Moon - Cyborgs and Humans

[Οὗτος/Turadel]

I'm following the "Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" sessions by podcast, hence not in "real time." So here's a thought that I couldn't share immediately, at the time.

In Class 10, The Prof expressed his puzzlement about Mannie's aversion to cyborgs -- "ex-human," Mannie calls one. Yet Mannie accepts Mike right away. What's the difference?

I am a long-time fan of Heinlein (starting in my teens, in the early 1960s); I read "Moon" a long time ago, and it has had some time to sink in. Here's how I have come to see "how Mannie sees it."

Let's begin with distinguishing "human" and "people." In Heinlein's universes, "people" tend to be those who are worth paying attention to. Many humans are people. (Not all, as Mannie and his friends say several times.) But (in Heinlein's universes) there are plenty of people who are not humans. For example, Martians ("Red Planet," "Stranger In A Strange Land") are people, but not humans.

And so is Mike. Mike is people, but he is not a human. Mike is a "mechanical" mind that has no body. And he has never had one. So Mannie has to teach him how humans think -- because the decisions that we humans make usually take into account the risk that our bodies might get killed, taking our minds with them.

Like Mike, a cyborg is a "mechanical" mind that has no body. But -- unlike Mike -- it used to. And it will never ever have one again.

For Mannie -- and for Heinlein, I think -- being "human" means having both "mind" and "body." If you remove either one, what remains is no longer human. And for both people, I think, having a body (as well as a mind) is ... "important" is too weak a word. Life without a body? That would be inhuman!

So ... a cyborg used to be a human. Now he's an ex-human.

Why does this idea turn Mannie's stomach? In part, I think, because he has prosthetics for that missing arm. "My arm is gone, replaced by tech. What would my life be like if my body were gone -- if all of it were replaced by tech?" The technology to do this might exist in the "Moon" universe. This could happen to Mannie.

Consider those "pickled brains" in China that Mannie speculated about. I don't think Mannie used "pickled" to mean, dead tissue treated with a chemical preservative. Heinlein grew up in an era when homemakers put their own foods (and a pickling solution) into their own jars. I think Mannie meant it to mean, "living, working brain in a jar." Think back to that awful ST:OS episode, "Spock's Brain."

For Mannie -- and for Heinlein, I think -- "living working brain in a jar" is a nightmare scenario.

To think a little further, how might this come about? One way might be like the later movie, "RoboCop:" a person with skills gets into a horrible accident; they're able to save his brain but nothing else. But look! we have the technology, we'll build him a body and put his brain into it! It would cost more than Six Million Dollars, but we'll do it anyway. Because we're awesome like that, right?

But another way -- a way that one might imagine in a totalitarian state -- is by a government order. Say, a court order, a sentence that concludes a trial in a kangaroo court. Most of Luna's permanent population are in Luna because they (or their ancestors) were sentenced to "transportation" (to the Moon). What if a cobber gets sentenced to (insert newly-invented verb here): to have brain extracted from living intact body and put into a life-support environment -- a jar?

Life in Luna is harsh, but at least you're alive -- with a human life and a human lifespan (even if extended by Luna's low gravity). "Life" as a "pickled brain," whether in a spaceship shuttling between Terra and Luna or in a lab at a Chinese university -- how is that a human life? And how long might a cobber be sentenced to that prison? For as long as they can keep the tech running?

Nightmare stuff, don't you think?

 

[Jim Deutch]

I am a long-time fan of Heinlein (starting in my teens, in the early 1960s); I read "Moon" a long time ago

Me too (a few years later) and it has always been my #1 favorite Heinlein novel.

I agree with you. We get to "meet" only one cyborg in the book: the human brain wired in to the ship that takes Mannie and Prof back home to Luna. Mannie is polite to him, and understands his reluctance to take extra risks, but makes no attempt to befriend him. I think we can see his aversion peeking through. He's a person, for sure, but a person who has made a choice that Mannie could never make, and that rather turns his stomach.

Which brings up, laterally, Mannie's (and the author's) feelings about male homosexuals. Tolerated. But not affectionately. None actually appear in this novel, but there was a mention somewhere, with a bit of a "yuck" factor attached... Let's see if I can find it...
When Mannie points out Hazel to Sidris, she says "Darling, I knew you were eccentric. But she's still a boy."
That's not what I was thinking of, but it's all I can find at the moment.

 

[Οὗτος/Turadel]

He's ... a person who has made a choice that Mannie could never make ...

If it was indeed his choice. Depends on how his change came about. The protagonist in RoboCop never chose to be turned into RoboCop, did he? (Again, this may be part of Mannie's personal nightmare about cyborgs.)

... male homosexuals. ...
When Mannie points out Hazel to Sidris, she says "Darling, I knew you were eccentric. But she's still a boy."
That's not what I was thinking of, but it's all I can find at the moment.

Sure. Mind you, I think Sidris was saying, in effect, "she hasn't reached puberty yet, so if you think you're going to get from her the kind of response you might get from me, or from any other female who has hit puberty -- you're going to be disappointed."

On reflection, I think Sidris may have been assuming that that was the first thing Mannie would want from any XX chromosome person he finds interesting. Which (I think) tells us more about how Heinlein thinks women think, than how women actually do think.

His remarks about "male homosexuals" ... elsewhere, while struggling to explain to Stu why his casual treatment of women could get him lynched (spaced) in Luna, Mannie describes the very early days. "Ratio was ten-to-one or worse then. One thing is what always happens in prisons: men turn to other men. That helps not much; problem still is because most men want women and won't settle for substitute while chance of getting true gelt." Heinlein dismisses the men who may actually have been gay: too few to matter.

From what I've seen in his other writings, I'm not sure whether Heinlein ever really "grokked" gay men or women. I recall that he used the phrase "long-haired men and short-haired women" in one of his earlier stories, when describing Those Oddball People Over There Who We Can Safely Scorn And Ignore.

Mind you, Heinlein graduated from the Naval Academy in 1929. It's hard to know whether he was aware of any gay people in his circles of personal friends. Though his political philosophy was "liberal" (roughly libertarian) for most of his life, though in his "social philosophy" (so to speak) he eschewed racial intolerance, and though his "sexual philosophy" (so to speak) incorporated the option of nonmonogamy, I think Heinlein struggled with the changes in gender politics (and gender identity) that began to break out into public view in the late 1960s.

This is a sore point for my wife, who was a teen in the 1970s and who did not encounter Heinlein (at all) until I introduced her to his writings. Heinlein's "tone of voice" about women can feel patronizing, and it sounds to her like nails screeching on a chalkboard. So far as she is concerned, Heinlein is another one of those men who sound so liberal and accepting, but who really see them the way Stu sees them: Stu pats them on the head and on the rump, and sends them on their way. As Stu says to the hospital nurse, "Go play somewhere else, dear, and I'll give you your patient back -- still warm -- in a few minutes."

As Mannie notes, "Stu was going to have to watch that stuff when he went back to Luna." Well, a lot of powerful men are discovering now that they should have watched that stuff. cough The now-ex-Governor Cuomo, anyone? Who talked such good talk, right up to the point where he got caught with his hands, well, where they should never have been?

 

[Longtimer]

Hard to fault Heinlein for not having the current sensibilities on gender equality and sexual norms writing in the era of Madmen and years prior to the Stonewall uprising. At least these passages are not openly homophobic and Wyo is a strong character as is Mum. Thinking about Stranger in A Strange Land, 1961, Mike is totally open to sex with men and women and Heinlein is never upset by it. While women are again treated somewhat in Madmen style they are again central players not objects. I would guess were he writing now he would be all anyone could want in these areas.

 

[Οὗτος/Turadel]

Hard to fault Heinlein for not having the current sensibilities on gender equality and sexual norms writing in the era of Madmen and years prior to the Stonewall uprising. At least these passages are not openly homophobic and Wyo is a strong character as is Mum.

On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, being male, it's easy for me to agree/to overlook that "tone of voice." Things sting more sharply when you have been on the receiving end of them. I haven't. ("Straight white cis male," here.)

I think it's reasonable to be aware of the limits within which an author's mind -- and imagination -- may work. Doesn't necessarily make him "faulty." Just ... good to know. Especially for any fans who might wish to copy his attitudes.

Thinking about Stranger in A Strange Land, 1961, Mike is totally open to sex with men and women and Heinlein is never upset by it. While women are again treated somewhat in Madmen style they are again central players not objects. I would guess were he writing now he would be all anyone could want in these areas.

SIASL -- yes. For example, the four "secretaries" are not simply objects, at the very least they're saucy and pushy, with firm opinions of their own which are seldom dismissed as empty; and while Jubal Harshaw sasses them too I don't think he dismisses any of them as trivial people. As it happens, though, when Jubal sits down to relax with his famous and powerful buddies, they're all male. In 1961 ("Madmen"), I'm sure this made sense.

Actually, ISTM that some homoerotic scenes were in fact excised from the edition first published in 1961. One example is in Ben Caxton's first visit to Mike's "Church of All Worlds." When Ben goes "backstage," and Mike and Jill get relaxed and friendly -- and naked -- the scene as-first-published always seemed to me to end abruptly: Ben suddenly leaves, for (what seemed like) little if any reason. I recently read the "full" version, published in 1991. In that version, the now-naked Mike turns to Ben with clearly erotic intentions. That freaked Ben out, and that caused him to flee. Aha. So why did that partial scene get cut?

It's well known that Heinlein's publisher in 1961 asked him to shorten his manuscript. Wikipedia says that Heinlein removed about 60,000 words, about 25% of the original manuscript. In a 1972 personal letter, Heinlein said "The first draft was nearly twice as long as the published version."

Heinlein went on to deny that the cuts represented any censorship by anyone. "I cut it myself to bring it down to a commercial length," he wrote, by trimming "all possible excess verbiage." He blamed his early experience in the pulp magazines, where you get paid by the word: more words, more income. "It was not until I started writing for the Saturday Evening Post that I learned the virtue of brevity."

At the very least, it appears that Heinlein put very little value on that potentially homoerotic scene. This seems different from changes that he had resisted at his previous publisher, Scribner's, while writing his "juvenile" series in the 1950s.

Heinlein's editor at Scribner's was worried about elements that (she thought) could be interpreted sexually. For example, in "Red Planet" (1949) the Martian character WIllis is described as a "furry ball." From there, his editor's mind went to, ah, human anatomy. Heinlein also complained about changes she often requested in female characters, changes that made them less sassy and more cardboard.

But Heinlein wrote later that his pre-publication cuts to SIASL were not censorship, removed nothing that mattered. Did he feel that the Mike/Ben scene was simply there to boost his word count, per his usual practice when writing? Today we wouldn't think so. It's hard to know what was in Heinlein's head in 1961.

 

[Longtimer]

I think it's reasonable to be aware of the limits within which an author's mind -- and imagination -- may work. Doesn't necessarily make him "faulty." Just ... good to know. Especially for any fans who might wish to copy his attitudes.

Agree that we should notice and note.

Also agree that except as satire any author taking this approach now should be called out and reproached.

My only thought is we should also recognize that Heinlein is taking what is an almost progressive for his time approach. Many authors of the time would only have had women as objects and homosexuals as perverts.

Note my memory is not perfect but isn't there a sex scene between Mike and Jubal. There is at least one kiss which while he asks that it not be done again Jubal does not find problematic.

 

[Οὗτος/Turadel]

<snip> Note my memory is not perfect but isn't there a sex scene between Mike and Jubal. There is at least one kiss which while he asks that it not be done again Jubal does not find problematic.

An erotic kiss? Gosh, I'm pretty sure that did not appear in the 1961 edition. If it had been, I think my teenaged self would have noticed it in the mid-60s, when I read it for the first time. If only as a "well that's different" reaction.

I wouldn't be surprised if it appears in the 1991 edition, which restored the material cut in 1961.