a bit of futuristic cultural anthropology
Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 5:52 pm
Subject: Some words from Heinlein a half century ago
1. I am aware that the themes of the unwritten stories linking the second and this the third volumes thus briefly stated above have not been established sufficiently to lend conviction, particularly with reference to two notions: the idea that space travel, once apparently firmly established, could fall into disuse, and secondly the idea that the United States could lapse into a dictatorship of superstition. As for the first, consider the exploration of the Vikings a thousand years ago and the colonies they established in North America. Their labors were fruitless; Columbus and his successors had to do it all over again. Space travel in the near future is likely to be a marginal proposition at best, subsidized for military reasons. It could die out - then undergo a renascence through new techniques and through new economic and political pressures. I am not saying these things will happen, I do say they could happen.
As for the second notion, the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and is has broken out many times in the past. It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.
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, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so. The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue.
Nevertheless this business of legislating religious beliefs into law has never been more than sporadically successful in this country - Sunday closings spots, the Prohibition experiment, temporary enclaves of theocracy such as Voliva's Zion, Smith's Nauvoo, a few others. The country is split up into such a variety of faiths and sects that a degree of uneasy tolerance now exists from expedient compromise; the minorities constitute a majority of opposition against each other.
Could it be otherwise here? Could any one sect obtain a working majority at the polls and take over the country? Perhaps not - but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda might make Billy Sunday's efforts look like a corner store compared to Sears Roebuck. Throw in a depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti-"furriners" in general and anti-intellectuals here at home and the result might be something quite frightening - particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington.
[talks about the rise of such a thing in the book..]
Impossible? Remember the Klan in the 'Twenties - and how far it got without even a dynamic leader. Remember Karl Marx and note how close that unscientific piece of nonsense called Das Kapital has come to smothering out all freedom of thought on half a planet, without - mind you - the emotional advantage of calling it a religion. The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.
[ No. I probably never will write the story of [the main bad guy in these books,] Nehemiah Scudder; I dislike him too thoroughly. But I hope that you will go along with me in the idea that he could happen, for the sake of the stories which follow. Whether you believe in the possibility of the postulates of these stories or now, I hope that you a will enjoy them - at my age it would be very inconvenient to have to go back to working for a living. ]
Robert A. Heinlein
October 1952
1. I am aware that the themes of the unwritten stories linking the second and this the third volumes thus briefly stated above have not been established sufficiently to lend conviction, particularly with reference to two notions: the idea that space travel, once apparently firmly established, could fall into disuse, and secondly the idea that the United States could lapse into a dictatorship of superstition. As for the first, consider the exploration of the Vikings a thousand years ago and the colonies they established in North America. Their labors were fruitless; Columbus and his successors had to do it all over again. Space travel in the near future is likely to be a marginal proposition at best, subsidized for military reasons. It could die out - then undergo a renascence through new techniques and through new economic and political pressures. I am not saying these things will happen, I do say they could happen.
As for the second notion, the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and is has broken out many times in the past. It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.
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, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so. The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue.
Nevertheless this business of legislating religious beliefs into law has never been more than sporadically successful in this country - Sunday closings spots, the Prohibition experiment, temporary enclaves of theocracy such as Voliva's Zion, Smith's Nauvoo, a few others. The country is split up into such a variety of faiths and sects that a degree of uneasy tolerance now exists from expedient compromise; the minorities constitute a majority of opposition against each other.
Could it be otherwise here? Could any one sect obtain a working majority at the polls and take over the country? Perhaps not - but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda might make Billy Sunday's efforts look like a corner store compared to Sears Roebuck. Throw in a depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti-"furriners" in general and anti-intellectuals here at home and the result might be something quite frightening - particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington.
[talks about the rise of such a thing in the book..]
Impossible? Remember the Klan in the 'Twenties - and how far it got without even a dynamic leader. Remember Karl Marx and note how close that unscientific piece of nonsense called Das Kapital has come to smothering out all freedom of thought on half a planet, without - mind you - the emotional advantage of calling it a religion. The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.
[ No. I probably never will write the story of [the main bad guy in these books,] Nehemiah Scudder; I dislike him too thoroughly. But I hope that you will go along with me in the idea that he could happen, for the sake of the stories which follow. Whether you believe in the possibility of the postulates of these stories or now, I hope that you a will enjoy them - at my age it would be very inconvenient to have to go back to working for a living. ]
Robert A. Heinlein
October 1952
