Well, that's part of why the political theory bothers me more than the sexism. But Heinlein was writing well into the '80s, and his later stuff strikes me as no better than his earlier stuff. (Well, I guess that's arguable. He has lots more women in the later stuff, but that means there are lots more opportunities for him to annoy me with the sexism.) Basically, what bothers me about him is that his thinking seems ossified and unexamined. In a writer of potboiler mysteries or romance novels, that wouldn't bother me, but in a science fiction writer it strikes me as a significant failing. And it undermines my admiration for the stuff he says that I do agree with to feel like he must have stumbled across it by accident.
Basically, I think he wasn't really a product of his time, and that's why people who admire him admire him so much. But I don't have a sense that he ended up where he ended up by careful, ongoing reflection, but that he happened to have a different set of prejudices and myopias than the prejudices and myopias of the society around him, and never really examined them. (Some of them, like being somewhat sex-positive and having no truck with racism, I share. But since I don't really respect his thinking, it's hard to feel much satisfaction in them.)
All of that said, he sure can tell a fun story. (And Stranger in a Strange Land is pretty important and interesting on much more than a superficial level.)
I definitely don't hold the cultural prejudices of his juvenilia against them. (In fact, those are some of the books I like the most, because they tend to have less of his politics in them.)
Disclaimer: I've read a decent chunk of his work, especially his later work, but by no means a representative sample of all of it. If he actually was learning, rather than becoming more crotchety, I'd love to hear about evidence to that effect.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2003-05-20 15:37 (UTC)Basically, I think he wasn't really a product of his time, and that's why people who admire him admire him so much. But I don't have a sense that he ended up where he ended up by careful, ongoing reflection, but that he happened to have a different set of prejudices and myopias than the prejudices and myopias of the society around him, and never really examined them. (Some of them, like being somewhat sex-positive and having no truck with racism, I share. But since I don't really respect his thinking, it's hard to feel much satisfaction in them.)
All of that said, he sure can tell a fun story. (And Stranger in a Strange Land is pretty important and interesting on much more than a superficial level.)
I definitely don't hold the cultural prejudices of his juvenilia against them. (In fact, those are some of the books I like the most, because they tend to have less of his politics in them.)
Disclaimer: I've read a decent chunk of his work, especially his later work, but by no means a representative sample of all of it. If he actually was learning, rather than becoming more crotchety, I'd love to hear about evidence to that effect.