:
>This looks like plausible deniability to me and I decline to purchase.
>Without articulating any specific things I'd like someone to come
>around later and deny on my behalf after I'd written them, published a
>couple of million copies, taken the money and spent it, there's that
>touchy topic I keep bringing up. You know.
The problem with "plausible deniability" is that it's sometimes so plausible that it's hard to distinguish from truth. My plausible deniability meter is hooked to my presumption of innocence meter, unless I'm hired to destroy plausibility in a courtroom: then I'll do my very best to convict the innocent along with the guilty. Tony Manzella, who prosecuted Charlie Manson for the Shorty Shea murder, and was my criminal practice instructor in law school, told us attorneys of the LA District Attorney's capital crimes section had a saying: "You're not really a prosecutor until you've sent your first innocent defendant to death row." Today I'm sure they're more politically correct. Of course they also fail to prove cases like the Simpson one.
There's no question in anyone's mind, however, that Heinlein deliberately wrote what he wrote. I maintain he wrote what he wrote to provoke and satirize. Do I know? Who knows? You know. Lets fatten up a few Irish babies for market. Or, better yet, saddle up and ride out to find no-manÕs land with Friday. You can be Candide. I'll be Pangloss, or take your pick if you think Pangloss will be more fun.
reillocnl concluded his reply:
>I suggest this argument: if many a truth is spoken in jest and fiction
>is the "jest" of literature, it's not unsupportable to contend that a
>writer's fictional premises may be more indicative of his personal
>viewpoints than his treatises and essays especially when the fiction's
>his bread and butter.
True, it's not unsupportable, meaning support for it can range from being merely arguable [but mebbe Judge Hauk up there will slap you with a couple thousand in sanctions for bringing it up and wasting his time--"Hardball" was one of Andrew H. Hauk's reputed middle names] to a certain conviction beyond the shadow of a doubt to a moral certainty, depending on the support. But as you've elsewhere argued something to the effect of asking who is sane seriously would suggest such things to his readership; and, as I believe Heinlein was sane, I suggest his writings may more likely to be satire and irony than revealing rumblings from the Belly of the Beast. Of course, then again, he was the Beast in Number wasn't he? ;-)
--
David M. Silver
AGplusone@aol.com
"I expect your names to shine!"
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"ddavitt" <ddavitt@netcom.ca> ha scritto:
> I have owned it for over 6 years but I don't think I've ever really read
>it _all_......I get a little baffled by the political bits whilst enjoying
>( some) of Heinlein's views on People and How To Get On With Them.
>Maybe an American would view it differently but I think for those
> readers not too familiar with the US system (let alone how it was half a
>century ago), it might be more of a chore to read than most of Heinlein's
>books.
I strongly agree, mainly because many parts remain obscure (too many to count or to ask for further explainations). But I'm half-way through it, and I'll reach the end anyway... hopefully before Saturday.
--
Francesco
http://heinlein.cjb.net - RAH in Italian
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It should be noted that TBYG is not out of date, Jerry Pournelle's statements to the contrary notwithstanding. ALL of the apparatus Heinlein talks about is still in place and has incredible latent power. The national party tries to run everything centrally and has let the vital power of the local precinct organization slip out of their hands. But it is still possible to follow exactly the same course of getting involved that Heinlein talked about for 1934, and the need for capable people is so great that anyone willing to work consistently at it can attain to considerable political power within the state apparatus within a matter of months. There is a glass ceiling between the state apparatus and the national party apparatus, but that's another matter.
Bill
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E.M. St. John wrote:
>AGplusone wrote:
<snip>
>> 1. Most people [note: he says nothing about 'most politicians'] are
>> basically honest, kind and decent,
>Or at least believe themselves to be honest, kind, and decent.
That's not to mislead you. He does say most politicians, successful ones, anyway, are "honest" but the honesty he describes is of a particular kind. More later on that.
>> 2. American people are wise enough to run their own affairs [without] ...
>> any ... sort of dictator,
>> 3. [American people share] ... a compatible community of ambitions ... "
>Could you expand on how he supports this? It's true at one level, but false
>at another. We all want our children to get "a good education," but we don't
>agree on what, exactly, "a good education" includes.
The full quote, which I truncated, is this:
"3. Americans have a compatible community of ambitions. Most of them don't want to be rich but do want enough economic security to permit them to raise families in decent confort without fear of the future. They want the least government necessary to this purpose and don't greatly mind what the other fellow does as long as it doesn't interfere with them living their own lives. As people we are neither money mad nor prying; we are easy-going and anarchistic. We may want to keep up with the Jones--but not with the Vanderbilts. We don't like cops."
He doesn't go too much further into this mouthful of generalizations directly. I suppose I could pick through the book for some smidgeons of support here and there and would find more than I expect; but I would observe that his perception is based upon a pre-television era: an era of written expression, where it wasn't necessary to lead with a "bleed," or some outrageous example of extreme expression. Pat Robertson would have gotten short shrift in 1940 media. So too would PETA. And the color of Telly Tubbies, if that's what they are called.
Yet, I think the generalization he made continues true.
>> 4. Democracy is not an automatic condition resulting from laws and
>> constitutions. It is a living dynamic process which must be worked at by you
>> yourself--or it ceases to be democracy, even if the shell and form remain.
>> 5. One way or another, any government which remains in power is a
>> representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine,
>> then it is because you prefer it that way--prefer it to the effort of running
>> your own affairs. Hitler's government was a popular government; the vast
>> majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the efforts of
>>_thinking_ and _doing_ for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.
>The topic sentence is true, but the supporting statements are problematic.
>Robert W. Campbell's Jimmy Flannery series makes an interesting case for why
>people living in a city run by a crooked machine might prefer it that way, and
>the reasons don't include laziness.
Perhaps you'll be surprised, but in Take Back, Heinlein discussed in detail something very much like the Flannery series, the situation in Kansas City throughout most of the first half of the 20th century when it was run under the Pendergast Machine.
The section was later "high-graded" and portions of it appear in Maureen's recollections of Kansas City during the Mauve Decade in To Sail Beyond The Sunset. Heinlein's points are made in a section of Chapter III, entitled "It Ain't Necessarily So!" dealing with the common misconception that all politicians are dishonest.
He observed that, however that may be true of a "reformer" or some fool making campaign promises to get elected it *isn't* true of a machine politician--the machine must keep it's promises--and is more scrupulous about that aspect than any other--to keep itself in power.
Heinlein pointed out that under Pendergast people got good streets, and good schools, and good services, and law and order, at least in the "good" neighborhoods; and this situtation prevailed until the Boss got old and tired and out of touch; and the boys got greedy.
But he observed that the loss to society is something far more important than people getting gouged when the boss get inattentive and the boys get greedy. The greatest loss comes, Heinlein says, when "loss of attitude concerning their own virtue" overcomes a citizenry. The "respectable" become cynical about the possibility of good government, "too indifferent" to whole-heartedly attempt to clean up their city.
"Something very like," he observes, "the disease of Kansas City caused the downfall of France."
>Hitler's government came to power at a time when living conditions in Germany
>were terrible. The people did not abdicate their franchise, they used it to
>elect and support a party which promised to improve their daily lives. That
>we now deplore the consequences of that decision does not mean that it was
>made without thought on the part of the people.
'Something very like,' I would observe, 'the disease of Kansas City caused the rise to power of the Nazi Party.' Heinlein already has.
--
David M. Silver
AGplusone@aol.com
"I expect your names to shine!"
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> >AGplusone wrote:
> I would observe that his
> perception is based upon a pre-television era: an era of written expression,
> where it wasn't necessary to lead with a "bleed," or some outrageous example
> of extreme expression. Pat Robertson would have gotten short shrift in 1940
> media. So too would PETA. And the color of Telly Tubbies, if that's what they
> are called.
I think you're projecting a Golden Age of written expression where none really existed. The Hearst newspapers were never known for restraint. Billy Sunday & Co. did so well with print and radio that Heinlein's Future History included a period of theocracy. The Prohibitionists used tactics very similar to PETA's. Those axes looked great on the front page. As for the Teletubbies, ever heard of the Yellow Kid?
ems
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