Starship Troopers

I have since heard the book and its message described as fascistic, provocative, irresponsible, unpalatable. This it may well be. Yet I found reading his book to be an amazingly sobering and dispiriting affair. One can really drink up the spirit of a man in reading his prose, and I fear Heinlein to be not someone with whom I want to share a beer or be friends. I read later that he was a career military officer who developed tuberculosis and was invalided out of the fleet to a literary career. There hangs about this book a severe and cynical air of wounded world-weariness, as if life is a dreary and dangerous affair requiring toughness and discipline to survive. He nearly models Sparta in his apotheosis of rigorous military training as necessary for the formation of good character in a person. His anger and disdain for modern liberal democracy is strong. The dispiriting part is that Heinlein is consistent and correct in his powerful arguments - it is impossible to dismiss him, even if he gores the sacred cows of our age.

Heinlein's 22nd century earth is at war with an arachnid "bug" race from another galaxy. "They are tough and we are tough and only one of us will win and the other gets wiped out," explains Heinlein's protagonist Johnny Rico of the rugged Mobil Infantry, illuminating well the state of mind of the war between Japan and the United States during World War II, as well as the barely restrained ferocity of the Cold War afterwards. Rico's old high school teacher plays the stand-in for Heinlein's philosophy of an "improved" future society which emerges after following the "decadence and collapse of the democracies of the 20th century" after which the surviving veterans take over. Heinlein pays unconvincing lip service to the idea of a free society where civic service is voluntary and civil liberties are respected, but the soul of his argument lies in the military and the service of the State. The formation of young men and women does not take place primarily in schools, families, churches, sporting teams, universities, or love affairs. In Heinlein's idealized future, this takes place in boot camp.

Fully half the book takes place during Rico's basic training into the Mobil Infantry where he and his fellow recruits are humiliated, broken-down, and re-made into selfless members of an elite military unit. Potential soldiers learn that life is about duty, serving the collective, sacrifice, and punishment; perhaps echoing his own days as a midshipman at the U.S Naval Academy and later as a junior officer serving aboard the aircraft carrier USS Lexington, happiness is simply getting enough sleep. He is the very embodiment of Aeschylus when he said that we must suffer, suffer into truth. To a point, who can argue with that? To become a man takes learning and growing and suffering; it does not happen overnight. Who can argue that ultimately in our mature incarnations we must live for other people? And who can argue with the assertion that in democracies citizens with little invested in the system often make unwise and poorly-informed decisions when voting? So many who live irresponsible lives? Look at the drug problem in the United States, for example. Everywhere we look we see chaos, lack of order - the "degeneracy" Heinlein vigorously disdains. Look at the poverty, ignorance, and violence seen in the major American cities! In contrast, the global society into which Rico is born only lets those who have "placed the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage" become citizens and vote. In other words, it are only the soldiers and others who have put their lives on the line who can vote and be trusted to do so wisely. Consequently, society is better arranged while peace and prosperity rule the day. The military caste are the Brahmins of Heinlein's ideal society; there is an offhand contempt for everyone else.

In the story, there is not one love affair worth mentioning. Sexuality and the need of human beings for love never moves beyond the adolescent. There is a nascent love story presented, but it is callow and undeveloped - no more mature than the high school age of the individuals portrayed. Characters can have crushes on each other, but the dark primal sexual needs and pleasures of adult life are totally absent (making the Heinlein's world less believable); I bet even many real life teenagers have love lives more rich than anything seen in "Starship Troopers." We have no idea about the art, music, recreation, romance, food, or larger non-military society of earth in the 22nd century. We have only the most unconvincing portrayal of the future family with a reconciliation taking place between Rico and his father in combat of all places. The story is bare, the prose sparing, the universe permanently hostile, the tone as severe and harsh as the future war being described. Suffering and death are never far from mind, and outside of duty and service not much is important. When Rico's mother is killed in the destruction of Buenos Aires, he does not seem overly grieved (When my mother died, I was sunk for months! In real life, such losses shape a person forever and never stray far from their consciousness.). To those whose sense of humanity and humanism is radiant and vibrant, Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" is like a dive into a freezing lake. What about those whose imaginations open up for them the universe of love, art?

Military service can be an admirable and vitally important profession in which a person can serve their fellow man. What society can afford not to have its guardians and warriors? When has there not been some aggressor or criminal which needed to be fought? But what about the heroes of the mind and the spirit? What about those heroes who give inspiration to fallible persons prone to despair? What about the battle between good and evil which rages inside everyone of us everyday? The struggle to find meaning in a life worth living? I would argue they are at least as important to a society worth living in. Who among us in the dark of a long night has not contemplated suicide? Who will make the argument in Heinlein's world not to do so? In my opinion, Heinlein's world is one in which I daresay not many people would like to live - where suicide might even be understandable! Our world - for all its barbarity, "decadence," hatred, chaos - is also one with art, love, and, most importantly, hope. We might live in a "hard cold world" where "life sucks and then you die," as one hears cynically stated in the streets. But that is not all that it is! Not by a long shot! And I would argue that point until I am blue in the face! Of all the evils - disease, cruelty, poverty, death - which Zeus placed in Pandora's