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I'm surprised there is no mention of the fact that any soldier at any time can decide to leave the army without any questions asked. This is even true while the Bug War is raging. In which army has it ever been possible to leave during wartime without being accused of desertion and risking the death penalty? --Crusio (talk)20:22, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just re-watched the movie and re-read some parts of the book. An important aspect of both is the emphasis of Raszak (who in any real fascist society would be indoctrinating the youth with the ideas of The Leader) on independent thinking and making up your own mind. A teacher like that would not survive for a minute under a fascist regime. --Crusio (talk)12:09, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I gotta say, don't really see the fascism. I mean, personal freedom and personal choice are espoused throughout, and the right to vote is extended to any willing to work for it. It's not like they limit voting along any arbitrary and unchangeable lines like race, ethnicity or religious background. And the Terran Federation is a society with few laws, low taxes, etc. That doesn't sound fascist to me, it sounds libertarian.SpudHawg948 (talk)10:55, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's simplistic to describe Heinlein as a libertarian; his political views were more complex (and self-contradictory) than that. It is, however, absurd to describe him as a fascist. Whether the Terran Federation is a quasi-fascist state is again a more complex question; I'd call it more ajunkerstaat (and that's not a compliment).--Orange Mike |Talk18:02, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In what way? The citizenry of the Terran Federation can hardly be compared to a group of hereditary landed nobles who obtained their positions of status through the war of colonization and conversion carried out by the Teutonic Knights. As I stated above, citizenry is based on civil service, not something as arbitrary as bloodlines, as would be the case in a so-called junkerstaat. If anything, the Terran Federation is ameritocracy. People are awarded greater rights and privileges once they do something to merit said privileges, such as placing their own needs aside to serve, or, as the US Air Force succinctly states it, after they put "Service before Self". Any comparison of the Terran Federation to a feudal system is, in my opinion, overly simplistic and clearly in error.SpudHawg948 (talk)11:49, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good point; I referenced thejunkers primarily because of the cult of the warrior which they inspired in late-19th-century Prussia, but it is still a weak analogy. --Orange Mike |Talk15:49, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I don't see much evidence that military service buys you greater rights and priviliges, except of course voting, which is of little value to the individual. A retired Lt Colonel (which seems to be a rather high rank in the TF) is teaching history in high school. Of course we're not really informed whether he has to do that to put bread on the table. --Trovatore (talk)22:03, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I do agree though that any description of Heinlein as "libertarian" has to be qualified. Many of his writings resonate with libertarians. But inTo Sail Beyond the Sunset he speaks approvingly of hanging people for growing and selling marijuana. InRevolt in 2100 (admittedly an early work) he espousessocial credit. I think we have to consider him a man of libertarian instincts, but not a promoter of a particular political theory. For a writer, of course, this is agood thing -- ideological writers tend to be predictable and uninteresting. --Trovatore (talk)02:47, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, it's notRevolt in 2100 I was thinking of. It'sBeyond This Horizon. Searches for "heinlein" and "social credit" mostly come up withFor Us, the Living, which I've never actually read -- the socred stuff may be more explicit there. But it's definitely there inBeyond as well. --Trovatore (talk)03:01, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Trovatore, FWIW, BTH is actually one of his very first works published, if not THE first. He wrote it as a kind of response to (IIRC)The Shape of Things To Come akaThings To Come, which was considered an important picture in its time, much less so, today. And yes, this was particularly a time for RAH to massively change his position on things -- he was, clearly from bothFor Us, The Living and his own letters to people at the time, a strong believer in Marxism. He obviously came to not agree with it at all in a few short years, as it became clearer what the USSR and Marxism in general stood for.
Ummm... the ability to voteis the "greater rights and privileges" that come from military service. And to the contrary, what can be more important than having a say in how you are governed? I mean, wars have been fought and empires brought down over the right to vote. Saying the right to vote is of little value to the individual is like saying the right to own property or freedom of worship are of little value. The fact that there are two separate categories of people (citizen and civilian) is proof enough that military service (or any of the other services that garner you citizen status) is rewarded with greater rights and privileges. It's basically the foundation of the entire society of the Terran Federation, as Heinlein himself points out on numerous occasions. Also, in an aside, if the rank structure of the Terran Federation is anything like contemporary military ranks, Lt Col is not that high on the ladder. Lt Col is basically "middle management". Also, you make the assumption that teaching is a thankless and low paid job, when nothing of the kind is ever stated.SpudHawg948 (talk)11:10, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent points, but I will disagree with one; whether or not a Lieutenant Colonel is "middle management" in the military is entirely dependent on 1. that individual's specialty, and 2, that individual. Often a Lt Col is the sole decision maker in critical situations. On 18 April 1942, just 132 days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, an act took place which would have been considered laughable before that sneak attack; 16 U.S. Army B-25 bombers took off from a U.S. Navy carrier. The leader of that bomber group made the decision to launch 10 hours earlier than planned because the carrier had been spotted by a Japanese naval vessel. That put the launch 170 miles short of the planned launch point, guaranteeing that the bombers could not reach their fields of intended landing. Those 16 bombers struck Tokyo and five other cities. The man who planned and led that raid was Lt Col Jimmy Doolittle.— Precedingunsigned comment added by96.8.182.21 (talk)15:32, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I said it's of little valueto the individual. If you personally couldn't vote, but everyone else who thinks like you and has the same interests as you still could, your life would be little different. You will probably never in your life cast a vote that changes the result of an election, above perhaps the city-council level — in every election bigger than that, if you had voted the opposite way from how you actually voted, the outcome would have been exactly the same.
That'scompletely different from owning property or worshiping freely, both of which directly affect your life.
Now, of course veterans are likely to have interests in common, and in real life one would expect them to use the vote to promote those interests over those of non-veterans. But there's little evidence in the book that this happens. That might be one of the most unrealistic aspects of the book. --Trovatore (talk)18:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Now, of course veterans are likely to have interests in common, and in real life one would expect them to use the vote to promote those interests over those of non-veterans." Except that is clearly one of the things taught ALL in the History and Moral Philosophy courses in High School. The point of the military service is to demonstrate a degree of social responsibility by putting your time and your very life in service to the state. So veterans are trained, both before, in HS, and later, as a part of the military, that they have a strong responsibility to make sure their votes are for their believed good of all,not for personal benefit. And, yeah, that is the very main issue with true Democracy, the more warm-body the more dangerous it is -- people voting for their own benefit instead of societal benefit.
Well, you do have to factor in that there are many fewer people voting, thus giving each vote cast more weight. This becomes even more important when you realize that veterans are in no way, shape, or form a cohesive voting bloc, as personal experience has demonstrated. I mean,Duncan Hunter andJohn Murtha are both veterans, try getting them to vote the same way on just about anything. Same withJohn Kerry andJohn McCain, or for that matterAl Gore andGeorge W Bush. Saying that veterans are likely to vote for common interests assumes that thereare interests common to all veterans. It's like expecting all truck drivers to vote the same way. It's, quite frankly, naive. And again, if the right to vote in no way affects your daily life, than how can you explain theAmerican Revolutionary War, or theWomen's suffrage movements worldwide, or any of the other wars, revolutions, and social movements formed with the sole goal of obtaining the right to vote? Much ado about nothing?SpudHawg948 (talk)20:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Are you wilfully misunderstanding me? None of the things in your last sentence are about the value of the vote as anindividual right. As an individual right, it's almost worthless. Theexistence of the vote affects your daily life -- but not becauseyou vote. Rather, it's because lots of other people, who think like you do (or who think differently), vote.
There are, of course, interests common to all veterans. The size of the pension, for example. If the veterans ofStarship Troopers extract a gold-plated pension from the sweat of non-veteran brows, the book makes no mention of it. There is no indication that the testimony of a non-veteran can't be held against a veteran in court. That sort of thing. These would begenuine "greater rights and privileges" for veterans, and in a real-world setting where they had the vote and non-veterans didn't, you would probably expect to see them. But they aren't there in the book. --Trovatore (talk)21:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm not "wilfully (sic) misunderstanding" you. Merely pointing out that the "existence" of the vote could not exist without the individual's right to vote! You point out that daily life is affected when "lots of other people, who think like you do (or who think differently), vote." And what are those people doing but exercising an individual right, which certainly must be of some importance to them, why else would they do it? For all your talk of "other people" voting, all those "other people" are doing is exercising theirindividual rights to vote! As for Veterans having common interests such as pensions, you clearly haven't been paying attention to the on-going debate over the proposed new pension system for the National Guard. And, of course, inferring the existence of something (like some common goal such as "gold-plated" pensions when the author states nothing of the sort) is speculation. All I have been doing is taking the work at face value, not inventing new points seemingly out of whole-cloth. And at the end of the day, the fact that one group has the vote and another doesn'tis proof that the former has at leastone greater right/privilege than the latter. That's all I've been trying to say, so perhaps it's you who have been willfully misunderstanding me?SpudHawg948 (talk)21:38, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The vote can certainly exist withoutyou having the right to vote. It's important to you that the groups with which you identify not be excluded from the franchise; ifyour voting privilege specifically were gone, it would hurt only your pride. So it's important as a group right, but not as an individual right. --Trovatore (talk)21:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But as I have been trying to say all along, it is a group right thatcannot exist without the individual right! Honestly, this seems like it's become a "forest and the trees" argument, with you arguing that the trees do not matter on their own, as the forest would still exist, and me trying to point out (thus far in vain) that you cannot have a forest without all the individual trees! If anything, your argument sounds like something you could expect Juan Rico's father to say in an attempt to keep him from entering Federal service. The entire Terran Federation is predicated on the individual right to vote. Without an individual right to vote, there IS NO GROUP RIGHT!!! Regardless, my entire point originally was to answer your query about what greater rights service garnered by pointing out that the right to vote, held by one group but not another, is a greater right.SpudHawg948 (talk)22:24, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
May I point out that Heinlein's "utopia" has several similarities with both the Greek city-states and the early Roman Republic. Even in Athens, only male citizens could vote and hold office and only those that could serve in the ground or naval forces were citizens. To be a citizen was to be a Soldier (or a sailor). Socrates was proudest of his service as a hoplite. The wealthy bought horses and armor and weapons and served as cavalry, the well-to-do bought armor and weapons and served as hoplites in the front ranks of the phalanx. That level of service brought them more political power than the guy carrying a sling and operating as a skirmisher or missile troop on a galley (or a rower throwing javelins, rowers on Greek and Roman naval vessels being free men and expected to fight). We go to the Romans, and the same system is in place. Until the manipular legion when the oldest (and best equipped) Soldiers get switched to the back, but the best troops, men in their prime and still well equipped make up the centuries in the first line. Until after the well after the Carthaginian Wars, Roman citizens could not stand for office without having served ten years or ten campaigns in the legions. And both Athens and early Rome, as ancient "democracies" were renowned as aggressive and imperialistic states. Being a "democracy" does not automatically translate into being pacificsts. And a limited franchise based on service, whether military or not, is NOT fascist, either of the Italian/Spanish or the Nazi varieties.— Precedingunsigned comment added by188.97.113.149 (talk)20:45, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies if this isn't a good take here, but from an outside perspective the article seems to be quite too long for its subject? Compared to other articles about notable books, it seems like this one would well benefit from being shortened. Thoughts?Likeanechointheforest (talk)04:16, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, speaking as one of the reviewers at the featured article candidature, I did not find the length excessive. If you have specific areas of concern it would be best to point them out rather than just mention a general impression. Also I reverted your addition of an overview section to restore the standard lead style. Cheers,Ian Rose (talk)10:03, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Aside from the fact that I wrote the bulk of this and do not consider any material to be extraneous, I think it's worth pointing out that at ~7300 words it's a good bit outside the size range for which ourguidelines recommend splitting or trimming.Vanamonde93 (talk)20:21, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
^Eligibility for Federal Service is nearly universal; the only grounds for refusing to enlist an adult candidate is inability to understand the oath.
References
^abHeinlein, Robert Anson (May 1968).Starship Troopers.Berkley Books. p. 29.Why, we never fail anyone. The law doesn't permit us to. ... The only way you can fail is by having the psychiatrists decide that you are not able to understand the oath.
^Heinlein, Robert A. (1987).Starship Troopers. New York City, New York: Ace Books.ISBN9781101500422.Archived from the original on March 13, 2023. RetrievedSeptember 15, 2017.
I could have just removed the text but I fear that editors might not understand the change if I did not discuss it first. TheWP:LEAD section is four paragraphs long (that seems a bit on the long side). The second paragraph says "It has been identified with a tradition of militarism in US science fiction". The fourth paragraph also says "Science fiction critic Darko Suvin wrote that it is the "ancestral text of US science fiction militarism" and that it shaped the debate about the role of the military in society for many years."
One of these sentences seems redundant. These sentences cite "Suvin 2008, p. 122." and "Suvin 2008, p. 123." respectively. TheWP:LEAD section is supposed tosummarize, and the first sentence does the job of summarizing the key point, whereas the second sentence instead chooses to highlight a specific person making this same point. If this wasn't a{{Featured article}} I'd simply remove the specific claim attributed to Suvin since the lead is supposed to summarize and the general point has already been made, but perhaps editors would prefer to merge two sentences in a different way and avoid making the same point twice? --109.78.196.5 (talk)14:27, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As the author of those sentences, I'm open to rephrasing. They were intended, however, to convey distinct ideas - thatStarship Troopers fit within a tradition of militarism, but then also greatly influenced that tradition. In other words, the second paragraph is intended to summarize influences on Heinlein when writing, while the fourth summarizes the influences the novel had.Vanamonde93 (talk)00:49, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:LEAD is supposed to summarize. I can do a copyedit pass for greater brevity (and you could explain why things really do need to be there if you believe I deleted too much) but I don't think you'd like that. If you read the text out loud, and think about it for a while and reevaluate I think you might be the best person to figure out improvements. The lead section seems to have barely changed at all since this article was rated as a Feature Article in 2017, and standards have become stricter since then.wikt:kill_your_darlings
For example, in addition to the point I've already mentioned specifics are best left to the article body. It is more than enough for the lead section to say the book was influential, so long as the article body clearly proves and supports that, the lead doesn't need to get into specifics. Highlighting specific books influenced by (or in response to) Starship Troopers such asThe Forever War seems unnecessary. If a lead section is making side comments (such as parentheticals explaining things further) then it could stand to be summarized more concisely. Even though I like Verhoeven's film, highlighting Neumeier in the lead section of this article about the novel seemsunnecessary. Also the phrase "sought to satirize" seems like an opinion that maybe he failed to do so successfully instead of simply writing that it did "satirize" the novel (especially since the sentence still hedges by saying "what the director saw as").
I don't edit book articles very often but I've spent time editing film and tv episode articles where there are strict brevity requirements for theplot sections and evenessays about how to write more concisely can be helpful, but if you're actively maintaining this article I'd much prefer if you reevaluated it yourself. Guidelines are dull and no one wants to reread them but I think if you take a fresh look atWP:LEAD and reconsider how to make the lead simpler and more focussed it would benefit ordinary readers who want to prioritize the essential key points in the lead and the rest of readers whowant to find out more will continue reading on into the article body. --109.78.197.79 (talk)04:30, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of the detail - Rico's Filipino ancestry, the fact that Federal Service isn't exclusively military even if it is primarily so, the quotes from critics - are present because they are matters of deep contention among commentators and fans alike. Even the film's status as satire is in dispute - serious critics considered it as a promotion of fascism. I made some passes at the lead, but removing those contentious details probably needs affirmative consensus. Please also refer to past discussions on this talk page. Also, no changes to MOS:LEAD or other affect this article directly as far as I am aware.Vanamonde93 (talk)18:23, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:LEAD"a concise overview of the article's topic" it's not concise."a summary of its most important contents" maybe you are too close to the subject if you are saying all these different details are important, and that repeating the same point twice in different ways is really necessary. I think you need to look again atmost important. I was serious when I referenced "kill your darlings. Thank you for addressing the minor points I raised, but I think more could be done if someone more expert than me took a closer look at it. I'm not sure ifWikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors is still a thing but a third party review by people who take copyediting seriously might be helpful. --109.78.197.79 (talk)20:38, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The perception of the film as satire might be in dispute (or how much it actually relates to the book at all) but Verhoeven saying he _intended_ it as a satire is not in dispute. I would again view this sort of complexity as reasons for the lead section to say less not more, and to entirely avoid trying to balance such complexities and instead focus just on the undisputed key points. Ordinary readers do not yet know enough about the topic to care about the knot of complexities you are trying to weave, nor should they. (I know I'm nit picking but Featured articles only tend to have such minor problems left.) Thanks anyway. --109.78.197.79 (talk)20:49, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-5 vital article is ratedFA-class on Wikipedia'scontent assessment scale.
