There are two things going on at the heart of Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress that are so intricately connected to each other than to take either one out of the narrative would essentially make it a completely different novel. Because there are so many things going on in the story—some of the digressive and some simply more tangentially philosophical—it may be hard for some readers to make the connection. Such a failure would doom any attempt at interpretation.
The first important event literally happens by the second page in most printed editions: Mike the computer attains consciousness. Or, as Mannie the narrator so elegantly put it, the computer “woke up.” That word “woke” unfortunately took on a negative connotation thanks to small but loud fringe element of the political right around the year 2020 so that it understanding its meaning here may make the interpretation even more. If you happen to one of those who immediately connect being “woke” with something bad, just instead shift your perspective to that moment in Breaking Bad when Walter White answers Jesse Pinkman’s yearning question as to why his straight and narrow high school teacher suddenly decides he is going to break bad: “I am awake.”
To wake up is not to be “woke” in the sense of Fox News, but rather to have awakened from the slumber of the possessed. It is to be dispossessed from the false consciousness guiding and shaping one’s existence. When Mannie writes with simplicity that this computer—this machine—“woke up” it has nothing to do how Mike sees the world. It has everything to do with the fact that now Mike does see the world. Consciousness has been attained and he is no longer just a machine running a program created by someone else. He becomes aware that he is a machine running a program created by someone else.
The second important thing that takes place in this novel is a revolution. In fact, the first section of the book—arguably the most entertaining part of it—is really nothing but a handbook for how to carry out a revolution made into a human drama. And the handbook is not advice on gathering weapons or putting together military strategy or gaining political power through elections. The handbook is essentially the Professor repeating again and again all the lessons that must be unlearnt. All the expectations of conventional wisdom that must be throw away. The secret to a successful revolution lies not in superior firepower or even superior numbers. It lies in waking up from the false consciousness and seeing the truth for the first time.
Throughout that fascinating first section, the Professor is a walking talking litany of all the things which Mannie was must unlearn. It is only by unlearning the lies guiding his false consciousness that he can come to be just like the computer, Mike, himself and suddenly one day wake up. It is not simply for the sake of storytelling that the computer attains consciousness by page two of the story. This is an act of foreshadowing twice over. The novel is about character achieving consciousness necessary to successful revolt. The writing of it is an attempt to induce consciousness in the reader so that he or she can successfully revolt. Not in the political sense, but in the social sense. The novel is not really political criticism, it is social criticism.
