by hilzoy
It's a bit scary to think that Mitt Romney reads science fiction books and believes them. Ana Marie Cox quotes something he said last weekend:
"It seems that Europe leads Americans in this way of thinking," Romney told the crowd of more than 5,000. "In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."
Different indeed. For starters, the Europe of the past was real. Cox again:
"Via The Plank, where they note that the whole seven-year-contract with option to renew is, in fact, a plot point in a novel by fellow Mormon Orson Scott Card.*UPDATE: I have spoken to an actual former citizen of France, who tells me that he has no idea what Mitt is referring to here. "It's the former length of the presidential term," he guessed, "and there's a thing like a civil union..." That lasts seven years? "No."
I'd also like to note how truly bizarre it is that the WP printed this quote completely uncritically and without comment, as if seven-year marriages in France were something we all had heard of and accepted as true.
*UPDATE: Card's book with the seven-year marriage contracts? It's called "The Memory of Earth," and it is a fictionalization of the Book of Mormon set in outer space. Of course, Romney could believe the French are aliens. And, yes, Romney laid down this thunderous helping of nuttitude at Regent's University, Monica Goodling's alma mater."
I can see it now: President Mitt Romney stands at the end of a red carpet, awaiting the arrival of Angela Merkel. As she approaches, he leans over to his assistant and whispers: "tell me again: what's the protocol if she goes into pon farr?"
***
UPDATE: Detlef, in comments, notes that Romney's spokesman has "clarified" matters by saying that Romney actually meant to say not that the French have marriages that last seven years, which is false, but that they have marriages that last only three months, which is also false.
That's a relief!
It's a bit scary to think that Mitt Romney reads science fiction books and believes them.
people believe all kinds of stupid things they read in fiction books. and some of them want us all to live our lives according to what they think they read in those fiction books.
Posted by: cleek | May 07, 2007 at 07:26 PM
Oy.
Posted by: Jackmormon | May 07, 2007 at 07:56 PM
Heinlein had term marriages in a few books -- The Puppet Masters for instance. Why France though is... inane?
Posted by: marty | May 07, 2007 at 08:03 PM
Yeah Heinlein came to mind before Card. Went off script and ad-libbed to ill effect I would say. If that was on script – dude, fire the staffers.
Posted by: OCSteve | May 07, 2007 at 08:26 PM
Who in the hell needs science fiction when you have the Republican party to deal with...
It is written: "The truth is stranger then fiction"
When it comes to Mitt's party , this is revealed in spades.
Posted by: benmerc | May 07, 2007 at 08:33 PM
Moon is a Harsh Mistress, I'm pretty sure, not Puppet Masters.
oh Gary? where are you?
Posted by: Francis | May 07, 2007 at 08:34 PM
Romney was just trying to be Reaganesque by making up a fact in the middle of his speech.
Posted by: KCinDC | May 07, 2007 at 08:37 PM
Seriously, though, there's a colorable argument that the entire current GOP presidential field is, to a man, categorically bonkers.
Posted by: Phil | May 07, 2007 at 08:39 PM
Isn't "Making up a fact" an oxymoron? It's either true or false before you say it.
In my line of work, we call it Bull****ing.
Posted by: MobiusKlein | May 07, 2007 at 08:43 PM
Isn't "Making up a fact" an oxymoron?
I think this is because 'making up something that you then present as a fact' is a bit too unwieldy. BSing implies that someone does it all the time, and that would be uncivil. God forbid we had that in a discussion of Republican candidates...
Posted by: liberal japonicus | May 07, 2007 at 09:02 PM
Seriously, though, there's a colorable argument that the entire current GOP presidential field is, to a man, categorically bonkers.
And the one who isn't bonkers, Ron Paul, is so marginalized by the GOP as to probably make him think he's gone bonkers.
Posted by: Philip the Equal Opportunity Cynic | May 07, 2007 at 09:10 PM
Moon is a Harsh Mistress, I'm pretty sure, not Puppet Masters.
They definitely had group marriages in that one (I think), on account of the low number of women.
This is the oddest thing I've heard in a long time.
Posted by: byrningman | May 07, 2007 at 09:14 PM
So, one of the leading GOP candidates is commenting on a social concept that not only doesn't apply to the country he ascribed it to, but exists only in works of fiction that have nothing to do with what he's talking about.
Where do these people get their information about the world?
Really. Who did Romney try that speech out on? His staff? Did no one, at any point, say "What are you talking about, dude?"
I mean, I don't expect any of the Republicans to do any actual, gods forbid, fact-checking. Even the MSM doesn't bother with that anymore.
But are they all so bottomlessly ignorant that they've reached middle age or later without hearing, learning, knowing anything about the world? Do they have none of the basic background of knowledge one should've acquired over the decades just by being conscious in the most information-soaked culture on the planet?
And Romney's the frontrunner (insofar as there is on the GOP side)?
My jaw is on the floor. I may never be able to pick it up again.
Posted by: CaseyL | May 07, 2007 at 09:26 PM
I'm told that marriage...
If you parse what he said carefully enough, he was being completely truthful, wasn't he? Just like if you parsed Bush's Niger SOTU statement carefully enough.
The fact that he then goes on to use this false "fact" to reinforce his prejudices is another similarity with Bush's statement.
Posted by: cw | May 07, 2007 at 09:42 PM
Romney's not so much the frontrunner as he is the guy who's way behind in third place. He does lead the money list right now, though, IIRC.
Posted by: randomliberal | May 07, 2007 at 09:54 PM
"Of course, Romney could believe the French are aliens."
I suspect he's watched too much SNL, right Beldar?
Posted by: Dantheman | May 07, 2007 at 10:13 PM
It is quite possible that one of his aides is reading the book and mentioned that 'fact' in Romney's presence without making it clear it came from a work of fiction. At which point, as cw notes, Romney may have latched onto it because the claim fits his existing prejudices. Too good to check and all that.
Posted by: G'Kar | May 07, 2007 at 10:18 PM
How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past.
Granted the seven year marriage thing is total idiocy, but let's think about this part of the statement as well.
Can anyone seriously believe that "the Europe of the past" was a better place in any way than the Europe of today? Does Romney really regret that Europe is not at all like it was in, say, 1913?
Posted by: bernard Yomtov | May 07, 2007 at 10:21 PM
He's not confused about it, or stupid. He's bullshitting, on purpose, because disparaging France is red meat for the bonehead base, none of whom can locate France on a map.
Posted by: Guest | May 07, 2007 at 10:29 PM
Jesus, the more I think about this the more pissed I get. Rove and Bush have completely validated and popularized complete and utter bullshit as a normal and acceptable way of conducting public discourse. How many times have Bush or members of his team made public statements that weren't even arguably true, that no reasonable person could believe were prompted by a desire to tell the truth and communicate facts (or real opinions, for that matter)? 1000? 5000?
Now all the little monkeys like Romney have seen that bullshitting is the way to go, and that our disgusting press won't say anything (in fact will echo the bullshit with all the resources at its disposal), so they're all over it. It truly makes me sick.
Posted by: Guest | May 07, 2007 at 10:46 PM
Also, they boink through a hole in a sheet.
Posted by: togolosh | May 07, 2007 at 10:47 PM
Hey Guest, much as I agree with your sentiments, you might want to check this out.
Posted by: xanax | May 07, 2007 at 11:03 PM
Never fear, Sarkozy to the rescue.
35-hour workweeks and 7-year marriages are out the window.
Plus, American-cheese-in-a-can imports will be allowed to flood the country.
Newt Gingrich may fly over and consult with Sarkozy on the former's idea for introducing the 7-year itch, which in his case he thinks should be moved up to every three years, given the speed of technological change.
Sarkozy is interested in importing Regent's University's code of conduct too, which stipulates no French kissing, unless the Fleet is on shore leave in Norfolk.
Monica Goodling may have corrupted the entire U.S. Justice Department, but she keeps one foot on the floor at all times and likes to point out that the word "tongue" is not in the Constitution.
Sorry, I just can't be as funny as the entire Republican field, starting with Mitt.
Posted by: John Thullen | May 07, 2007 at 11:07 PM
I'm just glad that, having had the opportunity, I did not vote for this man. Shannon O'Brien may have been a party hack, but even she would have been a better governor than *that* (if only because she'd have spent some time at the job).
Posted by: Ravi | May 08, 2007 at 12:21 AM
As a Mormon (but thankfully not a conservative politically) all I can say is that Romney is making a fool of himself and is tying his foolishness to my religion. I have no idea what the hell he is thinking. What a dolt.
Posted by: Dan | May 08, 2007 at 12:35 AM
In the next debate, Mitt will reveal that "he was told" the girls in France don't wear any underpants. Rudy Giuliani will accuse poodle owners of mental illness, and John McCain will vow to follow Dominique Villepin to the very gates of hell.
Posted by: russell | May 08, 2007 at 12:49 AM
What if Mr. Romney averred that high school girls in France had to go to the bathroom with chaperones, because of the rampant epidemic of lesbianism which had befallen the schools?
Let's all remember that a Republican candidate for US Senate said that very thing just a couple years ago. And won.
Posted by: stickler | May 08, 2007 at 01:14 AM
re xanax at 11:03:
Especially post-Harry Frankfurt, I don't think uses of the word "bullshit" as found in Guest's posts can be considered profanity.
Posted by: damon | May 08, 2007 at 01:36 AM
I should have checked the posting guidelines, sorry if I offended - that was not my intent.
Posted by: Guest | May 08, 2007 at 03:01 AM
Is it horribly rude for me to suggest that, for someone who takes Mormon lore to be believable, it's not that big a leap to mistaking science fiction for fact? Is it more or less rude for me to expand that to "someone who takes the Bible to be believable"?
I love and respect many of my Mormon and more conventionally Christian/Jewish friends, but I can't for the life of understand the difference in credibility among Mormon teachings (as they have been explained to me), the Old Testament, the New Testament, and any random scifi book, including, but not limited to, Battlefield Earth.
Posted by: AndyK | May 08, 2007 at 04:29 AM
A lot of things in the Bible have connections to verifiable facts. The same cannot, imo, be said about Mormon lore.
Believing in the literal truth of every detail of the sacred texts is something else, of course.
Posted by: Hartmut | May 08, 2007 at 06:24 AM
Okay, you brought Hubbard into this. Now I'm going to have to shoot you Andy. BAD!
---
Puppetmaster's is one of Heinlein's more straitlaced novels, it is also a short story. For line marriages it comes from Moon is a Harsh Mistress, though most of his space novels had flexible relationship structure prevalent in them. And some odd incest structures, but I generally gloss over that bit when people ask me to compare my life to Heinleinein novels.
---
As far as this goes, well it happens. As heavy duty sci-fi/fantasy geek (President of the club in college), I've occasionally done the reality/book reality screw-up before. Happens when you are reading a metric fuckton of books a year. But then again, I don't have a speech writer working for me.
Posted by: Decided FenceSitter | May 08, 2007 at 06:30 AM
"I'd also like to note how truly bizarre it is that the WP printed this quote completely uncritically and without comment"
It would be bizarre if the media were in the habit of fisking politicians' statements. The truth of the matter is that the media routinely relates the most outrageous nonsense coming from politicians without pausing to note that it's clearly nonsense. Occasions when a politican lies or makes an obvious mistake, and the media actually deign to take notice, are the anomolies.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | May 08, 2007 at 06:40 AM
Dan writes: "As a Mormon...all I can say is that Romney is making a fool of himself and is tying his foolishness to my religion."
As a science fiction editor, all I can say is that Romney is making a fool of himself and tying his foolishness to my literary genre.
Like everyone else who's serious about SF, I do get a little tired of SF getting used as a synonym for "obviously crazy nonsense." "It's a bit scary," writes hilzoy, "to think that Mitt Romney reads science fiction books and believes them." Well, I read science fiction books and believe them, to the same extent that I read Shakespeare and believe him, or Flaubert and believe him, or Jane Smiley's novels and believe them. Not that any of these narratives are literally true, but that they selectively dramatize aspects of human experience, feeling, and perception which are in a real sense true. Mitt Romney is a dingbat, not because he "reads science fiction and believes it," but because he evidently can't be bothered to remember what's fiction and what isn't. He would be as silly if he'd claimed that Elizabethan England had diplomatic relations with the court of Faerie, that he was a blood relative of Charles Bovary, or that Moo University really exists in the modern Midwest. It doesn't make it especially silly that Romney's confusion entails science fiction narratives instead of some other kind, and playing this particular story as yet another chance to portray science fiction as wild-eyed kook stuff simply leaves those of us who are serious about SF and progressive in our politics feeling like we've been heaved off the sled.
Then again, we SF people are experts at valorizing our self-pity, and maybe this comment is an example of that. Besides, a lot of SF is wild-eyed kook stuff; sometimes, that's what's good about it. And as Robert Farley wrote on Lawyers, Guns and Money, "Have some mercy, and call off the dogs, already. Oh, wait...it's Mitt Romney. Please dispatch additional dogs."
Posted by: Patrick Nielsen Hayden | May 08, 2007 at 07:25 AM
Seriously, you expect to be taken seriously when Anna Marie Cox is your source?
Posted by: Redhand | May 08, 2007 at 08:02 AM
Good point, but I'm thinking that people should be ridiculed if they use any fictional scenario to propose social changes because the author gets to stack the deck, and if a candidate doesn't realize that, he (or she) needs to get smacked up the head with a 2x4 clue stick.
Furthermore, one of the things that SF has, which makes it more of a target in these cases, is that the author can invent a much larger swathe of what ifs in order to support his/her pre/proscriptions, which makes science fiction more dangerous as a model. I think this is part of the point that Delaney made about science fiction in that it inherently has more possibilities than other kinds of fiction (I think his example was that the sentence 'he turned on his side' standing at the beginning of a normal fiction story could only be interpreted as position shifting, but in a science fiction story, you can easily imagine some robotic or mechanical entity doing something not at all related)
I'm not at all set in this, but merely toss it out to discuss.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | May 08, 2007 at 08:48 AM
Redhand, Cox is not the source; she merely pointed out the quote, which appears in the Washington Post (see the second link in that sentence).
Cue obvious comment about the Post, in 5... 4... 3...
Posted by: Jim Parish | May 08, 2007 at 08:58 AM
Mitt will reveal that "he was told" the girls in France don't wear any underpants.
A curious point is that Romney actually lived in France, during his missionary year . . . Perhaps trying to convert the French to Mormonism is not the best context in which to study their sexual customs . . .
Posted by: rea | May 08, 2007 at 09:09 AM
Heinlein's Friday had group marriages.
I have read reports that there is a tradition for Shiites to have term marriages, for a night or a year, for example. Saddam had made that illegal but it is back now (usually a way for a widow to keep food on the table, according to NPR).
Posted by: jrudkis | May 08, 2007 at 09:23 AM
I’m told that Mormons once massacred 120 men, women and children of a wagon train on the orders of Brigham Young himself.
That has got to be science fiction right? Alt history maybe? It’s pretty easy to take bizarre “facts” and attribute them to “I’m told…”
Oh, wait…
Maybe it is inappropriate for me to bring that up. But I take exception to being lectured on marriage, or morality, or “the presence of evil in the world” by members of this particular religion. (Many religions have such things in their past and I don’t like being lectured by any of them, but this is still new and raw comparatively speaking.) Maybe it happened because "Pornography and violence poison our music and movies and TV and video games”, just as with the Virginia Tech shooter.
I’ve voted for an outspokenly religious Republican before. Never again. Keep politics off the campaign trail or forget my vote.
Posted by: OCSteve | May 08, 2007 at 09:35 AM
*Keep politics off the campaign trail or forget my vote.*
A typo I support. Bring on arm-wrestling.
Posted by: carpeicthus | May 08, 2007 at 09:38 AM
" or that Moo University really exists in the modern Midwest."
As a graduate of Michigan State, I can tell you that Moo U dowes exist.
OCSteve: "Keep politics off the campaign trail or forget my vote."
Although I tend to agree with that sentiment, I think you meant religion.
Posted by: john miller | May 08, 2007 at 09:46 AM
FWIW, Heinlein's novel Puppet Masters had term marriage etc. It shows up only in one scene where the two main characters decide to get married and go in person to see the clerk to fill out the forms. There are various options -- for example, one partner can assign part or all of his income to the other. They had marriage contracts for various durations. After being rather hard to persuade to marry in the first place, the woman says "Life, no divorce allowed" and the man goes along.
Posted by: J Thomas | May 08, 2007 at 10:01 AM
"Keep politics off the campaign trail or forget my vote."
I read it 3 times and thought it did say religion. A mind is a terrible thing.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | May 08, 2007 at 10:02 AM
john miller: Oops. Thanks. Now if only we could keep politics off the campaign trail as well ;)
Posted by: OCSteve | May 08, 2007 at 10:06 AM
Patrick: "He would be as silly if he'd claimed that Elizabethan England had diplomatic relations with the court of Faerie, that he was a blood relative of Charles Bovary, or that Moo University really exists in the modern Midwest. It doesn't make it especially silly that Romney's confusion entails science fiction narratives instead of some other kind, and playing this particular story as yet another chance to portray science fiction as wild-eyed kook stuff simply leaves those of us who are serious about SF and progressive in our politics feeling like we've been heaved off the sled."
I didn't mean to make you feel that way. That said, I think there is a difference between believing that Charles Bovary was an actual person and believing many of the 'facts' that play a similar structural role in fiction about outer space, as this apparently is. Namely: they are much less likely to be true in the actual world. Thus, suppose Reagan had "remembered" not that he had done something from a WWII movie (which raises its own issues about his memory of his own life), but that someone he knew had. For most things in a WWII movie, it would be possible that someone did them. It would, I think, be utterly different had Reagan "remembered" that a friend of his had been in a scene from Star Wars. At that point, little bells should have gone off, saying "huh?" in their tiny tinkly voices.
Like any decent fiction, I'd think that Science Fiction, when it's good, is 'believed' in the sense you spoke of above. But that's not the sense I had in mind -- I was thinking more of 'believing that it states facts'.
Posted by: hilzoy | May 08, 2007 at 10:09 AM
jrudkis: I have read reports that there is a tradition for Shiites to have term marriages, for a night or a year, for example.
Mut’ah marriage, or temporary marriage. Permitted by some Shi'ite mullahs, but forbidden (haram) according to Sunni Islam. In countries where mut'ah marriage is legal, a man pays a woman a dowry and specifies the term of the marriage - which can be anything from an hour to 99 years. A mut'ah marriage is ended without divorce, and the partners do not inherit from each other. Islam online.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | May 08, 2007 at 10:21 AM
A commenter at Yglesias pointed out that "Confusing a country you lived in and a science fiction novel is certainly the type of thing Ronald Reagan did, so perhaps there is a strategy behind this."
I can't believe this guy was governor of Massachusetts....actually, it wasn't a bad term for the state; turns out that having an executive from one party and 3/4 of the legislature from another isn't a bad way to run a government. But it left me with no clue how he'd govern with a different Congress & base--his campaign isn't promising.
Posted by: Katherine | May 08, 2007 at 10:36 AM
Hasn't Romney changed his public views on homosexuality as he has started seeking the Presidency? It makes me wonder if it's from reading Card's "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality" (an essay irritating enough to make me swear never to read any of his work again). I suppose if he starts referring to himself as "Ender Romney", it will all come clear.
Posted by: JakeB | May 08, 2007 at 01:30 PM
In the next debate, Mitt will reveal that "he was told" the girls in France don't wear any underpants.
That is actually much more likely to be true than the 7-year-itch bit.
Posted by: Anderson | May 08, 2007 at 02:22 PM
Various sorts of trial marriages and group marriages are also in a bunch of Larry Niven books. Interesting to see this theme among writers who are either frankly conservative (Card) or libertarianish with some cranky right-wing aspects (Heinlein, Niven). But then Heinlein and Niven do tend to have some pretty horny heroes.
Posted by: Hob | May 08, 2007 at 02:24 PM
If he starts to refer to the French as 'ramen' we might have a problem.
Posted by: dutchmarbel | May 08, 2007 at 02:47 PM
Much as I may agree with many of your comments, it should be noted that when asked by Fox News about his favorite book, Mitt named one that presented differing, even unpopular viewpoints. He correctly identified it as a work of science fiction, and named the author. Whether you take this to mean Battlefield Earth or the christian Bible, it did show a mind open to new ideas,
something rare in the GOP candidates.
I wonder when a candidate will admit to admiring Philip K. Dick, or more recently Harry Turtledove,and say that he reads the What If? to help plan for the What Now?
Posted by: wade gexe | May 08, 2007 at 03:35 PM
wade--
As long as you don't mean the 'What If?' Marvel Comics series circa 1980.
Posted by: JakeB | May 08, 2007 at 03:39 PM
Who has anything against Turtledove (apart from the KKK)?
Posted by: Hartmut | May 08, 2007 at 05:20 PM
hilzoy: In the next debate, Mitt will reveal that "he was told" the girls in France don't wear any underpants.
Anderson: That is actually much more likely to be true than the 7-year-itch bit.
Actually -- either terribly or delightfully, depending on your outlook -- that basically is true around here.
Posted by: Anarch | May 08, 2007 at 05:35 PM
Anarch: the girls in France comment was russell, not me.
Posted by: hilzoy | May 08, 2007 at 05:57 PM
"...the whole seven-year-contract with option to renew is, in fact, a plot point in a novel by fellow Mormon Orson Scott Card.*"
An old sf concept long before Scott, of course. Particularly given circulation to millions of readers in the best-selling, extremely famous, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein, in 1966. But, to be sure, this goes back to Heinlein's unorthodox, though hardly unique, views of sexual taboos back in the 1920s, when he believed in free love, and all that there.
Decided FenceSitter: "Puppetmaster's is one of Heinlein's more straitlaced novels, it is also a short story."
The novel is entitled "The Puppet Masters," and it's a novel, not a short story, but other than that, you're right.
"As heavy duty sci-fi/fantasy geek (President of the club in college), I've occasionally done the reality/book reality screw-up before. Happens when you are reading a metric f[*]ckton of books a year."
This is an unusual point of view, though perhaps you know more about science fiction, and its community, than I do.
LJ: "I think this is part of the point that Delaney made about science fiction"
I'm guessing you're referring to Samuel R. "Chip" Delany, rather than a "Delaney."
"(I think his example was that the sentence 'he turned on his side' standing at the beginning of a normal fiction story could only be interpreted as position shifting, but in a science fiction story, you can easily imagine some robotic or mechanical entity doing something not at all related)"
Usually "the door dilated."
Hilzoy: "That said, I think there is a difference between believing that Charles Bovary was an actual person and believing many of the 'facts' that play a similar structural role in fiction about outer space, as this apparently is."
Heinlein's The Puppet Masters didn't contain any structural role in or about outer space; neither did The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, which constrained itself to circumlunar orbit, millions of miles, and a great deal of energy, from "outer space."
The eponymous "puppet master" aliens came from off earth, but that's as close as it comes. Heinlein has otherwise never dealt with aliens, but purely with humans and their society.
Is there some other "fiction about outer space" that you are referring to?
"Like any decent fiction, I'd think that Science Fiction, when it's good"
There's absolutely no reason to capitalize "Science Fiction."
"But that's not the sense I had in mind -- I was thinking more of 'believing that it states facts'."
This is still off: science fiction, like all fiction, states facts, save where it does not.
You may mean that Rommney believed that which is fiction to be fact, but what that has to do with what kind of fiction the fiction is, I'm not sure.
"Various sorts of trial marriages and group marriages are also in a bunch of Larry Niven books."
And lots of other fantasy and sf in the past forty years.
To be sure, it's a good thing not to confuse "France" with "a land of fantasy," though both may have excellent cheese.
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 08, 2007 at 06:21 PM
It's not particularly specific to scifi. If you're churning through hundreds of thousands of ideas, particularly when you're 'omnivorous' and read everything, your brain occasionally just misfiles stuff or fails to pull it back correctly. It happened to me fairly frequently back when I was reading several hundred books, plus several thousand essays, short stories, magazine articles, etc a year.
(On the plus side, all the reading gave me the time and knowledge of the tools I needed to deal with the problems that were causing the reading in the first place. If you've got to have an avoidance strategy, you could do worse than reading everything printed that gets within a hundred feet of you ;-)
Posted by: Jannia | May 08, 2007 at 07:32 PM
it's a good thing not to confuse "France" with "a land of fantasy,"
Well, there go my vacation plans!!
Posted by: russell | May 08, 2007 at 07:35 PM
"Heinlein has otherwise never dealt with aliens, but purely with humans and their society."
Hmm. Double Star? I'd say that the details of Martian society are significant to the story. Mother-Thing and the other aliens in Have Spacesuit - Will Travel? The Jockaira (sp?), in Methusaleh's Children? The claim is overbroad, I think.
Posted by: Jim Parish | May 08, 2007 at 07:38 PM
This is still off: science fiction, like all fiction, states facts, save where it does not.
This is true but tautological: all communication states facts except where it doesn't. [Provided you believe in classical logic, natch.] That's as true of my math textbooks as it is the transcription of deranged aphasia. The point that hilzoy was trying to make, I believe, is that most non-sf tends -- tends -- to involve minor modifications of existing paradigms, while most sf tends -- tends -- to involve radical transformations of existing paradigms, sometimes social and sometimes technological, although preserving "the human condition", whatever that means. Typical examples would include a book like, I dunno, The Age Of Innocence where clearly the characters are fictional but the milieu is true-to-(real)-life; as opposed to, say, Foundation, where the paradigms are rather radically different (Trantor the ecumenopolis, psychohistory, etc).
BTW, I realize that it's hopeless trying to articulate a clear delineation between sf and non-sf material (nor do I think it's necessary)* but the fact that an absolute line can't be drawn doesn't mitigate against the possibility of rough categorization. I also think there's a fairly clear core of truth in what hilzoy said that being less, well, defensive would allow you to appreciate.
[And if this conversation follows the usual path, herewith will follow a bazillion counterexamples to said counterexamples, which would then be followed by a bazillionplex more examples, iterated until a literal ad nauseum. So I won't.]
* And god forbid we try to encompass "fantasy" too. Oy.
Posted by: Anarch | May 08, 2007 at 09:17 PM
I am mystified by the consisent assertion of term marriages in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Yes, the book has a varied number of marriage contracts (and all marriages are contracts), with divorce being easy to effect (though the implications of seconary problems are present).
But in Moon they are all, implicitly, meant to be for ages. They may be loose (and allow for sex outside them, as when Manny's senior wife teases him about bundling with somone without telling anyone first), but they are seen as open ended.
In Puppet Masters he includes term marriages. There are some implications of term in Time Enough for Love, but it may be more an issue of semi-formalised propositions, not really what we would think of as marriage.
Heinlein did a lot of experimenting with social relationships.
He didn't, much, address alien society. The Martians ( Stranger in a Strange Land Red Planet and Double Star) being the most clearly defined, but the Star Beast, the Venusians, and a cople of others do deal, some, with alien culture.
Given the wealth of human foibles/possibility to exploit, I don't see this as a failing.
As for the question of, minor, modification of existing paradigms, I disagree.
The, seemingly, minor shifts in "normal" fiction can reflect vast differences in the paradigm; such shifts can manifest in the real world more readily than the ideas of a Philip K. Dick, or Larry Niven, or Pel Toro.
Look at the small shift in Bush's use of signing statements. He now uses those in lieu of a veto. It's not a huge change; no radical science-fictional notion, but it has had radical changes in how the U.S. is run.
Posted by: pecunium | May 08, 2007 at 10:10 PM
As usual, by the time I've found an opportunity to comment, most of the things worth saying have been said. Mostly, though, I'd like to second what Patrick Nielsen Hayden said.
TMIAHM has line marriages as a sort of favorite committed relationship, as pecunium has pointed out, but I think all sorts of variations are mentioned. But conventional two-spouse relationships are, IIRC, fairly rare, given the male/female ratio.
Which has made me wonder if/when China will reach some sort of cultural breaking point due to the steadily increasing male/female ratio.
What the heck; we needed a threadjack.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | May 08, 2007 at 10:51 PM
But conventional two-spouse relationships are, IIRC, fairly rare, given the male/female ratio.
It's so long since I read TMIAHM that I remember nothing about the plot: was there a gender imbalance in the population that necessitated unconventional marriages?
Heinlein was keenly interested in population growth, and in genetic variation. (SIASL is his only novel, I think, where unconventional mating arrangements had nothing to do with maximizing population; where his protagonists did as they liked simply because they liked it.) From that pov, it would make sense to have a lot of people making babies with a lot of other people in serial, group, and short-term marriages if there's a gender imbalance.
Posted by: CaseyL | May 09, 2007 at 12:15 AM
It's a bit scary to think that Mitt Romney reads science fiction books and believes them.
Is it really any scarier than Newt Gingrich thinking that Asimov's psychohistory is real?
Posted by: Newport 9 | May 09, 2007 at 02:01 AM
I wouldn't agree that the details of the Martians in either Double Star or any of Heinlein's other work was "significant," though; they were so incidental that he didn't even bother to make them consistent from book to book, or even pretend to; said details were about as incidental as the definition gets: they were pure trivial incidents.
Ditto any details about the Mother-Thing: did it matter what her natural gravity was, or what gas she breathed, or how many limbs she had, or what her social customs were for eating, or any details about her?
No. Have Spaceship, Will Travel, like all of Heinlein's fiction, for better or worse, was purely about humans, and their society. That's not an over-broad claim.
Heinlein was many things, but his work wasn't about examination of non-human cultures, such as, say, Hal Clement (Harry Stubbs), or any number of other sf writers focused on.
"Is it really any scarier than Newt Gingrich thinking that Asimov's psychohistory is real?"
Gingrich has innumerable awful ideas, but I wasn't aware that that was one of them.
Slarti: "TMIAHM has line marriages as a sort of favorite committed relationship, as pecunium has pointed out, but I think all sorts of variations are mentioned."
Yes, and at comparative length.
I'm perfectly willing to modify said claim to "only in the most glancing way," or "only as an incidental, almost entirely off-stage, plot device," if you prefer.Posted by: Gary Farber | May 09, 2007 at 02:23 AM
Look at the small shift in Bush's use of signing statements. He now uses those in lieu of a veto. It's not a huge change; no radical science-fictional notion, but it has had radical changes in how the U.S. is run.
And this is more extreme than, to pick a particular example, an alien intelligence communicating with Earthlings by sending a pink beam of light directly into their brains while they sleep?
Posted by: Anarch | May 09, 2007 at 03:10 AM
Plot setting is a former (to some degree) prison colony whose residents were mostly men. After some period of time where mostly male inmates were shipped up, females (inmates or not; I can't recall whether some of them were) were allowed in, although at the period in question there was still serious imbalance in population, to the point where men had to "share", and women consequently (as explained in the book) enjoyed a great deal of power.
I'm not sure how that would work in real life, though. In China, it works kind of like: women still don't have much if any power.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | May 09, 2007 at 08:06 AM
I am shocked, shocked, to find that this thread on science fiction turned into a pedantry contest.
Posted by: The Prefect of Police | May 09, 2007 at 08:36 AM
hilzoy,
Assuming this is true you might want to update.
Appearantly it´s now down to three months.
Posted by: Detlef | May 09, 2007 at 08:38 AM
"If you're churning through hundreds of thousands of ideas, particularly when you're 'omnivorous' and read everything."
Basically is what I was getting at. Not so much for the huge stuff. But I read a lot of alt-history type items, where what actually happened is intermingled with the fiction and every so often I read an actual historical non-fiction and realize that I had a wrong memory and then try to figure out how it got in there.
Heh, I remember Puppetmasters as a short story. Tells me what I know for not looking it up on Wikipedia as it's been a good 10-12 years since I last read it.
Posted by: Decided FenceSitter | May 09, 2007 at 09:07 AM
Although I don't have the reverential regard for Heinlein that some in SF fandom have, I do recall my first RAH books with some fondness, and think that Heinlein might have been an interesting fellow to tilt back a beer with, assuming he was into beer-tilting.
I clearly recall my first Heinlein book, though. Fifth grade, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, Rice Elementary School library. It was either immediately before or after that that I ploughed through what there was of Andre Norton in the public library adolescent section, and then there was Space Cadet, Starman Jones and pretty much the entirety of Heinlein's work, as well as a good chunk of what Asimov had put out (the science-oriented nonfiction and sf bits) and, well, pretty much whatever else crossed my path.
Heinlein seemed to me, at least, to be strongly opinionated, but reluctant to insist that others adopt his opinions. Exceptions, possibly, in the realm of manners. Heinlein either had "issues", or he was making a point of holding up our collective predispositions for painful scrutiny. Frequently, IMO (particularly toward the end of his life), this got in the way of a good story, but overall I enjoyed what RAH had to say.
Needless caveat: this is a theory. It is mine, and I own it.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | May 09, 2007 at 09:29 AM
detlef: done. Thanks.
Posted by: hilzoy | May 09, 2007 at 09:34 AM
"they have marriages that last only three months"
Hey, Brittney Spears can beat that any day of the week. I was counseled a couple who split up the day after the wedding. (My intervention occured after the split, so I don't hold myself responsible.)
However, Romney's initial statement is factual in the sense somebody quite possible did tell him that, just like Bush was accurate in the SOTU speech in saying the British had told us about the uranium.
The problem in Romney's case is that he fell for it and didn't check it out. The problem in Bush's case is that he had good reason to believe the British were wrong.
In either case, the result shows a character flaw that should (but doesn't) disqualify one for the office of President.
Posted by: john miller | May 09, 2007 at 09:42 AM
The argument that none of Heinlein's stories are about aliens is typical of Gary Farber controversies, something where subtle interpretations are so central to the point that it's probably not worth arguing.
It's true that in MIAHM and several other stories there simply are no aliens.
And in Farmer in the Sky and Tunnel in the Sky the aliens are irrelevant to the story line -- in both cases a struggling human colony elsewhere discovers alien artifacts that indicate humanity is not alone, and it makes no difference whatsoever to the plot.
In four different books with four different martian cultures, the martians do make a big difference but they aren't really central. They provide important plot structures and if they were different then in those respects the books would be very different. But most of each book involves humans dealing with situations the aliens are involved in, not learning intimate details about the martians.
Similarly with Starship Troopers and Puppet Masters and Have Spacesuit Will Travel. The aliens are central but not the focus. If the aliens were different the stories would be very different, but most of the details didn't really matter. In each case the aliens could just as easily have been replaced by extraterrestrial human beings with advanced technology, and if key details were chosen carefully then the stories could have been very similar.
For that matter all of the human cultures Heinlein describes could have been very different with essentially no difference to the novels, unless they were different in the particular facets that mattered. The Free Traders in could have just as easily have been culturally japanese, or inuit, or italian. Star Beast could just as easily have been set in siberia or kenya as north america. The human cultures really don't matter any more than the alien ones do.
And for that matter the individual characters are not important. In each case if he'd written about somebody else instead of the characters he chose, he'd still have had a Heinlein novel of similar quality.
And the plots didn't matter that much, he could have changed them around a lot and it wouldn't have made much difference.
I can and do extend Gary Farber's point. Not only were the aliens not very important in Heinlein's work. No other single element or combination of elements was particularly significant. Somehow Heinlein managed a synergy where each part was unimportant and easily replaceable, and yet the whole was an interesting story.
Posted by: J Thomas | May 09, 2007 at 09:49 AM
Not only were the aliens not very important in Heinlein's work. No other single element or combination of elements was particularly significant.
Mostly but not totally, IMO. For short stories like "They" and novels like Job it's all about the concept. Really not much could be changed.
Posted by: Tim | May 09, 2007 at 10:04 AM
I guess we could summarize Job with something like: RAH would be willing to challenge the Gods of the Gods in order to hang on to Virginia in the afterlife.
Or afterwife.
Probably there have been volumes written about this kind of thing; likely Gary has had said volumes in his possession at one time or another and can recite the from memory. I'm interested enough to hear what he has to say, but not interested enough to tunnel through all of the fanalysis myself.
Story of my life, more or less.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | May 09, 2007 at 10:18 AM
Can’t let a Heinlein sub-thread pass without a few quotes from the inimitable Lazarus Long…
“Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How is that again? I missed something.”
“Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.”
“One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.”
“Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it.”
“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of – but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.”
“$100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000 – by which time it will be worth nothing.”
“Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.”
“Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors – and miss.”
“Another ingredient for a happy marriage: Budget the luxuries first.”
“And another – in a family argument, if it turns out you are right – apologize at once!”
“Never try to outstubborn a cat.”
“Tilting at windmills hurts you more than the windmills.”
“Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again.”
Posted by: OCSteve | May 09, 2007 at 10:24 AM
As long as we're throwing Heinlein quotes in to the mix, a few of my own favorites.
"I never learned from a man who agreed with me."
"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so."
"Never insult anyone by accident."
And my all-time favorite:
"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."
Posted by: G'Kar | May 09, 2007 at 10:37 AM
“Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again.”
What if it never passes my way at all?
Posted by: john miller | May 09, 2007 at 10:38 AM
OCSteve: Can’t let a Heinlein sub-thread pass without a few quotes from the inimitable Lazarus Long…
Yeah: "the saddest feature of homosexuality is not that it is 'wrong' or 'sinful' or even that it can't lead to progeny---but that it is more difficult to reach through it this spiritual union. Not impossible---but the cards are stacked against it." Lazarus Long is notable as a man who managed to live for a couple of thousand years and never learned a bloody thing: by the time I was halfway through Time Enough for Love I was longing for him to commit suicide.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | May 09, 2007 at 10:38 AM
Interesting how interpretation differ, but not all that surprising.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | May 09, 2007 at 10:48 AM
If Heinlein had gotten the free love regime that he longed for in his youth, he might have been very, very surprised...
Posted by: liberal japonicus | May 09, 2007 at 10:55 AM
I guess we could summarize Job with something like: RAH would be willing to challenge the Gods of the Gods in order to hang on to Virginia in the afterlife.
That, and Christianity sucks and Satan lives in Texas.
Posted by: Tim | May 09, 2007 at 11:01 AM
"Never insult anyone by accident."
Since we're being pedantic, I doubt Heinlein can take credit for this. I recall reading that "A gentleman is someone who never insults anyone unintentionally."
Some Googling attributes it to Oscar Wilde, though I did not find the specific cite.
Posted by: bernard Yomtov | May 09, 2007 at 04:12 PM
'We' who?
I'm sure many people have said several of those things. If you prefer, you can call the list 'favorite quotes that Heinlein used'.
Posted by: G'Kar | May 09, 2007 at 04:31 PM
I can and do extend Gary Farber's point. Not only were the aliens not very important in Heinlein's work. No other single element or combination of elements was particularly significant. Somehow Heinlein managed a synergy where each part was unimportant and easily replaceable, and yet the whole was an interesting story.
And telling an interesting story seemed, at least until late in his life, to be Heinlein's passion. Consider Jubal Harshaw's comments about story-telling and state-supported arts in SIASL. Until very late, I always felt like I got my money's worth -- entertaining, well-paced, and style didn't get in the way of the story. And he was very good at the odd little human touches about the consequences of some of the SF bits. Eg, in the long-life stories, the problems of keeping memories sorted out.
Posted by: Michael Cain | May 09, 2007 at 04:50 PM
Michael: And telling an interesting story seemed, at least until late in his life, to be Heinlein's passion.
This is true. I have and still have problems with Heinlein's politics, especially his treatment of women (and the racism of Farnham's Freehold, etc) but the man was unquestionably one of the world's great storytellers.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | May 09, 2007 at 05:02 PM
A variety of interesting comments on Heinlein, and remarkably, few of the particularly dumb sort, which is what usually tends to come out when his name is mentioned.
J Thomas: "The argument that none of Heinlein's stories are about aliens is typical of Gary Farber controversies, something where subtle interpretations are so central to the point that it's probably not worth arguing."
So far as I can tell, you wind up agreeing with me in every succeeding point, leading me to be a tad confused as to what your initial point was here, but, hey, I'll welcome the agreement.
For that matter, I'm happy with the observation that I frequently make "subtle interpretations [that] are so central to the point...."
Decidedfenciter: "Heh, I remember Puppetmasters as a short story."
Still, it's The Puppet Masters. Not "Puppetmasters."
A very tight story, and, like all of science fiction, dependent on the time it was written and read in. That time was 1951, when the idea of alien landings was original in a way that it wasn't a year later.
Unfortunately, that gripping aspect of Heinlein, his ability to actually come up with ideas and details that were startling in that year, and often realistic -- when he had portable phones in pockets and bags in Space Cadet in 1948, it was darned good extrapolation, and based on his knowledge of the microwave part of the spectrum -- never survived well into the future that he sometimes (yeah, lots of his other postulates and beliefs were crap, of course) described.
"...and think that Heinlein might have been an interesting fellow to tilt back a beer with, assuming he was into beer-tilting."
He didn't drink, actually. He wasn't a proclaimed teetotaler, as Isaac was, but he didn't drink.
I'm of mixed mind, myself, about how engaging he'd be. My own understanding is that I'd awfully like to timetravel back, and have conversations with him, in various years, but that, otherwise, he was, well, stiff, and unforgiving and harsh, in the way he approached people.
Basically, I think he was darned smart -- and a person of his time, which many people seem to forget was the 1920s -- but not exactly a nice person. He was also very shy, and, I think, quite afraid of revealing his opinions to most people, given that he'd have been condemed for many of them in his day, as regards his contempt for organized religion, sexual taboos, and the like.
"Probably there have been volumes written about this kind of thing; likely Gary has had said volumes in his possession at one time or another and can recite the from memory."
Well, aside from having possessed copies of the 1941 Denvention (Worldcon) Program Book, and Heinlein's speech, and most every serious fanzine analysis of RAH in the following thirty years, and all the major bios, and hundreds of fanzine articles from the Forties through the Seventies, and various subsequent academic articles, and aside from having loosely offered sorta-copyediting notes on Bill Patterson's authorized biographical manuscript a couple of months ago, which is a few thousand pages long, um, maybe.
(I'm considerably more critical of RAH than Bill is.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 09, 2007 at 05:48 PM
LJ: "If Heinlein had gotten the free love regime that he longed for in his youth, he might have been very, very surprised..."
What do you mean by that?
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 09, 2007 at 05:58 PM
OT: G'Kar – Can’t comment at your place for some time now. It says you have to log in. I do. It comes back, says OK you are logged in you can comment now, and displays the comment box. When I hit Post it gives me an error page saying I must be logged in to comment. Round and round we go.
Posted by: OCSteve | May 09, 2007 at 06:13 PM
Well, if you have free love, then people are able to form partnerships with people of either sex, and RAH might find his observation (made thru Lazarus Long) about the difficulty of homosexual couples from reaching spiritual union disproved.
Now, we can argue whether he was actually voicing his own opinion thru Long, but I think that it is a feature that RAH uses the 1000 year old man to add more weight to his own personal observations rather than creating a situation where Long has complete separate opinions from the author.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | May 09, 2007 at 06:47 PM
“Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How is that again? I missed something.”
This one is actually kinda sorta dumb. I mean, you don't even need a million; the collective wisdom here certainly outweighs that of, say, the current President. Then there's, of course, this.
Come to think of it, replace "democracy" with "capitalism" or "free markets" and it's pretty noncontroversial to believe that a million men are wiser than one man. So consider democracy to be capitalism in government.
(Note: I'm not picking on you, Steve, or even thinking that quoting something means you believe it, too. I'm not even prepared to say that Heinlein believed it. Nonetheless, worth noting and commenting on.)
Posted by: Phil | May 09, 2007 at 07:12 PM
Jim Parish: "The Jockaira (sp?), in Methusaleh's Children?"
An essentially off-stage device.
Liberal Japonicus: "Well, if you have free love, then people are able to form partnerships with people of either sex, and RAH might find his observation (made thru Lazarus Long) about the difficulty of homosexual couples from reaching spiritual union disproved."
The most important point here is that Robert Heinlein was born in 1907, and grew up during the 1910s and 1920s.
Similarly, and not incidentally, so did his character of Lazarus Long. When Heinlein wrote that Long said that "the saddest feature of homosexuality is not that it is 'wrong' or 'sinful,'" he was saying that it isn't wrong or sinful, in complete violation of the taboos he grew up with -- and this was in a time and place that the Ku Klux Klan was hanging people for violating other taboos, and in which there were no local churches or magazines or societies in Missouri that counseled otherwise -- amd when RAH felt that "[homosexuality[ it can't lead to progeny---but that it is more difficult to reach through it this spiritual union" he was stating the radical idea that it could lead to progeny [via technology, in decades future]; when he felt that the odds about spiritual unions of the same sex are "Not impossible---but the cards are stacked against it," this was a wildly positive affirmation of gay rights, in its day.
Because "impossible" was what mainstream society held it to be, and to hold otherwise was, in point of fact, extremely radical.
There are plenty of things to dislike about Robert Heinlein, but the notion that he supported sexual taboos of his day isn't one of them.
I'm still wondering what you meant by "If Heinlein had gotten the free love regime that he longed for in his youth, he might have been very, very surprised...," though, since he did encounter "free love" during his teenage, fresh-from-the-Academy days, on the train, and then lived a life wherein said "free love" was crucial. So I'm still bewildered by where the surprise would have been, let alone the "very very."
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 09, 2007 at 07:24 PM
They're quite different things, actually, aren't they?
What a betting pool, for instance, picks, and who wins an election, are two different things, no?
I'm not voicing, to be clear, an opinion on which method is "wiser": I'm simply expressing skepticism that they're the same thing.
Setting aside Heinlein: Phil, I may be wrong by what you mean by "capitalism" or "free markets," but I assume it's the sort of market where the group settles on a price that pleases those willing to pay it. I'm pretty unclear how that's the same as a democratic election, in which a majority picks a person for an office, or decides a particular point of law.Posted by: Gary Farber | May 09, 2007 at 07:32 PM
When Heinlein wrote that Long said that "the saddest feature of homosexuality is not that it is 'wrong' or 'sinful,'" he was saying that it isn't wrong or sinful
Um, this is almost the exact reverse reading of how most English speakers would read this sentence. If one says "The saddest feature of X is not A, B or C, but D," he is saying that A, B, C and D are all sad features, but D is the saddest. Or you are perhaps not familiar with how the comparative and superlative work in the English language?
If I were to say, "The saddest thing about George W. Bush is not that he is intellectually incurious, stubborn in the face of facts which contradict his worldview, or willing to carry the water of Religious Right ideologues, but that he is so unrepentantly incompetent," what would you take my meaning to be?
Setting aside Heinlein: Phil, I may be wrong by what you mean by "capitalism" or "free markets," but I assume it's the sort of market where the group settles on a price that pleases those willing to pay it.
It's the sort of market where the individual buying and selling decisions of millions of individuals work better than central planning and price-setting by a single individual. Much like democracy depends for its outcomes on the individual voting decisions of millions of voters, which works better than, say, a dictatorship.
Posted by: Phil | May 09, 2007 at 07:54 PM
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups, Phil.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | May 09, 2007 at 08:19 PM
I don't believe the virtue of democracy is premised upon the wisdom of crowds at all, really. If all you want is the right decision, give me an enlightened dictator or philosopher-king any day.
No, the virtue of democracy lies in its legitimacy. It's a system of government whose outcomes can be accepted by everyone. In this respect, it's more moral than dictatorship; but that doesn't mean you have a right to expect better outcomes.
Posted by: Steve | May 09, 2007 at 08:32 PM
Their views of homosexuality also are fairly describle as different.
English speaking people in, say, 1910, and 2010, are two entirely different sets of people. Ditto if they were in Kansas, or, say, Shanghai, or Mexico City, in said different centuries.Posted by: Gary Farber | May 09, 2007 at 08:38 PM