So I recently got struck by the MilSF bug again, and decided to go back to the subgenre's beginning. Specifically, Heinlein's Starship Troopers.
This is a book I last read more than 20 years ago, long before I started to read fiction in english. Let me tell you, reading MilSF in german is supremely weird. In english, military speak (i.e. the particular tone and vocabulary soldiers adopt) doesn't carry strong moral connotations, and if they do, they're mostly positive. When translated into german however, that tone takes on an extra, nazi-flavoured dimension. As a result, while I do remember liking the book and even finding some of its politics reasonable (hey, I was 12, give me a break), I have soured on it considerably since.
So I tried reading it again. And it's immediately apparent why this book was so formative, and why it is so revered among certain groups of readers and writers. It is very well written, and because Heinlein never succumbs to the temptation of going into too much detail about the technology of his universe, it has not succumbed to zeerust as much as most works from its time period have (well, apart from the way characters talk, of course; the vernacular is distinctly 50s american, and thus comes across as a bit weird in this day and age). The book adopts a distinct tone, that of the veteran dictating his memoirs or talking about what he did during the war in a bar or something. It's a very good choice, allowing Heinlein the freedom to jump from anecdote to anecdote (and back and forth in time) without really breaking the flow of the story.
The books' major theme is that of command responsibility. Over and over again, the question of what it means to have power over others is brought up, as is the question of what the moral implications of that power are. Starship Troopers offers us a world in which the military's sense of responsibility is held as superior over what a mere civilian can aspire to; indeed, to be a citizen in full command of all the rights and responsibilities a citizen in a democratic society has requires that one serves in the armed forces for at least 2 years. Veterans, we are told, are innately more aware of the moral implications of having authority, and are thus able to govern more responsibly.
To say that I have issues with that concept now would be an understatement. But this book is helpful in understanding the points of view of so many modern conservative-flavoured authoritarians (like, for example, the (Sad|Rabid) Puppies crowd or the Baen people): To them, the idea that political power isn't a priviledge that is earned (as power in a military setting is), but rather one that is considered innate to each citizen is abhorrent. In Starship Troopers, putting the military in charge works out just fine: Civilian life seems pretty utopian and peaceful (at least, what little we know of it), assuming one can get over the judicial system having switched from a rehabilitation-based one to one based on swift and brutal punishment (public flogging being the go-to punishment for pretty much anything, we are told at one point that someone getting 10 lashes for insubordination and assaulting a superior officer is less than what someone caught speeding gets).
So, overall, what do I take away from this? Well, I am still pretty much convinced that the book's morals are firmly rooted in a vision of humanity that is deeply negative, deeply misanthropic. A good society, it tells us, is one that is fascist; Only when the welfare of the individual is subordinated to the welfare of the state does the individual prosper. It describes a world in which violence is a necessary tool not just in terms of violence against other states (the very first scene describes a raid against a civilian city the protagonist takes part in, ordnance flies freely, and at one point, our hero uses a flamethrower to incinerate someone who made the bad choice of stepping on the street), but also as a tool to teach people to be good citizens.
It's still a well-written book. It's still definitely worth reading and discussing. But as a vision of the future, it is something to be avoided.
