Starship Troopers Book Club Discussion #1: Soldiers, Moral Philosophers And Spankings

There are some really, really fascinating parallels between Starship Troopers and our first book club, A Clockwork Orange. Let's discuss!

This is part one of our 2nd Diabolical Book Club: Starship Troopers.

I’m about halfway through Starship Troopers and so far I’m enjoying it well enough, though it’s really not at all what I expected. It’s not at all like how I remember the movie, that’s for sure, and I’m more curious than ever to watch it again once I’m done with Heinlein’s novel. It’s very readable (unlike a certain novel) though there’s a striking lack of alien bug combat so far. None, actually, though the opening of the novel is quite action-packed and explosive and I really enjoy the descriptions of the mechs and weapons and combat.

One thing I didn’t expect was all the boot camp stuff and the prominence of the History and Moral Philosophy teacher and really just the constant instruction and discussion of ethics and society in general.

Six Days In The Terran Federation

One passage stuck out with me.

A soldier, Hendrick, is being penalized for insubordination and during his meeting with the boot camp platoon’s Captain, he confesses that he doesn’t really understand the point of it all. Why not just drop an H-bomb on the enemy rather than send troops in at all?

The Captain asks the soldier, “If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?”

“Why . . . no, sir!” the soldier replies. Then the Captain, in what seems to be the basic mode of this novel with its many instructive monologues, says:

“Of course not. You’d paddle it. There can be circumstances when it’s just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government’s decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him . . . but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence. But it’s not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It’s never a soldier’s business to decide when or where or how—or why—he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people—‘older and wiser heads,’ as they say—supply the control. Which is as it should be. That’s the best answer I can give you. If it doesn’t satisfy you, I’ll get you a chit to go talk to the regimental commander. If he can’t convince you—then go home and be a civilian! Because in that case you will certainly never make a soldier.” [Emphasis added.]

This struck me as particularly interesting in light of the whole Six Days In Fallujah controversy. One angle critics of that game took when lambasting its creators was to accuse them of saying the game would not be “political” despite obviously dealing with a very politically charged subject. This was a very misleading line of attack.

Recall, the actual quote from Victura chief Peter Tamte:

“For us as a team, it is really about helping players understand the complexity of urban combat. It’s about the experiences of that individual that is now there because of political decisions. And we do want to show how choices that are made by policymakers affect the choices that [a Marine] needs to make on the battlefield. Just as that [Marine] cannot second-guess the choices by the policymakers, we’re not trying to make a political commentary about whether or not the war itself was a good or a bad idea.”

Notice the similarity here. A marine cannot second-guess the choices made by the policy makers is almost exactly what the Starship Troopers Captain is saying when he tells Hendrick: “It’s never a soldier’s business to decide when or where or how—or why—he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals.”

But of course, beginning with the headline of the Polygon article that quotation was pulled from and spreading like poison across the video game blogosphere, the same critique was leveled: Six Days In Fallujah is “not trying to make a political commentary” and never mind the context.

Naughty, Naughty Zoot

“You must spank her well, and after you are done with her, you may deal with her as you like... and then... spank me.” ~ Dingo, from Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail

The bit I’m reading now is a flashback to Johnny Rico during a History and Moral Philosophy class with his teacher Colonel DuBois. The philosophy of the militaristic Terran Federation is quite fascinating, and while I disagree with a lot of Heinlein’s politics here I find his discussion of things like corporal punishment and juvenile delinquency at least compelling. He basically argues that being too soft on young hooligans only sets them up for disaster (and possible death) later.

DuBois uses an extended analogy about housebreaking a puppy. He says that if you don’t properly teach a dog that going to the bathroom indoors is wrong as a puppy, and then decide to shoot the dog when they go to the bathroom inside as an adult, that’s clearly inhumane and stupid. He likens this to being too soft on young lawbreakers who, when faced with suck meek consequences, learn simply that getting caught isn’t a big deal—until suddenly they turn 18 and face much stiffer penalties. He argues that corporal punishment from the outset is the only way to truly teach young people how to behave.

Quoth DuBois:

“While a judge should be benevolent in purpose, his awards should cause the criminal to suffer, else there is no punishment—and pain is the basic mechanism built into us by millions of years of evolution which safeguards us by warning when something threatens our survival. Why should society refuse to use such a highly perfected survival mechanism?”

What I find so interesting about all of this is how it’s framed. Corporal punishment and the inflicting of pain from the outset of a young offender’s life isn’t really presented as “tough on crime” just for the sake of it, but as a more natural and humane way to punish criminals since it actually teaches them that there are consequences for their actions, unlike probation or a short stint in jail with other criminals. Corporal punishment is more of an instrument of salvation here rather than simply justice, a way to save people from their own bad choices before it’s too late. Like swatting a puppy and rubbing their nose in their pee or poop and hollering at them even though you’re not mad, you’re just trying to teach them a lesson.

Oh, and finally I think it’s funny how Heinlein describes the lead up to the fall of civilization before the Terran Federation swooped in to save the day:

“Law-abiding people,” Dubois had told us, “hardly dared go into a public park at night. To do so was to risk attack by wolf packs of children, armed with chains, knives, homemade guns, bludgeons . . . to be hurt at least, robbed most certainly, injured for life probably—or even killed.”

Why, this sounds just like A Clockwork Orange to me! Perhaps this is the unwitting sequel to Burgess’s dystopian novel (published years earlier).

Burgess, of course, was mostly concerned with freedom of moral choice. He believed that no true morality could exist if people were not free to choose between good and evil, and that removing that ability from them was to render them inhuman—a clockwork orange incapable of good or evil. Heinlein, on the other hand, is arguing that morality is something we learn over time, and can learn much more quickly with the occasional flogging.

DuBois at one point says that the pre-Terran world “assumed that Man has a moral instinct” but in fact, people have “a cultivated conscience, a most carefully trained one. Man has no moral instinct. He is not born with moral sense . . . We acquire moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of the mind.”

Alex, in A Clockwork Orange, is quite clearly one of the “unfortunate juveniles” who had “no chance to acquire any” moral sense. Clearly the brainwashing of A Clockwork Orange didn’t work out so well, robbing Alex of his humanity and of his ability to choose between right and wrong. But what about DuBois’s philosophy? Could that have saved Alex from himself. Or would he just be the one doing the flogging in the end?

What do you think, my droogies? For those of you who read A Clockwork Orange for our first Book Club, how do you see these two authors’ (both conservatives by the way) belief systems complimenting or contrasting with one another? For those of you who haven’t read A Clockwork Orange but are reading along with this one, what do you make of the book so far?

If you’d like to join the book club you can pick up a copy of Starship Troopers here.

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