Dan wrote:
I didn't say the ideas in the book were all good :-) But the ideas of personal responsibility and shame for wrong-doing are certainly needed in the world today, even if I think they should be handled differently than Heinlein handles them.He teaches that only one understanding of personal responsibility exists. That taking care of your own and taking orders is the definition of responsibility. Look at the class the lead character was in at the beginning, where there are scientific proofs that force as the first and virtually only moral option. I cannot imagine the Veteran's Democracy he evisions not falling into a neo-Facism because it is a world where questioning orders is treasonous. If you look through the wealth of his books, he tends to has a fair amount of shoot first and ask questions later morality, and not much of a believer in the nicities of civilization.
My wife is a gradeschool music teacher. She regularly sees kids who have done something bad enough to get their parent(s) called, and these kids are told that their parent(s) are coming to the school and they don't care. The parent(s) tell them that they are in *big* trouble, and the kids don't care. They don't take responsibility for what they did, they don't feel any shame for their wrongdoing, and they don't care what type of punishment their parent(s) plan to apply. And according to some of the teachers that have been in the district for a long time (>20 years), it gets worse every year.
This was the type of situation Heinlein was predicting (and was probably already starting to see at the time he wrote the book) and he simply put forth his opinion on how to take care of that situation. I agree with his opinion that lack of personal responsibility, lack of shame and even, so some extent, lack of fear of punishment are bad things, although I don't necessarily agree with all of his suggestions for dealing with those problems. But still, getting back to my original point, these issues, the real heart of the story, were only touched on as parody or were completely ignored in the movie.
I continued:
> Starship Troopers is really a book about taking responsibility for your > actions, both individually and corporately
[snip]
>And Rico's > story is one of starting with no concept of responsibility, and then > learning all about it and eventually becoming a very responsible person. > That's why the ending of the book is ultimately satisfying.
And Dan said:
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. I agree that the Ender series presents a more realistic moral issue in regard to the bugs, but the Heinlein story wasn't really about the war with the bugs. The war was the MacGuffin that RAH used to allow him to discuss responsibility. And as I stated above, I agree with the issues of the importance of personal responsibility etc., but not necessarily with RAH's answers about how to handle those issues.IMHO, it presents a cartoon version of a moral dillema. I would argue that the Ender series has a much better handle on the question. Yes, the fact that his bugs didn't know that the Earth was sentinent was sorta an easy out, but he still covered the moral difficulty a lot better than Heinlein. To put it sucinctly: Heinlein assumed it was an easy question OSC didn't.
I have to admit, I don't remember the end too clearly, as I was pretty disapointed by the stuff earlier in the movie and was not paying very close attention by that point. Since I really *don't* remember much of the end, I'll cede this point to you, at least provisionally :-)> The movie had nothing whatsoever to do with responsibility. The movie was > about a guy who started with no personal responsibility and ended with none.Well, he seemed to accept the idea of taking orders and taking care of one's own at the end of the movie.
Reggie Bautista
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