this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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The book is an exploration of and presents an argument for militarism. That alone doesn't make it propaganda. While many of the sentiments, implications, premises in the book carry a clear bias, the book nevertheless invites the reader to engage with and reflect on the ideology rather than aiming to manipulate and indoctrinate the reader.
I'd say the earnest argument presented by Heinlein in ST is flawed and morally objectionable, but not a piece of propaganda.
So the book presents an argument for and has a bias towards militarism, but it's not propaganda? Are you also going to tell me that Atlas Shrugged invites the reader to explore whether capitalism is good or not? Hard disagree.
I mean... yeah? I don't agree with it, but I feel like its to detailed and nuanced to be merely propaganda. Propaganda would be shit like the Red Dawn remake or almost any movie involving the US military that tends to be to shallow to be anything but propaganda.
It's nuanced like a brick is from what I remember and was basically a commercial for the military. The enemy were nonhuman arachnids, which doesn't come off as terribly subtle.
I think it would help if you clarify what "propaganda" means to you, as I have a sense we mean different things.
For me, I understand propaganda as media/content/communication aimed at manipulating people towards a particular point of view. It's often characterized by reduction, misrepresentation/deception, disingenuous argument, and etc. That is also to say that I make a distinction between manipulation and persuasive argument. So, a piece of content can make an argument, display inherent biases, employ persuasive techniques, without being propaganda. That's because all forms of expression necessarily hold an ideological position.
It was basically a commercial for the military from what I can remember. There wasn't subtlety. The military was put on a pedestal. People that hadn't been in the military didn't get to vote. The enemy were reduced to inhuman arachnids. It's propaganda in the same way Top Gun is.
But my point was mainly the movie and book were very different.
Are you arguing the book is propaganda or the society of the book is heavily propagandized? The book itself is not propaganda if you fully read it. The horrors of war are on full, gruesome display. Heroism, cowardice, death, and dismemberment to the humans and arachnids. The society of the book is heavy on the propaganda, but the book itself is not propaganda.
I disagree. Goose dies in Top Gun, but that doesn't mean it's not propaganda. Starship Troopers isn't about the horrors of war, it's about how Rico overcomes all that and becomes a real man who leads others and in another sense a real person in that he gets the right to vote.