Reaching for the blowhard gun

Heinlein was a blowhard, an asshole even, who again and again in his stories presented his own opinions as laws of nature. More writers do that of course, but Heinlein had the knack of saying dumb things intelligently, of selling you bullshit in a way that makes you believe in it at least for the length of the story. This is not a negative quality: his skill as a bullshit artist is what made his futures so believable: of course we will have moving roads in the future, of course the Moon needs to be free, of course it makes sense for government to be only open to veterans, of course the door dilates. He was a sharp observer, the master of the small, telling detail, always confident in the story he was telling, even when he was wrong and knew he was wrong. He didn’t always succeed of course — in his later novels especially the bullshit is piled too deep to ignore. Some people might like the smell of cowpats off in the distance, but nobody wants to live next to a pig farm. But at his best his natural charm and sense of story made the patties go down a treat.

Which is why it’s so annoying that his fans are all so quick to emulate the blowhard rather than the storyteller. too often when confronted any criticism of Heinlein, no matter how justified (and especially when it’s coming from outsiders) Heinlein fans “reach for the blowhard gun”, in Carlos’ memorable phrase. Some of this was on display in the comment thread to Jo Walton’s post about the new Heinlein biography, where she said she couldn’t trust it on the details of Heinlein’s life because of several small errors in things she did know about. It didn’t quite get into the usual character assassinations and contrived arguments in why some obvious Heinlein error isn’t actually (cf. every discussion on Heinlein’s understanding of relativity ever) and in fact even became interesting in the end. But following that, one Sarah Hoydt, science fiction author and Heinlein fan felt the need to stir the shit.

First post: “I’ve been on a dozen or two Heinlein panels at cons, and it always devolves to name calling. I will admit I am far from an unbiased observer, but hearing someone call Heinlein a racist or a sexist offends me.” followed by “ Part of this is the blindness of those who–with blythe certainty and missionary zeal–undertake to tally the color of characters’ skin and the thoughts of every female character in Heinlein’s books.”

Second post: “Right. Predictably, on cue, as on every panel about SFF, if you mention the words “Heinlein” and “women” in the same sentence or even in the same page, you attract screaming, ranting and accusations that Heinlein and by extension yourself cook babies for breakfast or perhaps eat them live on camera.” Also: “Okay—if everyone is done screaming, may we now speak as adults discussing adult problems?“.

As you can see, she has the blowhard part of Heinlein down pat, but the charm and conviction are missing. When Heinlein demolished a strawman he made sure it could actually stand on its own before knocking it down. Hoydt on the .other hand thinks all she needs is to call the opponents in her head names before demonstrating her own tawdry clich^W^Wdeep insights. You can see better ranting at fifth rate wingnut blogs and Heinlein would turn in his grave reading this drivel.