Billy Brown wrote:
> > [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.com]On Behalf Of Jamal Hannah x342446
> > Starship Stormtroopers
> > by
> > Micheal Moorcock
> > (From Michael Moorcock's "The Opium General" Harrap (1984), reprinted from
> > Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review 1978)
> >
> > There are still a few things which bring a naive sense of shocked
> > astonishment to me whenever I experience them --
> <snip>
> <and several more pages of same>
>
> So, Michael Moorcock doesn't understand that the political spectrum has more
> than one dimension ("radical" vs "reactionary" is an utterly meaningless
> distinction), and he thinks his particular brand of "radicalism" is the only
> one that deserves to be able to call itself that. I can't say I'm
> surprised, but what does this have to do with Extropianism?
The distinction in the eyes of someone like Moorcock between a radical versus a reactionary is much like a Peikoffite Objectivist's attitude: If your not totally with us, then you are against us. If you tolerate anyone who is not totally with us, then you are against us.
I'm not surprised that an anti-individualist like Moorcock would brand Heinlein based on just one of his books, Starship Troopers, and that his abilities at literary analysis would be quite so stunted. If Moorcock had instead fixated on _Stranger in a Strange Land_ before reading ST, I can imagine that he would be singing the praises of Heinlein as a Buddhist, anti-establishment, pro-sexual revolution radical out to create a new transhumanist religion.
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael S. Lorrey
Owner, Lorrey Systems
http://www.lorrey.com
ArtLocate.Com
http://www.artlocate.com
Director, Grafton County Fish & Game Assoc.
http://www.lorrey.com/gcfga/
Member, Extropy Institute
http://www.extropy.org
Member, National Rifle Association
http://www.nra.org
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- General John Stark