imported post
HankT wrote:
marshaul wrote:
HankT wrote:
I've been meaning to read this book but just can't find the time.
Don't be silly, I read it in maybe 4 hours. It's quite short.
Man, you just don't know the stacks that come before any fiction....
Since you've read it, marshaul, what do you think about the use of the
An armed society is a polite society line by pro-gunners? Does it make sense to you? Does it make rhetorical sense to use as some kind of pro-gun principle?
How often does the phrase appear in the book?
The phrase is used once in the book.
To be honest, I think the quote makes a fair statement taken out of context.
I am much more polite when I'm armed, not because I "know I will have to defend my words with my life", but because I'm aware that I'm going to be held to a higher standard of responsibility, and that awareness is a constant reminder to mind my behavior.
However, as is evidenced in Heinlein's writing (which is very interesting, mind you), his notion was that dueling would replace natural selection as the impetus to human evolution, and that sufficiently antisocial persons would find themselves simply unable to live in society.
I might find it appropriate to simply make the antisocial unable to live in society IF "antisocial" were equivalent to "aggressive", but in the real world I am disinclined to see dueling as a particularly useful function when considering social order.
In Heinlein's worlds, it's not uncommon for people to find themselves unable to continue living for some trivial transgression which hardly constitutes an objective act of aggression, and that's totally acceptable because it's merely society enforcing it filters or whatever.
I've felt at times that Heinlein would be right behind a lynchmob so long as its victim was sufficiently unable to function in society. This is little more than vulgar democracy at its worst, I feel.
If there is any purpose to a government, it is precisely to restrain those impulses, to establish an objective standard for aggression with which all of society can abide -- not just those who are the most socially adaptable of beings.
However, despite all that, I am inclined to feel that an armed society is likely to become a polite society.
I can't imagine Eddie DiDonato lasting any longer if he carried a gun. In fact, he'd probably be on his way to jail from the hospital if he had.
I can't help but suspect that loutish armed Americans will find themselves in a life-defining situation as a result of their gun-carrying loutishness so fast it would make all our heads spin.
Generally, the less responsibility people have, the less they exercise it.