Taking Notes: "After Heinlein: Politics in Scalzi's Green Soldier Universe" (2008) by Martin McGrath

幾乎每個人都說 John Scalzi 的軍事科幻系列和 Robert A. Heinlein 有深厚的〔傳承〕關係，如今 BSFA 的評論誌 Vector 有專文正式探討，這種論文當然不容錯過。以下就是筆記內容；除了各節標題，粗體均為我所加：

閱讀出處：
Martin McGrath, "After Heinlein: Politics in Scalzi's Green Soldier Universe" in Vector #258 (winter 2008), pp. 17-22.

一開始的一頁半先介紹 John Scalzi 的 the Green Soldier Universe (GSU) 系列大綱，跳過。

p. 18
Scalzi & Heinlein

本節先闡明 Scalzi GSU 前兩集（Old Man's War、The Ghost Brigades）承襲 Starship Trooopers，然而到後兩集（The Last Colony、Zoe's Tale），則比較與 The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress 甚至 Red Planet 有關。然而本文作者 McGrath 體察到 Scalzi 對 Heinlein 政治思維的批判：

...... Indeed what is most interesting about the GSU stories, from a political perspective, is the way in which they act to apply a modern lens to Heinlein's politics and, in some instances, go further, providing a critique of the SF grandmaster's political thought.

〔要先注意到 Heinlein 的政治觀非一成不變〕...... Heinlein's political views shifted during his own lifetime, from an early dalliance with socialism to the anarcho-capitalism that he dubbed "rational anarchy" to a more stridently nationalistic tone in his later novels. So, throughout his output, one can find Heinlein extolling the virtues of a militaristic society with tight social mores and a limited franchise (Starship Troopers) or espousing the drop-out society and hippy free love (Stranger in a Strange Land, 1961) or the rough and tumble justice of the frontier (Tunnel in the Sky [1955], The (sic) Red Planet) -- he even has sympathetic hereditary rulers in Double Star (1956) and Glory Road (1963).

p. 19
作者提出兩點持續出現在 Heinlein 作品中的政治觀，同時 Scalzi 也在 GSU 小說中有所回應：

1. Disdain for liberal democratic government. ......

2. Justifying the means. ...... Heinlein's creates societies where violence is an acceptable means of problem solving but the use of violence, at least for his heroes, is also intimately linked to notions of personal responsibility and honour, which limit what is acceptable. The means must be justified by more than the ends.〔這一點和我所觀察到的情況（詳見本篇倒數幾段）頗為相符〕

......

However, the two issues I've picked out above probably shape the most familiar face of politics in Heinlein's fiction -- a tough, libertarian, frontier style of social organization.

The politics of the green soldier universe
接下來看 GSU 系列如何 "restate" 及 "update" Heinlein 的政治立場：
1) 完全沒民主

The absence of democracy
Democracy in any form is notable in the GSU primarily for its absence. ...... 〔民主只在地球出現，而地球只是特例〕

Elsewhere the universe appears to be ruled by various forms of dictatorship. The Colonial Union is run by a bureaucracy, organised hierarchically and ruled by diktat. There's no hint of bureaucracy being subject to democratic oversight -- a crucial difference from Starship Troopers, where Heinlein is at pains to emphasise the ultimate power of the democratic government over the military.

p. 20

〔GSU 沿襲　Harsh Mistress 的地方〕Nontheless, throughout the GSU, whenever things need to get done, governement falls by the wayside and decisions are taken by the exercise of authority. Such hierarchical forms of leadership appear to be the "natural order". These dictatorships of the competent are common in Heinlein's work -- even in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, when much lip-service is paid to anarchic freedom while the protagonists take power from and make decisions on behalf of their fellow revolutionaries because they have decided that their intelligence, abilities and knowledge make the best people to be in control. Pretences at shared power are shams designed solely to make it easier for them the get their way.

......

〔作品反映政治情勢的時代變遷〕In Starship Troopers Heinlein is able to conceive of a humanity united against an alien enemy with a good government directing a just war. It's a view that probably came naturally to an author who had lived through both world wars and was writing in Eisenhower's America as the Cold War ratcheted through its early stages. In the GSU universe, Scalzi reflects less certain times -- post-Watergate, Post-WMD -- and government turns out to be fractured, scheming and just as dangerous to its citizens as to its enemies. ......

...... The solution he [Scalzi] offers within the GSU, and the one which Perry pursues, is not to reject government but to seek integration into a better system. ......

And here Scalzi's intentions are revealed: he is against a government that keeps its people in artificial isolation, that takes unilateral action without allies, that breeds fear of outside threats to keep its people under control and that manipulates communications and straightforwardly lies to its citizens.

......〔其實指的就是 George W. Bush 和他的 "War on Terror"〕

So the fact that during the course of The Last Colony, John Perry begins the process of dragging humanity towards the possibility of and alternative form of government -- one that is more open and honest, that works with its neighbours, builds alliances and that resolves its need for new resources through negotiation -- suggests a writer who is actually rather optimistic about government, at least in the GSU.

2) 目的與手段

Ends and Means
〔海萊恩一直都認為暴力是社會「潤滑」（social lubricant）的手段，但〕...... Heinlein's characters might, as we've seen, be willing to do almost anything to ensure victory, but their actions were guided by powerful notions of honour and responsibility, which places some limits on their actions. The violence is wrapped in a moral code.

Scalzi's GSU is built on the notion that the universe is an unavoidably violent place full of species willing to do the most horrible things imaginable to get their way. Amongst those who use violence, there is little sense of honour and any moral code is infinitely flexible.

〔接下來舉 The Ghost Brigades 的例子。〕

p.21

...... Sagan recognises the moral dilemma but sees no alternative -- if the enemy can't be broken militarily, they must be broken psychologically. The alternative, defeat for humanity, is unthinkable.〔所以要不擇手段〕

......

〔與 Heinlein 觀念不同的主因仍然是時代變遷〕...... It is, today, much more difficult to imagine a straightforwardly "just war", and the idea of honour seems an unlikely defence against depredations of violence. In a world of suicide bombers, the Bush Doctrine and waterboarding, we've become used to the idea that anyone -- decent, ordinary people -- will do vile things in the right circumstances. ......

......

In Heinlein's writing the means had to be justified. Violence took place within a moral code, honour was paramount, and protagonists had to be provoked -- and even then they respond in a controlled manner. They are better than their foes. But also, in Heinlein's books, the consequences of violence tend to be kept at a distance or glossed over. In Scalzi's GSU, the ends justify the means and his protagonists are no more noble or honourable than the enemies they face. In so doing, Scalzi reveals some important, unpleasant, truths about a universe or a political system where violence is accepted as a tool of persuation.

Violence cannot be whitewashed, it stains everything and it has costs -- and those who extol its use should be aware of the price that has to be paid if they are make honest judgements about when its use is appropriate.

從 Old Man's War 裡頭 Senator Bender 這個角色談「暴力不能解決所有問題」，但，「請先上位再說」，到 The Last Colony 中，General Gau 勸說 Perry 投降加入 Conclave 時，提到「合作與協商才能跳脫相互毀滅的死結」，作者 McGrath 提出結論：

Rather than glorifying violence, promoting jingoism or pushing a dogmatic political viewpoint -- as the critics of his early books had it -- Scalzi is offering a warning and a critique of the right-wing policies that have seen America embroiled in unwinnable wars. Violence is terrible and it is ultimately self-defeating, because if everyone fights, no one can ever win. And, once the decision is made to use violence in pursuit of a political goal, the stain of innocent blood is inevitable.

Far from lacking political insight or being crudely one dimensional, the GSU stories offer a surprisingly sophisticated political analysis. What at first seems obvious is eventually undermined and newer, more complicated truths are revealed. Where there first appears to be just black and white, good and bad, the picture is steadily resolved into a more nuanced focus where no one is entirely pure, no cause entirely noble.

Scalzi 以 Heinlein 的概念作為起點，但實際上乃是對其進行批判；政治問題還是必須經過複雜的分析與手段來慢慢解決，而解決的過程中，沒有純粹的黑白對錯，也沒有誰一定是高貴、清白、無辜。