Tonguç Akademi Yayınları 8. Sınıf Şampiyon Paket itibaren Tonguç Akademi içinde LIT biçim

Lis Yeung lisyeung — Robert A. Heinlein uses Starship Troopers as a platform to share his views on discipline, citizenship, and violence within civics and the military. It gave me an interesting chance to interact with his views, especially his views for the necessity of violence. I have been learning more about pacifism the past year and am testing it out to see how it works. I'm not defining violence as "force," but as an action with the intent to damage. I'm not defining pacifism as "passivity," but as actions to establish peace without causing damage. Heinlein proposes at the beginning of his book that "violence, naked force has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms." I'm not going to argue his point that violence has been a powerful force throughout history. It obviously has. But I will dispute the claim that pacifism is wishful thinking. History does have examples of pacifism that works. In 1959, when the book was written, the example of Gandhi in India should have been fresh on the mind of the author when thinking about whether or not violence is necessary to establish a society. I would argue that violence may be the natural state of man, but we can and are evolving to a more mature way of interactions which supersede violence. Heinlein goes on to develop his views that war is not pure and simple violence and killing, but rather controlled violence. "The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force." I appreciate that the author does not try to cover up war by claiming it as a "last resort" or a "necessary evil." He shows it what it is: forcefully supporting the government. The result of this ethic should be obvious. The most forcefully damaging government will get its way. I have no response other than to suggest we should be able to do better than this. One of Heinlein's strongest points in his book is that citizenship (and thereby voting privelage) should be reserved for those who earn it, particularly by serving in the military. The selflessness expressed by a soldier shows he or she knows how to put the needs of others ahead of his or her own, and therefore should be allowed to decide what is best for society. He states, quite truly, "The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation." This is a beautiful sentence. It is an echo of the sentiment that "Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends." The problem with the ideology expressed in Heinlein's version is that the man placing his body between loved ones and harm is not simply absorbing the harm; he is causing harm to others. This, by necessity, means that there are loved ones of the "enemy" on the other side of the border. When two sides fight, family members and loved ones die. It may be noble to place yourself between war and your loved ones, but it is not noble to feed into the war which threatens others' loved ones. One of the frustrating motifs Heinlein expresses in his book is that morality is a mathematical science. The book, taking place in the future, discusses the "dark days" of humanity with rampant crime before the science of morality was developed. Supposedly reducing moral transactions to a mathematical equation can prove whether anything is good or bad action, policy, etc. I do not know where Heinlein gets this thought. It seems rather absurd to turn a subject which is closer to art into science. I don't know whether taking this out of the book would lead the author to different conclusions. It might make me happier, though. =~) I am not trying to bash the book or Heinlein's ideas; there were many interesting things to think about. I simply enjoyed the experience of trying to see how a pacifist may respond to the proposals in the book.