Conversation

Notices

1. clacke (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Monday, 25-Sep-2017 21:08:15 EDT clacke
   @kfist I've only seen the latter, but I recognized it when reading the excerpt from the former. I don't think this is a great example of murdered literature, it's just different conditions for different media. They could have kept "civic virtue" without replacing it with "reason", though.
   1. KFist (kfist@gs.smuglo.li)'s status on Monday, 25-Sep-2017 21:24:12 EDT KFist

      in reply to
      @clacke The context of the book and the movie also matter.
      
      The book argues strongly for individual responsibility in both politics and culture, very explicitly detailing the importance of citizenship. Military service is one path to citizenship, but also grueling civic service as an overworked scientist, labourer on the Moon, or other very difficult jobs are also detailed and are held in high regard. People are actually strongly dissuaded from joining military service because a lot of them try to join up because it seems like fun, which isn't what citizenship should be earned for. Citizen is not a reward, it is earned. Citizenship is not even a privilege, it is a solemn duty.
      
      The quoted exchange in the book actually leads Rico to a lot of personal questioning, and his answer coming straight from the book wasn't used as a point to exemplify indoctrination but rather personal inexperience with the matter. His military training is arduous, and his actual service sees a lot of suffering. In the book, the mobile infantry is actually comprised of small squads of extremely powerful power armor-wearing mininuke-wielding soldiers absolutely shitstomping over everything and everyone. The loss of a single soldier is devastating which is why they're trained to never leave anyone behind and to always keep group tactics in mind.
      
      Meanwhile the movie comes from a completely different standpoint, since Paul Verhoeven and the writers thought it was a pro-fascist screed, portraying the kids as completely indoctrinated servants to a military fascist state where people are encouraged to go into the military to act as cannon fodder. There, the individual is powerless, the weapons ineffective, and the tactics completely and ironically zerg-like where an individual life is meaningless. It completely misinterprets the book in an attempt to make fun of fascists.
      Ironically the movie does such a poor job at making fun of fascists that many people still accuse Paul Verhoeven of being a fascist today.
      1. clacke (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Sep-2017 00:00:20 EDT clacke

         in reply to
         @kfist
         
         > Ironically the movie does such a poor job at making fun of fascists that many people still accuse Paul Verhoeven of being a fascist today.
         
         Well, people are idiots. I think the movie is a fun pastiche of military romanticism, regardless what the book was about.