So I've always found it a bit of a bummer that Doogie Howser, Military Psychic is instead just plain Carl, Military Electronics Nerd in the book. It's an interesting concept portrayed pretty well by Neil Patrick Harris. Honestly, though, the idea was rather wasted by the script: Harris' character pretty much exists to give the iconic "It's Afraid!" line at the end of the movie. Anyway:
Heinlein does a great job hooking the reader's attention in these opening chapters, especially considering that much of it consists of lengthy speeches by various teachers and military men laying out their philosophy. The most famous one even made it (with a few changes) into the movie:
Anyone who clings to the
historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything’ I would
advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them
debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the
Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor,
and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always
paid for it with their lives and freedoms."
There is an interesting contrast and comparison here between Heinlein and Roddenberry('s writers). As much as I love Star Trek, Picard is wrong when he contradicts Colonel DuBois that "power flows from the barrel of a gun." Even Trek seems to concede this with the Hugh debacle: Picard had a chance to destroy the Borg forever, but got cold feet and decided not to go through with it, a mistake that lead to an untold amount of death and suffering at their cybernetic hands throughout the galaxy. Indeed, the writers seemed to concede this point in spectacular fashion with an entire series called Deep Space Nine. Sure, Sisko attempted diplomacy at various points -- but talking is never the answer, not against the implacable Dominion. It took the Federation years of grit, tenacity, blood and sweat to finally throw off their would-be oppressors. DuBois understood this, while Picard railed against it -- and even in Trek's optimistic world, indirectly made the whole galaxy pay for his decision.
War is just another form of negotiation. Lots of people seem to view it as senseless murder and chaos but there are values in doing battle. The end goal of armed conflict is not to inflict harm on the other side, it is to get them to do what you want. Most commonly it is to get the other side to cede territorial control over to your side but there are many other goals it could be used for. For example, the purpose of the A-Bombs in Japan were not to eliminate military or infrastructure targets, or to simply inflict harm. They were used to force the Japanese to surrender because the US did not want to invade mainland Japan.
The first chapter of the book discusses this a bit. The objectives of the raid were to come in, cause confusion, and damage major infrastructure and utilities. In fact they were told to keep casualties to a minimum. The goal of the attack was to get the skinnies to withdraw their support from the bugs, that's it. The Federation simply used force to get the skinnies to do what they wanted and nothing more.
Does it say in these chapters, or a later one, that the skinnies were supporting the bugs? I didn't recall that from my first reading. In fact I had thought that the book made a point of the bugs being so different from humans in how they thought (perfect communists: a hivemind not afraid to sacrifice 'individuals' for the benefit of the whole) that it would be impossible for them to have peaceful diplomatic relations with a hominid race (though I will confess this might very well be a misconception based on the massive number of 'bug' races that exist in sci-fi.)
Yeah, it gets brought up somewhere later in the book. It's been a while since I first read it and I do remember the part about the bug race being "perfect communists" but I don't remember if they were a true hivemind. I think it was more like certain castes of bugs didn't have any value beyond the collective so they just sacrifice themselves.
The book does point out that the bugs are intelligent, enough to use organized maneuvers and to even build spaceships. So it stands to reason that they could form some kind of alliance with the skinnies.
So I've always found it a bit of a bummer that Doogie Howser, Military Psychic is instead just plain Carl, Military Electronics Nerd in the book. It's an interesting concept portrayed pretty well by Neil Patrick Harris. Honestly, though, the idea was rather wasted by the script: Harris' character pretty much exists to give the iconic "It's Afraid!" line at the end of the movie. Anyway:
Heinlein does a great job hooking the reader's attention in these opening chapters, especially considering that much of it consists of lengthy speeches by various teachers and military men laying out their philosophy. The most famous one even made it (with a few changes) into the movie:
There is an interesting contrast and comparison here between Heinlein and Roddenberry('s writers). As much as I love Star Trek, Picard is wrong when he contradicts Colonel DuBois that "power flows from the barrel of a gun." Even Trek seems to concede this with the Hugh debacle: Picard had a chance to destroy the Borg forever, but got cold feet and decided not to go through with it, a mistake that lead to an untold amount of death and suffering at their cybernetic hands throughout the galaxy. Indeed, the writers seemed to concede this point in spectacular fashion with an entire series called Deep Space Nine. Sure, Sisko attempted diplomacy at various points -- but talking is never the answer, not against the implacable Dominion. It took the Federation years of grit, tenacity, blood and sweat to finally throw off their would-be oppressors. DuBois understood this, while Picard railed against it -- and even in Trek's optimistic world, indirectly made the whole galaxy pay for his decision.
I heard Michael Ironside when Mr. DuBois was speaking.
"A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not."
"The exact words of the book," he said scornfully.
"Bud do you understand it? Do you believe it?"
I guess that's as far as Verhoeven read.
A citizen returns the shopping cart. A civilian does not.
War is just another form of negotiation. Lots of people seem to view it as senseless murder and chaos but there are values in doing battle. The end goal of armed conflict is not to inflict harm on the other side, it is to get them to do what you want. Most commonly it is to get the other side to cede territorial control over to your side but there are many other goals it could be used for. For example, the purpose of the A-Bombs in Japan were not to eliminate military or infrastructure targets, or to simply inflict harm. They were used to force the Japanese to surrender because the US did not want to invade mainland Japan.
The first chapter of the book discusses this a bit. The objectives of the raid were to come in, cause confusion, and damage major infrastructure and utilities. In fact they were told to keep casualties to a minimum. The goal of the attack was to get the skinnies to withdraw their support from the bugs, that's it. The Federation simply used force to get the skinnies to do what they wanted and nothing more.
Does it say in these chapters, or a later one, that the skinnies were supporting the bugs? I didn't recall that from my first reading. In fact I had thought that the book made a point of the bugs being so different from humans in how they thought (perfect communists: a hivemind not afraid to sacrifice 'individuals' for the benefit of the whole) that it would be impossible for them to have peaceful diplomatic relations with a hominid race (though I will confess this might very well be a misconception based on the massive number of 'bug' races that exist in sci-fi.)
Yeah, it gets brought up somewhere later in the book. It's been a while since I first read it and I do remember the part about the bug race being "perfect communists" but I don't remember if they were a true hivemind. I think it was more like certain castes of bugs didn't have any value beyond the collective so they just sacrifice themselves.
The book does point out that the bugs are intelligent, enough to use organized maneuvers and to even build spaceships. So it stands to reason that they could form some kind of alliance with the skinnies.
The World Wars taught us that lesson in the modern age
War has already evolved to destroy the mind of the man holding the gun.
You would know it as wokeism. The communist project from Marx to Gramsci to Marcuse to Critical Race Theory.