this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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Science Fiction

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Lemmy World Rules

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Hm... according to this article, it's the opposite. He started out as a Hippie and then married a Republican and everything went to shit.

I hadn't know that much of the history (that link's article links to an even more in depth article), but that's what it says. I think the truth is probably a little more complicated; as you noted his most hippie-ish books came out after this thing says he was already a fascist. I think a certain amount of it is that he didn't really have a single consistent ideology (and felt very differently about personal liberty as he did about governmental structure.)

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I don't know much about his personal beliefs, but his stories are kind of libertarian I think. Capable people usually get away with doing whatever they want.

The fun of speculative fiction is that it allows the author to posit different societies from our own. Heinlein wrote with many kinds of protagonists in all kinds of different structures. He was a product of his time, of course, but the only part that usually sticks out at me are that the women often don't have much agency.

There's an official Heinlein society community, by the way! They could probably weigh in. !the_heinlein_society@lemmy.world