What Is a Rationalist Anarchist?
Professor Bernardo de la Paz is the voice of the revolution. But his revolutionary politics seem somewhat muddled. He describes himself oxymoronically as a rationalist anarchist. But what does that mean?
“A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame. . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world.”
Is Heinlein Spelled with a Q?
It only takes until the second paragraph of the novel for Heinlein’s cheeky sense sense of humor to kick in. In a grand display of purposely confusing imagery, he has a character reveal something about himself while perhaps testing the limitations of his reader’s intellect as well by having the narrator mix up the fictional biographer of Sherlock Holmes with Thomas Watson, the non-fictional first President of IBM. This is how conspiracy theories get started, sadly enough:
“Politics never tempted me. But on Monday 13 May 2075 I was in computer room of Lunar Authority Complex, visiting with computer boss Mike while other machines whispered among themselves. Mike was not official name; I had nicknamed him for Mycroft Holmes, in a story written by Dr. Watson before he founded IBM. This story character would just sit and think—and that’s what Mike did. Mike was a fair dinkum thinkum, sharpest computer you’ll ever meet.”
Wyoming
Not a whole lot of sex is present in the novel even though the relationship status situated within the setting is predominantly non-monogamous. In fact, the single most erotic moment in the entire novel can arguably be said to be a kiss. And it is a kiss in which the imagery is not lascivious at all, yet still manages to get the point across:
“Wyoming stood in front of me, placed cap on my head—kissed me firmly on mouth. She didn’t hurry. Being kissed by Wyoming Knott is more definite than being married to most women. Had I been Mike all my lights would have flashed at once. I felt like a Cyborg with pleasure center switched on.”
Racism
Despite this work not being a particularly mammoth book, the author manages to pack a variety of themes into the story like sardines in a can minus the oil. One of the lesser themes which works its way into the narrative is racism. This should not be surprising considering the story was crafted during the height of the Civil Rights Movement:
“I never liked North America…they care about skin color—by making point of how they don’t care. First trip I was always too light or too dark, and somehow blamed either way, or was always being expected to take stand on things I have no opinions on…Learned to handle it by my second makee-learnee but it left a sour taste. Think I prefer a place as openly racist as India, where if you aren’t Hindu, you’re nobody—except that Parsees look down on Hindus and vice versa.”
