Some Thoughts on the Starship Troopers novel
So, I recently listened to the Starship Troopers audiobook. I’ve previously watched the movie and enjoyed it quite a bit. The book, I have a lot of thoughts on. First, the book is indeed massively different than the movie. This is something that people who have experienced both can tell you, and it’s something director Verhoever would admit to. I’ll say more about comparing the two at the end though
Punishment in the Novel
One of the most interesting parts in Starship Troopers is how the Terran Federation handles punishment. In the modern United States, we basically have 4 types of legal punishments in Fines, Imprisonment, Probation, and Execution. In the Terran federation, only lashes and executions are mentioned as potential punishments. The mentions of lashes made me consider something, we don’t really have anything “in between” imprisonment and execution when it comes to criminal punishments. The next step after life in prison is executing you. I do not remotely believe that lashes should be a punishment, but it gave me something to think about. The Terran federation is much more focused on “Punitive” punishment, a sentence of 10 lashes can be done in 5 minutes for assaulting a superior officer. But in present-day USA a sentence of even one year for such a crime would take much longer. I don’t believe the answer is bringing back lashing, but to ask ourselves why we sentence people to prison. If it’s anything punitive related, then a different type of punishment would be much quicker and cheaper for all involved. Of course, that’s not the only reason we imprison people. One aspect of lashing as punishment kind of touched on is that the chief reason it’s done is moreso for the psychological effects. In a later moment, this is explicitly compared to physically disciplining a child(This is abusive). This is stated by the novel to be one of the major reasons for the collapse of the old system in the 1980s. This did make me ask something though, if the reason we punish people is to change them, then what makes punitive punishment and rehabilitative punishment different? I am someone who believes that at a certainly bad threshold of an act committed, there would be no difference than punitive and rehabilitative punishment. The book touches on this with something I’ve thought for awhile, that if we can reform someone to genuinely regret a sufficiently heinous crime, they will almost certainly attempt to take their own lives. Why, then would we want to go through that effort instead of just executing them outright?
Is it fascist?
Very popular question to ask. Let’s separate the question on if the society of the Terran Federation is fascist from is the book itself promoting fascism. To me, the answers to both are no. First, let’s get something out of the way. My definition of fascism will just be the 14 points. As for if the Terran Federation being fascist, I haven’t seen much of a good case for the book version being fascist. It is a very individualist society, there is no punishment for those who enlist but leave. In fact, even desertion is hardly punished. I feel like a lot of these points could apply to the military itself, but it is not remotely limited to Terran Federation military, but nearly any organized military. Disagreement with a superior officer is treason? Okay sure. Now does the book promote fascism? It’s a bit more difficult to answer. My own opinion is that the book can be argued to promoted an “idealized neo-conservatism”. Think about things this way, what type of political philosophy does the idea of a sexually and racially integrated pure volunteer army appeal to? It appeals to a neocon. That’s right, the Terran Federation would drop pride bombs on Palestinian children. However, even this suffers because neo-conservatism cares a whole lot about foreign policy which is absent in this book. There is a general sense of anti-communism “pull yourself by the bootstraps” individualism here
Comparing to the movie
Oh man, my opinion on the movie has dropped a lot after this. Quite honestly, the movie now feels like an absolute strawman against the book now. I am someone though who supports adaptations not really being adaptations at all(I’ll write more about this in another post). I’m glad the movie is completely different. It stands on it’s own as a satire of fascism, it’s just that with the Starship Troopers name, it now satirizes something that didn’t really need it. The movie has some random plot points changed that IMO make it worse at the satire aspect. One major part is actually Johnny’s father, who’s fate in the book is way different than the movie, and including could’ve absolutely strengthened the “fascism” aspect. I’ll let you find that yourself for spoilers. Yes, the movie completely lacks the Power Armor, one of the major starting points of mecha as a whole. This is actually a major reason I read the book, and it lacks any description of it’s appearance beyond being similar to a gorilla. Pretty much the most important part of the power armor is how much higher you can jump with it, which I found interesting.
Final Thoughts
Go read the book. Or listen to the audiobook. I thought it was pretty good.