A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
No. This is just wrong and actually wrong on a lot of levels. Let’s start with the easy part first. Specialization is, in fact, for very smart people who want to develop specific, useful skills. Like computers and the internet? Specialization. Like delicious food from all over the world? Specialization. Cars, Airplanes, or any form of transit? Specialization. Awesome Hollywood movies with amazing special effects? Specialization. Basically, any non minimum wage job? Specialization. Heinlein lists 21 things a human should be good at, many of which are examples of specialized skills! Gah!! How are you people not noticing this!?!?
About 1/3 of these skills are functionally useless. I will never, ever need to know how to plan an invasion. I’ve never built a wall because I’m not a stone mason. Nor will I ever be. I’ve been a vegetarian for 16 years, even in the unlikely event that I ate meat I would never need to butcher a hog. Designing a good building takes about 10 years of serious and intense study to even begin to get it right. Why would I ever need to pitch manure? Etc, etc, etc. Another 1/3 of these skills would be useful if they involved a hobby of your choice. If they are optional though, there is no reason that you should be able to do them. Conning a ship is good if you’re into sailing but the vast majority of people aren’t. Ditto on sonnets, equations, and programming. If Heinlein is insisting that I need to be able to write a sonnet to be a complete human being, that’s just kind of weird and nonsensical.
The remaining 1/3 of these are so broad that they are kind of gimmes. Cooperation, comforting the dying, cooking. Great, I’m all for those things. However, if you think that conning a ship is comparable in importance to being able to analyze new problems, well, you’re probably not very good at analyzing new problems.
I’ve read about half of Robert Heinlein’s books and he was kind of a kook (as any great science fiction writer should be). For instance, he seriously believed that the only people who should be allowed to vote were people who had done military service…which is insane. Aside from being fascist, undermining the core principles of democracy, and presupposing a military industrial complex that could accomodate 300 million workers at some point, it’s a notion based on the idea that only someone who has worked in the military is competent enough to comprehend outcomes from complex democratic procedures. Rifuckingdiculous.
I took it to mean something more along the lines of experience rather than actually performing or mastering all of those tasks. To elaborate: life is meant to be experienced, to be lived in every way. Humans should go out and try everything they can in order to feel the joy of living.
Without knowing any of the author’s beliefs or the context in which this quote was pulled from I don’t think that specialization is nearly the target, inasmuch as his point is to simply go out and live in every aspect possible.
I would somewhat agree with the quote if it “Human beings should…” although I agree it is somewhat troublesome. Our species as a whole was not meant for specialization. Oddly enough, I’ve done most of the things on the list although there was much more manure than sonnets.
As to his suggestion that military (or public) service be a requirement for the franchise, that was part of a story, an idea to explore fictionally. It was set in a world where many people, including the rich and powerful, had no interest in voting and even thought it a little old fashioned. One may as well call Heinlein a cannibal because he wrote “Stranger In A Strange Land.”
@Walt said “our species as a whole was not meant for specialization” that implies that our species has a purpose as outlined by our creator, which is false. We have no creator and were not meant for anything. It is also the sort of spurious logic that opposed the Wright Brothers “if god had meant for us to fly, he would have given us wings.”
You’re correct, the theme was of public service not exclusively military service. However, the theme occurred in several of his books. I think I can safely say that he used fiction to advocate it but I can see how other people might not see it that way. Regardless, that a person should have to work for the government before they can have some say in how it governs their lives is ridiculous.
You have me dead to rights on attributing purpose to our species; purpose is probably strictly an individual feature. I could try to weasel out by saying our species would be better off maintaining a non-specialist strategy. So I will.
I’d be interested in other works by Heinlein promoting a link between voting and military service. This might even change my mind. I’d also like to see a writer who spent more time decrying involuntary servitude and promoting individualism and freedom.
Having once shared an elevator ride with Heinlein and his wife, I am somewhat of an expert on this topic.
I’m pretty sure that starship troopers and moon is a harsh mistress pushed that ideology too. Although, it’s been about a decade since I read either.
Starship Troopers is the only one I know where he discusses this. He may have mentioned it in his non-fiction, but I don’t remember. There really wasn’t any voting in TMISHM, or laws, for that matter.