Editing Starship Troopers (section)

===RAGE===
Remember that controversy we mentioned before? Well...

''Starship Troopers'' was specifically written as a riposte against the activists that were agitating against nuclear weapons testing during the late 50s, and was published only a few years before the Vietnam War became a major global crisis; thus, its reception and subsequent movie adaptation should be understood within that context. According to Heinlein, a naval engineer, the book’s publication and awards “[[RAGE|enraged]]” the activists, because it opposed much of what they advocated: the book is pro-military at a time when large parts of the university literati were violently opposed to the armed forces. In the 60s and 70s, the debate between socialism and capitalism was still hotly contested, and several discussions in Starship Troopers place it solidly in the capitalist camp. It is also contemptuous of the social sciences (note that the culture around the "hard" science disciplines is such that they often tend to sneer down their noses at the "soft" sciences and at least at this point in his life Heinlein absolutely lived down to that stereotype of the STEM nerd), meaning that people who had the literary training to take the book apart often felt insulted by it personally. In the case of the modern social sciences this insult is EXPLICITLY in the text, faulting them with the decline of values in the 20th century. And Heinlein's warhawk values and contempt for anyone who disagrees with him leap off the page.

The result was that ''Starship Troopers'' has been accused of advocating fascism for the better part of a century, and though the worst of this reputation would eventually pass, it illustrates well how perceptions of the work shifted with the changing times. Come the 1980s, Heinlein's idealization of militaristic values and warfare as key to the creation of moral, socially-responsible citizens were far less compatible with the post-Vietnam counterculture's pacifist sentiments and disillusioned, often maimed and maladjusted veterans who felt abandoned by their country after fighting in a morally-murky conflict. It is perhaps relevant at this juncture to point out that Heinlein was ''not'' a frontline soldier and never experienced modern total war firsthand, as he was invalided out of the Navy seven years before America entered WWII. 

Among the more merited criticisms is the harshness of some Federation laws, under which many misdemeanors warrant corporal punishment, and truly violent criminals are simply executed. The idea that a violent felon could be rehabilitated is dismissed as irrelevant, for if they ever truly repented their only course of action to cope with their failings would be suicide. Meanwhile, it's not fair to the rest of society to give them a second chance that might end in recidivism; better to make stark examples. Such laws are few in number for civilians, and more numerous for active military and citizens, but regardless feel very abrasive to a modern audience, and modern social sciences dismissed this "harsh punishments make for few punishments" attitude even at the time. (Dostoyevsky wrote that it is the certainty, rather than the severity of punishment, that deters crime the better part of a century before ''Starship Troopers'' and modern criminology agrees with that)

Heinlein was said to have based this future society off of Switzerland (which has a longstanding tradition of national service) but made voluntary, as he was not a fan of conscription. However, the glorification of the military's role in strengthening society and aforementioned strict law was often taken at face value, to the point that some people accused Heinlein himself of being fascist. In truth, Heinlein was more sort of a proto-libertarian, to the point where several long stretches of dialogue in ''The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'' outright advocated anarchism, to say nothing of his later works. Of course such a system, in which some could vote and others could not with a high social tolerance for heavy-handed punishment, naturally has plenty of room to be abused and twisted to fascist ends (depending on how the voters are determined eligible and what beliefs prevail among them), or at least more general authoritarianism in a stratocratic junta. And the ''creation'' of the Federation is described in a chapter that dismisses modern liberal democracies as decadent and weak, and envisions a future where hardbitten veterans have to reestablish order through vigilantism and mass violence, all of which is ''pretty'' close to what actual fascists like the Blackshirts believed would happen in the future.