(my 1985 edition)
“A human
being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn
a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set
a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone,
solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook
a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
In “Time
Enough for Love” by Robert A. Heinlein
This my favourite Heinlein quote.
I really am the competent man; the only thing
from Heinlein's Dictum that I cannot and have not done, is conn a spaceship,
and butcher a hog (but I have seen it being done); I don’t know about the part
of dying gallantly. I’ll tell you afterwards…I wasn't bought up on a farm or in
the middle of nowhere. I'm from a large town, Lisbon. It's about learning and
honing skills, and treating every opportunity as a chance to try them out. For
example, I learned the praxis of trigonometry (not just the theoretical part)
before I learned it in high-school. It's all very well just knowing it but to
be a capable man you need to go further. This allowed me design a trebuchet in
my 12th year in physics and make predictions on its performance,
then build it and test it. Thus causing me to learn many different subjects and
skills (up to and including gaining permission from the school) just to test my
math. It's not location, it's the outlook that counts.
I think to view Heinlein’s list above as
literal is a bit of a mistake anyway. The point is, I think, that a person
should be able to assimilate and adapt to new tasks. You may not be able to
build a wall right now but you should have a broad idea of what things are
about and be able to acquire or intuit a lot of the details. Everyone who has
ever worked in IT knows what I’m talking about.
Now I wonder if the Asimov’s character Golan
Trevize, the arrogant and intuitive man whose actions shaped the future of Foundation
isn’t a riff on that Competent Man. He fits all these criteria but he is
arrogant and self-centered to the point where everyone kind of hates him.
Still, in the end, his character arc ends up with him changing and realizing
some pretty important stuff about the place of Man in the galaxy. But, I’m just
saying that... who knows?
The 'Common Man' still exists though, in SF and
when you run across one you know the story is going to be bad. Only now they're
called 'Mary Sue' and 'Marty Stu'. Seeing the Common Man in action in Mundane
Fiction is equally bad. I feel like the "Competent Man" critique
isn't fair. These protagonists often
start incompetent. Lazarus learned
lessons the hard way over hundreds of years.
Mike knows basically nothing about anything. Johnny from “Starship Troopers” joins the
Mobile Infantry (considered the lowest rung of the military) because he has no
qualifications for anything else.
Jubal isn't also the “The Competent Man” archetype
either. Jubal is the "Old Man" archetype, which is often seen as the
characters representing Heinlein himself.
Jubal and the Professor (Moon) are examples (and one or more
teachers/instructors in Starship).
They're usually wise old characters who are dissidents/non-conformists
in some way (politically, culturally), and they often spend a lot of time monologuing
philosophy. Mike from Stranger isn't apparent as a "Competent Man"
because by the time he becomes the Competent Man, the story is focusing on
other characters' POV. Some of
Heinlein's books are solely focused on a protagonist's journey into becoming
the Competent Man by overcoming obstacles (often internal/mental).
Incest? FFS! Many people cite the incest in
Heinlein's novel as a type of perversion but in Heinlein's view of the future
genetic imperfections are eliminated that made the incest taboo necessary in
the first place. In "Time Enough for Love" Lazarus and Dora had to
explain to their children why incest was improper, even exaggerating the
chances of birth defects in order to discourage relations between them. Don't
even suggest Heinlein was an advocate of incest.
Heinlein is a shining example of the importance
of zeitgeist. Much of what he wrote was
very progressive or even controversial for the time. In a modern context, his social stances look
occasionally offensive and often backwards or ignorant, and always flawed. But you have to keep the context of the
original writing in mind. Society
marches on, propelled in part by authors like Heinlein forcing people to
confront the absurdities of the prevailing mindsets of the time (and
highlighting those absurdities with deliberate flaws meant to show just how
twisted such thinking is). You must
always remember what society was like at the time of a piece's writing when you
evaluate it, because that will tell you far more than any perspective you might
gain from how society is at the time of review.
Heinlein is
only controversial to those who are anti-liberty and anti-self-reliance.
