In 2016 my essay "Science Fiction Seen From the Right" was published. Hereby some lines describing the role of Robert A. Heinlein in it.
A central character of my sci-fi study is Robert A. Heinlein, an American author living 1907-1988. "Heinlein, tu prends la première place dans mon livre" would be a fitting dedication. That is, "Heinlein, you take pride of place in my book."
Heinlein, along with defining modern sci-fi, also defined right-wing sci-fi. And as a person he remained a hard-right conservative from WWII and on, being opposed to godless Communism in a time when the Western world's intellectuals either (1) hoped for a communist revolution or (2) were rather forgiving against the atrocities of the Bolshevik Empire.
A central character of my sci-fi study is Robert A. Heinlein, an American author living 1907-1988. "Heinlein, tu prends la première place dans mon livre" would be a fitting dedication. That is, "Heinlein, you take pride of place in my book."
Heinlein, along with defining modern sci-fi, also defined right-wing sci-fi. And as a person he remained a hard-right conservative from WWII and on, being opposed to godless Communism in a time when the Western world's intellectuals either (1) hoped for a communist revolution or (2) were rather forgiving against the atrocities of the Bolshevik Empire.
Today, everyone knows of Heinlein's other side. Of his libertarian, even libertine charatcter. But that was established only by his later works, from say 1966 and on. Earlier, he was a Responsible Man through and through, conveying his creed in an eminently readable style.
So, in my science fictional preachment I want to remind the sci-fi readership of this, of Heinlein as a conservative lodestar.
This is not about worshipping an author figure. It's about having sci-fi novels and stories conceptualizing reality in a right-leaning, willpower-driven way. A way sorely needed today in the zeitgeist of materialist nihilism and relativism.
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Going backwards in Heinlein's catalogue for viable conservative works, we can begin with Glory Road of 1964. In this novel the hero is a patriotic misfit in the affluent, liberal society of the early 1960s. No eternal values exist, all is relativism and materialism. Then the guy is translocated to a fantasy world where he comes into his own, being able to wield a sword and lecture a young man on the importance of willpower, drive and perseverance. Eternal values!
The first half of this novel is just great, with the real-world setting and the first person-narrative of a Responsible Man finding his way in life, struggling against a nihilistic, lacklustre zeitgeist.
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In Starship Troopers (1959) Heinlein delineated a governance, uniting authority with responsibility. The Responsible Man is here again, beautifully so. And this figure educating the reader returns in many a good Heinlein novel, like Starman Jones, Time for the Stars, and Space Cadet. The latter, from 1948, is a delight in the first chapters, condensing what responsibility, self-restraint, ambition, and loyalty means, all within the framework of complex operations like commanding a ship. The whole story tells us what this means, in the future, now, and forever.
That might have been because of the general, story-telling ability of the man, but you can't -- as mainstream critics often do -- divide the Heinlein stories into (1) "mere good storytelling" and (2) "deplorable right-wing lecturing". The storytelling and lecturing merge to form the Heinlein opus, an inseparable holistic phenomenon.
Thus, almost all of Heinlein's fiction from his debut in 1939 up and until Glory Road of 1964, maybe even including The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress of 1966, are great reads. This is excellent conservative sci-fi and also, when the lecturing takes the back seat, great sci-fi entertainment in general. All of the 1939-1966 Heinlein opus, the novels and the short story collections -- in all about 30 books -- are worth looking up for the radical conservative reader.
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Heinlein takes pride of place in my essay, "Science Fiction Seen From the Right." Chapter 1 is entirely about him, delineating the conservative slant of Assignment in Eternity, Coventry, Time for the Stars, Glory Road, Space Cadet, and Beyond This Horizon. Also, there's a short Heinlein bio in it. Then once again, at the end, in Chapter 32, I look at the subject of "sci-fi and war" and in this Heinlein has a lot to say, not only in Starship Troopers and Space Cadet but also in Sixth Column and The Man Who Sold the Moon, both works teaching us about how to run complex organizations with sizeable staffs.
All told, Heinlein is the pivotal figure of my book.
So, you can say: Ursula le Guin wrote about socialist utopias. Heinlein fought against them. There you have "Science Fiction Seen From the Right" in a nutshell.
Robert Heinlein heavily influenced my own writing in the field, and I guess it shows, as reflected in this excerpt from Harold Covington's review of my novel, "Hold Back This Day":
ReplyDelete“Ward Kendall has written the White man’s 1984, with a generous dose of Brave New World and an ending right out of Robert A. Heinlein."
In fact, my recent non-fiction book, "Beyond This Horizon - A White Nationalist Blueprint For Tomorrow" was also influenced in its title by another Heinlein book, so I definitely owe a debt to him.
"Hold Back This Day" - What Would The World Be Like If Whites Were Driven To The Edge of Extinction? - an amazon novel
"Beyond This Horizon - A White Nationalist Blueprint For Tomorrow" - an inside look at the white nationalist movement, its objectives, its leaders, and its future - an amazon book
Thanks for the input, Mr. Kendall. I mentioned "Hold Back This Day" briefly in my book, when giving examples of the more current trend of right-wing sf (along with Raspail's "Camp of Saints" and such). Otherwise, the shall we say mainstream trend of right-wing sf that I focus on, this was confined to the 20th century, from Burroughs in 1910 to Gordon Dickson in 1990. The left-turn began in the 60s and now seems all-prevalent.
DeleteThank you also Affirmative Right for publishing the article, along with the pertinent links.
To sketch the development of Heinlein's political views, you could say that in the 30's he was a liberal progressive.
ReplyDeleteThen, during WW2 and after having met the love of his life, Virginia Gerstenfield, he became a right-winger. And this he remained for the rest of his life: pro-American, anti-communist. His 1950s opus is full of preachment for traditional values and the need for taking responsibility, with Starship Troopers as the crowning achievement in this respect.
In the 60s he, regarding his lifestyle disposition, he became something of a libertine.
What was the reason for the change in his writing? Did he start taking drugs for inspiration? Beginning with Stranger in a Strange Land (said to have helped inspire Charles Manson), I regard his later books as close to unreadable. Niven and Pournelle picked up the torch of the early Heinlein.
DeleteKirt Higdon
I actually don't now why he changed. But as you intimate, there were others around to continue his strain of sf. Like Niven&Pournelle. And Gordon R. Dickson. In his Dorsai! series there's a lot of Responsible Man angles. Military sf of the brainy kind.
DeleteBotched translation, would be something more of the latter. "Heinlein, You are central to my book"
ReplyDelete