Unused and Probably Unusable

Thanks to Stephen of Ephesis for voting in favor of this week's Heinlein Friday topic.

But primus --
Perpetual Plug (patent pending - perhaps) is a proprietary periodic procedure, pertaining to this PA practitioner's postings at 'Probably Unusable.' To wit: I urge any and every reader of this page to visit my page at Jots, which has a much higher links-to-text ratio that U&PU; I Jot things up to a dozen times a day (no guarantees), adding both new and old links; and even more than this blawg, Jots provides a fabulous way to bring up similar and related Jots. Here, I have categories (law; class actions; writing, words & language; politics & current events). Jots has tags.

I collect articles. I collect PDF-ed court opinions. I collect useful references, useful Blogs, timely news stories. I even locate golden oldies, stories and blog posts and pages, items of historical significance. Everything gets tagged, everything is therefore easy to find by descriptor. This post will be Jotted shortly. It's perhaps the most useful free web app I've ever come across;
Anyway, please do check it out. As I said before, "Read my Jots!"

Back to your regularly scheduled Heinlein Friday.

Despite the title, I'm trying to avoid being too political. (Politics hidden)
Er, right. Politics-free.

Let's talk about Alien Combatants. Actually, let's just talk aliens, first. Combatants second.

Aliens

Heinlein's got (at least) four categories. One's easy, another's also obvious, and the last two can be confused.

1. Pets
. Willis in Red Planet; Chipsie in Starman Jones; Lummox, sort of, in the Star Beast (see discussion of John Thomas in my prior three Heinlein Fridays, linked as always at the bottom of this post). In Starship Troopers, there is mention of a thing called a "neo," which is in a military K-9 unit. A neo, "a trained Caleb," is a modified doglike symbiote, who can talk, take orders, fight and if necessary die, in conjunction with its human symbiote. Each member of the pair relies on the other; a neo with a dead human is put down, out of kindness; a human with a dead neo is painfully rehabilitated and removed permanently from combat. Neos may be more partners than pets, I guess I'm saying. Pets are friendly; speak broken English; are loyal; don't worry about nuance; lack some feature of mature human adulthood. Willis is (spoiler)
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a larval form of Martian, and a royal princess - yes, Willis is a she.

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. Chipsie is a monkey-spider, with arms (opposable thumbs!) and the ability to speak, but lacking something in seriousness and focus. An immature personality. Lummox is (spoiler)
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also not fully developed early in the story, and the lack of arms plays a major role in the legal determinations of status (ability to speak plus ability to use tools = intelligence in that story, based on past experience with aliens - so I suppose telepathy plus telekinesis would do). It seems to me Lummox is also female and a princess, but I plain forget. The important part is, Lummox is overwhelmingly important to her people, who happen to be exceedingly haughty, very powerful, and entirely willing to wipe out humanity if it gets in the way. Or at least blow up our Moon.
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Pets are like Lassie, only from farther away, and they can talk. Pets are helpful.


2. Powerful or Predatory
. Wormface in Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. The eponymous Puppet Masters (the Titans - or wherever they're really from). The Bugs in Starship Troopers. They don't like us; they don't have much use for us (except as, respectively, available protein or a convenient host for domination and exploitation, for the first two). When we meet them, we are terrified. We would like to wipe them out, or try to - and this isn't a pity, like our predation of the dodo, or a malicious act, like with herds of Buffalo, or an accident, like some other animals I probably can't name without googling. Or checking Wikipedia. We don't coexist peacefully with powerful predators or pernicious parasites. Cf. Vermicious Knids (Described by Dahl, 1972).


3. Pals
. This is the first of two ambiguous categories. Pals are co-equals, or roughly so. We can hang out with pals; Pals don't eat us, slavishly obey us, but pals don't necessarily "get" us. We're buddies, not soul mates. The dragons of Venus in Between Planets, particularly Sir Isaac Newton ("shucks!"), and the Martians of Double Star (Wiki page), including Rrringriil, who unfortunately dies early on, because of a political disagreement. In a sense, Mycroft in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a Pal. The trouble is, he often thinks like a human, but much better and faster than a human. That's not an alien. That's just a superhuman thinker. See John W. Campbell's definition of alien, below. Pals may be more advanced - Heinlein often assumes that other civilizations, being older than ours, will have more highly developed citizens, whether it be technologically or biologically - but they're about on a plane. We can disagree with them. We could kill them. We could befriend them. We like pals.


4. Paternalistic
. There's another category besides pet, predator, and pal. It's not always clear-cut which category an alien should be considered. Willis, for example, is a Martian; Lummox is a, well, Lummox. The Venusians (Little People) in Space Cadet seem small, harmless, and backwards. They are small, but not the other two. At one point, someone realizes wonderingly that the Little People can do room-temperature chemistry involving liquid oxygen, without big machines, without protective equipment. The Mother Thing, in Have Spacesuit, Will Travel belongs to a race that has a paternalistic relationship to ours. She watches over us; they study us, educate us, help us out - to an extent. They feel no loyalty to us beyond fondness, because they have higher loyalties. The Martians, of Red Planet or of Stranger in a Strange Land, or of Double Star (are they the same? I don't know for sure, and some of Heinlein's martians are definitely not The martians) are hard to get to know. They live partly in Another World - quite literally. Humans are only half-alive, by their standards, perhaps.

There may be other categories. Gods, perhaps. The Jokhaira (spelling?) in Methuselah's Children are...ruled over... by something Powerful. Maddening. Superior. Heinlein, by the way, was a deeply religious man. Or at the very least spiritual. Digression...
Ahem. Right. Gods.

What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god!

- Hamlet, Act II, scene ii.

I don't think Heinlein thought of Mankind as a "quintessence of dust," and preferred instead to focus on - yes, the Players. See id.

Well, now we've laid out categories for Aliens. What about Combatants?

Combatants

Some aliens are at war with us. Consider the Skinnies, introduced in the first pages of Starship Troopers (see Bugs, above, under predators).

Heinlein has Juan Rico describe them, saying "these geezers were humanoid" [ed: geezer as "fellas"? Interesting use. I've only heard it prefaced with old, expressly or implicitly], eight or nine feet tall, skinnier than humans, and had a higher temperature than humans. They "look funny" but unlike Bugs, they don't "make [him] queezy" (sic - and an odd spelling I think it is, too). (Ace 1987, pp.13-14).

(By the way, anytime I give page numbers in Heinlein, it's not a copyright date I'm citing. I'm referring to the edition I'm using so you could find it.)

Some aliens are secretly at war with us. The Wormfaces, for example, can be hurt, apparently, so they are sneaking in as they advance. The parasites in Puppet Masters are particularly virulent, and hide their nature to protect themselves, but also to make infecting and riding us easier. A placid potential host is a vulnerable host.

Some aliens would fight us over misunderstandings, but are not necesarily and intrinsically combative. See the Venusian Little People, and Lummox's people, mentioned above.

Most of these categories aren't so bad. What about humans?

Humans also come in categories of bad.

1. Invaders
. These include the Panasians of the artistically unsuccessful, unscientifically-racistly tinged Sixth Column (formerly titled the Day After Tomorrow); and the occupiers (whoever they are) in "Free Men," collected in Expanded Universe. Re. 6th Column, by the way:
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Heinlein acknowledged the source of the idea (John W. Campbell (1910-1971), the editor (sometimes called the "Father of Modern Science Fiction") who famously challenged his authors to write better aliens: "An alien thinks as well as a human, but not like a human" ). Heinlein also modified the idea, to make it less inherently racist. He also was unable to get away from the unfortunate, unscientific fact that races are not especially differentiable, by a ray gun or otherwise, because a "race" is a socially determined collection of attributes, and races are differentiable objectively chiefly by reference to a large population with a particular proportion of genes. Since a ray gun would not, no matter how superscientific, be able to deal with outliers or unusual individuals, let alone multiracial individuals, I choose to flatly reject the idea of a weapon that could selectively stun or kill whites and leave harmless asians, or vice versa. We're just not that different.
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Invaders are bad. See "Free Men," at p.212 ("World Unification" - do you suppose Heinlein didn't like the idea of a world government not under U.S. control? Look at "Long Watch" or Between Planets or Space Cadet for other situations when his antipathy to foreign rule comes out. And yet, and yet: note also that in Space Cadet, Matt Dodgson must tell his parents that if Iowa rose up in revolt against the order of things, and attempted to take belligerent action, the Patrol would respond, if necessary, with appropriate force - including with nuclear weapons, if necessary. Which, with the Patrol's superior tactical position (orbit), should never become necessary.).


2. Tyrants
. See generally Nehemiah Scudder, in Revolt in 2100, "If This Goes On." It's a religious tyranny; not particularly a better kind than others, Heinlein suggests. Scudder's version of America is repressive, virulently anti-intellectual, and depends on charismatic leadership with an Inquisition, backed by torture and death squads, to keep the populace in line. Americans don't like to be kept down - except when they acquiesce, because they like the opportunities cooperation brings. See the next category.


3. Opportunists
. Heinlein has plenty of scumbags. See "Free Men," noted above. See "If This Goes On." See anybody referred to as "Stinky" (or with the last name Burke) anywhere in his fiction: this includes a twofer, in "Stinky" Burke in Red Planet. There are quislings in every fascist society, Heinlein as much as says. Anyone willing to sell out their neighbor in order to get personal advancement or better treatment, might do so. Not by appeal to better intentions, but by ruthlessly punishing that kind of treasonous betrayal, can free men work to escape tyranny.

Again, I have to cave to my political urges, but again I'm putting it here in hidden text. Ann Coulter has the same kind of steely rhetoric. What she lacks, in her public persona, is moderation; wisdom; kindness; mercy; scientific knowledge; an acknowledgment of history beyond her own narrow-minded view of it; and morality. By the last, I mean she displays such an appalling lack of honor, a horrendous failure to avoid racist, anti-immigrant, un-American hate that she definitely falls on the Nehemiah Scudder (religious nutcase) rather than Heinlein Hero (scientifically rationalist, deadly, merciful wise empath) side of the continuum of human expression. Not that I don't wish I could disclaim her as human. She's certainly poisonous enough - her rhetoric is far more harmful than Osama bin Laden's. Why am I not crazy to say that? Because Osama personally directed the slaughter of thousands of innocents. (Bear with me here). But his ability to sway people is no longer dangerous. He can inspire his "troops" (or terrorists, I'm not picky in my terms here). He can order attacks. But I'm not scared; he's our enemy. We know that. He's easy to spot, check for the 6' tall diabetic with the beard. Ann Coulter's rhetoric, in contrast is strong, powerful, and growing in horribleness. See this previous Heinlein Friday, where I note that she is a "dangerous nutjob." At this point, Osama is a nutjob who has many people fighting for his view. Ann Coulter, in contrast, scares me. Osama can't get me, unless he's lucky. But if Ann grows in power and influence, she'll be able to get me - to get all of us. Ann Coulter advocates torture and killing of people like me. And she's not joking. Not ha-ha joking. See this post by Hume's Ghost, or basically anything at all about eliminationism at David Neiwart's blog Orcinus, to see what I mean. Uh, don't confuse him with this blog: Orcinus Orca Collective. He's a huge whale fan, see his posts on that, but he's primarily writing about protofascism, not plankton.

Now I've reached the end of my two chosen categories, Aliens, and Combatants, and I should write about the Other.

I don't really have time. Here's my brief thoughts, and we can go from there another time.

The Other

Heinlein depicts plenty of xenophobes. Start with racists, see Farnham's Freehold, which is apparently not a racist book but a book depicting and criticizing racism; nevertheless it can be very rough reading (for interesting facts about the book, see also the concordance). As the first linked review notes, there are black and white characters, and some act corruptly or immorally. Those who do not, are not depicted as evil. Hugh Farnham acknowledges the racism of his homeland, but is an individualist, and neither takes responsibility for what he does not permit, nor accepts what is unacceptable. His own objection is to slavery as an individual indignity, not to racism as a personal affront.

Heinlein has plenty of "stupid hysterical civilian" types in his books. Some are merely ignorant. Some are rabidly xenophobic. Lorenzo Smythe (Lawrence Smith), star of Double Star, hates Martians. Hates hates hates them. Cf. "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie." Read the whole paragraph of the review. No, read the entire review. God Ebert's hilarious sometimes.

Lorenzo gets over his unreasoning fear, with the help of the Doc, who hypnotizes him. Other characters similarly deal with unreasoning fear: see Mr. Kiku, in Star Beast, who must overcome his own phobia tied to snakes.

Xenophobes who shriek ("Kill it, Harry! It's coming towards us!") are among Heinlein's least favorite characters. Insular, provincial types aren't much better. The groundhogs (Earth-dwellers who have never been Up or Out) who endlessly pester, prod, or persecute (sorry!) the Luna-tics who travel to Earth in "It's Great to be Back!" or the visiting representatives from Luna in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress are typical. "Is it true," starts almost any inane or offensive question, "that all you people who live on the Moon...." (it's in the Moon, not on, they live in warrens, as I noted before, and no, they don't "all" do whatever it is. Anyway, get out of my face, choom, I weigh more than I'm used to and the air here is giving me a headache, it's so polluted.)

There's more to be said about Citizenship and Immigration and Travel in Heinlein. I'll say it in a future post. I also want to examine, as I earlier wrote, all the crimes Heinlein describes which could not occur today, in the world as we know it. Finally, I want to get down-deep into "Jerry was a Man," a short story with more than usual legal content. I also could have noted the story in my post on lawyers - but there's more going on there than that. Jerry implicates Heinlein's fundamental question, "What is it to be a man?"

That's it for this week, folks! Thanks for stopping by. Comments and e-mails are more than welcome, and are generally answered.