"Specialization Is For Insects"

Some sidewise Googling led to this blog devoted to science fiction master Robert A. Heinlein, one of my favorite authors and from one of whose characters I appropriated my nom-du-blog.

In any case, after reading this post on the July 7 centenary of Heinlein's birth, I came across another post featuring one of my favorite Heinlein quotes. I present it here for readers, whom I believe will enjoy it regardless of their political predilections:

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.

Comments

[tylerh]

ah, dear Heinlein.

Luckily for the rest of us that he didn't quite have the intellectual heft to understand his own politics.

With this quote Heinlein disavows his own patron saint, Adam Smith. Odd thing for a supposed libertarian to do. Adam Smith argues forcefully in the Wealth of Nations that the basis of all human wealth is specialization. That is why personal freedom, such as free trade, is so important. To specialize, we need to depend on others for our needs (I'll figure out how to build the house while you figure out how grow the wheat), and that specialization happens best when people have personal freedom of action (I'll trade you some wheat for a room in that house you built). If you lessen Freedom, you inevitably lessen wealth, which in Adam's time meant starvation.

There are more problems with this self-defeating macho quote. Apparently cooking a tasty meal and changing a diaper is all that is required to nurture family and prepare the next generation. Building community appears to be reduced to giving orders, taking orders, and planning invasions. Maybe that works if your community is Annapolis, but I want to live in a richer world than that.

Most importantly, Heinlein missed a crucial fact: the insects are winning.

-tylerh

p.s. I just re-read "The Moon is Harsh Mistress." It's held up incredibly well.

[Jubal]

Yeah, but it's still a cool quote!

[tylerh]

I agree, Jubal, it's a cool quote. A colleague keeps a copy on his desk.

Please keep these quotes coming!
P

p.s. Are we not getting any more Raymond Chandler quotes now that summer is past?

[Anon]

Most importantly, Heinlein missed a crucial fact: the insects are winning.

Yes, and in Anaheim, the rats are going to win the world series.

[Jubal]

p.s. Are we not getting any more Raymond Chandler quotes now that summer is past?

You're right, I do need to get back on the stick on the Raymond Chandler Quote of the Week.

Matt repost the one about coffee. Black bitter yards of coffee ro something like that. That one made me somewhat aroused it was so good.

Paul

Matt repost the one about coffee. Black bitter yards of coffee ro something like that. That one made me somewhat aroused it was so good.

Paul

[Jubal]

I went out to the kitchen to make coffee -- yards of coffee. Rich, strong, bitter, boiling hot, ruthless, depraved. The life-blood of tired men.

-- The Long Goodbye, 1953

I love that coffee quote. You should buy stock in Starbucks right before every time you post that one.