Interesting Links for 19-01-2015

[andrewducker]

• Women (and black people) less likely to go into professions perceived to require innate talent
  (tags: women race jobs )
• Steven Soderbergh, copyright hypocrite
  (tags: copyright movies )
• Scottish law on assisted suicide is intolerably unclear
  (tags: suicide Scotland law )
• Does anyone know of a barber in Edinburgh who will give a gent's haircut to a

Comments

[apostle_of_eris]

A couple of months ago, I was rudely slammed as a troll and cut from a conversation for saying that Starship Troopers had value and the inane movie of the same name was rubbish. The official line was that the book was "proto-fascist" full stop, and the movie was a clever parody, or something like that. A 1959 sf novel with no Europeans at all, ONLY People Of Color?

We need new, more realistic definitions of "recovery" and "expansion". The ones which are currently canonical don't match real life.

[ext_2864067]

I'm not sure I'd agree with the argument that the article's writer makes - I think that to say that the 'only soldiers and former soldiers get the vote' regime wouldn't at least lead to a form of fascism, means one hasn't really considered the overwhelmingly probable ramifications of that.

However, I do agree that Verhoeven's film version wasn't nearly as clever as it thought it was. He only seemed to really see the problematic aspects of Heinlein's work, and made his film a commentary on only those.

[helflaed]

I remember discussing the book with my husband who asked what the difference was between a society in which only former soldiers could vote, and a society where there is national service?

[ext_2864067]

I would say there'd be quite a substantial difference, though neither's ideal

[lil_shepherd]

But the one important difference between military led countries in the real world and military led countries in Heinlein's world is that in the real world all the people who have been military do not vote their leaders into power. And incompetent generals/colonels would not get the vote.

It is an interesting point that at the end of WW2, Winston Churchill, who had himself been a soldier (indeed, he liked being an active soldier) and who was hailed the world over as a great war leader was voted out of power almost entirely by the returning soldiers. (This had a lot to do with the Beverage Report, but still.)

Not, incidentally, do I think that Heilein meant Starship Troopers to be regarded as a Utopia, you know. He is exploring a possibility and, for my money, whether we define it as Fascist or not stems from how we read the book, and our own political knowledge and assumptions. Heinlein's conclusions are... easy to make assumptions about.

[ext_2864067]

True, true. However, the other interpretation of Churchill's fall from political power is the same as that of Wellington's: great war-leaders do not make great peacetime-leaders. The two require markedly different personality traits.

If the only politically enfranchised class were the soldiers, who except great war-leaders would have the political clout to run for election?

[lil_shepherd]

If the only politically enfranchised class were the soldiers, who except great war-leaders would have the political clout to run for election?

Well, there also seems to be a tradition that coups are often conducted by ranks below staff officer.

It must also be said that, according to my father, who was there, when Churchill went to France to take plaudits from victorious UK troops in 1945, he was booed.

[apostle_of_eris]

Except it does not say 'only soldiers and former soldiers get the vote'. Soldiers do not have the vote, nor are veterans the only ones with the franchise. People who have done public service (which includes the military) have the vote after their service is done.