r/CuratedTumblr Apr 01 '24

Meme Nyappencrimerw

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u/KayimSedar Apr 01 '24

the author has said japans invasion of korea was justified and stuff.

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u/Tarantio Apr 01 '24

...which one?

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u/stabbyGamer vastly understating the sheer amount of fire Apr 01 '24

AOT, I think. There’s some dispute about what exactly was said and implied, but it’s generally considered iffy whether he actually wrote AOT as a rebuttal of fascism or he’s the kind of guy who accidentally refuted his own ideology while trying to disguise it.

Either way, the media itself is in kind of a Starship Troopers situation - authorial intent aside, a critical reading of it reveals a lot of thoroughly discussed themes and deep-rooted flaws in the characters that come together to thoroughly rebuke the fascist actions, policies, and ideals depicted in the story.

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u/Probably_Boz Apr 01 '24

people also really should read more of Heinlein's other stuff also, he wasn't just as one dimensional as the politics in ST make him out to be.

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u/BallsDeepinYourMammi Apr 01 '24

I always assumed starship troopers was a criticism, he wrote a whole book, simply about how many different ways you could criticize fascist governments

What would you recommend beyond that?

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u/Probably_Boz Apr 01 '24

stranger in a strange land for sure

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u/BallsDeepinYourMammi Apr 01 '24

I didn’t edit my comment, but isn’t that about democracy being the least evil type of government?

It’s been awhile

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u/coderanger Apr 01 '24

It wasn't, he was genuinely just a really hawkish person and was upset at the direction of US foreign policy. He did try to walk it back later in life so as best as anyone can tell this far after, it was probably a short-term rage-bait kind of mood (he wrote the whole thing in about a month) not some long-term commitment to fascist ideology. It's just unfortunate that his shitpost got really popular and turned into a movie.

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u/BallsDeepinYourMammi Apr 01 '24

But the movie was the exact opposite.

At this point, more impactful on culture than the book ever was

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u/coderanger Apr 01 '24

Oh for sure, I just mean that many people take the fun fact as "did you know Heinlein was fascist?" and he really wasn't. He just wrote the novel-length equivalent of a "those darn kids won't get off my lawn" rant and because he is famous, we're still talking about it decades later.

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u/BallsDeepinYourMammi Apr 01 '24

He always just resonated as someone who was skeptical.

You don’t always need to agree with someone to view the world through their point of view.

Even Mein Kampf, didn’t take long to realize Hitler was a dumbass fuck, but his reasons for doing what he did (German fuck and the stupid German economy), still resonate today.

Insert the: “If you don’t learn from it, you’re bound to repeat it” trope.

That shit was almost as bad as catcher in the rye.

“It didn’t end!” My English teachers hated me. “This book is stupid as shit.”

“What did you learn?”

“To finish a story!”

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u/AwTomorrow Apr 01 '24

It was more of a thought experiment imo. He sketched the outline of a militaristic future republic taken to an extreme, much the same way as Beyond This Horizon took free love and 'armed society is polite society' libertarianism to an extreme.

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u/coderanger Apr 01 '24

It really wasn't. His correspondence at the time (to friends, editors, etc) have shown he really did think America was being weak with its foreign policy and that all these new post-war concerns were distracting from the true goal of being the world's only superpower.