Fallout and the Folly of Nationalism

[CmdrKing]

"Defining Citizenship solely by military service is Good, Actually, because a tiny fraction of civilians are rich people." - A Fascist Clown

Like, really? You don't see the inherent authoritarianism in only allowing participation in government to people who directly serve the state? Last I looked you're one of the people who thinks all socialism is fascistic, because you think all socialism is the CCP or Soviets*... when the primary basis of that argument is the CCP and Soviet Union restricted government to Party members.


*I mean let's be clear, Mao and Stalin were in fact fucking fascists, but it ain't because their countries were nominally socialist under their regimes. It's all their own lovely nationalism, imperialist expansion, and purges in conjunction with the systematic removal of individual participation in government.

[Antiboyscout]

"Defining Citizenship solely by military service is Good, Actually, because a tiny fraction of civilians are rich people." - A Fascist Clown

Like, really? You don't see the inherent authoritarianism in only allowing participation in government to people who directly serve the state? Last I looked you're one of the people who thinks all socialism is fascistic, because you think all socialism is the CCP or Soviets*... when the primary basis of that argument is the CCP and Soviet Union restricted government to Party members.


*I mean let's be clear, Mao and Stalin were in fact fucking fascists, but it ain't because their countries were nominally socialist under their regimes. It's all their own lovely nationalism, imperialist expansion, and purges in conjunction with the systematic removal of individual participation in government.

“Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.”

Another divergence from the book. It's not Military service it is Any form of service.

Every socialist and communist system inevitably becomes fascist. Mussolini created fascism not to counter socialism but to improve it. The basis being, if you want to achieve the goals laid out by socialism you must create a society that is fascist.

[Elderdog]

What was authoritarian about the book?

It argues for a stratified society. Their are citizens and there are civilians which can't vote and can't run for public office and they get this. In more practical terms, this means that in the society of Starship Troopers a politician who wants to get into power (whatever their beliefs might be) will need to think about the well being of Citizens first and foremost if they want to get elected. Civilians are the keys to power, they need to be courted. Civilians are irrelevancies as far as the political process goes. You want to raise taxes to do something? Raise them on Civilians. They'll grumble but come election day that's all they can do.

It's also keen on brutal punishment. It's pro-death penalty, it's pro-corporal punishment.

Zor

except the richest most powerful people aren't the people in office but the civilians working in private industry.

just because you don't like the death penalty or canning's doesn't make the society fascist. Do you think Singapore is?

Not Particularly but Singapore has been dominated by a single political party that has worked to both limit Freedom of the press and the ability to peacefully assemble; it's not uniquely Fascist but they are tactics that were used by Fascist and Totalitarian governments. If anything I'd compare Singapore's government to something a bit more corporate in governance.
Also, Starship Troopers could be interpreted as Fascist because the military is the government and the military operates with little (if any) oversight and the civilian population is largely considered to be useless.
Tl;DR version- Singapore not Fascist just not free, and Starship troopers is Sparta at best and Franco's Spain at its worst.

[CmdrKing]

“Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.”

Another divergence from the book. It's not Military service it is Any form of service.

Every socialist and communist system inevitably becomes fascist. Mussolini created fascism not to counter socialism but to improve it. The basis being, if you want to achieve the goals laid out by socialism you must create a society that is fascist.

Hm, I feel like I addressed this already...

Like, really? You don't see the inherent authoritarianism in only allowing participation in government to people who directly serve the state? Last I looked you're one of the people who thinks all socialism is fascistic, because you think all socialism is the CCP or Soviets*... when the primary basis of that argument is the CCP and Soviet Union restricted government to Party members.

Anyway, Heinlein's version still looking pretty fash. Unless of course you simply define fascism as "socialism" without having any non-circular definition for what socialism is?

[Madner Kami]

You bypass the base question in that complex, which is: "Should someone who did not serve society in any way, be allowed to decide the politics of the society?" I see why you'd think that this is inherently fascist, but this question needs to be answered and justified by you, before you can declare it fascist.

Think about it that way: Germany had a conscription until 2011 (technically, the state still has the right to do so, as laid out by our "Grundgesetz" aka our constitution, but it's suspended). You were obligated to join the military services for sixth months (by the end of the conscriptions) at the age of 17/18 and if you refused to serve in a military capacity, you had to serve a "voluntary" time in a civil service, like helping in a kindergarten or join the "Technische Hilfswerk" (a civil protection service in cases of catastrophes) still. Essentially, every single citizen (except for women) who had a voting right, had also have to had served the state, as exemptions to that service time were rarely given and refusing in totality was technically illegal. Was Germany a fascist state until 2011?

To me, it very much stands to reason, that a society has the innate right to ask it's citizens and it's potential citizens, to do something for the society in exchange for taking an active part of the society. If you think you are or want to be part of a group, but never do something for the group while demanding that the group listens to your preferences, then you fundamentally misunderstand what makes a group a group.

Oh and if you think that Heinlein was a fascist, then go read "Stranger in a strange land".

[Elderdog]

I don't think that anyone would disagree with the idea that there are merits to a compulsory national service; the problem with Heinlein was that a large part of his life was defined by his military service and he used the book to evangelize the benefits of service to the detriment of his book's message.

[Madner Kami]

I don't think that anyone would disagree with the idea that there are merits to a compulsory national service; the problem with Heinlein was that a large part of his life was defined by his military service and he used the book to evangelize the benefits of service to the detriment of his book's message.

Military service was just one way of attaining citizenship in Starship Troopers, not the only way.

[Darth Wedgius]

What was authoritarian about the book?

It argues for a stratified society. Their are citizens and there are civilians which can't vote and can't run for public office and they get this. In more practical terms, this means that in the society of Starship Troopers a politician who wants to get into power (whatever their beliefs might be) will need to think about the well being of Citizens first and foremost if they want to get elected. Civilians are the keys to power, they need to be courted. Civilians are irrelevancies as far as the political process goes. You want to raise taxes to do something? Raise them on Civilians. They'll grumble but come election day that's all they can do.

It's also keen on brutal punishment. It's pro-death penalty, it's pro-corporal punishment.

Zor

What's authoritarian about that? For a long while, only land owners had the vote, and that wasn't authoritarian, IMHO at least.

In Starship Troopers, there can still be a large amount of individual liberty for anyone, and in anyone can serve the state for a bit to get the vote. I didn't see restrictions on free speech or political "re-education" going on in that book.

[CmdrKing]

Oh and if you think that Heinlein was a fascist, then go read "Stranger in a strange land".

I wouldn't say Heinlein was a fascist necessarily, just that the society he created in Starship Troopers had strong elements of fascism (that were played up to create a DEFINITELY fascist state in the film).
(Honestly based on what I know of the man and his work I think he falls into the trap of understanding the need for certain freedoms and understanding some axes of oppression, dude had an utterly fascinating perspective on romance and sexuality, while not being able to shake aspects of a conservative upbringing and holding onto some strong authoritarian tendencies.)

Anyway, I'm seeing insistence that military service is not the only service to the state that's required for citizenship, but not seeing other examples of the kinds of service that count. Even supposing it's possible the create an equitable set of options for service, the odds the examples within the book aren't exclusionary in one way or another are slim.

More than that, creating criteria for exclusion of this kind to start with is effortless to turn into a tool of oppression.

"Only Citizens get a voice in government" -> "Only those who perform Service to the State may be citizens" -> "the state may refuse the service of citizens based on various criteria" -> *unstated Rule Zero* "no one who is [x] will be allowed service"


Once you have fascists in power, Rule Zero comes into play and [x] is whatever group is currently demonized as part of maintaining the core mentality of fascism, be it gender, race, disability, whatever. And since people are already conditioned to accept the seemingly-reasonable exclusion criteria, it becomes trivial to dismiss the concerns of the out group and marginalize them; oh they're just lazy, they hate the State, whatever. You see the same pattern in any kind of exclusionary criteria (welfare in the US for example, hence the myth of the Welfare Queen), but once fundamental participation in governance becomes something with acceptable exclusions the slide to fascism is often swift and inevitable.

[Elderdog]

I don't think that anyone would disagree with the idea that there are merits to a compulsory national service; the problem with Heinlein was that a large part of his life was defined by his military service and he used the book to evangelize the benefits of service to the detriment of his book's message.

Military service was just one way of attaining citizenship in Starship Troopers, not the only way.

I know that but the point still remains that Heinlein focused on a clearly military perspective in the novel and that no matter what political beliefs he chose to portray in the novel it can be interpreted that Heinlein designed his society to have a clear hierarchy that values one group of people over another without considering the moral ramifications it could have on that society.
On a completely different note I don't think that Heinlein was a fascist I just think that he saw the world with a certain moral certainty that was informed by his devotion to a conservative libertarian mindset and a general hatred of communism. In fact I've heard that the bugs in the book were created to showcase his personal opinions of how communism was an essentially inhuman system that could only succeed if people where part of a hive mind like the bugs.