Article-I.D.: topaz.3885
Posted: Wed Oct  2 20:17:16 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Oct-85 05:33:08 EDT
Sender: daemon@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 121

From: FIRTH@TL-20B.ARPA


[ Moderator: herewith some comments on the excerpts from That Review.
  As ever, please edit or condense at your discretion
]
--------

Disclaimer: I haven't yet read Luc Sante's review in full.

Nor am I prepared to comment on his lengthy verbiage quoted in this
forum, which seems encoded in a private jargon indecipherable without
the full text.

But facts are facts, and lies are lies.  Here are some of both:

QUOTE

          "Campbell was a tyrant who encouraged tyrannical views.  His
  guidance bore fruit in the works of such writers as Robert Heinlein
  and L. Ron Hubbard.  Heinlein's grandiose technocratic vision
  approaches fascism in works like _Starship Troopers_ (1959) and
  _Stranger in a Strange Land_ (1961), the latter once the bible of
  psychedelic zealotry and a major influence on Charles Manson.
  Hubbard, after producing acres of wordage for Campbell, tired of
  writing science fiction, and decided to live it, a decision that
  resulted in his pseudoscience, Dianetics, which had considerable
  impact on science fiction before mutating into the pseudoreligion
  Scientology."

END QUOTE

(1) Campbell was not a tyrant.  In fact, he encouraged many kinds of
    experimentation in Astounding.  This is attested by Heinlein
    (Expanded Universe) Asimov (Opus 100, Before The Golden Age)
    and many others.  There were a couple of problems with his
    editorship: an unreasonable insistence on "human supremacy",
    which Asimov documents well, and an unreasonable urge to
    remove non-gratuitous sex, which seems to be attributable mostly 
    to Kay Tarrant.

(2) "Heinlein's grandiose technocratic vision" .. 'technocracy' means
    "the rule of the skilled", and I can't find that in most of
    Heinlein's major works.  The issue of leadership (or, as an
    Englishman should say, kingship) is discussed in many of his
    novels, especially The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and I don't
    think they support that conclusion.  Indeed, in many places,
    especially the juvenile stories (Space Family Stone, Have
    Space Suit, will Travel) he indicates his sympathies are the
    exact opposite: EVERYBODY should be as autonomous as possible;
    even incompetents have rights and should be given the chance to
    learn (or die)

    Of course, Mr Sante' may be using "technocratic" to mean
    "worshipping mechanisms and technology" - illiteracy among
    the literati knows no nadir.

(3) "approaches fascism in Starship Troopers".  Well that work
    is not a grandiose technocratic vision in any sense: the
    technology is the minimum necessary to sustain the plot, and
    the invisible rulers are neither technologists nor particularly
    efficient.  Nor is it fascist: name one fascist state where
    military service was voluntary and where even volunteers
    could resign at almost any time (whenever not in actual combat)
    See Spider Robinson's article Rah Rah RAH in Destinies vol 2
    no 3 for more.

    And, incidentally, what does all this have to do with Campbell?
    Unless the limp, yellowing object in my hand is an hallucination,
    "Starship Soldier" was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and
    Science Fiction.

    [As for that common disease of the deracinated intellectual,
     whose main symptom is an habitual sneering at courage, valour,
     patriotism, and, above all, the profession of arms - Rudyard
     Kipling analysed it a century ago.  It is still with us]

(4) There is no technology in Stranger in a Strange Land.  Even
    space travel is kept offstage.

(5) "a major influence on Charles Manson".  Well, bringing out the
    standard book on this subject (Vincent Bugelosi & Curt
    Gentry: Helter Skelter), I find no reference to Heinlein or
    any of his works.  The main influences on Manson seem to have
    been Beatles lyrics and some Scientology notions - though
    even the latter is dubious: Manson's claims to have become
    a "beta clear" are unsubstantiated, and that certainly isn't
    (as he also claimed) the highest stage in Scientology (op
    cit, Penguin Books edition, pp 578..580)

(6) [L Ron Hubbard] "tired of writing science fiction, and decided to
    live it".  Even a cursory look at a Hubbard bibliography will
    refute that.  Hubbard continued writing SF through his
    Dianetics period, and well into Scientology.  Not to mention
    Battlefield Earth.  Moreover, leaving aside some of the wilder
    claims of the OTO, most dispassionate observers conclude that
    Hubbard himself didn't try to "live" his cults.  See, for
    instance, Stephen Annett (ed) The Many Ways of Being, Abacus, 1976.

(7) Finally, Scientology is

	"a religious philosophy containing pastoral counselling
	 procedures intended to assist an individual to attain
	 Spiritual Freedom"

    in fact, a pseudo-religion.

If a reviewer is so wrong about facts that can be checked, not in a
reference library, but in a poorly-stocked home library, of what
value are his opinions?

Robert Firth

PS: On re-reading the above, and scanning the archives, I feel I
    was wrong about the "non-gratuitous sex" stuff.  For example,
    Poul Anderson's serials The Long Way Home and The Man Who Counts,
    both published in Astounding in the '50s, contain plot elements
    that involve "sex" in one way or another, and the latter especially
    makes a very tough point.

-------