• Droechai@piefed.blahaj.zone
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    1 day ago

    I read them as absurd depictions, similar to Lolita where the purpose is to show the reader a perspective far away from healthy, normal or sane.

    I read up on Heinlein on wikipedia after my previous comment, and he seemed sincere which is scary. Im looking at it from a scandinavian perspective which is quite far from militarism, and thats probably why I read sarcasm in the text rather than honest philosophy

    • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      There’s a really interesting multi-part series called Brows Held High: Starship Troopers about the fundamental differences between Heinlein and Verhooven and what each was trying to say, between Heinlein’s original and Verhooven’s interpretation.

      For what it’s worth, I don’t think Heinlein was fascist or even fascist-sympathetic. If you read more of his fiction and, my personal favorite, his non-fiction book Take Back Your Government, which is about how and why to get involved in democratic politics, you get a much more complete view of a really interesting guy. Some of his views were fair or even highly-progressive for their time. Some were weird and gross. But he’s not one could simply stick a “Fuck That Fascist” pin in and walk away.